Les dessous de l’information mondiale-Downside World News

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI – The US-led “war on terror” is poised to take a dramatic turn with its flames spreading across the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan, where General Pervez Musharraf is in a battle to hold on to his presidency as well as his position as chief of army staff.

In recent days, the administration of US President George W Bush has unequivocally pointed its finger at Pakistan as providing a safe haven in its tribal areas for Osama bin Laden and his al-

Qaeda followers, and indicated that all options are on the table, including strikes into Pakistan to root out the terror threat. This was earlier reported by Asia Times Online – see US to hunt the Taliban inside Pakistan of July 3.

Musharraf suffered a major political setback on Friday when the Supreme Court ordered that Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry be reinstated. Musharraf had suspended Chaudhry in March over allegations of abuse of authority. But many believe the real reason was that Musharraf wanted to remove obstacles to his remaining in uniform while seeking another five-year term as president. Emboldened opposition parties are now raising the political temperature to force the issue.

The trigger for the escalation of tension in the country was Islamabad’s decision two weeks ago to send troops into the pro-Taliban Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in the capital to meet its militant threat head-on. A fierce reaction in the tribal areas, where many drew inspiration – and support – from the Lal Masjid, has seen scores of security personnel killed in suicide and other attacks.

This unrest has provided Washington with reason to threaten raids in Pakistan, especially as the Pakistani Taliban have now ended their peace agreements with Islamabad. The United States never favored those accords, under which the Pakistani Taliban were meant to curb cross-border activity in return for the Pakistan Army leaving them alone.

Recent developments include a sudden revival of takfiri ideologues, who had been pushed into the background, as the main commanders of the anti-American movement in the tribal areas (see The knife at Pakistan’s throat, ATol, September 2, 2006). Takfiris hold extreme views on Islam, including condemnation of Muslims who don’t share their sentiments.

The takfiris are now organizing a Muslim backlash, with al-Qaeda as the flagbearer, aimed at propelling them into power in the country as a precursor to a wider struggle for the liberation of Palestine and the Prophet Mohammed’s promised “end of time” fight.

Officially, Pakistan is not too keen on US intervention in its reinvigorated quest to catch bin Laden. Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kusuri said the government would try its level best through political means to avert foreign attacks on its soil.

However, Pakistani strategic quarters are aware of such plans and that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) high command in Afghanistan has detailed knowledge of al-Qaeda and Taliban bases in Pakistan – and has apprised Pakistan of its intentions.

The Pakistani Taliban, too, have no doubts that multiple attacks are on the way. NATO has stepped up troop activities on the border, US drones and spy planes criss-cross the skies, and the US is building a new base close to the border near Bajaur, Pakistan, and Kunar, Afghanistan (see A fight to the death on Pakistan’s border, ATol, July 17, 2007).

The clampdown on the Lal Masjid further convinced the Pakistani Taliban (as well as al-Qaeda) to expect attention from the Pakistan Army and NATO/US forces.

Moulvi Sadiq Noor and Moulvi Abdul Khaliq, two main followers of Sheikh Essa, an Egyptian takfiri ideologue who is currently bedridden and seriously ill in the North Waziristan tribal area, have taken the lead and openly declared war against the Pakistan Army to avenge the Lal Masjid operation.

Musharraf’s administration is trying to cool the situation, some reports suggest even by buying off militants with hard cash and promising to withdraw all troops from the troubled tribal regions. But attacks on the security forces have continued unabated.

Even the pro-Pakistan Taliban groups are in trouble. Taliban commander Haji Nazeer, who this year organized the killing of Uzbek militants in South Waziristan, has been replaced by a little-known hardliner. Nazeer was even attacked when he tried to mediate between Pakistani militants and the establishment.

After the setback over Chief Justice Chaudhry, Musharraf faces more potentially damaging issues. These include the death of some of Chaudhry’s supporters at a rally in Karachi in May, the problem of scores of “missing people” held without charge by security agencies, female students unaccounted for after the storming of the Lal Masjid, and allegations that the military used a form of chemical weapon during that operation.

Musharraf clearly will have his hands full fighting these domestic fires, as well as facing down militants, with US help, highly contentious as this is, even in sections of his military.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IG24Df02.html

By Daan de Wit
The Dutch in this article has been translated into English by Ben Kearney
The answer to the question of why Iran has not yet been invaded by the United States can be found in the deteriorating situation in Iraq, which is providing Condoleezza Rice – in contradiction of Dick Cheney’s vision - an opening to give negotiations a chance. Newsweek writes: ‘One by one, the Cheneyites have been losing significant supporters in the top ranks of the administration–most recently White House deputy national-security adviser J. D. Crouch, a conservative former Pentagon official and academic who left last week. To thwart the hard-liners once and for all, though, Rice knows that she must start to deliver.’ In addition to an increasingly restive population, Rice is getting backed up by criticism from within her own ranks, coming from such conservative heavyweights as Henry Kissinger, James Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinksi, Lawrence Wilkerson and high-ranking military officials that are speaking out  – actually everybody except for the hardcore neoconservatives inside and outside the U.S. administration.

The question is, which of these two factions will end up getting the upper hand? Both factions have a chance, but the latter is the one with the finger on the button. They still have almost two years to bring about a glorious end to their reign and in so doing force a continuation of their policy, regardless of whether they are succeeded by a Democratic president or not. Meanwhile Rice is defending her position: ‘”The president of the United States has made it clear that we are on a course that is a diplomatic course,” Ms. Rice said here. “That policy is supported by all of the members of the cabinet, and by the vice president of the United States.”‘

Military solution is goal of neoconservatives – outside the White House…
The hardliners inside and outside the Bush Administration are continuing to pursue an open confrontation with Iran. Outside the administration, impatience is on the rise. This is the case with Bill Kristol for instance. No surprise there – back in 2003 this co-founder of the Project for the New American Century called for action in his magazine The Weekly Standard, and in November of last year he said that he anticipated that war was not far off. Neoconservative icon and member of the Council on Foreign Relations Norman Podhoretz agrees with him: ‘”I believe,” Podhoretz told the Israel Broadcast Authority on May 24 (see video below), “contrary to what many people assume, that [Bush] will [attack Iran] before he leaves office, possibly shortly before he leaves office,” thus leaving the political fallout to the incoming president, more than likely a Democrat. “[...] there is no alternative to military action.”‘ To emphasize his view, Podhoretz compares Iranian President Ahmadinejad with Adolf Hitler, a not so subtle attempt to influence the debate, which both John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., and Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Nethanyahu, have ventured to do as well.

… and inside the White House
Within the Bush Administration, no one has embodied the most aggressive variant of the anti-Iranian mindset more than Vice President Dick Cheney: ‘In the last few weeks, Cheney’s staff have unexpectedly become more active participants in an interagency group that steers policy on Afghanistan, according to an official familiar with the internal deliberations. During weekly meetings of the committee, known as the Afghanistan Interagency Operating Group, Cheney staffers have been intensely interested in a single issue: recent intelligence reports alleging that Iran is supplying weapons to Afghanistan’s resurgent Islamist militia, the Taliban, according to two administration officials who asked for anonymity when discussing internal meetings’, writes Newsweek. The only problem with this is that Shiite Iran had earlier supported the U.S. in its fight against the Sunni Taliban, and that the link that Cheney is looking for doesn’t exist, even though weapons have been found.

Media in maelstrom over first part of the war:
the war over the voice of the public at large
Newsweek writes about the weapons that Cheney is looking for: ’British officials who asked for anonymity because of the nature of their work emphasize that they lack hard evidence linking the shipments to the Revolutionary Guards, and that the weapons could just as easily have been bought on the black market in Iran’. This brings up questions about the backgrounds of the anonymous ‘officials’ that form the source of an article last Sunday in the Washington Post with the headline Iranian Flow Of Weapons Increasing, Officials Say. These kinds of articles hearken back to the period during the build-up to the war in Iraq, which is so clear to see in the documentary Buying the War – How did the mainstream press get it so wrong? Compared to the Washington Post, Reuters is a bit more objective in a story on Secretary of Defense Robert Gates when it notes above the article: U.S. says can’t link Tehran to Afghan arms flow.

Professor Juan Cole is unhappy with the suggestive coverage in the press over the alleged Iranian arms shipments: ‘The message of administration and military spokesmen is that Iran is deliberately killing US troops and is a major source of insurgency in Iraq. No convincing evidence has ever been presented for either allegation [...] Yet the New York Times and even the Guardian put this b.s. on the front page, and of course it is all over CNN, Fox Cable News, MSNBC, etc. Are US journalists trapped in the the dictates of the military-industrial complex by virtue of working for these mega corporations?’ Interesting question. Aside from this case, it won’t be the first time that Iran is blamed for violence that ultimately appeared to have a western background: ‘Terror devices used by the IRA in a vicious murder campaign in Ulster blew up British servicemen [in Iraq] as the world blamed Iran’, reads the headline in The Independent, which goes on to write: ‘This contradicts the British government’s claims that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is helping Shia insurgents to make the devices.’

Provocations and/or false flag operation to precede conflict
In mid-February Miles O’Brien of CNN asked Hillary Mann, former National Security Council director for Iran and the Persian Gulf, whether or not the U.S. was getting ready for a war against Iran. As the text underneath the picture crawls by reading: ‘Bush administration: Picking a Fight?’ Mann answers (videoclip-transcript): ‘[...] they’re trying to push a provocative accidental conflict. They’re pushing a series of increasing provocations against the Iranians in, I think, anticipation that Iran will eventually retaliate, and that will give the United States the ability to launch limited strikes against Iran, to take out targets in Iran that we consider to be important.’ Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to President Carter, would happen to agree with her. He goes even further and in front of a Senate commission warns of the possibility of a false flag operation: ‘A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves [...] some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.’ History abounds with examples of American tactics such as those that Mann and Brzezinski are describing, and though they are unknown by the public at large, the statements of both of these insiders succeed in putting them into an understandable context.

Research shows: military solution disastrous
The hopes and expectations of those calling for an attack on Iran directly contradict the findings of an investigation [PDF] carried out by the Oxford Research Group: ‘In the report’s introduction, Hans Blix, the former chief of the nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), wrote that “armed attacks on Iran would very likely lead to the result they were meant to avoid – the building of nuclear weapons within a few years.”‘ Just like a number of high-ranking American military officials, the group pleads in another report [PDF] for negotiations. Dr. Ian Davis, the director of BASIC, writes: “[...] an actual working Iranian nuclear weapon remains at least five years down the line. There is time for constructive dialogue. This wave of unsubstantiated media allegations undermines the potential for a diplomatic breakthrough. We hope that this report will put Iran’s role in Iraq in context.”‘ Not everyone is being so subtle about it; the BBC writes: ‘Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, described those wanting to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities as “new crazies”.’ ‘Crazies’ is a term that, according to ex-CIA officer Ray McGovern, was originally used during the 1980’s to describe members of the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Cheney determined to see confrontation with Iran
In the United States the power of the president is greater than is often understood to be by Europe. The above-mentioned Wilkerson calls Bush ‘the bigger guy’ relative to Cheney, and Rice underscores this in a statement she made in an interview with Newsweek: ‘There’s only one expression that matters, and that’s the president of the United States.’ It’s well-known that President Bush is not the strategic and intellectual heavyweight that is called for by the office that he holds. This means that figuring out whose opinions are ultimately going to prevail is not so simple. Condoleezza Rice is close to the president and represents a broad coalition. Opposite that is the influence of Dick Cheney. Cheney is politically superior to Bush, and uses the power delegated to him by Bush to fulfill his own policy objectives. For instance, it’s for this reason that Bush is directly responsible in name only for the aftermath of the attack on Iraq and the flouting of the Geneva accords by the U.S., according to Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff for Colin Powell, as expressed in an interview with PBS. In addition to Cheney’s political influence there is his brute force, which appeals to the fundamental modus operandi of George W. Bush, the man who is the figurehead of his administration and who undoubtedly wants to polish his reputation for the history books before the end of his term. Considering the deplorable situation in which the Bush Administration finds itself due to the situation in Iraq and the near infinite list of scandals, the alternative – the possible result of the negotiations advocated by Rice – is coming up short: “we’re laying the foundations for someone else to succeed in the future, and I think that’s fine.”‘ It’s nice to place your hopes in the good deeds of a future president, but in its weakness it is unacceptable for the forceful Cheney.

Cheney sending Israel and Bush in the direction of war
The same manipulative method of preformulating policy by Cheney as described by Wilkerson is also recounted by the well informed Steven Clemons, who writes: ‘It is not that Cheney wants to bomb Iran and Bush doesn’t, it is that Cheney is saying that Bush is making a mistake and thus needs to have the choices before him narrowed. [...] Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney’s national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush’s tack towards Condoleezza Rice’s diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously. This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an “end run strategy” around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument. The thinking on Cheney’s team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran’s nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).’ And once missiles are flying, the choices are obviously going to be limited – negotiations would then no longer be an option. Cheney has already hinted at the possibility of this before: ”Well, one of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked, that if, in fact, the Israelis became convinced the Iranians had significant nuclear capability, given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards.” There is research indicating that Israel is capable of doing this: ‘Think tank: Israel could attack Iran’s nuclear program alone’. Something potentially related to this: ‘[...] Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, announced that he had persuaded Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad for the past six years and one of Israel’s leading experts on Iran’s nuclear programme, to defer his retirement until at least the end of next year.’

Bush is also playing his part in the musical composition arranged by Cheney by ordering so-called black operations in an effort to effect a regime change in Iran: ‘Mr Bush has signed an official document endorsing CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilise, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs’, writes The Telegraph. One component of the plan: ‘Teheran has been sold defective parts on the black market in a bid to delay and disrupt its uranium enrichment programme, the precursor to building a nuclear weapon.’ The Iranians already know about the followup: how to manufacture an atomic bomb. This thanks to the blueprint of the said weapon of mass destruction that was handed over to the Iranians by the U.S. A mistake was assimilated into the blueprint, albeit one that was immediately identifiable. For more details on this suspicious Operation Merlin see part eight of the DeepJournal series on the coming war with Iran. There has been some discussion as to the question of whether ABC’s scoop on Bush’s black operations (above and beyond the operations that have already been detailed in this DeepJournal series and above and beyond the support given to pro-Sunni groups opposed to Hezbollah) was a conscious attempt to undermine Bush and Cheney’s aggressive policy.

War with Iran is unavoidable
Those who are calling for negotiations are operating from the faulty assumption that Iran is going to be able to remain a sovereign state. The goal is for an Iran that is under the influence of Israel and the U.S. This goal can’t be achieved in full without some form of violence. Thus the only way that the Bush Administration can rehabilitate itself in the eyes of the public – given all the scandals and the mess in Iraq – is to pull itself out of its slump via spectacular means within the time remaining in the current presidential term. Altogether this means that only one option remains – the option that was the objective from the very beginning, namely an attack on Iran.

Willem Grooters and Karel Koster contributed research for this article.

____________________________________________________________________________

DeepJournal

THE French and English branches of the fabled Rothschild banking family announced their unification overnight, ending a separation that dates from the 19th century.

Under an agreement announced overnight the two will unify their shareholdings under a single holding company, the French group Paris-Orleans.

Symbols of big money and finance, the Rothschild dynasty, which includes media personalities, amateurs of horse racing and owners of prestigious vineyards, is best known for its capital management activities.

THE French and English branches of the fabled Rothschild banking family announced their unification overnight, ending a separation that dates from the 19th century.

Under an agreement announced overnight the two will unify their shareholdings under a single holding company, the French group Paris-Orleans.

Symbols of big money and finance, the Rothschild dynasty, which includes media personalities, amateurs of horse racing and owners of prestigious vineyards, is best known for its capital management activities.

The two branches were created at the beginning of the 19th century when the founder of the dynasty, Frankfurt-based Meyer Amschel, sent his sons on a mission throughout Europe to develop the bank he had created.

Mr Amschel was renamed Rothschild by his neighbours because of the red shield which adorned his house.

Of the four sons who left Germany, Nathan settled in London and founded NM Rothschild and Sons. Jacob Meyer, who was nicknamed James, settled for Paris.

Jacob Meyer’s success was astounding. He in no time gained influence, largely thanks to his interest in high society life.

The success of the British branch was also spectacular. The son of Nathan, Lionel, in 1858 became the first Jewish member of the upper house of parliament, the House of Lords.

His descendant, Sir Evelyn, the former chief of the British branch who is now aged 75, had privileged relations with the former prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

A backer of the merger between the French and British branches, Sir Evelyn has passed responsibility over to his three children, Jessica, 33, Anthony, 30 and David 28, who all inherit a share in the new group.

Paris-Orleans is to buy the 50 per cent stake held by the English branch of the family in a holding company that controls the banking empire, Concordia BV.

The transaction will cost Paris-Orleans €446 million ($707.71 million), with payment made 50 per cent in shares and 50 per cent in cash.

Sir Evelyn will receive most of the cash, with the shares passed to his children.

The French cousins David and Eric de Rothschild are the two strongmen of the banking empire.

The former already oversees Rothschild’s entire banking activities and he will be soon be at the head of the Paris Orleans holding company that groups the two branches.

Eric will remain president of the Paris Orleans supervisory board.

They will thus share the reins of an international group, active in mergers and acquisitions, as well as private asset management.

Link

Turkey’s ruling AKP wins election decisively
Hidir Goktas and Selcuk Gokoluk,

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party won nearly 50 percent of the vote in a decisive national election victory on Sunday, early results showed.

The stronger than expected showing gives the pro-business party a mandate for reform but potentially sets the stage for renewed tensions with the secular elite, a few months after a clash over who should be president triggered the early election.

With more than half the votes counted, two secularist parties crossed the 10 percent threshold to enter parliament — the leftist CHP on around 18 percent and the ultra-nationalist MHP on 16.

Turkey’s ruling AK Party supporters celebrate the early results of the national elections in front of the party headquarters in Ankara July 22, 2007. Turkey’s Islamist-rooted AK Party won nearly 50 percent of the vote in a decisive national election victory on Sunday, early results showed. The stronger than expected showing gives the pro-business party a mandate for reform but potentially sets the stage for renewed tensions with the secular elite, a few months after a clash over who should be president triggered the early election. REUTERS/Umit Bektas
A senior AK Party lawmaker declared victory, saying it would win enough seats to form a single-party government for a second five-year term.

“It is clear that we will be in power alone and that Turkey’s stability will continue,” Salih Kapusuz told Reuters.

Polls closed an hour earlier in eastern Turkey where the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) are relatively weak, so the early figures might not be entirely representative of the final results.

Economists said financial markets would welcome the results.

If both the CHP and MHP clear the 10 percent hurdle the AK Party might end up with fewer seats than in the outgoing assembly, despite winning a much bigger share of the vote than in 2002, when the MHP failed to get into parliament.

The respected Konda polling agency said the partial results would give the AK Party 334 seats — down from 352 before — the CHP would gain 94 and the MHP 88 seats.

Electoral commission officials estimated turnout at around 80 percent in the large Muslim country of 74 million people.

Erdogan, 53, Turkey’s most popular politician, called the poll early after the secular elite, including the powerful army, stopped him appointing a fellow ex-Islamist, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, as president.

Secularists say the AK Party wants to undermine Turkey’s strict separation of religion and state, and although the ruling party denies this, the warning struck a chord with some voters.

“The AKP is an Islamic party and I don’t want them in power. They’re very dangerous for Turkey, under the AKP Turkey’s image will be ruined,” said Kagan Razgirat, 24, a graphic designer who voted CHP in Istanbul.

ARMY SEEN CAUTIOUS

“Obviously (the results) give a mandate to the AKP to go ahead … But there are messages in the increase of the MHP vote, there is nationalist sensitivity there,” said Semih Idiz, a columnist for the centrist Milliyet daily.

“I don’t think (the army) is happy but they’re not going to roll the tanks out. They will explore means of making themselves felt, bearing in mind it’s a government with a strong mandate.”

The army views itself as the ultimate guarantor of Turkey’s secular state. It has ousted four cabinets in the past 50 years, most recently an Islamist-minded predecessor of the AK Party in 1997.

Erdogan, who denies any Islamist agenda, has presided over strong economic growth and falling inflation since his party swept to power in 2002 on the back of a financial crisis.

He has vowed more economic, social and political reforms needed to join the European Union despite skepticism over whether the bloc will ever let Turkey join.

“The AK Party has really helped the poor of this country. They distribute food, coal. They give money for our daughters to go to school,” said Huseyin Yilmaz, 34, an unemployed man living in a shanty town on the edge of the capital Ankara.

Some independent, mostly pro-Kurdish candidates, are also tipped to win seats in the 550-member parliament.

Turkish security forces have been battling PKK Kurdish rebels since 1984 in a conflict that has cost more than 30,000 lives. Violent clashes have increased over the past year.

Turkey’s next government will have to decide whether to send the army into northern Iraq to crush PKK rebels based there, a move that is increasingly worrying the United States.

Nationalists are also skeptical about Turkey’s EU bid.

(Additional reporting by Daren Butler and Alexandra Hudson in Istanbul, Gareth Jones, Emma Ross-Thomas and Paul de Bendern in Ankara and Thomas Grove in Diyarbakir)

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=f5ca0fe5-2d6a-4f80-b90d-f0cfe6039d4d&k=68485&p=2

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Ruling AK party wins Turkey polls

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, has pledged to work for national unity and press ahead with membership of the EU after his party won a majority of parliamentary seats in elections.

Unofficial results gave his ruling Justice and Development (AK) party 47 per cent, up 13 points from 2002.

But a more united opposition means it will get only 339 out of 550 seats, slightly fewer than now.

“This is the first time in 52 years that a party in power has increased its votes for a second term,” Erdogan told thousands of supporters outside his party’s headquarters in the capital Ankara.

“We will continue to work with determination to achieve our European Union goal,” he said.

The move would come despite a growing disillusionment in Turkey towards joining the European bloc.

EU agenda

Erdogan said: “I understand the message you have sent through the election.”

Special report

Reports on the country’s parliamentary elections

“We will support and protect what our nation has entrusted us with. We will work to undertake the duty you have given us.”

He promised to respect the “basic principles” of a “secular social and democratic republic”.

“We will never compromise the basic principles of our republic. These principles are needed for a strong and wealthy Turkey,” he said.

He stressed the importance of plurality of “political voices” and said his party would continue “in the same way as before” with its free-market policies and Turkey’s stalled ambition for EU membership.

Nigar Goksel, the editor of a Turkish political magazine, told Al Jazeera: “The EU has been off the agenda for a while … however, now it looks like the prime minister has put it back, high up on his agenda.”

Moral triumph

Two secularist parties also crossed the 10 per cent threshold to enter parliament, the Republican People’s party (CHP) with about 20 per cent and the National Movement party (MHP) with 13 per cent.

“I am sure the Turkish secular extremists know that they will lose to those patriots that are working for the good of the Turkish nation…”

Be Humble, UK

No other party passed the threshold but 24 independent Kurdish candidates also won seats.
The CHP, which was set up by Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish republic, has become more inward looking over the years and is hostile to the idea of Turkey’s membership of the European Union.

Cengiz Aktar, a political analyst, told Al Jazeera: “If Attaturk were alive today … he wouldn’t be very happy with the performance of his followers in the CHP party. His path was clearly a European path.”

“He was clearly pro-European,” he said.

The contest was viewed as pivotal in determining the balance between Islam and secularism in this nation of more than 70 million.

The result is a moral triumph for Erdogan who called early parliamentary polls after losing a battle with the establishment, which includes army generals, who did not want his ex-Islamist ally, Abdullah Gul, as head of state.

The army views itself as the ultimate guarantor of Turkey’s secular state and has removed four cabinets from power in 50 years, most recently an Islamist-minded predecessor of the AK Party in 1997.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3BDBA826-5B63-47E5-82EA-A0F49DA96286.htm

Alors que la libération des prisonniers palestiniens détenus dans les geôles israéliennes continue de faire la une de la plupart des agences d’informations, le Premier ministre palestinien, Ismaïl Haniyeh, tout en se réjouissant de la nouvelle, a mis en garde contre les complots et le piège que voudrait tendre le régime sioniste, en vue de briser l’unité inter-palestinienne.

Les commentateurs politiques estiment que cette mise en garde prend toute son importance, dans la mesure où la libération des prisonniers palestiniens, évoquée, le 25 juin dernier, au Sommet du Charm el-Cheikh, s’est faite de manière sélective. Ehud Olmert avait promis la libération de 250 prisonniers palestiniens proches du Fatah au Président de l’Autorité autonome, Mahmoud Abbas, afin de soutenir les décisions de ce dernier contre le gouvernement palestinien d’Union nationale et en faveur du cabinet d’urgence.

Depuis la dissolution du gouvernement d’Union nationale et la nomination du cabinet d’urgence de Salam Fayyad, le soutien d’Israël et des Etats-Unis à Mahmoud Abbas a fait craindre le renforcement des divisions entre les Palestiniens. La victoire du Hamas aux législatives du mois de janvier 2006 et la formation d’un gouvernement de la part d’Ismaïl Haniyeh n’ont jamais été reconnues par Israël, les Etats-Unis et l’Occident, en général, qui, tous, ont œuvré, pour pousser l’action de ce gouvernement vers l’impasse.

Les prises de positions hostiles de ces derniers contre le Hamas étaient telles qu’ils ont même oublié leur rôle de donneurs de leçon, en matière de “Démocratie”, concentrant leurs efforts sur le renversement du gouvernement palestinien issu des urnes. Une partie de ses efforts s’est traduite par la confrontation entre le Hamas et le Fatah. C’est pourquoi, la libération de 250 prisonniers palestiniens proches du Fatah peut être considérée comme un piège tendu, pour plonger le peuple palestinien dans une guerre civile, d’autant plus qu’Israël, indiquent certains analystes pourrait très bien continuer d’encourager Mahmoud Abbas à poursuivre sa politique contre le Hamas, ce qui aurait, sans nul doute, des conséquences fâcheuses.

Lundi 23 Juillet 2007 – 00:58

IRIB

Croyez-vous que Wall Street et que la City de Londres sont prises au piège par cette crise systémique et monétaire qui nous est tant prédite? Il n’y a rien d’anodin au fait que le mois prochain le Canada, les États-Unis et le Mexique signent un accord de Partenariat de Prospérité et de Sécurité, car un point majeur de cette entente consiste en la création d’une monnaie unique nord-américaine, l’Améro. Ne devrait-on pas voir dans l’avènement de l’Améro, le sauvetage de l’hégémonie du dollar US?

L’Améro sera inévitablement contrôlé par la Réserve Fédérale des États-Unis. Sous l’Union Nord-américaine, le Canada et le Mexique seront de facto, les 51e et 52e états des États-Unis. Rien d’autre. Nos deux nations y perdront leur souveraineté. Les États-Unis demeureront les maîtres incontestés. L’Empire demeurera l’Empire et cette nouvelle monnaie sera la nouvelle monnaie de l’Empire.

Alors doit-on penser que l’avènement de l’Améro soit une bonne nouvelle? La création d’une seconde monnaie continentale (l’Euro et bientôt l’Améro) ne serait-elle pas plutôt une étape intermédiaire avant la création de la monnaie unique mondiale? Il ne restera plus qu’à surveiller le moment où arrivera la parité entre l’Euro et l’Améro pour les fusionner?

Depuis plus de 30 ans le dollar canadien a une valeur inférieure au dollar US. Il était même à 63 cents US en 2002. Cette semaine, le dollar canadien a atteint les 96 cents US. Les « experts » prétendent que le dollar canadien atteindra la parité avec le dollar US avant la fin de l’année 2007, c’est-à-dire au même moment où l’on s’attend à voir chuter le dollar US à des profondeurs abyssales.

Doit-on considérer qu’il s’agit d’un hasard? L’Améro permettra-t-il de mettre fin à cette chute du dollar US – à tout le moins temporairement – par le regroupement de nos trois économies nationales?

Étant donné la parité (ou presque) entre la monnaie canadienne et la monnaie US, le passage à l’Améro se fera pratiquement sans heurt.

Un dollar US = Un dollar CDA = Un Améro.

Le Canada n’aura pas à faire cette gymnastique que la France et que ces autres pays d’Europe ont faite lors de leur adhésion à l’Euro. Parmi les trois pays réunis sous l’Améro, seul le gouvernement du Mexique devra faire des pirouettes budgétaires pour assurer son intégration à cette nouvelle monnaie.

La chute de l’Empire Américain sera-t-elle évitée momentanément?

Nombreuses sont les prédictions pessimistes faites par de grands spécialistes à l’égard de l’économie mondiale. Mais ces « Nostradamus économique » ont-ils considéré l’impact d’une nouvelle monnaie Nord-américaine? Cette monnaie ne permettra-t-elle pas justement aux États-Unis de sauver la face?

Rares sont ceux qui en ont parlé mais quelques-uns l’ont déjà vu venir. Ils parlaient de la création d’un “Euro-dollar”. Faut croire que Wall Street et que la City de Londres jugent que nous ne sommes pas face à un si grand péril et qu’il est suffisant pour l’instant de passer à l’Améro (Canada USA Mexique)! Et parlant du loup, était-il raisonnable de penser que ceux qui contrôlent depuis si longtemps l’économie et la finance mondiale en étaient venus à en perdre la maîtrise?

Premier producteur mondial de pétrole – l’Amérique du Nord

Le pétrole joue le premier rôle dans l’économie mondiale actuelle.

Or, réunies ensemble sous l’Union Nord-américaine, nos trois nations deviendront le premier producteur de pétrole et de gaz naturel au monde. Quelque chose près de 15 millions de barils par jour. Et les États-Unis ont demandé cette année au Canada d’accroître cette production de quelques autres millions de barils. Si les moyens techniques le permettent, ces 3 nations réunies sous une même monnaie dépasseront sous peu cette production pour atteindre les 16 à 18 millions de b/j. À titre de comparaison, les deux plus grands producteurs actuels, l’Arabie Saoudite et la Russie, produisent chacune autour de 10 millions de b/j.

Silence! On tourne.

L’accord de Partenariat de Prospérité et de Sécurité de l’Amérique du Nord sera signé à Montebello au Québec, lors de la conférence qui se tiendra entre le 19 et le 21 août prochain.

L’acteur principal – George W. Bush – sera présent. Malgré la prestance anticipée de cet acteur de renom, les médias traditionnels de l’Amérique du Nord n’en parlent pratiquement pas et les médias internationaux encore bien moins.

J’en conclue que ce silence est volontaire afin d’éviter à cet acteur de renom une surveillance trop étroite par les paparazzis. Mais pourtant, au-delà des paparazzis et même au-delà de la souveraineté canadienne et de la souveraineté mexicaine, il s’agit d’une étape de plus vers la réalisation du Nouvel Ordre Mondial et au passage, du sauvetage de l’hégémonie de la monnaie de l’Empire Américain.

Mais alors, où sont les photographes et les journalistes? Excusez-moi! D’accord! Ils ont vu l’écriteau avant moi sur lequel est écrit: « Chut! Silence SVP! On tourne »
Et cette scène cruciale à la réalisation du « Nouvel Ordre Mondial » sera tournée le mois prochain, à Montebello.

Par Dany Quirion, pour Alter Info

Dans une lettre confidentielle au Premier ministre, Gordon Brown, le chef d’Etat major de l’armée britannique, Richard Dannatt a déclaré que l’armée du pays n’avait aucune capacité d’agir en urgence à l’intérieur du pays.

Dans sa lettre, Dannatt a souligné que l’armée manquait d’effectifs, ce qui a rendu impossible sa présence en Afghanistan et en Irak. ” L’armée n’a presque aucune capacité en urgence à l’intérieur du pays, car elle a concentré toutes ses capacités en Afghanistan et en Irak” a affirmé, dans sa lettre au Premier ministre, le chef d’Etat major de l’armée britannique. Dans sa lettre, Richard Dannatt a tenté d’encourager le nouveau Premier ministre à augmenter le budget de l’armée. ” La nécessité de la révision des projets de défense, l’augmentation du budget militaire, le recrutement des nouvelles forces, et l’emploi des équipements sophistiqués” sont autant de sujets à énumérer dans la lettre du chef de l’Etat major de l’armée au Premier ministre.

Ceci dit, les analystes estiment que les Britanniques, persuadés que la politique du suivisme de l’ancien Premier ministre avait porté atteinte aux intérêts nationaux du pays, demandent le retrait de la Grande Bretagne de l’Irak et de l’Afghanistan. N’oublions pas que l’alignement de l’ancien Premier ministre britannique sur la politique de Washington et sa participation à la guerre contre l’Irak ont entraîné de vives protestations du parti travailliste et de l’opinion publique britannique, ce qui a obligé Blair de quitter le Pouvoir. Les britanniques s’attendent à ce que le nouveau Premier ministre adopte une nouvelle politique, indépendante des Etats-Unis et du régime sioniste, ce qui n’est pas sûr, indiquent les analystes, compte tenu de l’intensification du climat sécuritaire dans le pays.

IRIB

Frances Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, signaled today that the Bush administration would consider direct assaults on al-Qaeda hideouts in Pakistan.

Townsend was asked on “Fox News Sunday” why the United States isn’t sending Special Forces, attack drones and anything else it can to wipe out al-Qaeda. She replied, “Just because we don’t speak about things publicly doesn’t mean we’re not doing many of the things you’re talking about.”

She added, “Job number one is to protect the American people, and there are no options that are off the table.”

A National Intelligence Estimate released Tuesday reported that al-Qaeda has grown stronger, in part because it has established “a safe haven” in northwest Pakistan, in the Federally Administered Tribal Area that is beyond the national government’s control.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Kurshid Kasuri warned on CNN’s “Late Edition” against the White House bypassing the Pakistani military in any operation.

“If you have superiority in technical intelligence, please share that with us,” he said. “And then you talk of going after targets — you will lose the war, the battle for hearts and minds. It is much better to rely on Pakistans’>’s army. Pakistans’>’s army can do the job much better, and the result will be that there will be far, far less collateral damage.”

Kasuri added, “People in Pakistan get very upset when, despite all the sacrifices that Pakistan has been making, you know, you have the sort of questions that are sometimes asked by the American media” about whether Islamabad is doing enough to fight terrorists.

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), appearing on Fox, called into question whether Pakistan has the ability to defeat al-Qaeda. But he added that the United States had to be careful in acting on its own. “If it is clear that we’re going into their national territory, we run the risk of undermining a regime that has been one of our allies in this struggle,” Bayh cautioned.

Appearing later on CNN, Townsend said the United States has provided intelligence to Pakistan. “We work quite closely with them,” she said. “While I understand Kasuri’s anger, we should also be clear that we believe Pakistan has been a very good ally in the war on terrorism.”

But she added, “No question that we will use any instrument at our disposal to deal with the problem of Osama bin Laden and bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and al-Qaeda.”

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf decided to strike a “political solution” with tribal leaders to kick al-Qaeda out of the region, national intelligence director Mike McConnell said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Instead, “the people who live in these federally administrated tribal areas … made a safe haven for training and recruiting.”

McConnell said that Pakistan’s help has been central to U.S. efforts to capture and kill al-Qaeda’s leaders, but he believes bin Laden is living in the country.

On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) backed the administration’s stance. “I don’t think we should take anything off the table. Wherever we find these evil people, we should go get them,” he said.

But he renewed his complaint that the White House’s focus on Iraq has diverted attention from real terrorist threats to the United States, such as those inside Pakistan. “The fact of the matter is that the invasion of Iraq, the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of the country, has created an area for al-Qaeda that didn’t exist before the invasion,” he said.

Director of intelligence

McConnell also said that there is no evidence of al-Qaeda sleeper cells within the United States, yet intelligence authorities have identified people raising money for and sympathetic to the cause of Islamic extremism. He added that he worries there are sleeper cells in the United States and that “there are some elements under” court-approved surveillance.

The intelligence director said “the most serious threat” to the United States is that terrorists will get through a greatly strengthened defense wall. “Their intent is to effect an attack with mass casualties. A second attempt would be political or infrastructure targets, to even include economic targets that would have a lasting impact,” McConnell said.

While terrorists have not achieved a nuclear capability, McConnell said, they are focusing on explosives that could release biological, chemical or radiological weapons.

Asked about so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” – measures for getting information out of detainees that many worry amount to torture – McConnell said the United States does not practice torture and that fewer than 100 people have been subjected to enhanced interrogations. President Bush gave the CIA permission last week to resume such interrogation techniques, albeit under tighter guidelines. McConnell said the procedures do not involve lasting injury.

A censure resolution

Sen. Russ Feingold (Wis.), one of the chamber’s most liberal Democrats, announced on NBC that he would introduce resolutions to censure President Bush for the conduct of the Iraq war and for the administration’s warrantless surveillance program and interrogation techniques, which Feingold called “torture.”

“Usually when presidents are repudiated in elections they say, ‘Well, maybe I ought to reassess,’ ” Feingold said. “Instead he did just the opposite.”

“I think we need to do something serious in terms of accountability,” Feingold said. He said the censure resolutions, which do not carry any legal weight, would chastise the administration for getting the United States into war in Iraq, its failure to “adequately” prepare the military, continued “misleading statements” about the war, and its “outrageous attack on the rule of law.”

Feingold said censure resolutions might also be introduced regarding Vice President Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

“We need to have on the historical record some kind of indication that what has happened here was … disastrous,” he said.

Feingold introduced a censure resolution last March that attacked the warrantless surveillance program, which he then called an “illegal program to spy on American citizens on American soil.” It picked up only three co-sponsors and never advanced past the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), the Republican leader, ridiculed Feingold’s proposal, which comes on the heels of an all-night session last week led by Reid to force a change in Iraq policy. “The kind of stunt,” he said on CNN, “… gives you a sense why this Congress has a 14 percent approval rating. We think it’s the lowest in the history of polling. All they do is have Iraq votes and investigations.”

Reid, meanwhile, was not ready to back Feingold’s measure.
“I’m sure Russ Feingold will try to find a way to offer that amendment,” Reid said. “The Republicans won’t let us vote on it. They’ll block it. … The president already has the mark of the American people that he’s the worst president we’ve ever had, and I don’t think we need a censure resolution in the Senate to prove that.”

By Zachary Goldfarb | July 22, 2007; 2:07 PM ET

LINK

Robert Winnett and Holly Watt

Update: George Galloway hits back strongly on his radio show. Powerful stuff.
Guest Andrew Gilligan (remember him?)
Listen at: http://www.spiderednews.com/GeorgeGalloway.htm?vid=135639

For a little background to the probes into the Mariam Appeal, at UK taxpayers expense, also read: link

Update2: Mail again making accusations about cash from Miriam fund

Update3: The suspension – and Galloway’s response (VIDEO LINK, 7 min: http://www.spiderednews.com/GeorgeGalloway.htm?vid=136893 )

Update4: Oily Cretins – Lenins Tomb Blogspot
Update5: The Sun Says Galloway must be gagged
Update6: Show support at “word of the words” website

Latest radio programme – Galloway “humbled” by the support:
http://www.spiderednews.com/GeorgeGalloway.htm?vid=139105
EMAIL MESSAGES OF SUPPORT TO: georgegallowaydotcom@gmail.com

Update7: Parliamentary Business at 3.30 pm, 23rd July, “Motion to approve the 6th Report of the Committee on Standards (DOUBLE STANDARDS? -sw) and Privileges”
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/index.cfm
Don’t miss it! Watch Live at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/bbc_parliament/default.stm

GEORGE GALLOWAY, the MP who campaigned against the Iraq war, is to be suspended from parliament over his links to the United Nations oil-for-food programme in Iraq.

The parliamentary standards watchdog will rule this week that Galloway failed properly to declare his links to a charitable appeal partially funded from money made by selling Iraqi oil under Saddam Hussein, according to a source close to the inquiry. The one-month suspension for Galloway, often referred to as “Gorgeous George”, is one of the most severe given to an MP.

Galloway, who was expelled from Labour, is now an MP for the Respect party. He may also be asked to apologise to the Commons for his behaviour but will launch a robust defence of his conduct. He denies any wrongdoing.

The UN oil-for-food programme was set up to allow Saddam to sell Iraqi oil to buy humanitarian supplies, but he corruptly awarded oil contracts to politicians and businessmen around the world.

In 1998 Galloway founded the Mariam Appeal, which campaigned for the lifting of sanctions on Iraq. The appeal, which paid Galloway’s wife and funded international travel for the MP, received almost £450,000 from Fawaz Zureikat, a Jordanian businessman who was also a trustee of the appeal. It subsequently emerged that more than half of this money came from the proceeds of Iraqi oil sales. An investigation by the American Senate alleged that the Mariam Appeal was used by the Iraqi regime to finance Galloway.

However, the MP strenuously denies that he was complicit in any such arrangement and claims he is the victim of a smear campaign. He says he had no idea that the money donated had come from Iraqi oil sales.

The Mariam Appeal, which raised more than £1.4m, has never filed any accounts and the parliamentary authorities have been unable to account for some of the expenditure.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2076249.ece

Galloway faces Commons ban over ‘illicit’ Iraq cash
By IAN DRURY – More by this author »

Last updated at 21:05pm on 15th July 2007

MP George Galloway is set to be suspended from Parliament over his links to a charity bankrolled by illicit deals involving Saddam Hussein’s regime.

He will be barred from the Commons for one month by Parliament’s standards watchdog for failing properly to declare his connections with the Mariam Appeal, it was reported.

Mr Galloway, who became an MP for his own Respect party after being expelled from Labour, may also be asked to apologise for his behaviour by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Sir Philip Mawer.

Last month a damning report by the Charity Commission concluded that the Mariam Appeal, established by Mr Galloway in 1998 to deliver medical aid to Iraq and arrange treatment outside Iraq for sick Iraqi children, took ’significant’ amounts of money improperly from Iraq.

It said Mr Galloway, a trustee, may have known the appeal – which campaigned against sanctions on Iraq – received £230,000 of aid money that had been diverted from the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq.

The charity watchdog’s report, published after a 16-month inquiry, found that Mr Galloway and fellow trustees broke the law by taking the cash, but it only gave him a slap on the wrist because the money was all spent on humanitarian causes.

The Commons ban would be one of the most severe given to an MP. Mr Galloway, who was ridiculed after appearing on Celebrity Big Brother, has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and has claimed he is the victim of a smear campaign.

He called last month’s Charity Commission findings ’sloppy, misleading and partial’. He could not be contacted yesterday.

The Mariam Appeal has never filed any accounts and the parliamentary authorities have been unable to account for some expenditure.

The MP was expelled from Labour in October 2003 after his outspoken comments on the Iraq war. He accused Tony Blair and President Bush of acting ‘like wolves’ in invading Iraq.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=468624&in_page_id=1770&ito=newsnow

Galloway faces Commons suspension

Mr Galloway has strongly denied receiving money from the Iraqi regime

George Galloway is facing suspension from Parliament for 18 days, after an inquiry by its standards watchdog.
MPs said he “damaged the reputation of the House” in his comments about the inquiry into his Mariam Appeal charity.

The suspension was the result of him “concealing the true source of Iraqi funding” and “calling into question” the integrity of standards watchdogs.

The anti-war Respect MP said he had been punished for his “robust” defence by “a jury of my political enemies”.

Mr Galloway, who has always denied receiving money from Saddam Hussein’s regime, added: “I’m not a punch bag. If you aim low blows at me I will fight back. That’s what I have done and that’s what I have been suspended for.”

‘Politicised’ inquiry

The MP for Bethnal Green and Bow was expelled from the Labour Party in 2003 following outspoken comments about the Iraq war and has claimed the inquiry was “politicised”.

Speaking outside Parliament after the announcement, he said the commissioner had noted six times that “I did not benefit personally by a single penny from Iraq, from the oil-for-food programme or from any other Iraqi source”.

He added: “It is clear that what really upset them is the fact I robustly defended myself.”

Mr Galloway at best turned a blind eye to what was happening and, on balance, was likely to have known and been complicit in what was going on

Commissioner’s report

He said there was “grotesque irony” that Parliament had refused to hold a full inquiry into the Iraq war, but had spent four years “censuring one of the leaders of the anti-war movement for the way that they conducted the anti-sanctions, anti-war campaign”.

He said the Mariam appeal had three main donors – two kings and one wealthy businessman, adding: “I never covered up where the money came from, I never asked where the money came from.”

Mr Galloway said Parliament should be giving him a medal, not a suspension, for his efforts to stop the Iraq war and “the massacre of hundreds of thousands of people”.

MPs to vote

The committee has recommended he be suspended for 18 days from 8 October, after the summer recess – but it must be confirmed by a vote by MPs.

The inquiry by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards began in 2003.

A jury of my political enemies came to that conclusion on circumstantial evidence

George Galloway

But it was suspended during Mr Galloway’s successful libel action against the Daily Telegraph, which had suggested he had received money from Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.

After considering the commissioner’s report, the Committee on Standards and Privileges recommended Mr Galloway apologise to the House and be suspended for 18 days.

Commissioner Sir Philip Mawer said Mr Galloway had “consistently failed to live up to the expectation of openness and straightforwardness” and considered the inquiry part of an “attempted political assassination”.

Damaged reputation

He said there was “powerful”, if circumstantial, evidence that “a substantial part” of donations to the Mariam Appeal from its chairman, Jordanian businessman Fawaz Zureikat, “came from monies derived, via the Oil for Food programme, from the former Iraqi regime”.

He said “Mr Galloway at best turned a blind eye to what was happening and, on balance, was likely to have known and been complicit in what was going on.”

In its recommendation, the committee said Mr Galloway’s “conduct aimed at concealing the true source of Iraqi funding of the Mariam Appeal” and towards those involved with the inquiry had “in our view damaged the reputation of the House”.

Party fundraising

Asked about the claim that he had concealed the source of funding, Mr Galloway told reporters: ” A jury of my political enemies came to that conclusion on circumstantial evidence.”

He also said, referring to cash-for-honours claims and the recent attendance of a convicted rapist at a party fundraising event, that “the people in the building behind me are the last people on earth to criticise” anyone over funding for political campaigns.

The Mariam Appeal was set up by Mr Galloway in 1998 to provide medicine and medical help to Iraqis during the last years of Saddam Hussein’s rule and under international sanctions.

He and other trustees were criticised by the Charity Commission last month, for failing to make sufficient inquiries into the sources of donations.

It found the appeal had received significant donations connected with improper transactions made under the Iraqi oil-for-food programme – but said the money had been spent on humanitarian aid.

Mr Galloway and the other trustees have denied any wrongdoing and he said the report was “sloppy, misleading and partial”.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6901033.stm

Oily cretins (latest attack on Galloway)

You remember, I think, some years ago there was a libellous story in the Telegraph. The newspaper, still then under the control of the now convicted felon Conrad Black, ran a story about documents purporting to show that George Galloway was in the pay of Saddam Hussein. Galloway was awarded £150,000 in compensation for the defamatory claims, and also full legal costs, amounting to over £1.5m. Justice Eady defined the claims in the newspaper’s coverage as containing four basic claims that any ordinary reader would take away:

a) Mr Galloway had been in the pay of Saddam Hussein, secretly receiving sums of the order of £375,000 a year;

b) He diverted monies from the oil-for-food programme, thus depriving Iraqi people, whose interest he had claimed to represent, of food and medicines;

c) He probably used the Mariam Appeal as a front for personal enrichment;

d) What he had done was tantamount to treason.

This was libellous, and these remain defamatory claims to make. However. Immediately upon hearing of the allegations, a pro-war hard-right Tory MP named Andrew Robathan wrote to the Committee on Standards and Privileges to demand that an inquiry be made into them, reminding them as he did that he had fought in the Gulf War. Subsequently a prolonged inquiry was held into this matter, and the Committee has now concluded that George Galloway will be suspended for 18 days from the House of Commons for “damaging the reputation of the House”.

This may seem curious. After all, the Commissioners accept Eady’s definition of the libellous claims, and the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards either acknowledges that George Galloway did not personally benefit from “moneys derived from the former Iraqi regime”, or accepts that George Galloway did make many declarations of interest over Iraq, eleven times. Further, he finds no instance in which monies from the appeal were improperly spent. There is no suggestion that George Galloway attempted to deceive anyone about his involvement in the Appeal or his interest in the matter. The Commissioner does not believe that George Galloway’s views or advocacy were a result of receiving money from Saddam Hussein, because he doesn’t accept that George Galloway’s views changed or that he received money from Saddam Hussein. The complaint made by Andrew Robathan is clearly unsubstantiated: this should have concluded the matter. So, what gives?

Well, here’s a clue: the majority of the Committee voted for the war on Iraq. Two of its members are former chairs of the Labour Friends of Israel. One of them, Kevin Barron MP, played a pivotal role in the witch-hunt of miners’ leader Arthur Scargill in 1990. Seasoned red-baiters and warmongers, then, and they had to find him responsible for something. Here is the basis of the suspension: he called into question the motives of the inquiry and therefore brought the House of Commons into disrepute. That is to say, because he dared to suggest that a committee of ten members of parliament might have a political motive, he is suspended. This is pathetic.

Now, the committee did make other complaints, which Galloway disputes, but they say these would have resulted merely in a request for an apology. Namely, they say, George Galloway: didn’t use his parliamentary resources in a “reasonable” fashion by using them to help the Appeal (this is stretching the definition of what is “reasonable”, but those are the breaks with a bunch of pro-sanctions, pro-war MPs); didn’t cooperate with the inquiry and tried to conceal “the true source of Iraqi funding” from them (in fact, the claim that Galloway didn’t cooperate is belied by the record of transactions which is available on the website of the committee, in which the Commissioner notes as late as November 2006 that he was very content with Galloway’s cooperation); wasn’t quite forthcoming enough about declaring his interests (despite the fact that he did discuss it in the House of Commons numerous times, widely advertised the appeal, held meetings in the house, and consequently was satirically known as ‘the MP for Baghdad Central’); did not register the Appeal in the Miscellaneous Category (although as they concede, he was not directed to do so when he consulted the previous Commissioner in 1999). This ragbag of petty complaints is the sum of a great effort made over several years to try and impugn the reputation of an antiwar MP.

Added to it are several bizarre implications, which occur throughout the deliberations, but not in the recommendations. At one point, the Commissioner raised a ’suggestion’ that had been made to him that Elaine Galloway, George Galloway’s former spouse, received £13,000 in payments from the appeal. The Commissioner then claimed to have ‘forgotten’ who ’suggested’ this to him. This allegation of criminal behaviour rests on the person of Ms E Laing, who received payments from the appeal: the implication was that Ms E Laing could be made to look like ‘Elaine’. But, as the Commissioner acknowledges, George Galloway tracked down Ms E Laing and passed on the details to him, and so there is no mystery about who Ms E Laing is and what the sum was paid for (secretarial work), and who paid it (Stuart Halford, since she has his personal assistant). So, this smear was introduced into the proceedings and instead of being removed or clarified, was deemed ‘peripheral’. Additionally, a photocopy of a purported “minute” of a meeting between Galloway and Hussein in 2002 was introduced at the last minute, having landed on the commissioner’s desk some hours before a meeting with Galloway. It was without any explanation as to its specific provenance or how it remained secret until then. It purports to show Galloway suggesting that some of his work on behalf of the Mariam Appeal might be financed by “an oil-related mechanism”. The only possible explanation as to its provenance, provided by Ms Alda Barry, was stricken from the record. She explained that it would have been a tape recording. However, since Galloway supplied the Commissioner with the evidence that there had not and could not have been such a tape recording, a letter of apology was sent by the Commissioner on 17th April 2007 to George Galloway, in which he apologised for having tried to prove that such a tape existed. His report nevertheless left open the ‘possibility’ of such a tape. We are told that it comes from ‘intelligence’ and that the commissioners “take the view that the alleged record of the meeting between Mr Galloway and Saddam Hussein in August 2002 is authentic”, even though they acknowledge that it has not been “substantiated”. Similarly, the Committee members decide, citing only one of the experts who looked at the Telegraph’s documents (while ignoring the existence of other forged documents), that on balance they think they’re probably not forgeries: whether they are forgeries or not, the information contained in them is certainly untrue, as the Commissioner also concedes. They breach their own standards, too, by insisting on including claims made by utterly discredited witnesses, including one “Tony” Zureikat, whose evidence supposedly supports the claims in the ‘minute’, but who manages to get the time of the meeting wrong by at least six months (he is vague: it happened in Christimas time or New Year, according to him).

Given that the nature of the evidence they adduce is so flimsy, and so disreputable, the Committee’s decisions are naturally sparse. You might have thought that a Committee that was confident in its various assumptions would be a bit more harsh than asking for an apology for not having registered the appeal in Miscellaneous and so on. You might have thought that the basis of a suspension from the House of Commons for bringing it into disrepute would be somewhat stronger than that George Galloway said mean things about the committee’s motives. Instead, they have produced a great many conclusions, which proceed from ommissions and distortions, and as such the best that they could do with it was trump up some sort of headline-grabbing charge. How pathetic, and how risible. If the Commissioners don’t realise that they have brought themselves into disrepute with this disingenuous charade, this can only further confirm the impermeability of the Westminster village to the real world.

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/07/oily-cretins-latest-attack-on-galloway.html

Galloway’s response to The Sun:

Letter to Speaker Martin
19 July 2007

Dear Mr Speaker,

You will have seen, with I hope as much alarm as me, the editorial in yesterday’s Sun newspaper, which – in a challenge to Parliamentary privilege I suggest – calls on the government to curtail my rights as a Member of Parliament in the debate on Monday on the report of the Standards and Privileges Committee.

Whilst I have every reason to believe that you will not allow me to be gagged in any way in my detailed defence against what is, in their own words, a debate on an inquiry of “unprecedented length and complexity” I am less confident about the conduct of the government whips.

I am seeking your protection, Mr Speaker, from any attempt to censor me in the important speech I intend to make, which will be watched and read by many people in our own country and abroad.

I do hope I can count on it. For if I were to be so censored in a debate on my exclusion from the House, in which I have sat for 20 years and from which I have never been excluded for any reason before, this would not only heap an injustice upon an injustice, it would plunge Parliament into the ninth circle of disrepute, earning it contempt from large numbers of people who wish to hear what I have to say in response to this report.

In view of the importance of this matter I am making this letter public.

Yours sincerely,

George Galloway MP

http://www.georgegalloway.com

Support George Galloway

Much has been said about George Galloway MP in the last few years, but yesterday’s recommendation for parliamentary suspension was a total whitewash – a hypocritical stance from the Government, New Labour and Parliament in general.

George was suspended on grounds that have been side-stepped by others. Cast back to “FlatGate”, where Blair and his wife denied knowing that the business partner with whom they’d been dealing was a known criminal and wanted con man.

That may be plausible. But hold on… isn’t this the same man who was plastered all over the tabloids when he fleeced Page 3’s Samantha Fox?

Tony Blair said, “We did not know…” , and this was his defence for knowingly doing business with a habitual criminal.

Yet nothing happens, it’s all washed away.

So ‘Teflon Tony’ rather easily ‘gets away with it’, claiming ignorance. Blair doesn’t even get a mention in the Parliamentary Disciplinary Committee.

Let’s move onto Tessa Jowell…

The Parliamentary Disciplinary Committee said George Galloway should have known, made enquiries; it was his duty as an MP…..

John Mills, Tessa Jowell’s husband, tried to subvert journalists amongst others, by using her ministerial facilities and stationary in an effort to suggest Mills was supported by Tony Blair, and that the government did not think he was guilty, thus perverting the cause of justice.

Tessa Jowell told Parliament and the media, that she did not know about this. Strange how a woman, who is in her office everyday, would have secretaries and assistants as well as a registry – and not one person noticed her husband loitering about, using the phone, stuffing paper into his bag? Does not the civil service also log calls, record times of entry and make them known to the Minister in question?

And what of John Mills, a lawyer currently indicted for his part in alleged corruption? This is the ‘top notch lawyer’, who’s mind is supposed to as sharp as a razor, who signed a confession in Italy for his alleged part in corruption and scandal with another friend of Blair’s, Silvio Berlusconi, then retracted it, claiming he did not know what he was signing, and was ‘confused and scared’. If you believe that, then I have the Golden Gate Bridge to sell you.

Blair sqaushed any inquiry into the above, and into other affairs as well, such as Mills and the Iranians, Mills and the Saudis – and Jowell used the standard plaintive New Labour defence: ‘I did not know’.

We can look at many others. Straw, who did not know his son was given a fine for a serious crime, Blunkett, who did not know he invested in a conflict of interest. Blunkett, who didn’t know many things… and they all walked away with nary a comment from the Parliamentary Disciplinary Committee.

So back to George Galloway. Is it fair? It has been stated, proven, that he has not received a penny from Saddam Hussein, that he was telling the truth on that matter. So, is it fair that Blair and his court of corruption should escape scrutiny and punishment for their crimes and sleaze while a man who is the voice of the people, not just the people in East London but the people he helps such as the Palestinians and the Iraqis, should be punished?

Is it fair that there are several MPs, sitting in Parliament today, who were complicit in the sales of arms to Saddam Hussein? MPs who assisted the sale of chemical and biological weapons that Saddam used freely on his enemies, his own people?

But suspended for telling the truth? For standing up for his principles? Maybe there is a more sinister agenda afoot; we know that the US government is in thrall to the Israeli lobby, we hear of such over here. Baroness such and such earlier this year stated that prominent Jews were steering government policy etc., and who is the arch enemy of all things Israeli in the Israeli government’s eyes? George Galloway, of course.

If you are outraged at George’ suspension, then please leave your messages of support in the boxes provided below, and write to your MP demanding an explanation as to why George is being persecuted for doing no wrong, whilst others breeze about committing crimes and participating in corrupt practices.

Britain is supposed to be a democracy. So let’s use democracy for a change and put an end to this farce. It is time that ‘we, the people’ reminded the government who is boss round here.

And remember this… George’s “supposed” lies were made when he was saving lives, Blair’s proven lies were used to massacre hundreds of thousands of people and launch the UK into a morass of war without end, so why is George being penalised on little or no evidence and Blair rewarded for what he did?

62 messages of support have now been received from all over the world. Add your own at….

http://warofthewords.co.uk/Joomla/content/view/302/34

NB If the message board system is not working, send email direct to:
georgegallowaydotcom@gmail.com

Discussion of the motion, produced by the Friends of Israel rich (in more senses than one…) Doublestandards and Boughtprivileges committee, from 3.30 pm onwards.

George Galloway will make his right to reply some time after the committe read out the motion. George suspects that not many MPs will be present. But the public and press galleries should be packed.

Watch/listen at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/bbc_parliament/default.stm

The reason that US television outlets haven’t covered this is that Israel doesn’t want to see it covered, period, end of discussion.

Israel continues to violate Palestinian human rights on a daily, hourly basis, but really hates like hell getting caught at it.

Upon researching MSNB’C’s coverage of the Palestinian issue, I am unable to find coverage concerning the 6000 Palestinians stranded at the Rafah border crossing in Egypt attempting to get home. The border has been closed to all crossing since June 9th. Many have been waiting since that time languishing in the desert. Palestinian reports say that 28 have died (many stranded are those who left to seek medical help outside Gaza and are not healthy). Sixteen babies have been born, none are eligible for Egyptian citizenship (unlike US law which grants automatic citizenship to those born here) and they have no birth certificates. Even if the border does open, these new mothers with their newborn babies will not be able to go home to Gaza.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/archives/cat_middle_east.html