BARRY CHAMISH.COM
NATAN SHARANSKY THE LIAR
I was contacted by two distinguished Russian-Israelis last week, (Jan. 05). First, the respected journalist Effie Maideneck made a pitch to me to investigate the harassment of a "truthseeker like me," Dr. Yuli Nudelman. Then I was honored with three e-mails from the revered former Prisoner of Zion, Ida Nudel. She also wrote, "Yuli needs help." (Mrs. Nudel's correspondence will follow this article).
Dr. Yuli Nudelman is the former chief surgeon of Rambam Hospital. In the 1960s he was a leader of the movement to allow Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel. When the Soviets released him, he quickly made his mark in Israel as a major in the IDF, awarded for his battlefield surgery, then as a crusader against local medical corruption. He was a columnist for the left wing crusading newsmagazine HaOlam HaZeh and later the author of two powerful books exposing serious malpractice in the Israeli medical system.
In 1999 he released a book in Hebrew and Russian called, Sharansky Unmasked. Within, he claimed that Natan Sharansky, then Housing Minister, was a longtime KGB agent with deep ties to the worldwide Russian mafia. Soon after its release, Sharansky sued Dr. Nudelman for libel and the Jerusalem district court ruled that he had to pay Sharansky the unheard of compensation of nearly $200,000. This was widely acknowledged as a precedent aimed at restricting the most basic rights of freedom of expression. Dr. Nudelman's brother Boris was also his partner in the Sharansky research project and he died, overcome by the injustice of the trial.
On Jan. 20, Dr. Nudelman met me at my home for an intense interview. He also gave me his book on Sharansky and a thick stack of evidence which left me convinced of the veracity of his claims. I warn my readers that you will find the following report discouraging. However, I have long warned that the leadership of the Jewish people has been thoroughly infiltrated by frauds and criminals claiming they are working on our behalf. That Sharansky is just another crook serving ugly interests should not come as that much of a surprise.
Before presenting the quite shocking evidence, we begin with my interview of Dr. Nudelman: YN - In 1962, the KGB initiated a program of dissidence against the Soviet Union. By running the dissident groups, it could control the various factions which were dissatisfied with Soviet repression and later utilize the leaders as agents in the West. They were known as, spies of influence. By appearing to be anti-Soviet they were welcomed abroad and trusted. They could worm themselves into the top echelons of foreign governments. Sharansky was one of these agents, and possibly the most successful.
BC - But wasn't he a Zionist leader in the Soviet Union? Didn't he spend eight years in prison for his activities?
YN - He was never a leader. He was unknown to most of us until the Western media turned him into a hero. He supposedly spent seven years in jail and one year in a prison camp. No one saw him in jail except Mendelevich, and he claims he only saw his eyes through a peephole. Understand this, there is not one witness to him sitting in jail. He spent a year in a prison camp as a hut commander. That was the position given to KGB informers.
BC - But what about his wife Avital, who fought for his freedom in Israel?
YN - All a KGB show, like her supposed conversion to Judaism in 1974. She is from a family of spies. Her brother Michael was sent to Washington to infiltrate the CIA. He got into trouble there and fled to Israel. Not long after he arrived, he was poisoned to death at age 44.
BC - What was the point of this charade surrounding Sharansky?
YN - He infiltrated Israel as a worldwide hero. Remember, he got here through a spy exchange, not simply released from prison and allowed to leave like all the rest of us. Within a few years he was living in a $1.5 million dollar home. Where did he get that kind of money? Next, he was in the government cabinet. Now he's really useful. When the powers that run America want Netanyahu to withdraw from Judea and Samaria, who do they send to the Wye plantation? Their agents Sharon and Sharansky. When the same powers seek a justification for attacking Afghanistan and Iraq, who do they turn to but the trusted Sharansky. Just last week Condoleeza Rice called Sharansky the father of the movement to turn the Middle East democratic. When Putin is condemned worldwide for the slaughter in Chechnya, who comes to his rescue but Sharansky. Incidentally, that turned out to be a big mistake for Sharansky.
BC - Why?
YN - Because after my book was published, he called in his chips. He asked Putin to release his whole KGB file to him so no one could ever see it. Then he released on the Internet the parts of the file he thought would serve him best. He chose the wrong files to release because they revealed what we all knew. During his interrogation and trial in 1977-8, Sharansky gave the KGB a long list of Jewish activists. It was during his trial that the witch hunt against us began in earnest. Dozens of Jewish activists were arrested, some beaten severely. Sharansky was nothing but a dirty little snitch.
These are serious allegations. Now we look at the evidence, much of which comes from the protocols of Nudelman's trial. What stands out is that a Who's Who of former Soviet Jewish activists testified on Nudelman's behalf, whereas not one witness except his wife, testified for Sharansky. He could find not even one witness who knew him from prison and who saw his bravery in action.
SHARANSKY THE SNITCH
Deposition to Judge Zvi Segal, Jerusalem District Court from Ida Nudel
I testify, as a former citizen of the USSR, grown and educated under a totalitarian regime persecuting any dissent, that Mr. Sharansky's behaviour during investigation resulted in the profound suffering of several people who were subjected to additional persecutions because the KGB's attention to them had been drawn by Mr. Sharansky's thirty-three page request to the chief investigator of his case, Col. V.I. Volodin...
An attentive reader, provided he is a former Soviet Citizen with an experience of conflict with the KGB, is struck by the difference between Sharansky"s description of his imprisonment in jails and camps on the one hand, and the personal experiences of many people, on the other hand...
Mr. Sharansky disregarded the ethical norms of the group with which he identified and based his defence on requesting the KGB investigators to interrogate activists and participants of the emigration movement...Upon completion of his case investigation, the KGB decided, on January 12 and 18, 1978 to open additional cases against 33 activists of the Jewish emigration movement. Six Jews from the list were arrested and sentenced to long prison terms: G. Goldshtein, L. Volvosky, B. Chernobylsky, V. Slepak, M. Slepak and I. Nudel.
Press Release from Vadim Rotenberg, Professor of Human Psychology, Tel Aviv University, 18/08/02
According to my personal experience, Mr. Sharansky has surrounded himself in Israel with cynical and dirty persons without moral values and mafia-like mentality and behaviour...
Some official documents presented to the court confirmed that Mr. Sharansky really collaborated with the KGB inquest and mentioned some names of refuseniks, afterward punished.
Letter Of Appeal submitted to Supreme Court Of Israel by attorney Yoram Mushkat
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister Of Housing And Construction Natan Sharansky, had passed to the KGB interrogators the names of aliya activists and other Jews who tried to emigrate to Israel, and even requested the KGB interrogators to investigate them and study the files of tens of refuseniks all across the USSR who tried to emigrate to Israel at that time.
Contrary to his image as a prisoner of Zion who heroically struggled against the KGB, Sharansky betrayed his comrades, the aliyah activists and other Jews who tried to emigrate to Israel...
It was due to the exposure of Sharansky's, "Request Of Solicitation," that Prisoners of Zion, Ms. Ida Nudel, and Prof. Kislek (who was severely beaten after Sharansky requested he be investigated) understood why the KGB made hundreds of arrests of Jews after Sharansky's arrest and trial. This also explains why later in prison camp, Sharansky was appointed a dnyevalny, a ward orderly - a job reserved for informers and collaborators...
Despite the public standing of Minister Sharansky, and the grim matters exposed in court, not a single person came to testify in his favor.
Appeal to Prof. Elyakim Rubinstein, Attorney General of the State of Israel.
We, the undersigned, former Prisoners Of Zion, aliyah activists, and refuseniks are appealing to you in regard to a situation compromising state security in light of facts brought out in the suit of Sharansky vs. Nudelman. We have arrived at the following conclusions:
Sharansky had created his famous image based on a false myth concerning both his activities in the USSR and his "prominent" role in the Zionist movement, and his "heroic" deeds in prison. Some details of his camp life as written is his book do not look like the real ones we actually encountered in the labor camps.
In the initial stage of the hearings, Sharansky testified that he had never mentioned any names of people involved in Zionist activities while interrogated by the KGB. However, after being shown in the courtroom the KGB archive documents, he changed his testimony, claiming that while he had indeed given the names of aliyah activists, he did so, "to assure that the names should remain in the KGB archives for future use by historians."
We believe that Sharansky is not the person he is trying to picture and will pay for him to undergo a lie detector test to establish the facts.
Citizens of the State of Israel:
Michael Babel, Ilya Voitovestsky, Arye Vudka, Yigael Yehudi, Dr. Felix Kochubievsky, Eduard Kuznetsov, Silva Zalmanson, Ephraim Melamed, Yehudit Yehudi-Nepomniaschchi, Meir Nepomniaschi, advocate Jacov Maniovich, Ida Nudel, Dr. Victor Ben Zvi (Polsky), Prof. Vadim Rotenberg, Jakov Segal.
NATAN OF THE MAFIA
Appeal To The Attorney General, Babel et al:
In the courtroom Sharansky categorically denied receiving $100,000 from Grigory Luchansky, while the latter confirmed under oath to giving Sharansky the money and gave the bank account account that Sharansky asked the money be transferred to.
Affidavit of Grigori Luchansky, Presented To Jerusalem District Court I have met Israeli Minister Natan Sharansky about five times in Israel and abroad. Mr. Sharansky asked me for a contribution and I agreed to contribute the sum to an association whose account was in Bank Hapoalim.
Haaretz, Akiva Eldar, 14/3/02
Kutzenov added that Luchansky complained to him that, "Sharansky promised to help get him a passport, got money, but did nothing. Later in 1996, I asked Sharansky why he didn't help Luchansky. Sharansky said he can't help him since Luchansky appears in first place on a CIA list of members of the Russian mafia."
Either Luchansky signed a false affidavit or Sharansky committed perjury.
Haaretz 12.3/04
Gavriella's car was discovered after he went to Grigori Lerner's office where he met with Sofa Landver, formerly a Labor Party member of the Knesset. Lerner was convicted on three attempts to bribe elected officials...His arrest in 1997 dragged a parade of politicians to the National Unit For Serious And International Crime Investigations including Natan Sharansky, who received a $100,000 contribution from Lerner, and Labour MK Shimon Peres, who had promoted the career of Sofa Landver from being his Russian teacher to being a Knesset member...
From, How The Russian Mob Has Invaded America, Robert I. Friedman, Liberty Books
One politician already ensnared in the web of organized crime is Russian-born Natan Sharansky...Sharansky has publicly admitted that his party has accepted contributions from NORDEX president Grigori Luchansky. Officials from the US Congress, the State Department, and the CIA pleaded with Sharansky to sever his ties to Luchansky. Says Winer, "We told him about Luchansky's MO: bribery, influence peddling and that he was a bridge between governments and organized crime." Sharansky simply refused.
In March, 2004, Sharansky took personal responsibility for securing the release of Jonathan Pollard, and wangled a law giving him 4.5 million shekels a year until Pollard's release. Pollard was not amused. On March 11.04 Pollard wrote Sharansky:
I am stunned that you have authored a bill that legislates political lassitude and financial corruption. As head of the committee to secure my release, it was your job to know about this law and do exactly that - secure my release - not provide additional funds for your office.
Jerusalem Post 12/5/04 - Zelda Harris
I was in Moscow in 1977 when Sharansky was arrested and was partly responsible for bringing out legal documents to be used in his campaign for freedom. Now I feel it is time to say it like it is: I do not believe Sharansky was a sincere human rights activist. He used the platform to gain stardom at a time when Western eyes were focused on the Soviet Union. Once he got here, his lack of support from olim who had been his former compatriots showed what he really was: a self-seeker.
END
The former Jewish activists of the Soviet Union fought to live in a Jewish democracy. Today, too many realize they traded one dictatorship for another, more subtle one. The following letter from former Prisoner Of Zion, Ida Nudel, expresses this frustration and disappointment.
Dear Mr. Chamish, First of all, let me thank you for permitting to use your Internet address. I admire the courage of your challenging the political monopoly in our country and unveiling their secrets, deals and misdeeds. Your project Very Uncivil Obedience has raised my reminiscences of not-so-old personal experience of civil disobedience that was practiced by Soviet Jewish and other citizens in the 1970s. I would be most grateful if you could devote a bit of your time to my thoughts about your protest.
Having lived in Israel for 17 years, I cannot imagine people that might come forward and start the action at the level being proposed by you. You are actually appealing to intellectuals and businessmen the category of population that is most conservative when a risk is involved of loosing their social privileges. Something would probably become known on the fate of 34 officers who signed a protest letter. I very much fear that most of them will be morally broken and humiliated in a most primitive manner, and their dignity will be wrecked. Those who would prove stauncher if any will also pay for that wonderful day when they behaved like free citizens. I’ve come to Israel from a totalitarian country but with an experience of a citizen perceiving my personal responsibility to the society in which I live. I cannot help but to compare the moral and social environment and the unwritten laws of my both societies the past and the present. I’m sorry to say that the moral spirit and the cynical bureaucratic attitude towards the population in the Jewish land have little difference from the Bolshevik regime.
The fact that anybody can freely leave Israel makes it possible for the bureaucracy to conceal its Bolshevik character. Instead of being put in prisons and psychiatric hospitals as it was done in the USSR, the dissidents just leave the society and the country in the care of their more passive compatriots. The people are living in a fear of the omnipotent bureaucracy and realizing their complete helplessness against it. When talking to simple people, I hear it far too often: Whatever I could do I’ve done: my children live in America! With regard to demonstrations, I share your doubts as to the sincerity of the settlement leaders beyond the “green line”. They’re civil servants and encounter serious personal problems when challenging their employer the state. On the other hand, the youth participation in the demonstrations contributes to the development of their self-consciousness and of their perception of themselves as something more than merely toy soldiers. The passive and voiceless intellectuals are clones of their Soviet counterparts.
I am heading a small voluntary organization that works for the prevention of asocial behavior among new immigrant schoolchildren in the “developing towns” of the Negev region, and have gained an experience of dealing with the local municipal establishment. It is clear to me beyond any doubt how far is our society from a real democracy. It may rather be described as a two-faced creature whose outside-looking face is that of Western-style diplomats and scientists, while the inside looking one has all the features of a lazy and corrupt Turkish colonial official… Should your idea of disobedience be first implemented outside Israel, than some Israeli version might probably emerge. But who would help your great idea to materialize? Maybe Christian Zionists? The idea of a Jewish state isn’t too popular with the free world’s Jews, it causes them such a headache. With sincere wishes for your success and good health,
Ida Nudel 13/01/05
Friday, 28 October 2005
Thursday, 27 October 2005
us gov office confirms stolen election
Powerful Government Accounting Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
October 26, 2005
As a legal noose appears to be tightening around the Bush/Cheney/Rove inner circle, a shocking government report shows the floor under the legitimacy of their alleged election to the White House is crumbling.
The latest critical confirmation of key indicators that the election of 2004 was stolen comes in an extremely powerful, penetrating report from the General Accounting Office that has gotten virtually no mainstream media coverage.
The government's lead investigative agency is known for its general incorruptibility and its through, in-depth analyses. Its concurrence with assertions widely dismissed as "conspiracy theories" adds crucial new weight to the case that Team Bush has no legitimate business being in the White House.
Nearly a year ago, senior Judiciary Committee Democrat John Conyers (D-MI) asked the GAO to investigate electronic voting machines as they were used during the November 2, 2004 presidential election. The request came amidst widespread complaints in Ohio and elsewhere that often shocking irregularities defined their performance.
According to CNN, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee received "more than 57,000 complaints" following Bush's alleged re-election. Many such concerns were memorialized under oath in a series of sworn statements and affidavits in public hearings and investigations conducted in Ohio by the Free Press and other election protection organizations.
The non-partisan GAO report has now found that, "some of [the] concerns about electronic voting machines have been realized and have caused problems with recent elections, resulting in the loss and miscount of votes."
The United States is the only major democracy that allows private partisan corporations to secretly count and tabulate the votes with proprietary non-transparent software. Rev. Jesse Jackson, among others, has asserted that "public elections must not be conducted on privately-owned machines." The CEO of one of the most crucial suppliers of electronic voting machines, Warren O'Dell of Diebold, pledged before the 2004 campaign to deliver Ohio and thus the presidency to George W. Bush.
Bush's official margin of victory in Ohio was just 118,775 votes out of more than 5.6 million cast. Election protection advocates argue that O'Dell's statement still stands as a clear sign of an effort, apparently successful, to steal the White House.
Among other things, the GAO confirms that:
1. Some electronic voting machines "did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, thus making it possible to alter them without detection." In other words, the GAO now confirms that electronic voting machines provided an open door to flip an entire vote count. More than 800,000 votes were cast in Ohio on electronic voting machines, some seven times Bush's official margin of victory.
2. "It is easy to alter a file defining how a ballot appears, making it possible for someone to vote for one candidate and actually be recorded as voting for an entirely different candidate." Numerous sworn statements and affidavits assert that this did happen in Ohio 2004.
3. "Falsifying election results without leaving any evidence of such an action by using altered memory cards" can easily be done, according to the GAO.
4. The GAO also confirms that "access to the voting network was easily compromised because not all digital recording electronic voting systems (DREs) had supervisory functions password-protected, so access to one machine provided access to the whole network." This critical finding confirms that rigging the 2004 vote did not require a "widespread conspiracy" but rather the cooperation of a very small number of operatives with the power to tap into the networked machines and thus change large numbers of votes at will. With 800,000 votes cast on electronic machines in Ohio, flipping the number needed to give Bush 118,775 could be easily done by just one programmer.
5. Access "to the voting network was also compromised by repeated use of the same user IDs combined with easily guessed passwords," says the GAO. So even relatively amateur hackers could have gained access to and altered the Ohio vote tallies.
6. "The locks protecting access to the system were easily picked and keys were simple to copy," says the GAO, meaning, again, getting into the system was an easy matter.
7. "One DRE model was shown to have been networked in such a rudimentary fashion that a power failure on one machine would cause the entire network to fail," says the GAO, re-emphasizing the fragility of the system on which the Presidency of the United States was decided.
8. "GAO identified further problems with the security protocols and background screening practices for vendor personnel," confirming still more easy access to the system.
In essence, the GAO study makes it clear that no bank, grocery store or mom & pop chop shop would dare operate its business on a computer system as flimsy, fragile and easily manipulated as the one on which the 2004 election turned.
The GAO findings are particularly damning when set in the context of an election run in Ohio by a Secretary of State simultaneously working as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign. Far from what election theft skeptics have long asserted, the GAO findings confirm that the electronic network on which 800,000 Ohio votes were cast was vulnerable enough to allow a a tiny handful of operatives -- or less -- to turn the whole vote count using personal computers operating on relatively simple software.
The GAO documentation flows alongside other crucial realities surrounding the 2004 vote count. For example:
The exit polls showed Kerry winning in Ohio, until an unexplained last minute shift gave the election to Bush. Similar definitive shifts also occurred in Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico, a virtual statistical impossibility.
A few weeks prior to the election, an unauthorized former ES&S voting machine company employee, was caught on the ballot-making machine in Auglaize County
Election officials in Mahoning County now concede that at least 18 machines visibly transferred votes for Kerry to Bush. Voters who pushed Kerry's name saw Bush's name light up, again and again, all day long. Officials claim the problems were quickly solved, but sworn statements and affidavits say otherwise. They confirm similar problems in Franklin County (Columbus). Kerry's margins in both counties were suspiciously low.
A voting machine in Mahoning County recorded a negative 25 million votes for Kerry. The problem was allegedly fixed.
In Gahanna Ward 1B, at a fundamentalist church, a so-called "electronic transfer glitch" gave Bush nearly 4000 extra votes when only 638 people voted at that polling place. The tally was allegedly corrected, but remains infamous as the "loaves and fishes" vote count.
In Franklin County, dozens of voters swore under oath that their vote for Kerry faded away on the DRE without a paper trail.
In Miami County, at 1:43am after Election Day, with the county's central tabulator reporting 100% of the vote - 19,000 more votes mysteriously arrived; 13,000 were for Bush at the same percentage as prior to the additional votes, a virtual statistical impossibility.
In Cleveland, large, entirely implausible vote totals turned up for obscure third party candidates in traditional Democratic African-American wards. Vote counts in neighboring wards showed virtually no votes for those candidates, with 90% going instead for Kerry.
Prior to one of Blackwell's illegitimate "show recounts," technicians from Triad voting machine company showed up unannounced at the Hocking County Board of Elections and removed the computer hard drive.
In response to official information requests, Shelby and other counties admit to having discarded key records and equipment before any recount could take place.
In a conference call with Rev. Jackson, Attorney Cliff Arnebeck, Attorney Bob Fitrakis and others, John Kerry confirmed that he lost every precinct in New Mexico that had a touchscreen voting machine. The losses had no correlation with ethnicity, social class or traditional party affiliation---only with the fact that touchscreen machines were used.
In a public letter, Rep. Conyers has stated that "by and large, when it comes to a voting machine, the average voter is getting a lemon - the Ford Pinto of voting technology. We must demand better."
But the GAO report now confirms that electronic voting machines as deployed in 2004 were in fact perfectly engineered to allow a very small number of partisans with minimal computer skills and equipment to shift enough votes to put George W. Bush back in the White House.
Given the growing body of evidence, it appears increasingly clear that's exactly what happened.
--
Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008, available via http://freepress.org and http://harveywasserman.com. Their WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO, with Steve Rosenfeld, will be published in Spring, 2006, by New Press.
Wednesday, 26 October 2005
hariri murder: witness paid to charge syria
Labels:
lebanon,
middle east,
syria
.
http://www.arabmonitor.info/news/dettaglio.php?idnews=11679&lang=en (excerpt)
Central witness to Lebanon leader Hariri's
murder revealed to be a paid swindler
http://www.arabmonitor.info/news/dettaglio.php?idnews=11679&lang=en (excerpt)
Central witness to Lebanon leader Hariri's
murder revealed to be a paid swindler
Hamburg, 22 October 2005
Germany's leading political magazine, 'Der Spiegel', revealed today that the
central witness to the supposed plot to kill Lebanese leader Hariri, was a
dubious person with a criminal record as a convicted felon and swindler. The UN
Commission is raising serious doubts about the reliability and credibility of
Zuheir al-Siddiq's declarations, since the alleged former officer of the Syrian
secret services had in reality been convicted more than once for penal offences
related to money subtraction. (taking bribes.)
The UN investigating Commission is well aware that it had been lied by
Siddiq, since he initially said that he had left Beirut one month before the
assault on al-Hariri, but then later admitted to his direct involvement in the
implementation of the crime. Zuheir al-Siddiq's siblings also revealed that
they had received a phone-call from him from Paris, in late summer, in which
Siddiq announced "I have become a millionaire".
Steve's Note: The Bush Administration is currently asking the UN to
investigate allegations that Syria's president killed Lebanon leader Hairi, and
is seeking UN support for 'punishing' Syria. It is clear that the 'witness' has
been bribed to implicate Syria's president in this crime, when the greater
likelihood is that he attempting to give the U.S. 'justification' for invading
Syria.
central witness to the supposed plot to kill Lebanese leader Hariri, was a
dubious person with a criminal record as a convicted felon and swindler. The UN
Commission is raising serious doubts about the reliability and credibility of
Zuheir al-Siddiq's declarations, since the alleged former officer of the Syrian
secret services had in reality been convicted more than once for penal offences
related to money subtraction. (taking bribes.)
The UN investigating Commission is well aware that it had been lied by
Siddiq, since he initially said that he had left Beirut one month before the
assault on al-Hariri, but then later admitted to his direct involvement in the
implementation of the crime. Zuheir al-Siddiq's siblings also revealed that
they had received a phone-call from him from Paris, in late summer, in which
Siddiq announced "I have become a millionaire".
Steve's Note: The Bush Administration is currently asking the UN to
investigate allegations that Syria's president killed Lebanon leader Hairi, and
is seeking UN support for 'punishing' Syria. It is clear that the 'witness' has
been bribed to implicate Syria's president in this crime, when the greater
likelihood is that he attempting to give the U.S. 'justification' for invading
Syria.
Tuesday, 25 October 2005
21 detainees killed by us army
Labels:
afghanistan,
central asia,
human rights,
iraq,
middle east,
torture,
us,
war crime
.
Associated Press via WKRC-TV (Cincinatti, Ohio)
Analysis finds 21 homicides among deaths of U.S. prisoners overseas
LAST UPDATE: 10/24/2005 8:59:10 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) - At least 21 detainees who died while being held in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan were killed, many during or after interrogations, according to an analysis of Defense Department data by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The analysis, released Monday, looked at 44 deaths described in records obtained by the ACLU. Of those, the group characterized 21 as homicides, and said at least eight resulted from abusive techniques by military or intelligence officers, such as strangulation or "blunt force injuries," as noted in the autopsy reports.
The 44 deaths represent a partial group of the total number of prisoners who have died in U.S. custody overseas; more than 100 have died of natural and violent causes.
In one case, the report said, a detainee died after being smothered during interrogation by military intelligence officers in November 2003. In another case cited by the report, a prisoner died of asphyxiation and blunt force injuries after he was left standing, shackled to the top of a door frame, with a gag in his mouth.
One Afghan civilian, believed by the ACLU to be Abdul Wahid, died from "multiple blunt force injuries" in 2003 at a base in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, according to an autopsy report provided by the Defense Department.
Wahid, 28, was taken from his home by Afghan militia and accused of being a terrorist. The autopsy report said he died in American custody, though his father has blamed the militiamen.
The detailed list of prisoners whose deaths the report considered homicides includes two detainees who were beaten and died from "blunt force injuries" at the Bagram Airfield detention center in Afghanistan, according to the autopsies.
Earlier this month, Pfc. Damien M. Corsetti, a military intelligence interrogator with the 519th MI Battalion at Fort Bragg, N.C., became the 15th soldier to face charges since those 2002 deaths.
Details about the detainee abuse and deaths have been released by the Pentagon as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU. Many of the incidents have been made public previously, and in a number of cases soldiers and officers involved have been prosecuted and punished.
"The U.S. military does not tolerate mistreatment of detainees," said Army spokesman Col. Joseph Curtin. "Past cases have been fully investigated. When there is credible evidence, commanders have the prerogative to prosecute."
To date, there have been more than 400 investigations of detainee abuse, and more than 230 military personnel have received a court-martial, nonjudicial punishment or other administrative action.
"There is no question that U.S. interrogations have resulted in deaths," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU's executive director. "High-ranking officials who knew about the torture and sat on their hands and those who created and endorsed these policies must be held accountable."
The data includes detainees who were interrogated by military intelligence, Navy Seals and "Other Governmental Agency" personnel, which generally refers to the CIA.
---
On the Net:
ACLU documents: http://action.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/102405/
Associated Press via WKRC-TV (Cincinatti, Ohio)
Analysis finds 21 homicides among deaths of U.S. prisoners overseas
LAST UPDATE: 10/24/2005 8:59:10 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) - At least 21 detainees who died while being held in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan were killed, many during or after interrogations, according to an analysis of Defense Department data by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The analysis, released Monday, looked at 44 deaths described in records obtained by the ACLU. Of those, the group characterized 21 as homicides, and said at least eight resulted from abusive techniques by military or intelligence officers, such as strangulation or "blunt force injuries," as noted in the autopsy reports.
The 44 deaths represent a partial group of the total number of prisoners who have died in U.S. custody overseas; more than 100 have died of natural and violent causes.
In one case, the report said, a detainee died after being smothered during interrogation by military intelligence officers in November 2003. In another case cited by the report, a prisoner died of asphyxiation and blunt force injuries after he was left standing, shackled to the top of a door frame, with a gag in his mouth.
One Afghan civilian, believed by the ACLU to be Abdul Wahid, died from "multiple blunt force injuries" in 2003 at a base in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, according to an autopsy report provided by the Defense Department.
Wahid, 28, was taken from his home by Afghan militia and accused of being a terrorist. The autopsy report said he died in American custody, though his father has blamed the militiamen.
The detailed list of prisoners whose deaths the report considered homicides includes two detainees who were beaten and died from "blunt force injuries" at the Bagram Airfield detention center in Afghanistan, according to the autopsies.
Earlier this month, Pfc. Damien M. Corsetti, a military intelligence interrogator with the 519th MI Battalion at Fort Bragg, N.C., became the 15th soldier to face charges since those 2002 deaths.
Details about the detainee abuse and deaths have been released by the Pentagon as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU. Many of the incidents have been made public previously, and in a number of cases soldiers and officers involved have been prosecuted and punished.
"The U.S. military does not tolerate mistreatment of detainees," said Army spokesman Col. Joseph Curtin. "Past cases have been fully investigated. When there is credible evidence, commanders have the prerogative to prosecute."
To date, there have been more than 400 investigations of detainee abuse, and more than 230 military personnel have received a court-martial, nonjudicial punishment or other administrative action.
"There is no question that U.S. interrogations have resulted in deaths," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU's executive director. "High-ranking officials who knew about the torture and sat on their hands and those who created and endorsed these policies must be held accountable."
The data includes detainees who were interrogated by military intelligence, Navy Seals and "Other Governmental Agency" personnel, which generally refers to the CIA.
---
On the Net:
ACLU documents: http://action.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/102405/
Sunday, 23 October 2005
torture in guantanamo
Labels:
guantanamo,
human rights,
torture,
us
rense.com
Recently Declassified
Notes Reveal Brutal
Treatment Of Hunger-Striking
Detainees At Guantanamo
Center for Constitutional Rights Contact Mahdis Keshavarz Riptide Communications
10-23-5
"After years in U.S. custody without formal charges or a hearing on the legality of their detention despite a Supreme Court ruling in their favor the hunger-striking detainees at Guantánamo have come to the conclusion that ... "now after four years in captivity, life and death are the same."
NEW YORK - After an emergency court hearing on counsel's right to information regarding the health status and medical treatment of Guantánamo hunger strikers late last week, Julia Tarver, an attorney with the New York City-based law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and cooperating counsel with the Center for Constitutional Rights, sought and obtained public release of her declaration regarding the situation at the Guantánamo facility. Tarver's notes detail interviews she conducted at Guantánamo with her clients, Yousef Al Shehri, Abduhl-Rahman Shalabi, and Majid Al Joudi, who are currently engaged in a hunger strike there. The declassified notes reveal the dire conditions of these men. According to Tarver's declaration:
* Force-feedings resulted in prisoners "vomiting up substantial amounts of blood. When they vomited up blood, the soldiers mocked and cursed at them, and taunted them with statements like 'look what your religion has brought you.'"
* "Large tubes - the thickness of a finger - were viewed by detainees as objects of torture. They were forcibly shoved up the detainees' noses and down into their stomachs. Again, no anesthesia or sedative was provided."
* "[D]etainees were verbally abused and insulted and were restrained from head to toe. They had shackles or other restraints on their arms, legs, waist, chest, knees, and head with these restraints in place, they were given intravenous medication (often quite painfully, as inexperienced medical professionals seemed incapable of locating appropriate veins). Their arms were swollen from multiple attempts to stick them with IV needles If detainees moved, they were hit in the chest/heart."
* "In front of Guantánamo physicians - including the head of the detainee hospital - the guards took NG tubes from one detainee, and with no sanitization whatsoever, reinserted it into the nose of a different detainee. When these tubes were reinserted, the detainees could see the blood and stomach bile from other detainees remaining on the tubes. A person detainees only know as Dr. [redacted] stood by and watched these procedures, doing nothing to intervene."
* Detainee Abdul-Rahman communicated that, "one Navy doctor came and put the tube in his nose and down his throat and then just kept moving the tube up and down, until finally Abdul-Rahman started violently throwing up blood. Abdul-Rahman tried to resist the 'torture' from this physician, but he could not breathe."
* Detainees complying with the nasal tube feeding were doing so only because they believed it had been ordered by a U.S. court, a belief that is simply untrue.
After years in U.S. custody without formal charges or a hearing on the legality of their detention - despite a Supreme Court ruling in their favor - the hunger-striking detainees at Guantánamo have come to the conclusion that, according to Abdul-Rahman,"now after four years in captivity, life and death are the same."
While the Center for Constitutional Rights and cooperating habeas counsel have continuously voiced concern for their clients' health given the length of their detention without trial and the conditions of their confinement, the situation has become acutely dangerous since detainees began their latest hunger strike on August 8, 2005. It is unclear how many detainees are on hunger strike at this time, but as many as 200 men have participated at various times.
"What we learned on our last trip to Guantánamo was troubling to us as lawyers, as human beings, and as Americans. We never thought we would see the day when this sort of treatment took place at a facility run by the United States government. It is inconsistent with the rule of law this country was founded upon, and it is inconsistent with the spirit and values of the American people," said Julia Tarver, partner with the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and one of CCR's leading habeas attorneys. Ms. Tarver represents 10 detainees from Saudi Arabia.
CCR cooperating attorneys from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and many other firms have emphasized the life-threatening nature of the situation at Guantánamo. They have informed the court that the DOD has invited representatives of the American Medical Association to visit Guantánamo and investigate the medical treatment provided to prisoners on the hunger strike. The attorneys urged the court to appoint physicians to investigate the medical treatment or to consider allowing counsel to bring their own medical experts to Guantánamo. Attorneys also asked that they be able to accompany the AMA representatives if they go.
"It is both depressing and yet profoundly moving that this hunger strike continues in the face of such horrible adversity. Despite the very real possibility that some of these men may die, it is deeply life-affirming that so many of these detainees living in such dire circumstances are willing to risk their lives and bodies for the sake of basic democratic values that should be, and sadly are not, part of American policy today," said Barbara Olshansky, Deputy Legal Director of the Center of Constitutional Rights.
Center for Constitutional Rights http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/home.asp
Recently Declassified
Notes Reveal Brutal
Treatment Of Hunger-Striking
Detainees At Guantanamo
Center for Constitutional Rights Contact Mahdis Keshavarz Riptide Communications
10-23-5
"After years in U.S. custody without formal charges or a hearing on the legality of their detention despite a Supreme Court ruling in their favor the hunger-striking detainees at Guantánamo have come to the conclusion that ... "now after four years in captivity, life and death are the same."
NEW YORK - After an emergency court hearing on counsel's right to information regarding the health status and medical treatment of Guantánamo hunger strikers late last week, Julia Tarver, an attorney with the New York City-based law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and cooperating counsel with the Center for Constitutional Rights, sought and obtained public release of her declaration regarding the situation at the Guantánamo facility. Tarver's notes detail interviews she conducted at Guantánamo with her clients, Yousef Al Shehri, Abduhl-Rahman Shalabi, and Majid Al Joudi, who are currently engaged in a hunger strike there. The declassified notes reveal the dire conditions of these men. According to Tarver's declaration:
* Force-feedings resulted in prisoners "vomiting up substantial amounts of blood. When they vomited up blood, the soldiers mocked and cursed at them, and taunted them with statements like 'look what your religion has brought you.'"
* "Large tubes - the thickness of a finger - were viewed by detainees as objects of torture. They were forcibly shoved up the detainees' noses and down into their stomachs. Again, no anesthesia or sedative was provided."
* "[D]etainees were verbally abused and insulted and were restrained from head to toe. They had shackles or other restraints on their arms, legs, waist, chest, knees, and head with these restraints in place, they were given intravenous medication (often quite painfully, as inexperienced medical professionals seemed incapable of locating appropriate veins). Their arms were swollen from multiple attempts to stick them with IV needles If detainees moved, they were hit in the chest/heart."
* "In front of Guantánamo physicians - including the head of the detainee hospital - the guards took NG tubes from one detainee, and with no sanitization whatsoever, reinserted it into the nose of a different detainee. When these tubes were reinserted, the detainees could see the blood and stomach bile from other detainees remaining on the tubes. A person detainees only know as Dr. [redacted] stood by and watched these procedures, doing nothing to intervene."
* Detainee Abdul-Rahman communicated that, "one Navy doctor came and put the tube in his nose and down his throat and then just kept moving the tube up and down, until finally Abdul-Rahman started violently throwing up blood. Abdul-Rahman tried to resist the 'torture' from this physician, but he could not breathe."
* Detainees complying with the nasal tube feeding were doing so only because they believed it had been ordered by a U.S. court, a belief that is simply untrue.
After years in U.S. custody without formal charges or a hearing on the legality of their detention - despite a Supreme Court ruling in their favor - the hunger-striking detainees at Guantánamo have come to the conclusion that, according to Abdul-Rahman,"now after four years in captivity, life and death are the same."
While the Center for Constitutional Rights and cooperating habeas counsel have continuously voiced concern for their clients' health given the length of their detention without trial and the conditions of their confinement, the situation has become acutely dangerous since detainees began their latest hunger strike on August 8, 2005. It is unclear how many detainees are on hunger strike at this time, but as many as 200 men have participated at various times.
"What we learned on our last trip to Guantánamo was troubling to us as lawyers, as human beings, and as Americans. We never thought we would see the day when this sort of treatment took place at a facility run by the United States government. It is inconsistent with the rule of law this country was founded upon, and it is inconsistent with the spirit and values of the American people," said Julia Tarver, partner with the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and one of CCR's leading habeas attorneys. Ms. Tarver represents 10 detainees from Saudi Arabia.
CCR cooperating attorneys from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP and many other firms have emphasized the life-threatening nature of the situation at Guantánamo. They have informed the court that the DOD has invited representatives of the American Medical Association to visit Guantánamo and investigate the medical treatment provided to prisoners on the hunger strike. The attorneys urged the court to appoint physicians to investigate the medical treatment or to consider allowing counsel to bring their own medical experts to Guantánamo. Attorneys also asked that they be able to accompany the AMA representatives if they go.
"It is both depressing and yet profoundly moving that this hunger strike continues in the face of such horrible adversity. Despite the very real possibility that some of these men may die, it is deeply life-affirming that so many of these detainees living in such dire circumstances are willing to risk their lives and bodies for the sake of basic democratic values that should be, and sadly are not, part of American policy today," said Barbara Olshansky, Deputy Legal Director of the Center of Constitutional Rights.
Center for Constitutional Rights http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/home.asp
Friday, 21 October 2005
iraq: sas agent provocateurs
Labels:
human rights,
iraq,
middle east,
terror,
uk,
war crime
.
world sociallist web site
British military investigator found hung in Basra
By Julie Hyland
21 October 2005
A senior British military police officer in Iraq, Captain Ken Masters, was found hung in his military accommodation in Basra on October 15.
Masters was commander of the Royal Military Police’s Special Investigations Branch (SIB), charged with investigating allegations of mistreatment of Iraqi civilians by British soldiers. According to the Independent newspaper, in this capacity Masters “had examined almost every single serious allegation of abuse of Iraqi civilians by British troops,” including “the cases of the fusiliers convicted of abusing prisoners at Camp Breadbasket near Basra and a paratrooper who has been charged in connection with the death of Baha Mousa, a hotel receptionist.”
In recent weeks, Masters was thought to have been involved in the investigation into the events of September 19, when Iraqi police arrested two British undercover Special Air Service (SAS) officers in Basra.
According to the BBC, the SAS men were disguised as Arabs and were travelling in an unmarked car containing “weapons, explosives and communications gear” when they were challenged at an Iraqi security checkpoint.
The two opened fire, reportedly killing one person and wounding several others, including police officers, before they were taken into Iraqi custody. In response, the British Army launched a military assault on the facility in which the SAS men were being held, demolishing parts of the building. Several Iraqis were killed and wounded during the attack.
In a statement on Masters’ death, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said the “circumstances were not regarded as suspicious.” The only explanation offered as a justification for suggesting that Masters took his own life is that he was suffering due to the stresses of his job.
Such explanations are problematic in any circumstances, but more so given the politically sensitive nature of Masters’ work.
Masters, aged 40, had 24 years’ experience in the British Army. Married with two children, he was due to return to Britain in just two weeks. Reports indicate that he had displayed no signs of stress or illness and that no suicide notes were found at the scene. The Mirror newspaper cited “senior military sources and colleagues” in Basra saying that his death had been a “devastating surprise.”
Moreover, Masters’ death is only the latest in a series of suspicious incidents in Basra surrounding the September 19 conflict provoked by the arrest of the two SAS officers. Numerous sources have questioned whether the two men were acting as agents provocateurs.
Writing for the Globalresearch web site, Michel Chossudovsky states, “Several media reports and eyewitness accounts suggested that the SAS operatives were disguised as Al Qaeda ‘terrorists’ and were planning to set off the bombs in Basra’s central square during a major religious event.”
He cites an interview broadcast by the Arab news channel Al Jazeera with Fattah al-Shaykh, a member of the Iraqi National Assembly, denouncing “British provocations” in Basra.
The SAS men were in “a booby-trapped car laden with ammunition” that “was meant to explode in the centre of the city of Basra,” before they were arrested, al-Shaykh claimed. The British Army’s attack on the prison facility was aimed at concealing the nature of the SAS officers’ operation, he continued.
In another report, Al Jazeera quoted Sheik Hassan al-Zarqani, a spokesman for the Mehdi army led by Moqtada al-Sadr, stating, “We believe these soldiers were planning an attack on a market or other civilian targets.”
The news agency continued, “If allegations that the soldiers’ car was loaded with explosives are proved, this will strengthen the theory suggesting that British and American intelligence are involved in the persistent and violent acts of ‘terror’ spreading across Iraq, which means that the current ‘counterinsurgency’ efforts involve the premeditated killing of innocent civilians to achieve US policy objectives.”
Basra officials have reportedly called for the two Britons to face an espionage trial.
Initial reports in Britain on the SAS officers’ arrest had claimed that the two were working undercover to root out Iranian-backed “terrorists” who were using sophisticated bombs to kill British soldiers. The subsequent army assault on the Jamiyat prison was justified with the claim that the captured SAS officers had been handed over by prison staff to local militias and that the militias had heavily infiltrated Basra’s police.
This official version of events was amended by army sources around the same time as Masters died to explicitly link the activities of the two SAS officers to the stormed prison facility. The Sunday Telegraph, October 16, published a report based on unnamed “military sources” claiming that “the real story” behind the SAS men’s undercover operation was that they had been spying on “several members of the Iraqi police, who were believed to be responsible for torturing prisoners at the notorious Jamiyat prison in Basra.”
The operation “was compromised on September 19 when the SAS team became involved in a shoot-out with four plain-clothed police officers just as they were about to withdraw from the surveillance operation,” it continued.
Subsequent news reports have uncritically repeated the Telegraph’s story, without making any account for the initial army claims as to what the two SAS officers were doing. Nor has there been any explanation offered as to why an undercover surveillance operation would involve weapons and explosives.
The revised account has only fuelled suspicion of dirty tricks.
Chossudovsky questions whether the British military were “blocking Captain Masters’ police investigation,” citing a report by the Independent newspaper of “apparent disagreements between British military commanding officers and the military police officials dispatched to the war theater in charge of investigating the actions and behavior of military personnel.”
Last week, it emerged that Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had warned that leading British officers had made a “concerted attempt” to block an investigation into the killing of Sergeant Steven Roberts, who was shot dead after he was told to hand in his body armour due to equipment shortages.
According to the Independent of October 18, “Lord Goldsmith revealed that he felt it necessary to move the case to the civilian jurisdiction and said Sgt. Roberts’ case was one example of why top commanders might not be trusted to handle murder investigations.”
In addition, the October 16 Independent on Sunday revealed that eight British soldiers killed in ambushes in Iraq were the victims of bombs “developed by the IRA using technology passed on by the security services in a botched ‘sting’ operation more than a decade ago.”
Citing anonymous military personnel, the newspaper continued, “the bombs and the firing devices used to kill the soldiers, as well as two private security guards, were initially created by the UK security services as part of a counter-terrorism strategy at the height of the troubles in the early 1990s.
“According to investigators examining past collusion between the security forces and paramilitaries in Northern Ireland, members of the shadowy army undercover outfit, the Force Research Unit, and officers from MI5 learned in the early 1990s that a senior IRA member in south Armagh was working to develop bombs triggered by light beams. They decided the risks would be diminished if they knew what technology was being used.
“‘The thinking of the security forces was that if they were intimate with the technology, then they could develop counter-measures, thereby staying one step ahead of the IRA,’ a senior source close to the inquiry explained. ‘It may seem absurd that the security services were supplying technology to the IRA, but the strategy was sound.
“‘Unfortunately, no one could see back then that this technology would be used to kill British soldiers thousands of miles away in a different war.’”
For the Independent, revelations of an IRA pedigree for the bombs was significant because it contradicted the Blair government’s claims that Iran had been working with insurgents in Basra to make the devices.
But they raise another important question as to how such bombs have turned up in Iraq. The Independent suggests the route was directly between the IRA and Palestinian and/or other Middle Eastern groups. However, this is not the only possible explanation, given the involvement of British security forces in dirty tricks operations in Ireland and their alleged role in developing the bomb in question.
Yet another incident has yet to be explained. On October 4 it was reported that a British civilian and nine Iraqis had been arrested by Iraq’s border security force. An Iraqi police official in Najaf told CNN that the “ten suspected terrorists” had been arrested near the Saudi border the day before.
The group were reportedly travelling in three GMC Suburbans containing machine guns and GPS satellite technology when they were stopped. The Briton, Colin Peter Wanley, had claimed to be a contractor, but was briefly detained after his identification failed to support this.
Wanley was said to be working on bomb disposal at a water treatment plant in southern Iraq for his UK-based firm, Ammtech International Consultants Ltd. Subsequent reports indicate that Wanley had served in the British Army for 12 years in Northern Ireland before leaving to set up his company, and had previously been involved in “humanitarian” work in Bosnia.
Why an engineer should be in possession of an invalid visa, let alone Kalashnikov rifles and satellite navigation equipment, has never been revealed. Nor has the nature of Wanley’s relations with the nine Iraqis detained with him.
Instead, media coverage of the incident quickly fell silent.
See Also:
What was the British SAS doing in Basra?
[28 September 2005]
British troops in pitched battle in Basra
[21 September 2005]
russia produces cheap stealth aircraft technology
Russia Develops Stealth Aircraft Using Plasma Screen Technology
Created: 19.10.2005 12:10 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 12:10 MSK
MosNews
The newspaper quoted Anatoly Koroteyev, the head of the Keddysh Research Center as saying that the plasma screen technology can be used on any vehicle — from automobiles to combat aircraft. However, it is most effective at high altitudes and thus is best used by the air force.
Koroteyev said that the new technology employs a different physical principle than the one currently used by existing U.S. stealth aircraft — the F-117 and B-2. Instead of reflecting the radar wave the Russian technology completely disperses it by means of a plasma screen created by a mobile plasma generator.
The generator is small and light. The device emits powerful electron beams that ionize the air around the aircraft effectively creating a plasma cloud around it.
The head of the Russian research institute said that initially the plasma generator disrupted the work of on-board electronic systems and prevented radio communication with ground control, but the problems have been solved and the system has already passed tests set by a Russian governmental commission.
Koroteyev added that the new technology can be used on any aircraft, including older models and that it is radically cheaper than the technology employed by U.S. stealth planes while being just as effective, if not more so. He said that the aircraft equipped with the Russian system will also be far superior to U.S. models in their flight and combat capabilities — as the use of the plasma screen makes it unnecessary to alter the shape of the aircraft.
The newspaper writes that similar research is being conducted in the U.S., but the Russian version is so far the only plasma screen technology in the world
Monday, 17 October 2005
uk and indonesia recruited terrorists
MP Michael Meacher Says
Brits Recruited Terrorists
The Guardian - UK
10-2-5
An astonishing claim that M16 recruited Muslim extremists in Britain for terror training abroad has been made by Oldham MP and former cabinet minister Michael Meacher.
Mr Meacher also suggest that a British Muslim held under sentenced of death in Pakistan for beheading a US journalist is being kept alive because he was a British double agent.
The Oldham West and Royton MP makes these sensational claims in an article for Asian News' sister paper, The Guardian.
The former Environment Secretary claims that Britain's 'overseas' security organisation, M16, set about recruiting UK Muslims directing them to support US efforts to overthrow communist governments in Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. He highlights a Delhi-based research foundation that estimates anything up to 200 UK Muslims could have undergone training in overseas terrorist camps under the protection of the Pakistani secret service, the ISI, who were backing the armed Islamic insurrection against the Afghan communist regime and its Soviet backers.
He writes: "During an interview on Fox TV this summer, the former US federal prosecutor John Loftus reported that the British intelligence had used the al-Muhajiroun group..to recruit Islamist militants with British passports for the war against the Serbs in Kosovo."
The now disbanded al-Muhajiroun group held meetings in Manchester after 9/11 praising the courage of the suicide bombers and claimed to be helping UK Muslims to fight US troops in Afghanistan.
Mr Meacher also highlights the case of UK-born Muslim Omar Saeed Sheikh, sentenced to death for the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.
Mr Meacher writes that Sheikh has been allowed 32 appeals against his sentence, the last being adjourned "indefinitely". He says the same Delhi foundation describes Sheikh as a British agent.
Mr Meacher adds: "This is all the more remarkable when this is the same Omar Sheikh who, at the behest of General Mahmood Ahmed, head of the ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11 hijacker, before the New York attacks, as confirmed by Dennis Lomel, director of FBI's financial crimes unit."
Mr Meacher's argument is that the UK and US security service do not want a proper investigation into these links because it would expose how they encouraged and helped to recruit Islamic 'warriors' when it suited their purposes but that these same forces eventually turned on the west, inflamed by what they saw as anti-Islamic occupations and pro-Israeli international policies.
Read the full Guardian article below -
Oldham MP Michael Meacher argues Britain's security services helped to create Islamic warriors who eventually bit back against the west
The videotape of the suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan has switched the focus of the London bombings away from the establishment view of brainwashed, murderous individuals and highlighted a starker political reality. While there can be no justification for horrific killings of this kind, they need to be understood against the ferment of the last decade radicalising Muslim youth of Pakistani origin living in Europe.
During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the US funded large numbers of jihadists through Pakistan's secret intelligence service, the ISI. Later the US wanted to raise another jihadi corps, again using proxies, to help Bosnian Muslims fight to weaken the Serb government's hold on Yugoslavia. Those they turned to included Pakistanis in Britain.
According to a recent report by the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, a contingent was also sent by the Pakistani government, then led by Benazir Bhutto, at the request of the Clinton administration. This contingent was formed from the Harkat-ul- Ansar (HUA) terrorist group and trained by the ISI. The report estimates that about 200 Pakistani Muslims living in the UK went to Pakistan, trained in HUA camps and joined the HUA's contingent in Bosnia. Most significantly, this was "with the full knowledge and complicity of the British and American intelligence agencies".
As the 2002 Dutch government report on Bosnia makes clear, the US provided a green light to groups on the state department list of terrorist organisations, including the Lebanese-based Hizbullah, to operate in Bosnia - an episode that calls into question the credibility of the subsequent "war on terror".
For nearly a decade the US helped Islamist insurgents linked to Chechnya, Iran and Saudi Arabia destabilise the former Yugoslavia. The insurgents were also allowed to move further east to Kosovo. By the end of the fighting in Bosnia there were tens of thousands of Islamist insurgents in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo; many then moved west to Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
Less well known is evidence of the British government's relationship with a wider Islamist terrorist network. During an interview on Fox TV this summer, the former US federal prosecutor John Loftus reported that British intelligence had used the al-Muhajiroun group in London to recruit Islamist militants with British passports for the war against the Serbs in Kosovo.
Since July Scotland Yard has been interested in an alleged member of al-Muhajiroun, Haroon Rashid Aswat, who some sources have suggested could have been behind the London bombings.
According to Loftus, Aswat was detained in Pakistan after leaving Britain, but was released after 24 hours. He was subsequently returned to Britain from Zambia, but has been detained solely for extradition to the US, not for questioning about the London bombings. Loftus claimed that Aswat is a British-backed double agent, pursued by the police but protected by MI6.
One British Muslim of Pakistani origin radicalised by the civil war in Yugoslavia was LSE-educated Omar Saeed Sheikh. He is now in jail in Pakistan under sentence of death for the killing of the US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 - although many (including Pearl's widow and the US authorities) doubt that he committed the murder. However, reports from Pakistan suggest that Sheikh continues to be active from jail, keeping in touch with friends and followers in Britain.
Sheikh was recruited as a student by Jaish-e-Muhammad (Army of Muhammad), which operates a network in Britain. It has actively recruited Britons from universities and colleges since the early 1990s, and has boasted of its numerous British Muslim volunteers. Investigations in Pakistan have suggested that on his visits there Shehzad Tanweer, one of the London suicide bombers, contacted members of two outlawed local groups and trained at two camps in Karachi and near Lahore.
Indeed the network of groups now being uncovered in Pakistan may point to senior al-Qaida operatives having played a part in selecting members of the bombers' cell. The Observer Research Foundation has argued that there are even "grounds to suspect that the [London] blasts were orchestrated by Omar Sheikh from his jail in Pakistan".
Why then is Omar Sheikh not being dealt with when he is already under sentence of death? Astonishingly his appeal to a higher court against the sentence was adjourned in July for the 32nd time and has since been adjourned indefinitely. This is all the more remarkable when this is the same Omar Sheikh who, at the behest of General Mahmood Ahmed, head of the ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11 hijacker, before the New York attacks, as confirmed by Dennis Lormel, director of FBI's financial crimes unit.
Yet neither Ahmed nor Omar appears to have been sought for questioning by the US about 9/11. Indeed, the official 9/11 Commission Report of July 2004 sought to downplay the role of Pakistan with the comment: "To date, the US government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance" - a statement of breathtaking disingenuousness.
All this highlights the resistance to getting at the truth about the 9/11 attacks and to an effective crackdown on the forces fomenting terrorist bombings in the west, including Britain. The extraordinary US forbearance towards Omar Sheikh, its restraint towards the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, Dr AQ Khan, selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, the huge US military assistance to Pakistan and the US decision last year to designate Pakistan as a major non-Nato ally in south Asia all betoken a deeper strategic set of goals as the real priority in its relationship with Pakistan. These might be surmised as Pakistan providing sizeable military contingents for Iraq to replace US troops, or Pakistani troops replacing Nato forces in Afghanistan. Or it could involve the use of Pakistani military bases for US intervention in Iran, or strengthening Pakistan as a base in relation to India and China.
Whether the hunt for those behind the London bombers can prevail against these powerful political forces remains to be seen. Indeed it may depend on whether Scotland Yard, in its attempts to uncover the truth, can prevail over MI6, which is trying to cover its tracks and in practice has every opportunity to operate beyond the law under the cover of national security.
First published by the Asian News
© Copyright 2005 Guardian Media Group
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Police 'Had Role' In Bali blasts
The Australian
10-12-5
Brits Recruited Terrorists
The Guardian - UK
10-2-5
An astonishing claim that M16 recruited Muslim extremists in Britain for terror training abroad has been made by Oldham MP and former cabinet minister Michael Meacher.
Mr Meacher also suggest that a British Muslim held under sentenced of death in Pakistan for beheading a US journalist is being kept alive because he was a British double agent.
The Oldham West and Royton MP makes these sensational claims in an article for Asian News' sister paper, The Guardian.
The former Environment Secretary claims that Britain's 'overseas' security organisation, M16, set about recruiting UK Muslims directing them to support US efforts to overthrow communist governments in Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. He highlights a Delhi-based research foundation that estimates anything up to 200 UK Muslims could have undergone training in overseas terrorist camps under the protection of the Pakistani secret service, the ISI, who were backing the armed Islamic insurrection against the Afghan communist regime and its Soviet backers.
He writes: "During an interview on Fox TV this summer, the former US federal prosecutor John Loftus reported that the British intelligence had used the al-Muhajiroun group..to recruit Islamist militants with British passports for the war against the Serbs in Kosovo."
The now disbanded al-Muhajiroun group held meetings in Manchester after 9/11 praising the courage of the suicide bombers and claimed to be helping UK Muslims to fight US troops in Afghanistan.
Mr Meacher also highlights the case of UK-born Muslim Omar Saeed Sheikh, sentenced to death for the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.
Mr Meacher writes that Sheikh has been allowed 32 appeals against his sentence, the last being adjourned "indefinitely". He says the same Delhi foundation describes Sheikh as a British agent.
Mr Meacher adds: "This is all the more remarkable when this is the same Omar Sheikh who, at the behest of General Mahmood Ahmed, head of the ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11 hijacker, before the New York attacks, as confirmed by Dennis Lomel, director of FBI's financial crimes unit."
Mr Meacher's argument is that the UK and US security service do not want a proper investigation into these links because it would expose how they encouraged and helped to recruit Islamic 'warriors' when it suited their purposes but that these same forces eventually turned on the west, inflamed by what they saw as anti-Islamic occupations and pro-Israeli international policies.
Read the full Guardian article below -
Oldham MP Michael Meacher argues Britain's security services helped to create Islamic warriors who eventually bit back against the west
The videotape of the suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan has switched the focus of the London bombings away from the establishment view of brainwashed, murderous individuals and highlighted a starker political reality. While there can be no justification for horrific killings of this kind, they need to be understood against the ferment of the last decade radicalising Muslim youth of Pakistani origin living in Europe.
During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the US funded large numbers of jihadists through Pakistan's secret intelligence service, the ISI. Later the US wanted to raise another jihadi corps, again using proxies, to help Bosnian Muslims fight to weaken the Serb government's hold on Yugoslavia. Those they turned to included Pakistanis in Britain.
According to a recent report by the Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, a contingent was also sent by the Pakistani government, then led by Benazir Bhutto, at the request of the Clinton administration. This contingent was formed from the Harkat-ul- Ansar (HUA) terrorist group and trained by the ISI. The report estimates that about 200 Pakistani Muslims living in the UK went to Pakistan, trained in HUA camps and joined the HUA's contingent in Bosnia. Most significantly, this was "with the full knowledge and complicity of the British and American intelligence agencies".
As the 2002 Dutch government report on Bosnia makes clear, the US provided a green light to groups on the state department list of terrorist organisations, including the Lebanese-based Hizbullah, to operate in Bosnia - an episode that calls into question the credibility of the subsequent "war on terror".
For nearly a decade the US helped Islamist insurgents linked to Chechnya, Iran and Saudi Arabia destabilise the former Yugoslavia. The insurgents were also allowed to move further east to Kosovo. By the end of the fighting in Bosnia there were tens of thousands of Islamist insurgents in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo; many then moved west to Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
Less well known is evidence of the British government's relationship with a wider Islamist terrorist network. During an interview on Fox TV this summer, the former US federal prosecutor John Loftus reported that British intelligence had used the al-Muhajiroun group in London to recruit Islamist militants with British passports for the war against the Serbs in Kosovo.
Since July Scotland Yard has been interested in an alleged member of al-Muhajiroun, Haroon Rashid Aswat, who some sources have suggested could have been behind the London bombings.
According to Loftus, Aswat was detained in Pakistan after leaving Britain, but was released after 24 hours. He was subsequently returned to Britain from Zambia, but has been detained solely for extradition to the US, not for questioning about the London bombings. Loftus claimed that Aswat is a British-backed double agent, pursued by the police but protected by MI6.
One British Muslim of Pakistani origin radicalised by the civil war in Yugoslavia was LSE-educated Omar Saeed Sheikh. He is now in jail in Pakistan under sentence of death for the killing of the US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002 - although many (including Pearl's widow and the US authorities) doubt that he committed the murder. However, reports from Pakistan suggest that Sheikh continues to be active from jail, keeping in touch with friends and followers in Britain.
Sheikh was recruited as a student by Jaish-e-Muhammad (Army of Muhammad), which operates a network in Britain. It has actively recruited Britons from universities and colleges since the early 1990s, and has boasted of its numerous British Muslim volunteers. Investigations in Pakistan have suggested that on his visits there Shehzad Tanweer, one of the London suicide bombers, contacted members of two outlawed local groups and trained at two camps in Karachi and near Lahore.
Indeed the network of groups now being uncovered in Pakistan may point to senior al-Qaida operatives having played a part in selecting members of the bombers' cell. The Observer Research Foundation has argued that there are even "grounds to suspect that the [London] blasts were orchestrated by Omar Sheikh from his jail in Pakistan".
Why then is Omar Sheikh not being dealt with when he is already under sentence of death? Astonishingly his appeal to a higher court against the sentence was adjourned in July for the 32nd time and has since been adjourned indefinitely. This is all the more remarkable when this is the same Omar Sheikh who, at the behest of General Mahmood Ahmed, head of the ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the leading 9/11 hijacker, before the New York attacks, as confirmed by Dennis Lormel, director of FBI's financial crimes unit.
Yet neither Ahmed nor Omar appears to have been sought for questioning by the US about 9/11. Indeed, the official 9/11 Commission Report of July 2004 sought to downplay the role of Pakistan with the comment: "To date, the US government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11 attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance" - a statement of breathtaking disingenuousness.
All this highlights the resistance to getting at the truth about the 9/11 attacks and to an effective crackdown on the forces fomenting terrorist bombings in the west, including Britain. The extraordinary US forbearance towards Omar Sheikh, its restraint towards the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, Dr AQ Khan, selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, the huge US military assistance to Pakistan and the US decision last year to designate Pakistan as a major non-Nato ally in south Asia all betoken a deeper strategic set of goals as the real priority in its relationship with Pakistan. These might be surmised as Pakistan providing sizeable military contingents for Iraq to replace US troops, or Pakistani troops replacing Nato forces in Afghanistan. Or it could involve the use of Pakistani military bases for US intervention in Iran, or strengthening Pakistan as a base in relation to India and China.
Whether the hunt for those behind the London bombers can prevail against these powerful political forces remains to be seen. Indeed it may depend on whether Scotland Yard, in its attempts to uncover the truth, can prevail over MI6, which is trying to cover its tracks and in practice has every opportunity to operate beyond the law under the cover of national security.
First published by the Asian News
© Copyright 2005 Guardian Media Group
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Police 'Had Role' In Bali blasts
The Australian
10-12-5
- Indonesian police or military officers may have played a role in the 2002 Bali bombing, the country's former president, Abdurrahman Wahid has said.
- In an interview with SBS's Dateline program to be aired tonight, on the third anniversary of the bombing that killed 202 people, Mr Wahid says he has grave concerns about links between Indonesian authorities and terrorist groups.
- While he believed terrorists were involved in planting one of the Kuta night club bombs, the second, which destroyed Bali's Sari Club, had been organised by authorities.
- Asked who he thought planted the second bomb, Mr Wahid said: "Maybe the police ... or the armed forces."
- "The orders to do this or that came from within our armed forces, not from the fundamentalist people," he says.
- The program also claims a key figure behind the formation of terror group Jemaah Islamiah was an Indonesian spy.
- Former terrorist Umar Abduh, who is now a researcher and writer, told Dateline Indonesian authorities had a hand in many terror groups.
- "There is not a single Islamic group either in the movement or the political groups that is not controlled by (Indonesian) intelligence," he said.
- Abduh has written a book on Teungku Fauzi Hasbi, a key figure in Jemaah Islamiah (JI) who had close contact with JI operations chief Hambali and lived next door to Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir.
- He says Hasbi was a secret agent for Indonesia's military intelligence while at the same time a key player in creating JI.
- Documents cited by SBS showed the Indonesian chief of military intelligence in 1990 authorised Hasbi to undertake a "special job".
- A 1995 internal memo from the military intelligence headquarters in Jakarta included a request to use "Brother Fauzi Hasbi" to spy on Acehnese separatists in Indonesia, Malaysia and Sweden.
- And a 2002 document assigned Hasbi the job of special agent for BIN, the Indonesian national intelligence agency.
- Security analyst John Mempi told SBS that Hasbi, who was also known as Abu Jihad, had played a key role in JI in its early years.
- "The first Jemaah Islamiah congress in Bogor was facilitated by Abu Jihad, after Abu Bakar Bashir returned from Malaysia," Mr Mempi said.
- "We can see that Abu Jihad played an important role. He was later found to be an intelligence agent. So an intelligence agent has been facilitating the radical Islamic movement."
- Hasbi was disembowelled in a mysterious murder in 2003 after he was exposed as a military agent and his son Lamkaruna Putra died in a plane crash last month.
- Another convicted terrorist, Timsar Zubil, who set off three bombs in Sumatra in 1978, told the program intelligence agents had given his group a provocative name Komando Jihad and encouraged members to commit illegal acts.
- "We may have deliberately been allowed to grow," he said.
- Abduh also told the program his terrorist organisation, the Imron Movement, was incited to a range of violent action in the 1980s when the Indonesian military told the group that the assassination of several Muslim clerics was imminent.
- Another terrorism expert, George Aditjondro, said a bombing in May this year that killed 23 people in the Christian village of Tentena, in central Sulawesi, had been organised by senior military and police officers.
- "This is a strategy of depopulating an area and when an area has been depopulated both becoming refugees or becoming paramilitary fighters then that is the time when they can invest their money in major resource exploitation there," he said.
- http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16898139%255E29277,00.html
bush: after iraq, saudi,pakistan,iran and dprk
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Bush to Blair: First Iraq, then Saudi
By Marie Woolf, Political Editor
Published: 16 October 2005
George Bush told the Prime Minister two months before the invasion of Iraq that Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea may also be dealt with over weapons of mass destruction, a top secret Downing Street memo shows.
The US President told Tony Blair, in a secret telephone conversation in January 2003 that he "wanted to go beyond Iraq".
He implied that the military action against Saddam Hussein was only a first step in the battle against WMD proliferation in a series of countries.
Mr Bush said he "wanted to go beyond Iraq in dealing with WMD proliferation", says the letter on Downing Street paper, marked secret and personal.
No 10 said yesterday it would "not comment on leaked documents". But the revelation that Mr Bush was considering tackling other countries over WMD before the Iraq war has shocked MPs. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have been close allies of the US in the war against terror and have not been considered targets in relation to WMD.
The confidential memo recording the President's explosive remarks was written by Michael Rycroft, then the Prime Minister's private secretary and foreign policy adviser. He sent the two-page letter recording the conversation between the two leaders on 30 January 2003 to Simon McDonald, who was then private secretary to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary.
Mr Rycroft said it "must only be shown to those with a real need to know ".
The revelation that Mr Bush told the Prime Minister Iraq should be seen as a first step comes in the American edition of Lawless World, a book by the leading international lawyer Philippe Sands QC, who is also a professor of law at University College London and senior barrister at Matrix chambers, which he shares with Cherie Blair.
"The conversation seems to indicate that Iraq was not seen as an isolated issue but as a first step in relation to a broader project," he said. "What is interesting is the mention of Saudi Arabia, which to the best of my knowledge had not at that time been identified particularly as a country with WMD. An alternative view is that the mention of Saudi Arabia indicates that the true objectives were not related exclusively to WMD."
The inclusion of Pakistan, also a key US ally, is also surprising, although there has in the past been concern about nuclear proliferation in that country.
Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, said the timing of the conversation was significant since it took place when Britain and the US were still trying to get a second UN resolution to make the legal case for the Iraq war watertight.
"If this letter accurately reflects the conversation between the President and the Prime Minister it will cause consternation, particularly in Saudi Arabia. American policy in the Middle East for decades has been based on support for Israel and an alliance with Saudi Arabia," he said. "If this was more than loose talk and represented a genuine policy intention it constitutes a radical change in American foreign policy."
Elizabeth Wilmshurst, who resigned as the Foreign Office's deputy legal adviser because she thought the invasion of Iraq would be illegal, has questioned whether democracy and the rule of law can prevail there. She writes inThe Independent on Sunday, "there will be no prospect" of democracy, unless the Iraqis can establish the rule of law and fair trials including for Saddam Hussein.
Ms Wilmshurst said the trial, which begins this week, will be the first key test of whether the justice system can operate in Iraq.
The lawyer, who is now the Senior Fellow at the think tank, Chatham House, says: "There will be no prospect of success for the democratic process in Iraq unless the rule of law can prevail. The trial of Saddam Hussein due to start on Wednesday, presents a test."
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