The reward for killing 700 innocent civilians? - A Nobel Peace Prize

The Pakistani daily Dawn - a pro-US paper not known for its antiwar stance — reports that US drones killed over 700 civilians in 44 bombings since Barak Obama took office in January 2009:

PESHAWAR, 2nd January 2010: Of the 44 predator strikes carried out by US drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan over the past 12 months, only five were able to hit their actual targets, killing five key Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, but at the cost of over 700 innocent civilians.

According to the statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities, the Afghanistan-based US drones killed 708 people in 44 predator attacks targeting the tribal areas between January 1 and December 31, 2009. For each Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist killed by US drones, 140 innocent Pakistanis were also killed. Over 90 per cent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians"

In other words, President Obama has surpassed even his predecessor’s murderous record in Pakistan.

His reward? - The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009.
George Orwell was right - his '1984' was just a little premature, that's all.

So, as the first decade of the new century closes, "War really IS peace. Ignorance really IS strength and  Freedom really IS slavery" - with the massed sheeple of the Western World still lapping up Big Brother's narrative of the way things are and are meant to be.

Hat-tip to Pulse

Letter from Hamas to Obama

By Medea Benjamin

The Hamas government in Gaza reached out to President Obama on the occasion of his visit to the Middle East, announcing that Hamas was willing to talk to all parties "on the basis of mutual respect and without preconditions." I carried the letter out from Gaza -- it represents a significant development and an effort by Hamas to present a new face to the Western world. While Osama bin Laden used the occasion of President Obama's visit to deliver a scathing attack, Hamas reached out to a feminist U.S. peace group to deliver a letter to Obama urging dialogue, mutual respect and adherence to international law.

In the letter, Hamas urged Obama to visit "our ground Zero" in Gaza and bring about a "paradigm shift" in the Israel-Palestine conflict based on enlightened world opinion and international law.

This is a people who have just been subjected to a vicious attack that left over 1,300 dead and thousands wounded, and there is not a word here about armed resistance or Zionism. They are reaching out and actively seeking a resolution to the conflict based on the findings of the world's leading international legal bodies and human rights organizations from the United Nations and the International Court of Justice to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. This is a major breakthrough and the U.S. government should take advantage to begin a dialogue with Hamas.

The letter was signed by Ahmed Yusef, Deputy Foreign Minister and hand-delivered to Benjamin, who was in Gaza headed a 66-person delegation representing 10 nations. Benjamin and representatives of CODEPINK are delivering the letter to the U.S. Embassy in Cairo today, June 4, during Obama's visit to Egypt.

The text of the letter follows:

His Excellency President Barack Obama,
President of the United States of America. June 3rd 2009
Dear Mr. President,

We welcome your visit to the Arab world and your administration's initiative to bridge differences with the Arab-Muslim world.

One long-standing source of tension between the United States and this part of the world has been the failure to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.

It is therefore unfortunate that you will not visit Gaza during your trip to the Middle East and that neither your Secretary of State nor George Mitchell have come to hear our point of view.

We have received numerous visits recently from people of widely varied backgrounds: U.S. Congressional representatives, European parliamentarians, the U.N.-appointed Goldstone commission, and grassroots delegations such as those organized by the U.S. peace group CODEPINK.

It is essential for you to visit Gaza. We have recently passed through a brutal 22-day Israeli attack. Amnesty International observed that the death and destruction Gaza suffered during the invasion could not have happened without U.S.-supplied weapons and U.S.-taxpayers' money.

Human Rights Watch has documented that the white phosphorus Israel dropped on a school, hospital, United Nations warehouse and civilian neighborhoods in Gaza was manufactured in the United States. Human Rights Watch concluded that Israel's use of this white phosphorus was a war crime.

Shouldn't you see first-hand how Israel used your arms and spent your money?

Before becoming president you were a distinguished professor of law. The U.S. government has also said that it wants to foster the rule of law in the Arab-Muslim world.

The International Court of Justice stated in July 2004 that the whole of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem are occupied Palestinian territories designated for Palestinian self-determination, and that the Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal.

Not one of the 15 judges sitting on the highest judicial body in the world dissented from these principles.

The main human rights organizations in the world, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have issued position papers supporting the right of the Palestinian refugees to return and compensation.

Each year in the United Nations General Assembly nearly every country in the world has supported these principles for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict. Every year the Arab League puts forth a peace proposal based on these principles for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Leading human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch have also stated that Israel's siege of Gaza is a form of collective punishment and therefore illegal under international law.

We in the Hamas Government are committed to pursuing a just resolution to the conflict not in contradiction with the international community and enlightened opinion as expressed in the International Court of Justice, the United Nations General Assembly, and leading human rights organizations. We are prepared to engage all parties on the basis of mutual respect and without preconditions.

However, our constituency needs to see a comprehensive paradigm shift that not only commences with lifting the siege on Gaza and halts all settlement building and expansion but develops into a policy of evenhandedness based on the very international law and norms we are prodded into adhering to.

Again, we welcome you to Gaza which would allow you to see firsthand our ground zero. Furthermore, it would enhance the US position; enabling you to speak with new credibility and authority in dealing with all the parties.

Very Truly Yours,
Dr. Ahmed Yousef
Deputy of the Foreign Affairs Ministry
Former Senior Political Advisor
to Prime Minister Ismael Hanniya

Sadistic . . . violent . . . inhuman.

The US really has lost it.

There are those who clearly see the whole abuse of prisoners thing for what it is: Sadistic, violent, inhuman behaviour that is utterly beyond the pale - FULL STOP! - The problem is that the facts are so unacceptable to the self-image of Jane and and Jo sixpack and their 'Mom-an-apple-pie' Real America, that it can no more be squarely faced than can the implications of 911 truth or the murders of JFK, and MLK.

The result?

Outrage - absolute OUTRAGE. But not at the relentless systematic torture and abuse of prisoners, rather, at the prospect of further evidence of it being released in the form of official photos and videos. A sort of 'kill-the-messenger' syndrome with a twist.

So what does shiny new President 'Change you can believe in' Obama do? why cave in to the outrage and keep them under lock and key - naturally. Which is simply further confirmation of the horrific, obscene depravity of it all.

This in reply to a question about them at an ACLU convention from Seymour Hersh:

“Some of the worse that happened that you don’t know about, ok? Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men … . The women were passing messages saying ‘Please come and kill me, because of what’s happened. Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has"

Meanwhile that reptile Cheyney is touring the studios explaining how torture 'saved American Lives' , which bad as it is, is not the half of it. It seems that it's first persistent use was aimed entirely at establishing a link between Saddam Hussain and Al Qaida to justify the invasion of Iraq. And that is EXACTLY what it did - falsely - with the 'confession' of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi who finally died in his Libyan prison last week. A confession used by Colin Powell in his infamous pre-invasion address to the UN

as Paul Krugman says in today's New York Times:

Let’s say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the non-existent link. There’s a word for this: it’s evil.