ICC and travesty of justice

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Tariq Al-Maeena | talmaeena@aol.com

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) verdict against President Omar Bashir of Sudan has some people wondering what benchmarks of justice, if any, are being used by that agency. According to the ICC charges, some 300,000 people had lost their lives in the Darfur region of Sudan in an ongoing tribal conflict. In an immediate response, the Sudanese president, addressing a Khartoum rally, countered by claiming that the ICC was a tool in the hands of imperialists targeting Sudan for its oil, natural gas and other resources. “We have refused to kneel to colonialism, that is why Sudan has been targeted … because we only kneel to God,” he told the crowd outside the Republican Palace. UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann regretted that a warrant had been issued to arrest President Bashir stating, “I am sorry about this decision of the ICC and I think it’s more a decision motivated by political considerations than really for the sake of advancing the cause of justice in the world.” My issue with the ICC is this: If 300,000 people who died in the conflict in Darfur since 2003 prompted them to sit up and take notice and issue an arrest warrant, where had they been since 2003 when over one million innocent civilians have lost their lives as a result of US President George Bush’s illegal incursion into Iraq? There was no justification for the war on the Iraqi people. There were no threats directed at the United States of America or its people. There was no Al-Qaeda operating out of Iraq. Iraqis did not take part in the bombings of the twin towers of the World Trade Center; nor were they involved in any conspiracy against the US government. Where are the arrest warrants for Bush and his partner Tony Blair, who today pathetically claims he was duped into going along with the former US president when supplied with misleading information on weapons of mass destruction. How come Donald Rumsfeld of the “shock and awe” fame whose forces indiscriminately bombed Iraqi civilians into bits and pieces gets away scot-free? And the rest of Bush’s band of neocons and accomplices including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Douglas Feith and John Ashcroft? Why is it that the ICC has not investigated their crimes and issued arrest warrants against all those with the blood of over one million innocent civilians on their hands? Their methods were all based on deception, and their tools, apart from allowing weapons of mass destruction to be used against the Iraqi people, included manipulating the media and their political office. They used “lies, lies and more lies, religion, patriotism, manufactured enemies, and the glory of democracy to motivate, mislead, oppress, and rob the masses of rational thinking in order to pursue their murderous adventures.”

Nothing international about ICC

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Linda Heard

March 9, 2009 IN 1998, 120 countries signed a treaty establishing a permanent international criminal court so that “no ruler, no state, no junta and no army anywhere will be able to abuse human rights with impunity”. The principle is great and honorable. A truly international court that protects ordinary citizens from abuse by their own governments and foreign nations is something we should all welcome. But wait…there’s just one problem. The International Criminal Court (ICC) doesn’t hold to its own constitution because, to date, it has held only Africans to account. Currently, the court is holding investigations into “the situations” in Uganda, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Following a referral by the UN Security Council, it has recently issued an international arrest warrant for the Sudanese President Omar Bashir for indirect responsibility in committing war crimes/crimes against humanity in Darfur, where the UN contends up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have been displaced. This is the first time a sitting head of state has ever been indicted by the court. While my heart goes out to the people of Darfur who do need to be helped, this arrest warrant will not alleviate their plight and only goes to prove how selective the ICC truly is. Are we to believe that during the past decade only Africans have committed crimes worthy of coming before the court? Or should we deduce that the court is either politically motivated or entirely toothless when it comes to taking on Western nations or big powers? How can it be taken seriously when the US and its so-called “coalition of the willing” has seemingly got away with their part in the deaths of over a million Iraqis and the displacement of another four million? Where were the court’s investigators when the disgusting photographs taken inside Abu Ghraib were released? Where were they when details of US illegal renditions and torture were published? When it comes to Israel’s crimes, the ICC mirrors the three wise monkeys — see no evil and speak no evil. It appears to have escaped the court that Israel is responsible for the murder of 1,200 Lebanese civilians in the summer of 2006 and it is virtually oblivious to the deaths of 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza, 50 percent of them women and children. Even today, 1.5 million residents of Gaza are just about subsisting under an Israeli blockade and what do the court’s investigators and judges say about that? Nothing, nada zilch.

Imagine

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Imagine

By Ron Paul

March 10, 2009  — Imagine for a moment that somewhere in the middle of Texas there was a large foreign military base, say Chinese or Russian. Imagine that thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American streets in military vehicles. Imagine they were here under the auspices of “keeping us safe” or “promoting democracy” or “protecting their strategic interests.”

Imagine that they operated outside of US law, and that the Constitution did not apply to them. Imagine that every now and then they made mistakes or acted on bad information and accidentally killed or terrorized innocent Americans, including women and children, most of the time with little to no repercussions or consequences. Imagine that they set up check points on our soil and routinely searched and ransacked entire neighborhoods of homes. Imagine if Americans were fearful of these foreign troops, and overwhelmingly thought America would be better off without their presence.

Imagine if some Americans were so angry about them being in Texas that they actually joined together to fight them off, in defense of our soil and sovereignty, because leadership in government refused or were unable to do so. Imagine that those Americans were labeled terrorists or insurgents for their defensive actions, and routinely killed, or captured and tortured by the foreign troops on our land. Imagine that the occupiers’ attitude was that if they just killed enough Americans, the resistance would stop, but instead, for every American killed, ten more would take up arms against them, resulting in perpetual bloodshed. Imagine if most of the citizens of the foreign land also wanted these troops to return home. Imagine if they elected a leader who promised to bring them home and put an end to this horror.

U.N. report says U.S. rendition policy broke international law

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

By Julie Sell | McClatchy Newspapers

March 10, 2009 LONDON — A U.N. expert is accusing the United States and some of its allies of breaching international law for the so-called extraordinary renditions and subsequent alleged torture of terrorism suspects during the Bush administration’s global war on terrorism, and is launching a probe into the detention of suspects. Martin Scheinin, a U.N. special rapporteur and expert on international law, issued his annual report to the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday. While it identifies a U.S. role in masterminding a “comprehensive system” of rendition and detention of suspects as well as creating “an international web” of intelligence sharing, his report notes that it was possible only through collaboration with many other countries.

‘They used a scalpel… I was crying in agony’: Guantanamo victim Binyam Mohamed speaks

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Mail On Sunday Reporter

March 8, 2009 Binyam Mohamed arrived in London from his native Ethiopia in 1994 aged 16 and was given leave to remain. After falling into drug use, he turned to religion. In 2000, someone at a mosque suggested he see the ‘pure’ form of Islam practised in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Yesterday, he told his story in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday.

Mossad linked to 9/11 attacks: Report

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Mossad linked to 9/11 attacks: Report Mon, 09 Mar 2009 08:26:15 GMT

At least 2,970 people died on the morning of September 11, most of them civilians. New found information has implicated the Israeli Intelligence agency Mossad in the staging of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. According to a recent article published in the American Free Press weekly, the revelation that the cousin of alleged 9/11 hijacker Ziad al-Jarrah was in fact working as a longtime Mossad agent is proof that Israel had a hand in the terror attacks on US soil. The New York Times recently reported that Lebanese national Ali al-Jarrah, a supposedly earnest Palestinian supporter, had been actually working as a highly valued spy for Israel over the past two decades. Al-Jarrah reportedly admitted that he had been conducting covert espionage activities against Palestinian groups and the Lebanese Hezbollah since 1983. “It is not the family’s first brush with notoriety. One of Mr. Jarrah’s cousins, Ziad al-Jarrah, was among the 19 hijackers who carried out the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,” said the Times. His connections with one of the key masterminds of the terror attacks have fueled speculations about Israel’s recruitment of people claiming to be Muslims as undercover assets. Israeli connections to 9/11, according to the New York Times, can be traced back to the five ‘dancing Israelis’ who were witnessed jumping and high-fiving with shouts of ‘joy and mockery’ as Flight 11 and Flight 175 slammed into the World Trade Center in New York.

Mossad Link Found to One of Key 9-11 Hijackers

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Mossad Link Found to One of Key 9-11 Hijackers

Mar 10, 2009

New York, (SANA)- The American Free Press .net reported today that there is A NEW ISRAELI CONNECTION to the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001 has recently been unveiled.

Buried in a New York Times story on Feb. 19 was the eye-opening revelation that a Lebanese who has been taken into custody by the Lebanon—which has accused him of being a spy for some 25 years for Israeli intelligence—just happens to be a cousin of one of the men alleged to have been one of the 9-11 hijackers. Although Ali al-Jarrah was—publicly—an outspoken proponent of the Palestinian cause, it now turns out that he was actually working as a paid asset of the Mossad for more than two decades, betraying his own nation and conducting spying operations against Palestinian groups and the pro-Palestinian party Hezbollah.

source: http://www.sana.sy/eng/22/2009/03/10/216416.htm

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-muslim voice-
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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

Poll: Haniyeh beats Abbas in West Bank

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Mar 9, 2009 19:35 | Updated Mar 10, 2009 1:24

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH

If elections were held today in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh would defeat Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, according to an opinion poll published on Monday.

SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region | World The survey also showed that Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians had increased in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead.

The poll, which questioned more than 1,270 Palestinians, was conducted last weekend by the West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. It had a margin of error of 3 percent.

The previous poll, conducted last December, gave Hamas only a 28% popularity rating, while the current poll showed the movement’s popularity had increased to 33%.

The pollsters did not offer any explanation as to why Abbas’s popularity dropped from 48% last December to 45% in March.

Three months ago, Haniyeh received a 38% popularity rating, while this time he was given 47%.

On the other hand, the poll showed that if jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti were to run against Haniyeh, he would win by 61% to 34%.

Interpol studying Iranian request to put 25 Israelis on wanted list

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Agencies Published: March 10, 2009, 20:30

Paris: Interpol said it is studying a request from Iran for the international police agency to place 25 Israeli officials on its most-wanted list over Israel’s offensive in Gaza. France-based Interpol said it took the unusual step of confirming the request from a member country publicly, “as Iranian government officials have made their request public.” On Tuesday, Interpol confirmed in a statement that it received an Iranian request Saturday for the issuance of 25 “red notices,” the highest-level alert Interpol issues. source: http://www.gulfnews.com/region/Iran/10293640.html

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-muslim voice-
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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

Palestine – 60 years of Bloody Oppression

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxAxgokbOrE

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-muslim voice-
______________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

Zionist Weapons Cache Found in Synagogue!!!

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Sunday, 8 March 2009

Well fancy that! In an irony too delicious for mere words and in a story barely covered in the Western media, an arms cache was recently discovered in a Jewish synagogue, Hod Sharon, in Israel.

The arms, contrary to the suggestion in Israel’s right-wing Yediot Aharanot, belonged to the main Zionist terrorist group, Haganna. The idea that they belonged to an individual can be discounted!

But those with even short memories will recall that the pretext for the massive civilian casualties in the war against Gaza this year and against Lebanon in 2006, was that the ‘terrorists’ were hiding amongst civilians. The Israeli War Forces had no other alternative, although of course they bitterly regretted it (this is their ‘shooting and crying’ syndrome beloved of the ‘left’ Mapam kibbutzniks) than to murder 400 Gazan children.

But the fault you understand doesn’t lie with Israel, good gracious no, but those devilish ‘terrorists’ who insisted on fighting their war in Gaza’s urban districts.

You see, so the racist discourse goes, ‘they’ are not like us. They aren’t civilised and hide behind their own families. Such are the beasts and demons that Israel’s young soldiers had to face.

In fact as anyone familiar with the situation knows, even today Israel’s military forces have their headquarters situated, like the IWF HQ in Tel Aviv and other civilian areas. The rocket batteries used to fire missiles into Lebanon were situated in or adjacent to Israeli towns and kibbutzim.

Now we learn that Hagana was not only storing weapons in synaoguges (remember the excuse for targeting mosques) but the synagogue had ‘long and narrow windows, and slits for firing. These slits apparently made the synagogue an ideal location for stashing the weapons’ according to the curator of the synagogue’s museum, Simcha Klein. But colonialists memories are very short of course. What we do is entirely different from what they do, because we are human and they are not.

Below are reports of the discovery in the main Israeli press.

Tony Greenstein

Israeli Settlers Terrorise Palestinian Villagers

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

MIDEAST: Israeli Settlers Terrorise Palestinian Villagers

By Mel Frykberg

AT TUWANI, West Bank, Mar 9 (IPS) – “I couldn’t run. My pregnancy was too far advanced and there was nowhere to hide,” said Amna Salman Rabaye, 31, as she recalled the terrifying incident several months ago.

Rabaye from the Palestinian Bedouin village of At Tuwani in the southern West Bank was grazing her sheep when she was assaulted by a security guard from the adjacent illegal Israeli settlement of Ma’on.

“We saw a group of masked Israeli settlers armed with sticks and chains heading towards us. The younger shepherds ran and managed to escape, leaving me with the flock of sheep,” Rabaye told IPS.

“It was physically impossible for me to run and I also didn’t want the settlers to kill or steal my sheep. The security guard pushed me over but I was not injured,” recalled Rabaye who was then seven months pregnant.

English Videos from the Iraqi Resistance

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

ANTIIMPERIALIST MEDIA

March 9, 2009 These are some of the most interesting Videos released by the noble Iraqi Resistance in English language to reach the People in the non-Arab World, especially in the United States. In some of these Videos they explain their views and aims, in some they present their weapons and military operations. These Documentaries are never shown by corporate media, but they reveal the truth about a conflict that has so far killed more than 1 Million Iraqis and thousands of US Soldiers.

Taliban Adopting Tactics of Iraqi Insurgency

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Coalition Deaths From IED Soar in Afghanistan

Posted March 9, 2009

In January and February of 2009, 32 coalition troops were killed in IED attacks, more than a threefold increase over the same period in 2008. The number wounded also rose to 96 from 39, reflecting the enormous increase in violence over the last year (which was itself the most violent year since the war began).

Sen. Reed from the Armed Services Committee said that the rising toll was a “reflection of the increased activity of the Taliban,” adding “they’re adopting the tactics used by insurgents in Iraq.”

Even beyond the IEDs, this winter has been radically more violent than the previous year, which the US military has attributed to the relatively mild winter. It had been widely expected, as the Obama Administration prepares to escalate the war, that the toll in 2009 with be considerable worse than 2008 was.

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/03/09/coalition-deaths-from-ied-soar-in-afghanistan/

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-muslim voice-
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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

Modesto soldier killed in grenade blast in Iraq

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

By Emilie Raguso / The Modesto Bee

Monday, Mar. 09, 2009

MODESTO — A young man who twice served as the student body president at Downey High School and graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., died Saturday in Iraq.

Lt. Daniel Hyde was 24. He is the first Modesto soldier killed in Iraq since 2007.

Hyde was stationed in Samarra, Iraq, his family said. He had been deployed in October as an Airborne Ranger-qualified infantry officer with the 3rd Infantry Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division.

Saturday afternoon, Hyde, a platoon leader, was killed when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his Humvee, said his father, Brian Hyde, 49.

Three U.S. Army representatives visited the family’s northeast Modesto home Saturday evening, his family said. Glenda Hyde, Daniel Hyde’s mother, was home alone.