Shame on me!

Most of what I've written in this blog so far have been about the policies of the United States as the most powerful and influential country in the world, and policies of Israel as, in my opinion, one of the biggest threats to the security of the world. Every now and then, I have also touched the situation in Iran and wrote about its anti-democratic regime.

I admit that I have not written enough about other serious human tragedies that are going on around the world. Although I have sometimes mentioned the real starvation and deaths resulting from that around the world, I have not written enough of it. The thing is that I have many times thought about it but the tragedy is so obvious and a shameful to the citizens of earth to let that continue on, that I didn't even know how to write about it. Well, I still don't know how to do it. I have to admit that some times I even deliberately ignored it, well it would ruin my day, and perhaps that was extreme selfish of me to not search for more info about what is really happening these days to those people who feel the pain of starvation so long until they die; by painful deaths. By ignoring this, I might have saved my "pleasant" day by not letting bad news take the pleasure of being with my children from me. BUT, IT IS HAPPENING, no matter if I want to hide from it. I love my children, but I am sure that goes for the parents of the starving children who witness their children SLOWLY perish right before their helpless eyes. One has to just put himself/herself in their shoes for a minute to see why this is a shame for humanity and to see why we have a moral responsibility to do something about it. A responsibility we have collectively failed to live up to.

People in Darfur, Sudan are starving, It means they are HUNGRY. I know every body knows what starvation means, but no, many of us don't know what it really means, as simple as that. Their children have no strength left in them to even take the bugs off their faces. THEY ARE SUFFERING. REAL SUFFERING and that continues as you reading these words. I am helpless. I don't know what to say and what to write. Please make a discussion out of this issue here to see what we can do to help. Speak of practical solutions. Tell others what you suggest be done. Talk about it. Please do; either here or on your own blogs.

No wonder why!

Nader criticizes US bias to Israel!

...He depicted the White House and the US congress as a puppet theatre where Israeli officials control everything and decide what they want then they return to Israel carrying billions of dollars and arms....

How dare he? Perhaps that's one of the (good) reasons why he doesn't get enough publicity in the mainstream US media.

Beheading of the South Korean hostage

Kim Sun-il, a South Korean hostage working in Iraq was executed after the Iraqi groups' request to South Korea not to help the occupation of Iraq by sending additional troops to Iraq was ignored by the South Korean government who continues to please the occupiers of Iraq. Kim Sun-il is dead now, and there is no return for him, but what about others who will die as a result of this occupation and the criminal agendas of Bush and his murderous gang? Why is Iraq occupied at the first place? What the hell those occupiers doing thousands of miles away from their own country? How uglier this whole thing is going to get? Does Bush know what he has done to the world with his stupid non-functional brain?

Can we even imagine what Kim's Parents are going through now and for many years to come?

I cannot, I must not ignore it

Every time when an American is killed, the world is quickly informed of it. In a matter of hours, all the world media covers the killing, but when non-Americans are killed no one really cares, no one pays attention, they are just "numbers". It is a shame that the media is so grossly unethical and inhumane... .

The fact that the mainstream media always practices this gross double standard is sickening. It sickens and upsets me to the point that sometimes I don't even feel that the American victim is also a human being. Sometimes my anger at the media pushes me to the point of ignoring what has happened to A HUMAN BEING. Sometimes my feelings towards the American leaders, who I believe are criminals against the humanity, make me not see the depth of each individual human tragedy.... . Well, this makes me quite angry at myself.

I heard the news of beheading of the American Paul Johnson today. It started when I heard in the news that "...and now the latest development about the American hostage... ", I was all ears to hear the rest. I first thought it was a positive development, something that would result in letting him go and join his family and.... . But unfortunetely, it wasn't. My face dropped when I heard the news that he was killed. After that I kept thinking about him. I kept thinking about the Apache helicopters that he was an engineer for and the "death manufacturer", Lockheed Martin whom he worked for. I kept thinking about millions of people around the world that have been killed by the "death products" of companies such as Lockheed Martin. I kept thinking about the same Apache helicopters that have killed so many thousands of the Iraqis in last year or so. I kept thinking about all of them at the same time..., then suddenly I started feeling how much I, who has difficulty even touching a baby bird, have been and am changing: Just yesterday, all my family was mobilized and was struggling to find a way to save one of the new-born Robins whose parents had nested in a tree in our front yard. The baby kept falling off or coming down from the tree and kept trying to go away while still not quite able to fly, and we were trying to put him back in his nest. The parents were all over us making noises and objecting our perceived threat against their baby. Suddenly, I found myself talking to them in Farsi and in English to assure them that we were not going to hurt their baby. Anyway, I tried a couple of times to approach him but while I was getting closer to the young bird, I did not see this in myself to hold him as I was afraid I could hurt him. My wife did a much better job than I did. She put him back into the nest, but every time after a few minutes, he kept coming down while it was getting dark. We felt we had to do something to ensure his survival until morning. I suggested to take him home until morning but being a mother herself, my wife disagreed, and said that it would be the longest and most worrying night for the mother Robin. Finally, we directed him to our backyard providing access to mom and dad...... Every thing seemed fine in the morning.

My rant here is just to say, how easily one can get used to and ignore the tragedies. Why should I care who Mr. Johnson was? No, there shouldn't be anything to force me believe what happened was justified. I know, there are thousands of Johnsons happening every day that we are not told about but I take what I heard about Mr. Johnson as a symbol of how cruel and brutal the world has become. Nothing justifies what is happening these days. There is no need for any member of human kind to go through this. Nothing... . I wish I could express my feelings better than this.... .

Update:

U.S. air strike reported in Fallujah
FALLUJAH, IRAQ - A U.S. military plane fired missiles Saturday into a residential neighbourhood in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, the local police chief said.

According to residents, at least 20 people were killed, including at least three women and five children. Some of the victims were found crushed under rubble, witnesses said.

In other words, US just "beheaded" 20 People with no names given. See? Didn't I just tell you they are considered as just numbers?
I wonder if those planes that fired missiles into this residential neighbourhood were built by Lockheed Martin.

Israeli prisons and concentration camps

Some thousand Palestinian prisoners are being tortured in different forms by the Israeli ‘occupying authorities’ in the Israeli prisons and concentration camps, the Washington post US Daily reported.

In a report “Israel’s Example” published by the Washington post today, the newspaper wrote “ the Palestinian prisoners are being exposed to harsh torture measures including being forced to keep standing on their foot for days, tied with no-backs chairs, listen to very loud music, placed in cold or sun-heat and disallowed to use toilets”.

...Israel continues to hold more than 7.000 Palestinian prisoners in its various prisons and concentration camps..

Ironic! Isn't it?

Plain stupid

The main reason that I keep insisting that there was close relations between Iraq, Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda is that THERE WAS RELATIONS BETWEEN SADDAM HUSSEIN AND AL-QAEDA.

This is how George Bush answered a question as why, despite the recent September 11 Committee's confident announcement that there was no link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, he insists that there was such links! Isn't the guy just plain stupid?

Global warming; the deliberately ignored reality

This is becoming much more serious than what the rich and big corporations want us to believe. In it there is, if not our own, the future of our children at stake. We might not feel it yet, but sure it is coming. What are we doing to stop it?

I am talking about Global Warming which is a real and active trend. The Industrial countries in general and the United States in particular are taking much much more than their share in polluting the world as the corporate America keeps adding to the problem. Corporate America has its agents in power. The current US administration added to its guilt of choking our next generation by cancelling US's commitments on Kyoto Accord as soon as it came to power. A dumb puppet such as George Bush and his oily gang, do not care a bit about what will happen to our children and their children, but we ought to. The conservative Party of Canada and its leader Stephen Harper are also planning to take Canada out of Kyoto should they become the government after the June 28 elections. It will be a shame for Canada if these ultra-representatives of the rich corporations have the chance to scarp what Canada is proud of; Signing on Kyoto Accord.

Many of us, as parents, do whatever we can to provide the best for our children, but we usually forget the critical issue of protecting the environment that will have a determining impact on the quality of life for our children and their children. We forget it because we, oursleves, don't seriously and physically feel it, but let's not fool ourselves: it is coming whether we feel it or not.

We have responsibilities towards the next generation. We cannot leave them with conditions worse than our own. Their living conditions have to be better than ours and not worse, otherwise we are guilty of irresponsible inactions.

Zionism's Useful Idiots

by Kurt Nimmo

That's you and me, taxpaying US citizens.

We're useful idiots for the Zionists in Washington and Tel Aviv. Useful because our hard-earned paychecks can be harvested to pay for war and mass murder in the Middle East, idiots because we don't do anything about it...

...So usefully idiotic are we that treacherous neocons no longer bother to offer threadbare lies to cover their murderous tracks...

Read the rest of the article here.

If they are not criminals, then what are they?

Occupation at its personal level!
How could this happen?
How could they be so brutal?
How could they be so sadistic and yet been given so much power?
How could they humiliate a nation like this?
How could these crimes be called "liberation"?
These pictures will not fade from memories for years and decades to come, as the picture of the nude little Vietnamese girl who is running along the dirt road away from the US-napalm-bombed village will never fade.
Those top guys responsible for all these crimes should be put on trial for what they've done to human kind in the name of "freedom" and "liberation".

Don't for one second think that I enjoy showing these pictures in my blog as I know this would give emotional pain to those who can still be called humans and I don't enjoy making them feel this emotional pain. But don't forget, there are people who are suffering physical pain in addition to emotional pain right in their own country and to the hands of their occupiers. If just watching these pictures would make us feel hurt, then imagine how it would feel if we actually went through the real suffering.

A military intelligence interrogator also told investigators that two dog handlers at Abu Ghraib were "having a contest" to see how many detainees they could make involuntarily urinate out of fear of the dogs, according to the previously undisclosed statements obtained by The Washington Post.

I wonder if these occupiers are not criminal, then what is the meaning of criminal?

Up-date:

The US commander at the centre of the Iraqi prisoner scandal says she was told to treat detainees like dogs.

Quote of the day:

"The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent.

"Of course, it is possible for any citizen with time to spare, and a canny eye, to work out what is actually going on, but for the many there is not time, and the network news is the only news even though it may not be news at all but only a series of flashing fictions...: Gore Vidal"

Via Information Clearing House

Have they told you about this?

In the struggle against Nazism, approximately 40 "Ivans" died for every "Private Ryan". Scholars now believe that as many as 27 million Soviet soldiers and citizens perished in the second world war.

I am sure all we hear is only about certain victims of that war, but "thanks" to those who own/control the North American media, over 30 million other victims are not even mentioned.

"Dark House" torturers

Don't miss watching this Democracy Now!s interview with the attorney, Michael Ratner who has been fighting for Human Rights which have been violated by the United States, internally and externally. He will also touch Reagan's role in massacres of thousands in central and south America. He tells you how CIA provided the interrogators with instructions as "how to torture".

Before the interview with Mr. Ratner, there are some segments of the recent questioning of John Ashcroft in the US Senate committee in which he refuses to release the memos related to what is known as "The Pinochet Principle" that essentially gives an open hand for torturing the prisoners. Some excerpts:

KENNEDY: I'm not asking hypothetical. This is a memoranda that, again, was referred to today in the Post. "August 2002, Justice Department advised the White House that torturing Al Qaida terrorists in captivity abroad may be justified and that international laws against torture may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations." Do you agree with that?

ASHCROFT: I am not -- first of all, this administration rejects torture.

KENNEDY: I'm asking you whether this is -- these are -- there are three memoranda, January 9, 2002, signed by John Yo (ph), the August 2002 Justice Department, the (inaudible) amendment memo and the March 2000 -- the interagency working group. Those are three memoranda. Will you provide those to the committee?

ASHCROFT: No, I will not.

AND

...AMY GOODMAN: If the memo says that the President can claim to be able to ignore laws regarding torture on the grounds of national security, what other laws could he ignore?

MICHAEL RATNER: Well, it actually goes farther than that. It says that the President is exempt from all criminal laws in the United States with regard to when he has the Commander of Chief power fighting a war. In other words, he's exempt from all law. The example of what happened to Troy is not outside here. That's what he's saying. He's saying in a war I can do anything. In the war, there's no Geneva convention and there's no convention against torture and there's no law there at all. I can pick you up tomorrow and put you in the brig, torture you and do whatever I want and it can be justified in the name of national security.

AMY GOODMAN: What about the ticking time bomb theory, the idea if there's a ticking time bomb, you can do anything to a person who can tell you how to -- where it is?

MICHAEL RATNER: A famous law school hypothetical for which they have never actually found one, but once you open the door to that, as everybody who studies this issue, it opens it to thousands of people being tortured. That is not what this memo is about. This memo is not saying ticking time bomb. The memo is saying it's a general mat they're the president is exempt from using laws that prohibit torture; is exempt from those laws.

AMY GOODMAN: During recent Supreme Court testimony, the Bush administration said that they were not using torture. Did they lie to the Supreme Court?

MICHAEL RATNER: It was extraordinary hearing. Judge Ginsberg -- Justice Ginsberg turns to Paul Clement and says, what if you use mild torture? Paul Clement says that the United States doesn't engage in torture. The key words to me in this whole thing -- "Trust us." that's the way our government is trying to sell the war in Iraq, the abuse in Abu Ghraib, what's happening in Guantanamo Bay. "Trust us." They can't be trusted. They need a court looking at them. They need Congress looking at them and they need the people of America going after them.

Don't miss it.

Also read this Boston Globe article titled The torturers among us.

WHAT HAVE we learned so far about officially sponsored torture by the US government?
First, It is unambiguously clear that the torture of prisoners in Afghanistan, at Guantanamo, and at Abu Ghraib was official policy.....

That's how the article starts.

Reagan and his bloody hands in Iran-Iraq war

In an interview with Iranian woman Nobel Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi, Democracy Now! discusses the role the US in general and Reagan administration in particular played in Iran-Iraq war that resulted in the death of one million young Iranians and Iraqis.

Also, in the same video segments, Democracy Now! talks to Alan Friedman, author of "Spiders Web" about the issue. Friedman also speaks about the bloody hands of Reagan, Bush Sr., Rumsfeld and James Baker in that war.

"I am really glad to be here in Baghdad with my good friend Saddam Hussein.... ." This is how Rumsfeld started his conversation with Saddam Hussein in his trip to officially normalize the US relations with Saddam. It was after 5000 kurds were massacred by Saddam's chemical weapons which were dropped on them by the newly supplied US helicopters.

Human Rights Watch report on Iran

Pedram at Eyeranian and Nema at Iranian Truth both have posts regarding the latest Human Rights Watch report regarding the massive violation of Human Rights in Iran.

Nema summarizes the report by saying:

This report demonstrates a nexus between the press closures that began in 2000, the systematic arrests of journalists, writers and intellectuals in the following years, and the treatment of political prisoners. With the newspapers closed, treatment of detainees worsened considerably in Evin prison and in detention centers operated clandestinely by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the judiciary. Members of parliament and defense attorneys who have spoken out against the crackdown have themselves been summoned to court, and some jailed. Few platforms outside of the Internet remain available to expose the reality of conditions for Iran’s political prisoners in detention centers. The closure of the newspapers has secured an environment of impunity for judges and security forces who routinely violate international human rights law and Iran’s criminal and penal codes.

As Pedram mentions, Reuters has reported that Human Rights Watch is urging European Union "to step up pressure on Iran" and reconsider its decision to engage Iran in dialogue until there are some improvements in the current dismal conditions.

Many European countries have indeed been of the main reasons for the survival of the current regime in Iran as they have always assigned legitimacy to the regime by continuing the so-called dialogue with the regime. Of course, this "dialogue" does not end in "just dialogue". There are so many financial benefits for these countries in their massive trades with Iran. While many Iranians in general and journalists and students in particular are in the prisons of the regime, the same European countries enjoy billions of Euros coming from full trades and contracts with Iran.

Still calling it "abuse"?

Yes, even USA Today reports:

More than a third of the prisoners who died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan were shot, strangled or beaten by U.S. personnel before they died, according to death certificates and a high-ranking U.S. military official.

Is this the "abuse" the main-stream media have been talking about?

The Secret Government

There are so many evidence suggesting that the recent US history, at least in terms of its foreign policies, has been dark, dirty, and criminal.

I strongly suggest watching this two-part fairly short documentary in which many of the US involvements around the world, from re-using the Nazis as their spies to overthrowing the democratically elected governments around the world, including the Iranian government of Dr. Mossaddegh are pictured.

Considering what the Us has done in recent decades as well as recent increase in pressuring Cuba, do not be surprised if something similar to the staged plans to justify US military intervention in Cuba happens again. In fact, US's politics run on conspiracies.

Free this great young American; Free Joseph Previtera

Joseph Previtera, A 21-year-old college student could spend years in jail on bomb threat charges after he stood silently outside a military recruitment office dressed like an Iraqi prisoner: in a black cape, hooded, wearing stereo wires hanging from his fingers. The police charged Joseph Previtera with making a bomb threat since the stereo wires resembled wires to a bomb.
Free Joseph Previtera. It is obvious to anyone with even a semi- functional brain that the charge against him is ridiculous and baseless. He was just showing the American public what has been done in Iraq in their name. He is now facing charges more serious than any US soldier is facing for their role in the actual prison abuse in Iraq. Previtera was charged with three crimes: disturbing the peace, possession of a hoax device and making a false bomb threat. If convicted he could face years in prison.

He has done this for the sake of defending human rights. Now, WE have the obligation to do whatever we can to defend his rights and free this great young American. Please write about him in your sites/blogs.

Listen from Isreal's ally: Turkey

Turkey's prime minister has repeated an accusation that Israel was practising "state terrorism" against Palestinians.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Israelis were persecuting Palestinians just as Jews were persecuted during the Spanish Inquisition 500 years ago.

Israel was "bombing civilians, killing people without any considerations - children, women, the elderly - razing buildings using bulldozers," he said.

Israel has called for "more solidarity" from Turkey, its closest regional ally.

Read the rest here.
Also this is the interview that Haaretz had with the Turkish Prime Minister.

Meet some great Palestinians and Israelis

Attituds may have hardened and grown bitter, but some think only a complete end to occupation will unedrmine the extriminist on both sides.

Check this site out.
Elsewhere in the same site:

Israeli taxi drivers are notoriously reluctant to pay the tax associated with turning on their meters. I took one Tel Aviv taxi driver to task over this, wondering aloud who would pay for the relatively high level of services Israelis enjoy. ‘Don’t worry, the Americans will pay,’ was his quick retort. And so they have, by the billions, year after year. Back in Kansas – where a significant number of citizens regard taxation as theft – this might not go down too well. But that has been the reality for the last 30 odd years.

Palestinian children are children too

..."Palestinian children have lost all sense of normality. They don't know whether they'll be able to go to school, whether they'll come home safely because of curfews and army incursions," Yoad Ghanadreh told reporters during a visit to a Qalandiya community centre managed by the UN agency for refugees (UNRWA).

"They often suffer from psychosomatic troubles, depression and low concentration that are related to their fear of the present and the future," she said amid boys and girls, most sporting brightly painted faces, celebrating International Children's Day....

Read the rest here.

How shameless! Israel wants Iraq to pay compensation

Israel looks set to pursue a compensation claim on behalf of Jews who left Iraq over 50 years ago, despite no such similar consideration for Palestinian refugees.

Tel Aviv has sent copies of over 800 documents to Washington – not Baghdad - in a bid to claim compensation for Israeli citizens who "were forced to abandon their property".

Read more here.

Can you believe it? Can you believe how shameless they are? This is the same country that has forced millions of Palestinians out of their lands. This is the same country that has oppressed, restricted, humiliated and killed Palestinians for decades.... .

However, I think if this is true about Iraqi Jews, it is juts fair that they should be compensated to their complete satisfaction, and they should even have the option of returning to Iraq if they wish. BUT DON'T YOU THINK THE SAME SHOULD APPLY TO THE PALESTINIANS WHO WERE FORCED OUT OF THEIR LANDS BY THE ISRAELIS?