Ousted Egyptian President Mursi sentenced to 20 years

Bill Van Auken

Following his overthrow in a July 2013 military coup, his unlawful detention, and a secret political trial, Egypt’s ousted president Mohamed Mursi was sentenced to 20 years in prison Tuesday on trumped-up charges of ordering the arrest and torture of protesters outside the presidential palace in December 2012.

He and his co-defendants were acquitted on more serious charges of murder and possessing ammunition, which are punishable by death.

Sentenced along with Mursi were 12 other defendants who received 20 years in prison, and two who received 10. Like Mursi, they were all connected to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and its political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, which have been banned by the military junta headed by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and branded as terrorist organizations.

Many of Mursi’s supporters and human rights groups had anticipated the court imposing either the death penalty or life in prison. The sentencing came on the heels of death sentences handed down Monday by an Egyptian court against 22 Muslim Brotherhood members on charges of attacking a police station in the Kerdasa district near Cairo in 2013. Ten days earlier, another court sentenced Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie to be executed on allegations of planning attacks against the state.

A senior spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Soudan, denounced the trial, conviction and sentencing of Mursi and the others as a “political farce.”

“The verdict is 100 percent a political verdict,” he told Al Jazeera. “Mursi, his advisers and supporters who are accused in this case were victims … police and army officials watched as the opposition attacked the presidential palace.”

The charges in the trial stemmed from a December 2012 incident in which opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood government marched on the Ittihadiya presidential palace in the eastern Cairo suburb of Heliopolis, where they were attacked by Mursi supporters. Security forces refused to take any action to halt the fighting, which included an exchange of rocks, Molotov cocktails and shotgun fire.

While 11 people were killed in the clashes, eight of them were Muslim Brotherhood supporters. The trial, however, dealt only with the deaths of one reporter, Hosseini Abu Deif, and two anti-Mursi protesters.

The selective and political character of this prosecution—no one is being charged for the killing of the Muslim Brotherhood supporters—is obvious. It is all the more glaring since draconian sentences are being imposed for the deaths of three people in which there is no evidence linking the deaths to the ousted president and his aides, while the former dictator Hosni Mubarak has been allowed to walk free after presiding over the killing of close to 900 protesters during the revolutionary uprising of January-February 2011.

This bloodletting was surpassed by the al-Sisi regime itself, which killed at least 1,000 demonstrators opposing the anti-Mursi coup in Cairo’s Rabaa Square and many hundred more elsewhere. Like Mubarak, Egypt’s current dictator has faced no retribution for these killings.

The human rights group Amnesty International charged that the verdict against Mursi stood as an indictment of Egypt’s legal system. “This verdict shatters any remaining illusion of independence and impartiality in Egypt’s criminal justice system,” said Hassiba Hadj Saharaoui, Amnesty’s deputy Middle East and North Africa director. “Any semblance of a fair trial was jeopardized from the outset by a string of irregularities in the judicial process and his arbitrary, incommunicado detention.”

Amnesty charged that the illegality of the proceedings against Mursi began with his July 2013 ouster, following which he was imprisoned under “conditions that amounted to enforced disappearance.” He was denied his right to be charged within 24 hours of his arrest and to challenge the charges. He was questioned without a lawyer present and denied the right to consult with a defense team until after his trial—held in secret—had begun. All of these actions are fundamental violations of due process and the Egyptian constitution, Amnesty said.

Mursi still faces further trials on fabricated charges of plotting terrorist acts in collaboration with Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and the Palestinian Islamists of Hamas, and of espionage for supposedly leaking state secrets to Qatar. He is also charged with breaking out of prison during the 2011 uprising against Mubarak, as well as insulting the judiciary.

Al Jazeera quoted the Egyptian journalist Yehia Ghanem as saying that the al-Sisi junta was using the prosecution of Mursi to send a message that it will tolerate no political opposition. “The whole thing was calculated politically from the start. It sends a message to Egyptians and the rest of the world that there’s no future for any civil rule,” Ghanem said.

Above all, these sham trials and draconian punishments are meant to intimidate the population and thwart a renewal of the revolutionary upsurge of the Egyptian working class that brought down Mubarak four years ago.

The Obama administration on Tuesday issued a mealy-mouthed declaration of “concern” over the conviction of Mursi and the 14 others. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Washington would “review the basis” for the court’s decision and was “concerned by these sentences.”

“All Egyptians are entitled to equal and fair treatment before the law,” she added.

This is unmitigated hypocrisy. Before Mursi’s sentencing, a total of 1,212 Egyptians had been sentenced to death in mass trials just since the start of 2014, while tens of thousands languish in Egyptian jails.

None of this has stopped the Obama administration from providing unconditional support to the Egyptian military regime, with Obama personally phoning al-Sisi at the end of last month to announce that the White House had lifted its partial “executive hold” on the provision of military aid following the 2013 coup.

The upshot of this decision was the funneling of advanced US weaponry to the Egyptian security forces, including $600 million worth of Hellfire II missiles, 20 Harpoon missiles, 12 F-16 fighter jets and 125 M1A1 Abrams main battle tank “upgrade kits.”

Obama assured the dictator that Washington’s $1.3 billion in annual military aid to the Egyptian junta would continue unabated.

The Obama administration is fully complicit in the bloody wave of repression in Egypt. Behind its cynical “human rights” posturing, it supports the Egyptian military regime as both a bastion against revolution within Egypt and an instrument for counterrevolutionary interventions elsewhere in the region, from Libya to Yemen.

As refugee death toll mounts, EU and US plan new military actions in Libya

Martin Kreickenbaum

The European powers and Washington are responding to the mass drownings of refugees in the Mediterranean Sea with an intensification of the same criminal policies that caused the disaster in the first place.

The general line adopted by government officials and promoted by the media is to place the blame for the humanitarian catastrophe on smugglers who seek to profit off the mass misery in Libya, Syria and other countries in the region, while ignoring the fact that the catastrophic conditions in these countries are the direct result of the wars and regime-change operations carried out by the United States and the European powers. With consummate hypocrisy, European government heads and EU officials shed crocodile tears for the victims of their own war crimes.

The media says virtually nothing about the so-called “humanitarian” wars for “democracy” and “human rights” carried out by Washington and its European accomplices in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen that have destroyed entire societies, killed hundreds of thousands of people, and left chaos and unending bloodshed in their wake. UN statistics show that the flow of migrants to Europe from North Africa and the Middle East via the Mediterranean began to swell after 2011, the year of the US-NATO war that toppled Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and ended with the latter’s murder by Al Qaeda-linked Islamist proxy forces of Washington and its European allies, led by France and Britain.

The criminal elements engaged in the smuggling of Libyans, Syrians, Iraqis and others fleeing the horrors resulting from imperialist wars and plundering operations are small fry compared to current and former government officials such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, who are politically and morally responsible for the deaths of millions, including the drowned refugees.

At a special meeting of European Union foreign and interior ministers held in Luxembourg on Monday, plans for a new imperialist intervention in Libya were discussed. The governments of the EU member states are seeking a United Nations mandate for the use of warships along the Libyan coast to destroy refugee boats and capture smugglers. Behind the scenes, far bigger military options are under consideration, including the seizure of oil rigs and refineries in Libya.

The ministerial meeting was convened after the Mediterranean drownings, in the space of one week, of at least 1,200 refugees from North Africa and the Middle East seeking asylum in Europe. The number of migrants killed this year en route to Europe has risen to almost 2,000, nearly 50 times the number during the same period last year.

“I hope today is the turning point in the European conscience, not to go back to promises without actions,” declared the EU’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

The ten-point plan agreed by the European ministers, to be approved Thursday by EU heads of state and government, involves an expansion of police and military operations to block refugees from reaching European shores. Funding for the “Triton” mission run by the European border agency Frontex is to be doubled, along with the number of boats at the disposal of the agency. This will enable Frontex to expand its operational area from the coast of Italy to the coastlines of Libya and Tunisia.

Despite large doses of humanitarian rhetoric, the primary aim of the operation is not the rescue of refugees, but the defense of “Fortress Europe.”

“Search and rescue alone is not a silver bullet,” said German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere. “If you just organize search and rescue, criminals who get the refugees on board will send more boats.”

The core of the proposals advanced Monday by the EU commissioner for migration, justice and home affairs, Dimitris Avramopoulos, is the “systematic effort to track down and destroy the boats used by smugglers.” The model for such an effort is the “Atalanta” operation, in which naval forces hunt down pirates’ inflatable boats off the coast of Somalia and destroy their camps on land.

Although no details of planned military operations have been provided, Mogherini noted that the EU was seeking a mandate from the UN Security Council to destroy refugee boats along Libyan beaches and in the country’s harbors.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi welcomed the decision to put the fight against the smuggling of refugees at the top of the European agenda. While the British government has refused to provide any resources to aid in the rescue of refugees, Cameron signaled London’s readiness to support military action. “We have got to crack down on the terrible traffickers and people smugglers who are at the heart of this problem,” he said.

The British Guardian newspaper quoted military leaders who provided a glimpse of operations under consideration. British Commander Graham Edmonds raised the possibility of a joint naval blockade by European and US naval forces.

He told the newspaper: “There is a duty to help people in distress. It is international maritime law. You cannot let people drown. You could enforce a blockade and stop these boats from coming.”

He added that the US Sixth Fleet could also be involved. “The Americans have been very silent,” he said. “If they are in international waters, the sixth fleet could deal with it.”

The former leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown, called for a “fresh strategy” to tackle people smugglers, including the use of “Special Forces of interdiction to destroy the boats before they leave port.”

Although Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has said a direct military intervention in Libya is currently not on the agenda, he declared this week, “Attacks against the gangs of death, attacks against people smugglers are among the considerations.”

The ruling elite in Italy has been pushing for military action in its former colony of Libya for some time. According to Reuters, detailed plans for a much broader military intervention have already been developed by the staff of EU foreign policy head Mogherini. A spokeswoman for Mogherini said EU member states would submit proposals to use EU military resources to create a Libyan unity government.

There are also discussions about using European soldiers to secure Libya’s oil facilities. An EU operation would focus on Tripoli, but could, according to Reuters, “also intervene in the ‘oil arc’ to enable international companies to recommence operations.”

Oil production in Libya has dropped by 50 percent since the 2011 NATO war. Last December the country’s biggest oil terminals, Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, had to be closed following fighting between rival militias.

The German ruling elite, which abstained from the NATO war against Libya in 2011, is pushing for German participation in any military action in order to secure a share of the spoils. In a recent interview, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier asserted the need to “bring more stability to Libya” and “put an end finally to trafficking organizations.”

The political censorship of the SEP (Australia) and the fight against war

Nick Beams

The attempted suppression of the meeting called by the SEP (Australia) under the title “Anzac Day, the glorification of militarism and the drive to World War III” is a warning to the international working class of accelerating militarism and the accompanying attacks on democratic rights in every country. The veneer of democracy is being ripped off.

The campaign waged by the SEP in support of its right to hold the meeting has revealed that what might have initially appeared to be actions of a single local government authority to block the event, in fact involved decisions and discussions at the highest levels of the political establishment. This became clear when Sydney University, one of the country’s most prestigious educational institutions, joined Burwood City Council in seeking to block the SEP meeting.

The Anzac Day celebrations, commemorating 100 years since the landing of Australian forces at Gallipoli in Turkey on April 25, 1915, the first operation by Australian forces in World War I, are part of a campaign being waged by the political, corporate and media establishment aimed at suppressing anti-war opposition as the drive to a new imperialist war intensifies.

Within Australia, some $400 million is being spent on what Prime Minister Tony Abbott has described as a “celebration” of World War I. This is more than double the amount being spent by all the other allies combined. The money is going to promote a state-organised campaign that reaches right down into schools and even child care centres. Added to this are the tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars more being spent to glorify Anzac Day and World War I by corporations and media organisations.

The challenge by the SEP to this orgy of militarism has hit a raw nerve because of the central ideological and political role played by the commemoration of Anzac over the past century and its significance in the present geo-political situation.

The Gallipoli landing ended in a complete catastrophe. Thousands of young men were sent to their deaths as the hail of machine gun fire combined with the blood, filth and disease of the trenches to lay bare the barbarism into which the ruling classes of the capitalist powers had plunged much of the world.

Fearing the eruption of anti-war sentiment and the consequences for their continuing rule that such opposition entailed, the Australian ruling classes from the outset mobilised material and political resources to turn this disaster into a day of national celebration. What began one hundred years ago continues today as preparations are made for a new world war.

The celebrations in Australia are a particular expression of what is a global process. In Germany, a campaign organised at the highest levels of the state is underway to rehabilitate the role of German imperialism in World War I and World War II. The official line states that Germany, as a global and not just European economic power, must play a global military and political role. In Japan, the Abe government, the most right-wing and militaristic regime in the post-war period, is seeking to whitewash the past crimes of Japanese imperialism as it rearms in preparation for committing new ones.

American imperialism, confronted with the consequences of the erosion of its economic might, launches one military campaign and regime-change operation after another as it strives, ever more desperately, to maintain its hegemony, threatening to set off a global conflagration.

For the US, achievement of its objectives centres on dominating the Eurasian landmass, from Russia, the countries of Eastern Europe and the former republics of the USSR in the West to China and the countries of South East Asia in the East—the main centres of global economic growth.

The crucial strategic role—political and military—of Australian imperialism for the achievement of these goals is the underlying driving force behind the eruption of militarism expressed in the Anzac celebration. This is clear from even a brief examination of recent events.

The launching by US President Obama of the “pivot to Asia” in November 2011 from the floor of the Australian parliament has been followed by the ever-closer integration of the Australian military into the US war machine.

A US Marine base, complete with operational B-52 bombers potentially carrying nuclear weapons, has been established in Darwin in the north of Australia to ensure control of vital sea lanes to China. The network of US communications bases in Australia, above all at Pine Gap, functions as an integral component of US military operations ranging from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific region.

Every day, the US military seeks to refine and develop its anti-China Air/Sea Battle Plan, organises joint military exercises with its allies, and upgrades its scenarios for attacks on the Chinese mainland amid an ever-louder propaganda drum beat about Chinese “assertiveness” in the South and East China seas.

The political changes in the region surrounding the pivot, both in Australia and throughout the region, have been no less significant. The ousting of Australian Labor Party Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in June 2010 in a coup organised by faction leaders in the Labor Party with close ties to the US embassy was an essential preparation for the pivot. Rudd’s perspective—that while the US should retain its dominant position in the region, at least some accommodation should be afforded to China—was anathema to Washington. His ouster came within weeks of the removal of Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama following a conflict with the US over its military base on the island of Okinawa.

In January of this year, Washington was at the centre of a regime-change operation in the strategically important island nation of Sri Lanka, when China-leaning President Rajapakse was ousted and a pro-US government installed.

The extent of the Anzac celebrations is an indication of the fear in ruling circles of the anti-war sentiments of broad masses of people and the intensification of this opposition as the drive to war, both in the Asia-Pacific region and internationally, unfolds ever more openly.

But if militarism is to be defeated, anti-war sentiment has to be actualised on the basis of a thoroughly worked-out political program. This is what the ruling class fears above all else.

Hence the high-level targeting of the SEP. Its April 26 meeting, in the midst of the Anzac promotion of jingoism, is aimed at politically arming the working class and the youth with an understanding of the drive to war and the necessary international socialist program to prevent it.

The attempt to politically censor the SEP, an attack on the democratic rights of the entire working class, underscores the importance of next Sunday’s meetings on the fight against imperialist war. We urge all those who oppose war and the threat of dictatorship and see the need for a mass movement against war based on the working class to attend the meetings in Sydney, Melbourne and Wellington. We also call for messages of opposition to the actions of Burwood City Council and Sydney University to be sent.

Above all, it must be understood that the struggle against militarism and war can be fought only on an international basis. We urge all our readers and supporters to participate in the International Online May Day rally on May 3.

India's Rafale Deal: Why the Outright Purchase Was a Balancing Step

Prashant Dikshit


The Indian government’s decision to purchase 36 Rafale MMRCA aircraft from France outright, as against the original 18, with a direct government to government deal with France could be the best option. This is because the issues were no longer merely commercial in nature; there were strategic reasons to be considered.

The most apparent and crucial matter of the rapidly decreasing combat punch of the Indian Air Force (IAF) was not the only issue at hand. The decision to select the Rafale at the outset was already made with the conscious view that it was the best buy. It not only satisfied the operational framework of the IAF, but also ensured that with its acquisition India will put the eggs in the correct basket.   

India has invested more than adequate material resources in the burgeoning strategic equation with the US and has acquired maritime and heavy-lift transport aircraft, among other weapon systems. Deeply emboldened by the mutual India-US wooing syndrome, the US administration is leaving no stone unturned to participate in the India’s aircraft carrier industry.  On the MMRCA front however, there were disappointments in the US industry circles that India had found the F-16 aircraft somewhat outmoded and the F-18, too heavy and alien for its systemic construct. 

But it had obviated Indian policy planners’ deeply embedded fears that the complex structure of the US regime – that consists its presidency, the senate and the congress – could place embargoes on technical and material support in the future for such a crucial combat ingredient;  just because some law-wielding segment US did not see, eye to eye, with Indian policies elsewhere. There was precedence on this score in the past and the Indian establishment has institutional memory of having encountered such impediments; and the development of India’s Light Combat Aircraft is one of the many examples.

As for Russia, India is already acquiring over 250 Su-30 MKI air superiority fighters and most importantly, is developing Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft plus a Medium Transport Aircraft along with other weapon platforms such as the BrahMos in collaboration with Russian majors. 

Although, the all-weather relationship with the erstwhile USSR and now Russia has stood the test of time and India availed of Russian support on not only the Arihant nuclear submarine but also substantially for the operation of nuclear power plants, uncertainties and irritants faced by India’s defence establishment for provision of spares for military hardware after the breakup of the USSR and again, before the eventual induction of the aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya, could not be ignored. Additionally, there is an emerging perception that with the rising clamour for enhanced price structures by Russian companies, the mutuality of equations is tilting towards greater commercial gains and the tenor of the relationship may have come to a saturation point. The Indian endeavour would rather be to sustain than to increase.

India had already procured adequate materials from UK during its post-independence relationship. The British-made Jaguar joined the IAF fleet with over 150 aircraft to fulfil the IAF’s requirement for Deep Penetration Strike Aircraft; over 120 of the British Aerospace built Advanced Jet Trainer, the Hawk, have been inducted in the IAF and the India Navy with an Indian government investment of nearly $ 2 billion. These purchases had set up a pipeline for infusion of spares periodically from aviation majors in UK. The British industry had nothing more to offer.

With France the story is different and the developments had to be placed on an even keel. First, the uncertainties in nurturing the contract with the French aviation major Dassault, the producer of the Rafale, had emerged because the manufacturer had declined to accept responsibilities for the 108 machines that were to be assembled by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. There is a strong view that some in the South Block had persuaded Dassault to accept this clause against the manufacturer’s judgment and these doubts could not be kept under wraps beyond a point. 

Eventually, the whole deal was falling through due to procedural impositions of the treatment of “Request for proposals.” There was an emerging perception that at risk was the equation with France – whose support in operating their Mirage 2000 with the IAF was pivotal in countering the aggression during the Kargil war. France is going to be a supplier of nuclear materials to India, and with whom India is pursuing several space ventures through its Department of Space. However, the most crucial of all reasons why this is strategically important is due to France’s unstinted support for India’s membership in the UN Security Council. 

Truth Is Washington’s Enemy

Paul Craig Roberts

US Representative Ed Royce (R, CA) is busy at work destroying the possibility of truth being spoken in the US. On April 15 at a hearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs of which Royce is chairman, Royce made use of two minor presstitutes to help him redefine all who take exception to Washington’s lies as “threats” who belong to a deranged pro-Russian propaganda cult. http://www.prisonplanet.com/bloggers-compared-to-isis-during-congressional-hearing.html

Washington’s problem is that whereas Washington controls the print and TV media in the US and its vassal states in Europe, Canada, Australia, Ukraine, and Japan, Washington does not control Internet sites, such as this one, or media, such as RT, of non-vassal states. Consequently, Washington’s lies are subject to challenge, and as people lose confidence in Western print and TV media because of the propaganda content, Washington’s agendas, which depend on lies, are experiencing rougher sledding.

Truth is bubbling up through Washington’s propaganda. Confronted with the possibility of a loss of control over every explanation, Hillary Clinton, Ed Royce, and the rest are suddenly complaining that Washington is “losing the information war.” Huge sums of taxpayers’ hard earned money will now be used to combat the truth with lies.

What to do? How to suppress truth with lies in order to remain in control? The answer says Andrew Lack, Royce, et alia, is to redefine a truth-teller as a terrorist. Thus, the comparison of RT and “dissident” Internet bloggers to the Islamist State and the designated terror group, Boko Haram.

Royce expanded the definition of terrorist to include dissident bloggers, such as Chris Hedges, John Pilger, Glenn Greenwald and the rest of us, who object to the false reality that Washington creates in order to serve undeclared agendas. For example, if Washington wants to pour profits into the military/security complex in exchange for political campaign contributions, the politicians cannot say that. Instead, they claim to protect America from a dangerous enemy or from weapons of mass destruction by starting a war. If politicians want to advance American financial or energy imperialism, they have to do so in the name of “bringing freedom and democracy.” If the politicians want to prevent the rise of other countries, such as Russia, President Obama has to depict Russia as a threat comparable to the Ebola virus and the Islamist State.

Noam Chomsky summed it up when he said that Washington regards any information that does not repeat Washington’s propaganda to be intolerable.

Washington’s assault on truth as a threat helps to make sense of the gigantic National Security Agency spy system exposed by William Binney and Edward Snowden. One of the purposes of the spy network is to identify all “dissidents” who challenge Big Brother’s “Truth.”

There is, or will be, a dossier on every “dissident” with all of the dissident’s emails, Internet searches, websites visited, phone calls, purchases, travels. The vast amount of information on each dissident can be combed for whatever can be taken out of context to make a case against him, if a case is even needed. Washington has already successfully asserted its power over the Constitution to indefinitely detain without charges and to torture and to murder US citizens.

It was a couple of years ago that Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security, said that the department’s focus had shifted from terrorists to domestic extremists. Lumped into the category of domestic extremists are environmental activists, animal rights activists, anti-war activists which includes disillusioned war veterans, and people who believe in states’ rights, limited government and accountable government. Consequently, many dissidents, America’s best citizens, will qualify as domestic extremists on several accounts. Chris Hedges, for example, is an advocate for animals (see http://www.opednews.com/articles/Choosing-Life-by-Chris-Hedges-Animals_Cattle_Corporate_Dairy-150420-878.html ) as well as concerned about the environment and Washington’s never-ending wars.

The spying and the coming crackdown on “dissidents” might also explain the $385 million federal contract awarded to a subsidiary of Dick Cheney’s firm, Halliburton, to build detention camps in the US. Few seem to be concerned with who the camps are to detain. There is no media or congressional investigation. It seems unlikely that the camps are for hurricane or forest fire evacuees. Concentration camps are usually for people regarded as unreliable. And as Lack, Royce, et alia have made clear, unreliable people are those who do not support Washington’s lies.

A perceived need by Washington, and the private power structure that Washington serves, to protect themselves from truth could also be the reason for the very strange military exercises in various of the states to infiltrate, occupy, and round-up “threats” among the civilian population. (see http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-16/signs-elites-are-feverishly-preparing-something-big ) Even the presstitute CNN reported that the National Guard troops sent to Ferguson, Missouri, were programmed to view the civilian protesters as “enemy forces” and “adversaries,” and we know that the state and local militarized police are trained to view US citizens as threats.

As far as I can discern, not many Americans, whether Democrat or Republican, liberal, conservative, or super-patriot, educated or not, understand that Washington with the cooperation of its presstitute media has defined truth as a threat. In Washington’s opinion, truth is a greater threat than Ebola, Russia, China, terrorism, and the Islamic State combined.

A government that cannot survive truth and must resort to stamping out truth is not a government that any country wants. But such an undesirable government is the government that Clinton-Bush-Cheney-Obama-Hillary-Lack-Royce have given us.

Does it satisfy you? Are you content that in your name and with taxes on your hard-earned and increasingly scarce earnings, Washington in the 21st century has murdered, maimed, and displaced millions of peoples in eight countries, has set America on the path to war with Russia and China, and has declared truth to be an enemy of the state?

Abolish The Zionist Mythological Narrative

Ludwig Watzal

Miko Peled, son of general Matityahu Peled and author of the highly acclaimed book "The General's Son"(1) , destroys in his lecture the historic fairy tales that the Zionist fabricated around their conquest of Palestine. The Zionist claim a "right of return" to their ancient homeland while they are denying the same right to the Palestinians who they dispersed in 1948. They use the tales of the bible as a cadastre. The returning Jews were not the ones who were expelled from their homeland several thousand years ago. Neither were they their descendants. But they still claimed some heritage to the ancient Hebrews. That's all what Zionism is about, and the world excepted this historic nonsense. When the right of return of the Palestinians comes up in a discussion, the Israeli government and their Zionist supporters refuse to talk about it. For the Zionists, it's a political no-go. And they are not troubled by their double standards.

For Peled, there cannot be a balanced presentation of this tragedy, like the Zionist lobbyists claim in the U. S., Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Germany or elsewhere. They use this pleaded argument in order to thwart the truth about Israel's ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people.

Right now, the Zionist lobby in Germany does everything in their power to prevent a congress on "Palestinians in Europe" on 24 April 2015 in Berlin from taking place. They use the most primitive agitation against the organizers such as "anti-Semites and murderers would be offered a platform in Berlin". The Zionist Lobby and their media supporters put pressure on the owners of the "Berlin Arena" to cancel the event. The tabloid B.Z. headlined: "Hate Conference of 3000 Islamists in Treptow."

Another attack on freedom of expression by the Zionist lobby was carried out at the University of Southampton, Great Britain. The conference was supposed to take place from 15-17 April 2015 under the title: "International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility, and Exceptionalism". Everything went fine till the Zionist lobby torpedoed the event by slandering the upcoming conference and their distinguished speakers. Allegedly, "anti-Semitic views" would be aired. Two rich patrons threatened the University Directorate to cease support. The caving in of the university before the Zionist lobby made the farce complete.

It seems as if the Israeli government is above the law. Its crimes are all committed under the pretext of security. According to Peled, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) is "the best trained, best equipped, best fed terrorist organization in the world". They have generals and nice uniforms but their "entire purpose is terrorism". By this terrorism, the Israeli army controls an entire population, said Peled.

The racist regime in South Africa and the racist laws in the South of the U. S. were not abolished by consensus. "But Zionism just like racism has to go. The Zionist state has to be replaced by a democracy."

Zionism is a racist ideology. The subtlety of this racism can be studied in the book of his sister Nurit Peled-Elhanan, "Palestine in Israeli School Books". How segregated Israelis and Palestinians live even in "united" Jerusalem exemplified Peled by telling that he met his first Palestinians in a dialogue group in San Diego, although he was born in Jerusalem.

The criticism of the Zionist occupation regime is manifold but is still far from a resounding success. Despite the enormous crimes committed by the regime, and the exposure of President Obama by Netanyahu before the whole world public support in the US and Germany is as strong as ever. The secret helpers of Israel, the so-called Sayanim , contribute much to the invincibility of Israel's misbehavior in international affairs. These Sayanims are the real problem for a free society because they work in camera for Israel.

Watch the fine speech by Miko Peled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF_AsxQLijY&hc_location=ufi

Sex, Drugs, And Dead Soldiers: AFRICOM

Nick Turse

Six people lay lifeless in the filthy brown water.

It was 5:09 a.m. when their Toyota Land Cruiser plunged off a bridge in the West African country of Mali.  For about two seconds, the SUV sailed through the air, pirouetting 180 degrees as it plunged 70 feet, crashing into the Niger River.

Three of the dead were American commandos.  The driver, a captain nicknamed “Whiskey Dan,” was the leader of a shadowy team of operatives never profiled in the media and rarely mentioned even in government publications.  One of the passengers was from an even more secretive unit whose work is often integral to Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which conducts clandestine kill-and-capture missions overseas.  Three of the others weren't military personnel at all or even Americans.  They were Moroccan women alternately described as barmaids or "prostitutes."     

The six deaths followed an April 2012 all-night bar crawl through Mali's capital, Bamako, according to a formerly classified report by U.S. Army criminal investigators. From dinner and drinks at a restaurant called Blah-Blah's to more drinks at La Terrasse to yet more at Club XS and nightcaps at Club Plaza, it was a rollicking swim through free-flowing vodka. And vodka and Red Bull. And vodka and orange juice. And vanilla pomegranate vodka. And Chivas Regal.  And Jack Daniels.  And Corona beer. And Castel beer. And don't forget B-52s, a drink generally made with Kahlúa, Grand Marnier, and Bailey's Irish Cream. The bar tab at Club Plaza alone was the equivalent of $350 in U.S. dollars.

At about 5 a.m. on April 20th, the six piled into that Land Cruiser, with Captain Dan Utley behind the wheel, to head for another hotspot: Bamako By Night. About eight minutes later, Utley called a woman on his cell phone to ask if she was angry. He said he'd circle back and pick her up, but she told him not to bother. Utley then handed the phone to Maria Laol, one of the Moroccan women. “Don't be upset.  We'll come back and get you,” she said. The woman on the other end of the call then heard screaming before the line went dead.

A Command With Something to Hide

In the years since, U.S. Africa Command or AFRICOM, which is responsible for military operations on that continent, has remained remarkably silent about this shadowy incident in a country that had recently seen its democratically elected president deposed in a coup led by an American-trained officer, a country with which the U.S. had suspended military relations a month earlier. It was, to say the least, strange. But it wasn't the first time U.S. military personnel died under murky circumstances in Africa, nor the first (or last) time the specter of untoward behavior led to a criminal investigation. In fact, as American military operations have ramped up across Africa, reaching a record 674 missions in 2014, reports of excessive drinking, sex with prostitutes, drug use, sexual assaults, and other forms of violence by AFRICOM personnel have escalated, even though many of them have been kept under wraps for weeks or months, sometimes even for years. 

“Our military is built on a reputation of enduring core values that are at the heart of our character,” Major (then Brigadier) General Wayne Grigsby Jr., the former chief of AFRICOM's subordinate command, Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), wrote in an address to troops last year.  “Part of belonging to this elite team is living by our core values and professionalism every day. Incorporating those values into everything we do is called our profession of arms.” 

But legal documents, Pentagon reports, and criminal investigation files, many of them obtained by TomDispatch through dozens of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and never before revealed, demonstrate that AFRICOM personnel have all too regularly behaved in ways at odds with those “core values.”  The squeaky clean image the command projects through news releases, official testimony before Congress, and mainstream media articles -- often by cherry-picked journalists who are granted access to otherwise unavailable personnel and locales -- doesn't hold up to inspection.

“As a citizen and soldier, I appreciate how important it is to have an informed public that helps to provide accountable governance and is also important in the preservation of the trust between a military and a society and nation it serves,” AFRICOM Commander General David Rodriguez said at a press conference last year.  Checking out these revelations of misdeeds with AFRICOM'S media office to determine just how representative they are, however, has proven impossible. 

I made several hundred attempts to contact the command for comment and clarification while this article was being researched and written, but was consistently rebuffed.  Dozens of phone calls to public affairs personnel went unanswered and scores of email requests were ignored.  At one point, I called AFRICOM media chief Benjamin Benson 32 times on a single business day from a phone that identified me by name.  It rang and rang.  He never picked up.  I then placed a call from a different number so my identity would not be apparent.  He answered on the second ring.  After I identified myself, he claimed the connection was bad and the line went dead.  Follow-up calls from the second number followed the same pattern -- a behavior repeated day after day for weeks on end. 

This strategy, of course, mirrored the command's consistent efforts to keep embarrassing incidents quiet, concealing many of them and acknowledging others only with the sparest of reports.  The command, for example, issued a five-sentence press release regarding those deaths in Bamako.  They provided neither the names of the Americans nor the identities of the “three civilians” who perished with them.  They failed to mention that the men were with the Special Operations forces, noting only that the deceased were “U.S. military members.”  For months after the crash, the Pentagon kept secret the name of Master Sergeant Trevor Bast, a communications technician with the Intelligence and Security Command (whose personnel often work closely with JSOC) -- until the information was pried out by the Washington Post's Craig Whitlock. 

“It must be noted that the activities of U.S. military forces in Mali have been very public,” Colonel Tom Davis of AFRICOM told TomDispatch in the wake of the deaths, without explaining why the commandos were still in the country a month after the United States had suspended military relations with Mali's government.  In the years since, the command has released no additional information about the episode. 

True to form, AFRICOM's Benjamin Benson failed to respond to requests for comment and clarification, but according to the final report on the incident by Army criminal investigators (obtained by TomDispatch through a FOIA request), the deaths of Utley, Bast, Sergeant First Class Marciano Myrthil, and the three women “were accidental, however [Captain] Utley's actions were negligent resulting in the passengers' deaths.”  A final review by a staff judge advocate from Special Operations Command Africa found that there was probable cause to conclude Utley was guilty of negligent homicide.

AFRICOM's Sex Crimes

The criminal investigation of the incident in Mali touched upon relationships between U.S. military personnel and African “females.”  Indeed, the U.S. military has many regulations regarding romantic attachments and sexual activity.  AFRICOM personnel have not always adhered to such strictures and, in the course of my reporting, I asked Benson if the command has had a problem with sexual misconduct.  He never responded.  

In recent years, allegations of widespread sex crimes have dogged the U.S. military.  A Pentagon survey estimated that 26,000 members of the armed forces were sexually assaulted in 2012, though just one in 10 of those victims reported the assaults.  In 2013, the number of personnel reporting such incidents jumped by 50% to 5,518 and last year reached nearly 6,000.  Given the gross under-reporting of sexual assaults, it's impossible to know how many of these crimes involved AFRICOM personnel, but documents examined by TomDispatch suggests a problem does indeed exist.

In August 2011, for example, a Marine with Joint Enabling Capabilities Command assigned to AFRICOM was staying at a hotel in Germany, the site of the command's headquarters.  He began making random room-to-room calls that were eventually traced.  According to court martial documents examined by TomDispatch, the recipient of one of them said the “subject matter of the phone call essentially dealt with a solicitation for a sexual tryst.” 

About a week after he began making the calls, the Marine, who had previously been a consultant for the CIA, began chatting up a boy in the hotel lounge.  After learning that the youngster was 14 years old, “the conversation turned to oral sex with men and the appellant asked [the teen] if he had ever been interested in oral sex with men.  He also told [the teen] that if the appellant or any of his male friends were aroused, they would have oral sex with one another,” according to legal documents.  The boy attempted to change the subject, but the Marine moved closer to him, began “rubbing his [own] crotch area through his shorts,” and continued to talk to him “in graphic detail about sexual matters and techniques” before the youngster left the lounge.  The Marine was later court-martialed for his actions and convicted of making a false official statement, as well as "engaging in indecent liberty with a child" -- that is, engaging in an act meant to arouse or gratify sexual desire while in a child's presence.

That same year, according to a Pentagon report, a noncommissioned officer committed a sexual assault on a female subordinate at an unnamed U.S. base in Djibouti (presumably Camp Lemonnier, the headquarters of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa).  “Subject grabbed victim's head and forced her to continue having sexual intercourse with him,” the report says.  He received a nonjudicial punishment including a reduction in rank, a fine of half-pay for two months, 45 days of restriction, and 45 days of extra duty.  The latter two punishments were later suspended and the perpetrator was, at the time the report was prepared, “being processed for administrative separation.” 

At an “unknown location” in Djibouti in 2011, an enlisted woman reported being raped by a fellow service member “while on watch.”  According to a synopsis prepared by the Department of Defense, that man “was not charged with any criminal violations in reference to the rape allegation against him. Victim pled guilty to failure to obey a lawful order and false official statement.” 

In a third case in Djibouti, an enlisted woman reported opening the door to her quarters only to be attacked.  An unknown assailant “placed his left hand over her mouth and placed his right hand under her shirt and began to slide it up the side of her body.”  All leads were later deemed exhausted and no suspect was identified.  According to Air Force documents obtained by TomDispatch, allegations also surfaced concerning an assault with intent to commit rape in Morocco, a forcible sodomy in Ethiopia, and possession of child pornography in Djibouti, all in 2012.

On July 22nd of that year, a group of Americans traveled to a private party in Djibouti attended by U.S. Ambassador Geeta Pasi and Major General Ralph Baker, the commander of a counterterrorism force in the Horn of Africa.  Baker drank heavily, according to an AFRICOM senior policy adviser who sat with him in the backseat of a sport utility vehicle on the return trip to Camp Lemonnier.  While two military personnel, one of them an agent of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), sat just a few feet away, Baker “forced his hand between [the adviser's] legs and attempted to touch her vagina against her will,” according to a classified criminal investigation file obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

“I grabbed his hand and held it on the seat to try to prevent him from putting his hand deeper between my legs,” she told an investigator. “He responded by smiling at me and saying, ‘Cat got your tongue?' I was appalled about what he was doing to me and did not know what to say.”  She later reported the offense via the Department of Defense's Sexual Assault Hotline.  According to a report in the Washington Post, “Baker was given an administrative punishment at the time of the incident as well as a letter of reprimand -- usually a career-ending punishment.”  Demoted in rank to brigadier general, he was allowed to quietly retire in September 2013.

A Pentagon report on sexual assault lists allegations of three incidents in Djibouti in 2013 -- one act of “abusive sexual contact” and two reports of “wrongful sexual contact.”  The report also details a case in which a member of the U.S. military reported that she and a group of friends had been out eating and drinking at a local establishment.  Upon returning to her quarters at the base, one of her male companions asked to enter her room and she gave him permission.  He then began to kiss her neck and shoulders.  When she resisted, according to the report, “he grabbed her shorts and began to kiss and lick her vagina.”  That man was later charged with rape, abusive sexual contact, and wrongful sexual contact.  He was tried and acquitted.

The Pentagon has yet to issue its 2014 report on sexual assaults and AFRICOM has failed to release any statistics on its own, but given that military personnel fail to report most sexual crimes, whatever numbers may emerge will undoubtedly be drastic undercounts.

Sex, Drugs, and Guns

On the morning of April 10, 2010, a Navy investigator walked through the door of room 3092 at the Sarova Whitesands Beach Resort in Mombasa, Kenya.  Two empty wine bottles sat in the trash can.  Another was on the floor.  There were remnants of feminine hygiene products on the bathroom countertop, Axe body spray in an armoire, unopened condoms on a table, and inside a desk drawer, a tan powder that he took to be “an illicit narcotic,” all of this according to an official report by that NCIS agent obtained byTomDispatch through the Freedom of Information Act.    

Three days before, on April 7th, Sergeant Roberto Diaz-Boria of the Puerto Rico Army National Guard had been staying in this room.  On leave from Manda Bay, Kenya -- home of Camp Simba, a hush-hush military outpost in Africa -- he had come to Mombasa to kick back.  That night, along with a brother-in-arms, he ended up at Causerina, a nearby bar that locals said was a hotspot for drugs and prostitution.  Diaz-Boria left Causerina with a “female companion,” according to official documents, paid the requisite fee for such guests at the hotel, and took her to his room.  By morning, he was dead.  

A news story released soon after by Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa stated that Diaz-Boria had died while “stationed” in Mombasa.  The cause of death, the article noted, was “under investigation.”  CJTF-HOA failed to respond to a request for additional information about the case, but an Army investigation later determined that the sergeant “accidentally died of multiple drug toxicity after drinking alcohol and using cocaine and heroin.”  Where he obtained the drugs was never determined, but according to the summary of an interview with an NCIS agent, a close friend in his infantry unit did say that there were “rumors within the battalion about the easy access to very potent illegal narcotics in Manda Bay, Kenya.”    

Kenya is hardly an anomaly.  Criminal inquiries regarding illicit drug use also took place in Ethiopia in 2012 and Burkina Faso in 2013, while another investigation into distribution was conducted in Cameroon that same year, according to Air Force records obtained by TomDispatch.  AFRICOM did not respond to questions concerning any of these investigations.

In late 2012, when I asked what U.S. personnel were up to in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, AFRICOM spokesman Eric Elliott replied that troops were “supporting humanitarian activities in the area.”  Indeed, official documents and other sources indicate U.S. personnel have been carrying out aid activities in the region for years.  But that wasn't all they were doing. 

The Lonely Planet guide says that the Samrat Hotel provides the best digs in town, with a “classy lobby” and “a good nightclub and restaurant.”  The one drawback: “stiff mattresses.”  That apparently didn't affect the activities of at least nine of 19 U.S. military personnel from the 775th Engineer Detachment of the Tennessee Army National Guard.  After an unidentified “local national female” was seen emerging from a “secured communications room” in the hotel, a preliminary investigation was launched and found “military members of the unit allegedly routinely solicited prostitutes in the lobby of the hotel and later brought the prostitutes back to their assigned rooms or to the secured communications room,” according to documents obtained via FOIA request.  A later report by Army agents determined that personnel from the 775th Engineer Detachment and the 415th Civil Affairs Battalion “individually engaged in sexual acts in exchange for money” at the hotel between July 1 and July 22, 2013.  In the room of a staff sergeant, investigators also found what appeared to be khat, a popular local narcotic that offers a hyperactive high marked by aggressiveness that ultimately leaves the user in a glassy-eyed daze.

A sworn statement by a medic who served in Dire Dawa that month -- obtained by TomDispatch in a separate FOIA request -- paints a picture of a debauched atmosphere of partying, local “girlfriends,” and a variety of sex acts.  “Originally, before we departed to Ethiopia, I grabbed around 70 condoms.  However, I was told that was not going to be enough,” said the medic, noting that it was his job to carry medical supplies.  Instead, he brought 200. He confessed to obtaining a prostitute through the bartender at the Samrat Hotel and admitted to engaging in sex acts with another woman who, he said, later revealed herself to be a prostitute.  He paid her the equivalent of $60.  Another service member showed him pictures of a “local national in his bed in his hotel room,” the medic told the NCIS agent.  He continued: 

“I know this girl is a prostitute because I pulled her from the club previously.  The name of the club was ‘The Pom-Pom'... I had hooked up with this girl before [redacted name] so when he showed me the photo I recognized the girl.  [Redacted name] stated how she had a nice booty and was good in bed... I want to say that [redacted name] told me he paid about 1,000 Birr (roughly $30 US dollars), but I can't recall exactly.”

Army investigation documents obtained by TomDispatch also indicate similar extracurricular activities by members of the 607th Air Control Squadron and the 422nd Communications Squadron in neighboring Djibouti.  An inquiry by Army criminal investigators determined that there was probable cause to believe three non-commissioned officers “committed the offense of patronizing a prostitute” at an “off-base residence” in June 2013.

AFRICOM failed to respond to repeated requests for comment on or to provide further information about members of the command engaging in illicit sex.  It was similarly non-responsive when it came to criminal inquests into allegations of arson in South Africa, larceny in Burkina Faso, graft in Algeria, and drunk and disorderly conduct in Nigeria, among other alleged crimes.  The command has kept quiet about violent incidents as well.

On April 19, 2013, for instance, something went terribly wrong in Manda Bay, Kenya.  A specialist with the Kentucky Army National Guard, deployed at Camp Simba and reportedly upset by a posting he saw on Facebook, got drunk on bourbon whiskey -- more than a fifth of Jim Beam, according to witnesses -- stole a 9mm pistol, and shot a superior officer.  He would also point the pistol at a staff sergeant and a master sergeant and then barricade himself in his barracks room.  A member of the Army's Special Forces serving at the base told an NCIS agent what he saw when the soldier emerged from his quarters:

"He had a gun in his hand and he was waving it around with the barrel level.  He was saying something to the effect of ‘Fuck you!' or something like that.  I heard the [redacted] say something like ‘put the gun down!' a couple of times and then the [redacted] shot at the subject 2-3 times with his handgun."

The drunken soldier was hit once in the leg and later surrendered.  An investigation determined that the specialist had probably committed a host of offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including wrongful appropriation of government property, failure to obey an order, and aggravated assault, although a charge of attempted murder was deemed “unfounded.” The incident, detailed in previously classified documents, was never made public.

General Malfeasance

AFRICOM has certainly had its troubles, starting at the top, since it began overseeing the U.S. military pivot to Africa.  Its first chief, General William “Kip” Ward, who led the fledgling command from 2007 until 2011, was demoted after a 2012 investigation by the Department of Defense Inspector General's office found he had committed a raft of misdeeds, such as using taxpayer-funded military aircraft for personal travel and spending lavishly on hotels.

During an 11-day trip to Washington, for example, he billed the government $129,000 in expenses for his wife, 13 employees, and himself, but conducted official business on just two of those days.  According to the Inspector General's report, Ward also had AFRICOM personnel ferry his wife around and run errands for the two of them, including shopping for “candy and baby items, picking up flowers and books, delivering snacks, and acquiring tickets to sporting events.”  He even accepted “complimentary meals and Broadway show tickets” from a “prohibited source with multiple [Department of Defense] contracts.”  

Ward was ordered to repay the government $82,000 and busted down from four stars to three, which will cost him about $30,000 yearly in retirement pay.  He'll now only receive $208,802 annually.  An AFRICOM webpage devoted to the highlights of Ward's career mentions nothing of his transgressions, demotion, or punishment.  The only clue to all of this is his official photo.  In it, he's sporting four stars while his bio states that “Ward retired at the rank of Lieutenant General in November 2012.”

Ward's wasteful ways became major news, but the story of his malfeasance has been the exception.  For every SUV that plunged off a bridge or general who was busted down for misbehavior, how many other AFRICOM sexual assaults, shootings, and prostitution scandals remain unknown? 

For years, as U.S. military personnel moved into Africa in ever-increasing numbers, AFRICOM has effectively downplayed, disguised, or covered-up almost every aspect of its operations, from the locations of its troop deployments to those of its expanding string of outposts.  Not surprisingly, it's done the same when it comes to misdeeds by members of the command and continues to ignore questions surrounding crimes and alleged misconduct by its personnel, refusing even to answer emails or phone calls about them.  With taxpayer money covering the salaries of lawbreakers and the men and women who investigate them, with America's sons dying after drink and drug binges and its daughters assaulted and sexually abused while deployed, the American people deserve answers when it comes to the conduct of U.S. forces in Africa.  Personally, I remain eager to hear AFRICOM's side of the story, should Benjamin Benson ever be in the mood to return my calls.