Some Links – Jan 22 – Moon of Alabama

January 22, 2011

Some Links – Jan 22

Why China Does Capitalism Better than the U.S. – Tony Karon

EU foreign policy across Arab world faces upheaval – Deutsche Welle

The Obama/Bush Foreign Policies: Why Can't America Change? – Seymour Hersh Doha speech transcript – part 1

I don't know how to describe Obama, as somebody who's now in office for two years. Just when we needed an angry black man, we didn't get one. He has a nice dog.

Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America's Wars in the Muslim World – Nir Rosen in a talk about his book – video (1:15h) – recommended

Use as open thread …

Posted by b on January 22, 2011 at 19:22 UTC | Permalink

Comments

We spent a large amount of time considering the aftermath of amerika’s callous attempt to establish hegemony over Iraq. In fact if memory serves that was catalyst for the whiskey bar & the the moon of alabama community.
One of the worst crimes the empire committed was th exacerbate conflict between Shia and Sunni Iraqis. This was done in ever increasing false flag attacks upon the two communities culminating in the 2006 al-Askari Mosque bombing. The destruction of Samarra’s Golden Mosque, one of the holiest shrines for Shia muslims, triggered civil war between Sunni & Shia.
Many of us picked up some superficial knowledge about shi’ite Muslims, their beliefs and their bitter resentment towards Sunni. Patrick Cockburn who had been living in Baghdad from long before amerika invaded, wrote a book on the Shia phenomemnon called “Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq”
I hunted all over the net for it but no one seemed to have a copy, until I ‘tripped over’ one that seems to have fallen off the back of a truck.
I cannot over sell this book which explains more carefully than any other infidel has done exactly how Shia came to be, and why it is that Shia see themselves as perpetually oppressed by Sunni.
The epub:
http://depositfiles.com/files/tseehk4k7
And the pdf:
http://depositfiles.com/files/bs509uegi
Epub to pdf is not a particularly easy conversion. This is not as well formatted as the epub. I recommend getting a copy of the excellent open source ebook app called Calibre, which is freeware and includes a great epub reader amongst many other features as well as straightforward converter between differing ebook formats.
Calibre (in Windows, Apple OSX, and Linux flavours) is available Here

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 23 2011 3:16 utc | 1

Here’s some disturbing news about how our banking system is gobbling up our nation’s wealth like there’s no tomorrow. What’s even more disturbing about this is that just a handful of our banks are doing this. According to Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF, fifteen years ago, the combined assets of our six biggest banks totaled 17 percent of our GDP. By 2006, that number was 55 percent. Right now, it stands at 63 percent!
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/shooting-banks
So, since our too-big-to-fail banks are gobbling up dollars akin to the way that the Great Attractor is gobbling up galaxies, The Great Vampire Squid should be renamed The Great Attractor.;~)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Attractor
And the greatest Vampire Squid of them all should be renamed Shapley Supercluster.;~)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley_Supercluster

Posted by: Cynthia | Jan 23 2011 11:31 utc | 2

b, what’s your view on the latest Sudanese referendum?

Posted by: Anthony | Jan 23 2011 17:45 utc | 3

b, what’s your view on the latest Sudanese referendum?

Posted by: Anthony | Jan 23 2011 17:45 utc | 4

@Anthony – hmm – no complete view yet.
– I do not believe any vote result that is 98%
– The real conditions for separation still have to be negotiated
– The problem of Abyei will likely result in a local small war
– USrael is creating this new state that will be a failed state from the start
– Kenia and Uganda Ethiopia already want parts of it – expect a lot of small border wars around it in the medium term
– The Arabs in Sudan will see this as a big loss and Bashir is responsible for it – there will be consequences for him – whoever follows him will try to get the south back

Posted by: b | Jan 23 2011 18:34 utc | 5

meanwhile, darfur is apparently forgotten… unless this separation is seen as a step towards militarizing south sudan and driving the arabs out of darfur and wherever else.
the problem remains: how do you get the oil out of southern sudan without building another pipeline through ethiopia or kenya? …in view of the fact that the pipeline, for most of its length, runs through north sudan?
what will the chinese do? …or was the chinese oil operation, right in the middle of this mess, only another move to make israeli america show its hand?
something like 5% of china’s imports come from sudan, not that critical unless the chinese want to make a point.

Posted by: flickervertigo | Jan 23 2011 19:26 utc | 6

Some times, I just want to turn the volume up to ten and scream these lyrics to the top of my lungs…
Mostly, because I knew Jeff, I saw him three nights before he drown… and I know what this song represented for him…
If you listen to the lyrics, and feel the passion, you will know what it means too.

Eternal Life (J. Buckley)
Eternal Life is now on my trail
Got my red glitter coffin, man, just need one last nail
While all these ugly gentlemen play out their foolish games
There’s a flaming red horizon that screams our names
And as your fantasies are broken in two
Did you really think this bloody road would
Pave the way for you?
You better turn around
and blow your kiss hello to life eternal, angel
Race is everyman, what have you done?
Man, you’ve made a killer of your only son…
Crown my fear your king at the point of a gun
All I want to do is love everyone…
And as your fantasies are broken in two
Did you really think this bloody road would Pave the way for you?
You better turn around
and blow your kiss hello to life eternal….
There’s no time for hatred, only questions
What is love, where is happiness, what is Life, where is peace?
When will I find the strength to bring me release?
And tell me where is the love in what your prophet has said?
Man, It sounds to me just like a prison for the walking dead
And I’ve got a message for you and your twisted hate
You better turn around and blow your kiss goodbye to life eternal …

Eternal Life – Jeff Buckley

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 23 2011 22:52 utc | 7

Anybody surprised…?
Israeli soldiers fired at Gaza aid flotilla in self-defence, says inquiry…
Here’s a particularly obnoxious snippet…

…”Overall, the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] personnel acted professionally in the face of extensive and unanticipated violence,” it concluded.
It said the IDF’s interception and capture of the vessels in the flotilla conformed with international law. The military’s use of force also complied with international law in 127 cases, said the report. There were six cases that were inconclusive.
Activists on board the vessels said the Israeli military initiated the violence and used disproportionate force in the ensuing battle.

Posted by: CTuttle | Jan 23 2011 23:07 utc | 8

Here is something that should make any decent human being spew. The GRauniad has just published what it brags are Palestine Papers which it claims will “Blow the lid off the spurious peace process”.
The papers reveal exactly how desperate the corrupt and quisling Fatah went to sell Palestine down the river to the zionist-amerikan invaders in a forlorn attempt to stay relevant Fatah sold out their people’s birthright, yet Israel spurned them and asked for more, believing they can get the entire Jordan Valley for free.

Palestinian negotiators secretly agreed to allow Israel to annex all but one of the settlements built in occupied East Jerusalem in the most far-reaching concessions ever made over the bitterly contested city. The offer was turned down by Israel’s then foreign minister as inadequate.
Palestinian Authority leaders also privately discussed giving up part of the flashpoint Arab neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, according to leaked documents. And they proposed a joint committee to take over the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount holy sites in the Old City of Jerusalem – the highly sensitive issue that, along with refugee rights, sank the Camp David talks in 2000 and triggered the second Palestinian intifada.
The unprecedented offer on the East Jerusalem settlements, made in May 2008, is revealed in confidential Palestinian records of negotiations with Israel in the year before the Gaza war of 2008-09.

The zionist pigs knocked this offer a back – a move which they will eventually come to regret rue, because these revelations are the final nail in the coffin of the post Arafat PLO, and are proof to the rest of the world of israeli-amerikan duplicity.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 24 2011 0:02 utc | 9

From a ‘Palestinian Paper sub- titled PLO leaders weak and increasingly desperate it says

But as the 2007-08 Annapolis negotiations led nowhere and the government of Binyamin Netanyahu successfully resisted US pressure to halt settlement building in the occupied territories during 2009-10, Palestinian negotiators are shown adopting an increasingly injured and despairing tone with US officials, as they seek to demonstrate the scale of concessions they have made to no avail.
In an emotional – and apparently humiliating – outburst to Barack Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in Washington in October 2009, the senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat complained that the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership wasn’t even being offered a “figleaf”.
He said: “Nineteen years of promises and you haven’t made up your minds what you want to do with us … We delivered on our road map obligations. Even Yuval Diskin [director of Israel’s internal security service, Shabak] raises his hat on security. But no, they can’t even give a six-month freeze to give me a figleaf.”
All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was “PR, quick news, and we’re cost free”, ending up with the appeal: “What good am I if I’m the joke of my wife, if I’m so weak?”

What good am I if I’m the joke of my wife, if I’m so weak? None cobber, now get off your knees and start fighting!
The amerikans won’t be able to maintain the farce any longer in the face of these revelations, well not unless they are allowed to. We must all ensure these reports from 10 years of failed ‘peace’ talks are widely read & understood.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 24 2011 0:25 utc | 10

It gets worse
A cache of thousands of pages of confidential Palestinian records covering more than a decade of negotiations with Israel and the US has been obtained by al-Jazeera TV and shared exclusively with the Guardian. The papers provide an extraordinary and vivid insight into the disintegration of the 20-year peace process, which is now regarded as all but dead.
The documents – many of which will be published by the Guardian over the coming days – also reveal:
• The scale of confidential concessions offered by Palestinian negotiators, including on the highly sensitive issue of the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
• How Israeli leaders privately asked for some Arab citizens to be transferred to a new Palestinian state.
• The intimate level of covert co-operation between Israeli security forces and the Palestinian Authority.
• The central role of British intelligence in drawing up a secret plan to crush Hamas in the Palestinian territories.
• How Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders were privately tipped off about Israel’s 2008-9 war in Gaza.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 24 2011 0:34 utc | 11

“The Guardian’s coverage is supplemented by WikiLeaks cables, emanating from the US consulate in Jerusalem and embassy in Tel Aviv. Israeli officials also kept their own records of the talks, which may differ from the confidential Palestinian accounts.”
This at least partially explains why the wikileaks cables weren’t released immediately – these other papers have apparently been in the pipleine for a while. What it doesn’t do is tell us why the Guardian turned on Assange like a rabid dog as soon as the kitchen heated up a little.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 24 2011 0:42 utc | 12

Ha’aretz is saying…
Two decades of secret Israeli-Palestinian accords leaked to media worldwide
Al-Jazeera TV begins leaking 1,600 secret documents: PA agreed to concede almost all of East Jerusalem to Israel, accept Israeli demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Posted by: CTuttle | Jan 24 2011 0:54 utc | 13

This from Ha’aretz must surely be the end of Abbas, incidentally whose term as Palestinian president expired in 2009:

Moreover, Al-Jazeera revealed that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was personally notified by a senior Israeli official that Israel was planning an attack on the Gaza Strip, the night before Operation Cast Lead. Israeli and Palestinian officials reportedly discussed targeted assassinations of Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists in Gaza.

Abbas conspired with israel to assassinate the democratically elected leaders of the Palestinain Authority! If that isn’t treason I don’t know what could be. Lets not forget his role in the murder of Yassir Arafat either. The man must be held accountable for his treason.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 24 2011 1:45 utc | 14

What Might Be Lurking in WikiLeaks’ “Thermonuclear Device”?
Damn interesting article here, worth the read. Looking like 2011, might turn out to be the ‘year of the leak’. if nothing else, maybe it will have started a domino effect…
thanks for the I/P links guys.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 24 2011 7:50 utc | 15

speaking of thermonuclear devices…
none of this israeli/palestinian business makes any sense to me, unless the israeli leadership is in on the looting capers, and/or is setting up some kind of new holocaust, seeing as how the old holocaust is getting so raggedy… all of this working on the assumption that israeli leadership realizes that israel was a horrible mistake, and they’ve got to figure out some way to rehab jews’ reputations while getting rid of israel.
pretty farfetched.
anyhow, a nuke false flag attack on israel, blamed on oily muslims, seems to the most logical thing to happen… if …whoever… could get away with it –which is why that new york times article about “delining nuclear forensic capability” makes me antsy.
the “whoever” is the sticky part…
if the israeli leadership is as stupid and obstinate and as dedicated to israel as they appear to be, does that disqualify them as suspects for nuking themselves?
and whatever happened to bechtel, which seemed to be running the reagan administration?

Posted by: flickervertigo | Jan 24 2011 8:41 utc | 16

isnt that how it works? if you think of the worst thing that can happen in advance of it happening, it wont happen?
…because something even worse than you worst imaginings will happen?

Posted by: flickervertigo | Jan 24 2011 8:48 utc | 17

False flag nuclear attack?
Hmmm…
I’m reading Glen Canyon, A Novel, by a Steven Hannon. I was given the book by a buddy, who probably just thought he was giving me a rafting story, at least that’s what I’m hoping it is. He might have given me the book because of the discussions of Iran, Israel and loose eastern European tactical nukes… but I hope not. I wouldn’t want to think he was a snake in the grass, trying to fill my head with bullfeces propaganda, because funny enough, that’s what this book is full of.
It has a 1997 copyright, and if full of pro-Israeli crap, as well as crap about our invasion of Iraq (maybe that could be considered pro-Israeli too?) I don’t like to handwrite notes in books – not even those workbook things that you’re supposed to write in – but I couldn’t resist ‘correcting’ the author who seems to have an axe to grind with Iraq. Funny how on a left hand page of the book he has a character talking about how dangerous Saddam’s nuclear weapons program was… and on the facing right-side page the same character is talking about how far from an actual weapon Iraq was… well, which is it turdbreath?
History keeps repeating, and the folks who have their craniums welded inside their sphincters won’t see the forest for the trees… honestly what can we do?
Propaganda and baldfaced lies are what passes as ‘information’ and ‘fact’. The question I ask myself when reading books like the above is: Dose the author know he is regurgitating lies, or is he just a victim of propaganda himself?
Another odd little tidbit about the book is that it’s about a couple of nuclear weapons scientist, one from the USSR and one from the U.S., who hatch a plan to use a small nuke as a way to move non-proliferation work foreword. At least that’s what has happened up to this point… I’ve still have a couple of hundred more wordy pages to wade thru. Some authors can write a LeCarr novel, full of them bragging about their intimate, obscure knowledge on several subjects and not seem like a pompous ass, but unfortunately, Mr Hammon isn’t one of them 🙂
Peace

Posted by: DaveS | Jan 24 2011 16:07 utc | 18

so you’re late for work, have to stop at the supermarket to buy something for lunch, knowing that you’ll be stuck on a mountaintop all day as the helitack crew is cutting brush or clearing trails out in the weeds.
so you pick a book off the supermarket rack without skimming it much, and it’s the only thing you’ll have to read all day… and you get three pages into it and discover it’s unreadable.
that’s despair… that’s the worst thing that could happen.

Posted by: flickervertigo | Jan 24 2011 16:40 utc | 19

@DaveS – just in case you’re not familiar w/ these – the online site for eliot porter’s glen canyon portfolio

Posted by: b real | Jan 24 2011 18:20 utc | 20

b real-
Thanks for those… I hadn’t seen that page, which might surprise those who know what a rafting freak I’ve become. I like to forget those things I’ll never see. But I suppose there is hope, dams aren’t forever, who knows what the future will bring?
Those are some spectacular images. I’ve been blessed to have met both Bruce Berger and Katie Lee who may have been the last folks to float Glen Canyon before the gates of that damn dam were shut.
Katie is quite a character… amazing moment when she was showing the small group I was part of a few 2.25 inch slides of her laying naked on rocks in Glen Canyon back in 1963. Now she is near 90, or maybe even beyond, and is still full of piss and vinegar. What a woman!
Thanks again and peace all

Posted by: DaveS | Jan 24 2011 23:42 utc | 21

Egypt gets its Tiananmen Square moment

Posted by: Rick Happ | Jan 26 2011 1:35 utc | 22

A+

Posted by: Rick Happ | Jan 26 2011 4:06 utc | 23

Al Jazeera Twitter latest Snapshot (browser screen “cut & paste”, early morning Jan 26 in Cairo
Al Jazeera staff follow the latest developments in the deadly January 25 anti-government protests.
Last Modified: 25 Jan 2011 23:23 GMT
adamakary Christ all mighty, another FOUR rubber coated steal bullets found in our cameraman’s stomach, total now brought to 11 #jan25 @Dima_Khatib
3 hours ago · reply
adamakary Hospital ambulance workers telling me they can’t remember the last time they’ve worked so hard. Echoes of chanting still in my head #jan25
3 hours ago · reply
adamakary Tahrir is empty, not a soul present #jan25 #egypt via @LaraGibaly
3 hours ago · reply
adamakary A SEVENTH rubber coated steal bullet found in our freelance cameraman’s head #jan25 #egypt
3 hours ago · reply
adamakary No surgeon to operate on our freelance camera, he might have to stay overnight, nice job emergency law #jan25
3 hours ago · reply
adamakary SIX rubber coated steal bullet are lodged in both of our freelance cameraman’s arms, seeing the xray now #jan25 #egypt @Dima_Khatib
3 hours ago · reply
adamakary Freelance cameraman Bilal being x-ray’d to see how many rubber coated steal bullets the doctors need to remove #jan25 #egypt
4 hours ago · reply
adamakary Guess those pro-mubarak protesters knew they couldn’t stand a chance tonight #jan25 #egpypt
4 hours ago · reply
adamakary Just heard that friend and blogger mohamed abdelfattah @mfatta7 arrested and beaten up in alexandria, I can’t reach him #jan25 #egypt
4 hours ago · reply
adamakary Now a third protester has died #jan25 #egypt
4 hours ago · reply
adamakary Still, shots of tear gas being heard throughout #cairo, people still chanting down with mubarak #jan25
4 hours ago · reply
adamakary Roads are blocked all over cairo, protests are still going on, people are hysterical, some screaming “the country is on fire” #egypt #jan25
4 hours ago · reply
adamakary Our freelance cameramans arm is in serious pain but he only cares the footage gets out-whtevr the govt didnt want us to film we filmed it
4 hours ago · reply
adamakary Some people were left behind in tahrir, they couldn’t pick up enough speed to beat the riot police, then thugs came out #jan25 #egypt
4 hours ago · reply
evanchill AJE Staff tweets from tonight viewable here http://ow.ly/3KcHq #jan25
4 hours ago · reply

Posted by: Rick Happ | Jan 26 2011 4:41 utc | 24

This dispatch from Bangkok may be of minor importance, and I certainly don’t claim to understand its broader context, but there seems to be something of interest going on. Clarification by better informed barflies would be appreciated.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 26 2011 7:53 utc | 25

Long term CIA involvement with drug trafficking is well known. These two related links are of interest for indication of how other probably undesired complicity has arisen. It is, of course, the magic invisible hand of the free market at work once again.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 26 2011 9:09 utc | 26

These young will not forget, they will not be stopped.
Oh how I wish that Americans had this much enthusiasm.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Jan 26 2011 18:22 utc | 27

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