S.O.S As you have heard in the lecture video, any nation who acts independently to free its economy from American domination gets spanked by those who have a stake in that dependency. Sudanese financial system, I heard did not catch the financial virus, as it was quarantined by the big boys of wall street, now, the Sudanase are laughing all the way to their banks, and laughing at the rest. Gloablaization is dead! Nur

Brother Awakener. First please be clear on the question, a good question is half the answer, I propmise that I will give you the best possible answer if the question is CLEAR. So, please refresh the question one more time, and inshAllah the last time. Brother, below I have posted an old topic that will answer all your questions of who is Muslim or who is not, and hence the quotes on the word "Muslim", please read patiently the entire two topics, and then if anything is not clear, please ask, if I have made any wrong implications, please bring it to my attention, I am human, and I make mistakes. The two following gtopics were questions that were posed to me by my readers back in 2000., One by a sister, and the other by a non Mumslim reader (as per his name on screen) Am I A Munafiq? Well, that is a difficult question, first let us learn the relationship between iimaan, sin and kufr to see where nifaaq belongs. 1. No Soul will go to Jannah which is not a Muslim(a) 2. No one can be Muslim without Shahaada (Tawxiid) 3. Shahaada is information, we are required to believe in and bear witness thereof. 4. The test to see if we indeed believe in information represented by the Shahaada are our deeds: So our faith is composed of a A. set of Information we are required to believe. B. Set of Commands we are ordered to obey The extent of your belief in the information that our Prophet SAWS delivered is measured by the extent of orders that we obey. In other words, our obedience to the orders of Allah, is a reflection of our belief in the information delivered to us. So , Islam is composed of a two sets: A) A set of information to be believed in, like Allah, Jannah, angels, etc . B) A set of orders to abide with, such as Prayers, (Salat), Fasting, Upholding Justice, etc . The orders are subdivided in to two categories: 1.Orders to do something 2.Orders to stay away from doing something If Allah orders us to do something, and we fail to comply, the reason could be: a. We do not believe in the information b. We believe in it but we are arrogant c. We are MENTALLY CHALLENGED If (a) that is clear kufr If (b) That is also kufr, the type of Sheitan If © We may be the same case like a crazy person, Mentally Challenged, no responsibility. If we are ordered to stay away from something, and we do not, we have the following scenario: a. We do not believe in the information b. We are arrogant c. We can not resist temptation d. We are MENTALLY CHALLENGED All but case © are covered above. If case © is the situation, then that is called disobedience (Sin)(Macsiyah) and it is what Adam and Eve , (Hawaa) aleyhimaa assalaam have committed. It does not make one a kaafir by itself. ( The Khawaarij are the only to claim that a sin can make one a Kafir ) To generalize the above. If a person does something he is ordered not to do, the driver is more likely weakness against temptation, and that person is not a kaafir, this is the case of Adam and Eve, Aleyhimaa assalaam . If a person refuses to do something he is ordered to do, the driver of his action is more likely arrogance, like the case of Sheitan . Now we visit a new territory: There is a principle for detecting iiman ( Faith) levels developed by Sheikh Ibn Taymiyah. Called (Talaazumul Dhaahir wal Baatin )( Synregy of the Apparent actions of a person with the Hidden Motives within the consciousness ) I will simplify it for you again. The inside beliefs and the outward actions of a person are always working in harmony. Except when an outside disturbance influences that person attention. When as a result, the outwardly actions of that person projects and acts contrary of what is supposed to be inside . Meaning. In Systems Science, when we input a signal into a balanced system, we observe an output that reflects the shape of the original signal output + the function of the signal that operated on the system. In the absence of outside disturbance, we can always predict the output. But when an outside element disturbs the system, the output will not be predictable. A person who is a kaafir therefore will normally act as a kaafir. Sabeelul kaafireen And a person who is a muslim will always act like a Muslim. Sabeelul Mumineen In general, if you leave anyone alone, what he/she does is reflecting what they believe . But the minute that person feels that he/she is being observed, that feeling will somewhat effect the action of that person. An example is when you catch a child making funny faces on a mirror the child will immediately alter his behaviour to an acceptable manner. This is called conforming. So, when a Kaafir lives with Muslims, he may act like Muslim, to avoid problems. He is called a Munaafiq . And a Muslim who lives with Kufaar may at times act like kuffar, to avoid problems. He is called Mukrah . Now, a Somali Nomad who lives in Somalia, USA or Europe, is free to practice his faith, so if that person does not practice, or he acts contrary to his faiths tenets, his actions are an indicators of what is missing in his heart. In this case the actions or their absence are an indictor of the iimaan inside that person. However a Muslim who lives in tyranny, his actions may not be indicator of his belief. Because, if this person practices his faith, he is afraid for his life. As a result this person conceals his faith portraying himself as non Muslim, when in effect he fully believes his faith and is willing tp practise it to the fullest if he was not afraid. His fear, though could be justifiable or may be unjustifiable, in which case he is in grave error. Allah says : Are they same he who spends all his nights praying and prostrating, alert for aakhirah, and the one who is in darkness..............................." Nasalu Allaha al caafiyah. Aamin Walllahu aclam. 2000 Nurtel Communications Old Edition Paradise is Possible Summer Campaign Levels Of Iman: Second Aqeedah Question : This article was also prompted by a similar question that I have answered in plain English, My way is always keep things as simple as possible, because the majority of people are indeed simple, not scholarly, again enjoy the simplicity of Aqeedah, brainteasers are not my cup of Caano Geel, so enjooy reading: Levels of Faith ( IIMAAN). A viewer with screenname Johnny Jake asked me on another thread if there are different levels of being a Muslim: Here is the answer I posted 2 Years ago: Bismillah, wa bihi nastaciin Islam literally means submission to a higher authority . As such, one gives up his power over his life at will, taking direction of how to live from that higher source. To be a Muslim, just like graduating from college, there is minimum requirements. Once these minimum requirements are met, a person is a muslim. Islam is composed of a word to utter and actions to perform The word to utter is further divided into two categories. A. The word of the heart, which is belief in what has been revealed . B. The word of the mouth, which is uttering the manifestation of the singularity of the authority that created the universe and everything in it, and following the course of the messenger who delivered this mesage . Deeds are further divided in to two parts. A. Deeds of the heart, which is the intention that drives our actions . B. Physical deeds, like prayers, fasting etc. If a person does not utter the word of the heart, meaning he does not believe, he is not a Muslim If a person does not utter the word of the mouth, eventough he believes in his heart, he is not Muslim, he is like Sheitan, or Abi talib , the uncle of the prophet SAWS. If a person's heart does not do the deeds of the heart, meaning he has no intention to do something, that person, is not a Mulsim, The prophet said " (Inamaal aamalu bil niyaat) the validity of deeds are conditional to having the right intention(NIYA). That is why manslaughter is a lesser charge than murder, because the accused did not intend to kill, no (NIYA). If a person does not do physical deeds, Like salaat, fasting etc. then, we look into what motivates that person to do or not to do what he is been ordered or prohibited from. If he does not do what has been ordered to do, that person is usually driven by disbelief, arrogance, or he is Mentally Challenged (SAFAAHA). All of which make him not a Muslim, except for a Mentally Challenged person, which wholly or partially makes him unaccountable to his deeds ( SAFEEH) If he does something prohibited, he is more likely driven by strong desire or Lust, arrogance, disbelief or being Mentally Challenged( SAFAAHA). All but Lust will make him a non-Muslim, Doing something prohibited because of lust and uncontrollable desire, is called a (MACSIYA) a SIN and it does not make a person by itself a non-Muslim. Accumulation of sins lead to disbelief in the long run though, just like sand pepples form mountains, A Muslim, therefore, does not trivilize sins, but looks up to the importance of the authority that he/she is disobeying. Wa Salaamu Alaa man ittabaca al hudaa. 2000 Nurtel Communications Paradise is Possible Summer Campaign Nur

Naden sis you write: "The problem with comparing a system of governance and a religion is that you are not really comparing similar things" We need to translate the word Religion to Arabic first, we find it as NIXLA. NIXLA IS DIFFERENT than DEEN. Afterwards we need to find definition of Deen in the Arabic language, which I have given many times in many threads, for now, it simply means a way of life, or a system to govern human life on earth, the issuer is Allah, while other systems of governance are issued by humans for humans. My point is that Democracy is challenging Allah's authority by governing themselves in denial of his sovreignty, for which they have no right, since they are His creatures. You write: "For now, perhaps we can skip this juncture for a later attempt and consider your latest assertion that democracy is somehow akin to idol worship. Your primary support for this is that giving people the power to develop laws is an affront to God’s supremacy over human-governing laws, as you've written. Am I correct? Naden sis. Democracy as practiced today fits Idolatory in 4 counts of which you think 2 and 4 are not holding water, which is subjective, as I see it to be true and you dont, because of your preconceptions of the merits of Democracy and you "believe" as in any faith, that its a good governance system for mankind, which I disagree with respect. As for the point 2 which you do not accept, let us ask, does Democracy have Devotees? Here is what the dictionary says about its meaning: DEVOTION: Synonyms: adherence, adoration, allegiance, attachment, commitment, consecration, dedication, enthusiasm, faithfulness, fanaticism, fidelity, hero worship,idolatry, infatuation, love, loyalty, passion, piety, prayer, religion, religiosity, reverence, sanctity, veneration, worship, zeal, zealotry How many synonyms do they share above? As for the fourth one, which you think is far fetched, I said that Democracy is a false notion, if its not please prove that it is not, that it gives people absolute power as Democracy claims. I am all ears (or eyes in this case). Naden sis, I said: "Democracy challenges Allah's power on regulating people's affairs, so it practically sets itself as a God." I did not say nor implied anywhere that Allah gave people the power to develop laws on their own without his guidance, Allah says in Quraan " Laa yushriku fii xukmihi axada" " he does not allow anyone to share his LEGISLATIVE POWER ( XUKMIHI) creatures" Before we go any furher, let us agree on my justifications 1, 3, which you have not contested their validity. Do they make any sense to support my statement? please be clear on this question, its pivotal to the entire discussion. Nur

S & D sis. Wa 3alaykumu Salaam, wa ra7matullah wa barkaatuh. Jazaakellahu kheiran for sharing these great lessons, indeed, Sadaqa increases wealth, and patience with family is a treasure of reward, as for time management, the Messenger of Allah SAWS said, " There are two ni3mah ( Good assests) people do not invest well, so they make a loss, these are 1. Health and 2. Free Time. You see sis, I read this book on time management written by a woman who experienced the same problem you have mentioned, she found that the problem of time management is caused by space management ( since we live in time and space), her thesis was that if you organize your space, and put everything where they belong, and you put every activity in a time slot, then, you can realy feel happy, because stress, and hence tiredness is trigerred by unresolved decisions waiting in a que like unwashed dishes in your sink, you get dizzy by just looking at them, and in Ramadan, after that heavy meal at iftar, you know what I am talkin about. Years ago, Ramadan coincided with the openning of my business ( not eNuri), and like eNuri, I was the accountant, salesman, manager, deliveryman, electrician, maintenamce etc. My business was located in an area with no Masjid, so Ramadan went by so fast, the last night of Ramadan after I got home, I couldnt hold tears for a lost month and tye missed nightly worship. Allah heard me, and ever since, I have not lost the opportunity. Skipping Taraawiih! what a great loss, I hope that you mean Taraaweeh at the masjid, because Taraaweeh can be prayed at home, Tarwaeeh is for Ramadan, like Eid Prayer is for the day of Eid, they go together. Taraaweeh is the essence of ibaadah and the training for the qiyaamulleil after Ramadaan. Tarwaaweeh is when you actually mend fence with Allah ( I mean his fence, remember the Hadeeth, " likul Malikin Ximan"), Taraweeh trains you to be able to stand on your feet long enough to clear your mind from your worldly concerns, to connect with Allah passionately, resulting in a state of tearful reproach. Taraaweeh, is the best form of Dhiker at the nights of Ramadan, and at the last ten nights, its Tahajjud, even longer and more focused. Nur

Nomads Its upwelling time just like our rich marine life Somali coasts. "Upwelling is the raising of nutrients to the surface waters. This occurs in regions where the flow of water brings currents of differing temperatures together, and increases productivity of the ecosystem." Thus, I repost this old post to share with nomads new to this site. Nur

Why An Army Unit May Be Needed In USA? Because The Republicand might steal Election! Ironically, the candidadate who may lose this upcoming election if stolen is Mzee Obama, a relative of Mr. Odinga of Kenya whose votes were stolen by the Neocon supported Kibaki, which resulted riots and death and mass migration. Could that happen in America? Possibly, America is already a police State, totalitarian, torture, spying on its peacful citizens, jail without rights, denial of human rights. For that reason, the Neocons are not taking chances in this election. .................................................................................................... ....................................... Robert F. Kennedy and Greg Palast Vote Rigging and Suppression Ahead of the 2008 Election By Democracy Now! 09/10/08 -- - ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR. "A lot of Europeans wonder, why are Americans so crazy? They keep reelecting this guy. Well, the answer is, we don’t. You know, they keep stealing these elections. And they stole it in 2000, they stole it in 2004, and they’re all set up to steal it again." JUAN GONZALEZ: Election Day is less than a month away, and a record-breaking voter turnout is expected in the 2008 race. But voting rights groups are warning that tens of thousands of registered voters might not be able to cast a ballot come November 4th. Beyond the documented problems of electronic voting machines, thousands of names have been purged from the rolls in several states, including at least six swing states. In some states, voters have been deemed ineligible because of voter registration laws that require photo identification or due to state officials checking voter names against Social Security databases. Democrats and Republicans are locked in court battles over these in a number of states across the country. While Democrats say they’re trying to prevent attempts to block votes, Republicans say they are trying to prevent voter fraud. AMY GOODMAN: Today, we spend the hour looking at voting rights and the political manipulation of the voting process. We begin with a report filed by BBC investigative journalist Greg Palast on how both parties are accusing each other of trying to steal the election. GREG PALAST: There’s a war on for that White House over there. Both political parties say the other is trying to take it, not by winning the vote, but by stealing it. In fact, the Democrats say the Republicans have done it before. ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.: You know, a lot of Europeans wonder, why are Americans so crazy? They keep reelecting this guy. Well, the answer is, we don’t. You know, they keep stealing these elections. And they stole it in 2000, they stole it in 2004, and they’re all set up to steal it again. GREG PALAST: Now, the Republicans accuse the Democrats of voter fraud on a massive scale. Republicans charge that Democrats have registered as many as five million illegal aliens, fakes, felons and fraudulent voters. So, the question is, are the Democrats stuffing the rolls with millions of bogus voters, or are the Republicans blocking millions of genuine voters? The answer is buried somewhere out here. This is no country for old men—or young ones, for that matter. It’s economic ghost town. This is the desert town of Las Vegas—the other one, Las Vegas, New Mexico—where they made the movie No Country for Old Men. For many people, work as extras on the film was the only work they had all year. Even the candidates for office are back on horseback to save gas. Odd thing, in elections earlier this year in New Mexico, one in nine people who turned up at the polls found their names had simply vanished from the voter rolls. LAS VEGAS RESIDENT: I wasn’t on the list, and I had to do one of those— VOTER REGISTRAR CLERK: Provisional? LAS VEGAS RESIDENT: Yeah. VOTER REGISTRAR CLERK: OK, let me tell you. Those lists came from the Secretary of State’s office. We—the local clerk did not have anything to do with that. GREG PALAST: What’s going on here? We asked this man, County Elections Supervisor “Pecos” Paul Maez. So, people are losing their vote? “PECOS” PAUL MAEZ: Yes, because they’re not on the voter rolls, you know. GREG PALAST: Even the supervisor had his own surprise. I understand you had a problem. “PECOS” PAUL MAEZ: I had a problem during the caucus, yes. GREG PALAST: What happened? Your name was missing? “PECOS” PAUL MAEZ: It was—yes. GREG PALAST: And it didn’t say “Pecos Paul” on the voter roll? “PECOS” PAUL MAEZ: It didn’t say “Pecos Paul.” It actually— GREG PALAST: Wait, you’re the elections—you’re the elections supervisor. It didn’t have your name on the voter roll? “PECOS” PAUL MAEZ: Yeah. GREG PALAST: The presidency could be decided right here. Republicans won New Mexico last time by barely 5,000 votes. Which voters have gone missing? A lot of poor folk on this street—officially, they don’t exist. In fact, this whole street doesn’t exist. Low-income voters, especially, have been purged from voter rolls under new US law. Republicans claim these purge laws are needed to prevent voter fraud. We caught up with one of the party’s top anti-fraud crusaders at a Republican celebration. Lawyer Pat Rogers singled out ACORN, a Democratic Party-linked group. Are the Democrats using fraudulent means to stuff the voter rolls and steal the election? PAT ROGERS: My experience in Albuquerque with the ACORN group is that they were involved in serious registration fraud. My experience in Albuquerque with the elections over the last few years have indicated that there have been isolated instances of voter fraud. GREG PALAST: It’s true that several ACORN workers were convicted of making up fake names for the voter rolls, because they were paid for each name they collected. But there’s no evidence that any fictional voter actually cast a ballot. Rogers still fears they’ll appear in November. PAT ROGERS: If you’re going to go to this effort and this expense of having fraudulent people register, why would you do that? People say that there is no fraud here, but there is. GREG PALAST: I drove into Detroit to investigate whether Republican plans to stop fraudulent voters might also capture innocent victims of the economic crisis. In Michigan, 62,000 families now face losing their homes to foreclosure on their mortgages. In neighborhoods like this, half the houses have been repossessed. ROBERT PRATT: This house here is vacant. I mean, they’re nice houses. Look at this house. This is a nice house right here. GREG PALAST: This is Robert Pratt. He’s next on the list. ROBERT PRATT: This house here is vacant. Yeah, it’s empty. This house is empty. GREG PALAST: That makes it impossible for you to sell your house. ROBERT PRATT: To sell any house. This house is vacant. Then you look across the street over there, those houses are vacant. I work straight with no overtime, no off-days. I’m talking seven days a week, eight hours a day. Yes. GREG PALAST: So you’re trying to get these built [inaudible]. ROBERT PRATT: Yes, yes, yes. I want to build. I want—I mean, look at our neighborhood. Our neighborhoods are starting to look like a battle zone. GREG PALAST: As the neighborhood spun down into poverty and violence, his son, just twelve years old, playing in the backyard, was shot dead by a stray bullet. ROBERT PRATT: This is my son. This is my son here. This is Robert. GREG PALAST: He’s lost his son, his home, and now he could lose his vote. A reporter for the Michigan Messenger wrote that the local Republican chairman told the journalist that his party would challenge residents right at the polling station to stop them from voting if their names are on a foreclosure list. The Republicans now deny this. But the Michigan Messenger sticks by its story. There’s another issue. If you lose this house, there is an allegation that the Republican Party is— ROBERT PRATT: Don’t want us to vote. And that’s not—I mean, that’s like saying we’re not a United States citizen anymore. You know, we lose our house, we lose our right to vote. That’s not right. That’s not fair. GREG PALAST: This is the second time this family has faced foreclosure. Last time, they were thrown out by a company called Trott & Trott, a firm that evicts more than a hundred Michigan homeowners every day. ROBERT PRATT: Trott & Trott—I mean, come on. That’s a mortgage company that’s here in Michigan that then got a lot of peoples and put a lot of peoples out on the street. I mean, to a lot of homeowners, that’s like an enemy. GREG PALAST: Home after home after home, foreclosed, boarded up, abandoned. But in an exclusive enclave nearby, there are no boards over the windows. These go for $10 million apiece. Wow! No foreclosure sign on this house. This is the home of David Trott. He is Michigan’s foreclosure king. No one has evicted more families in this state. What’s this below the Stars and Stripes? The Jolly Roger? It’s Mr. Trott’s flag. And this is Mr. Trott’s office. And it’s also Mr. McCain’s office. The Republicans are renting their local headquarters from Mr. Trott’s eviction operation. Greg Palast, BBC Television. The Republicans wouldn’t speak with us, but they deny they are going to use foreclosure lists to challenge voters. So, we went upstairs. And right upstairs from McCain headquarters, Mr. Trott. David Trott not only houses the Republican Party, he’s also one of their biggest Michigan contributors. He and his wife have given hundreds of thousands to the party. McCain has just given up on Michigan, yet the foreclosure controversy remains key to swing states Nevada and Florida. And now, to the critical swing state of Colorado, where SUVs have replaced the buffalos that used to roam the plains. According to this report, Colorado voters are going the way of the buffalo: they’re disappearing. This government report says that nearly one in five voters, 19.4 percent, were taken off the rolls in an unparalleled, massive purge. Democrats accuse Republican Secretary of State Donetta Davidson of orchestrating the purge. But she says local officials have the final say over voter rolls. She ended up here, in Washington, when George Bush appointed her head of the United States Elections Assistance Commission, where her job is to tell the rest of the nation how to run unbiased elections. She commissioned a report on election fixing. The report came in like this, but came out like this. It was written by Republican and Democratic experts. They concluded that Republican fears of widespread voter fraud were unfounded. This is the report’s author, Tova Wang. TOVA WANG: This idea of massive in-person polling place fraud on Election Day is just an absolute myth. GREG PALAST: The bipartisan team found Democrats were right to worry that legitimate voters were being excluded, but by the time Bush’s chairwoman published the report, the experts’ conclusions were turned upside-down. TOVA WANG: They left out a lot of the information that we provided regarding voter intimidation and vote suppression. They left out—edited out a number of things that could be perceived as critical of the Department of Justice’s handling of voter intimidation cases. GREG PALAST: US law permits political party workers to go right into the polling stations and challenge voters when they show up to vote. Experts fear this could lead to intimidation of legitimate voters. Despite the election experts’ views, Republicans demanded new grounds for challenge, they said, to stop Democrats cheating. UNIDENTIFIED: We know that, and we know—your party rests on the base of electoral fraud. GREG PALAST: The answer came from the man known as Bush’s brain, Karl Rove, who demanded new ID voting laws. KARL ROVE: I go to the grocery store, and I want to cash a check to pay for my groceries, I’ve got to show a little bit of ID. Why should it not be reasonable and responsible to say that when people show up at the voting place, they ought to be able to prove who they are by showing some form of ID? GREG PALAST: New ID laws will hit black voters hardest, says Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., son of the late attorney general, and voting rights lawyer. You know, Karl Rove said he goes to the grocery store, he has to show an ID to cash a check. So, why can’t you be required to show a photo ID when you vote for president of the United States? That seems sensible. However, in America, it raises a racial issue. ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.: I have an ID, and most Americans have an ID. But one out of every ten Americans don’t have a government-issued ID, because they don’t travel abroad, so they don’t have passports, and they don’t drive a car, so they don’t have driver’s licenses. The number rises to one in five when you’re dealing with the African American community. GREG PALAST: Altogether, an estimated 100,000 black voters in just one swing state, Indiana, will lose their vote to the new law. But when I stopped by the Native American pueblos of New Mexico, I discovered that when it comes to voter suppression, Democrats don’t have clean hands, either. Local politicians wanted to reopen a uranium mine on the pueblos’ sacred mountain. The pueblos were not happy. NATIVE AMERICAN MAN: See, that’s a very sacred mountain that we have. There is a place, special place, that we pray for—to have a nice summer, have good rain. GREG PALAST: The officials gave the pueblos ballots without envelopes. Then these same politicians threw out their votes, because they didn’t come in the right envelopes. The Democrats were charged with cheating the pueblos by this man, David Iglesias, a rising Republican star appointed US prosecutor by George Bush. But the Bush administration wanted him to go after individual Democrat voters. Republicans bombarded Iglesias with allegations of fraud by Democrats. DAVID IGLESIAS: Over 100 complaints we investigated for almost two years. I didn’t find one prosecutable voter fraud case in the entire state of New Mexico. GREG PALAST: So the Bush administration fired him. Not prosecuting innocent people led to your removal? DAVID IGLESIAS: Yeah. I mean, they wanted some splashy pre-election indictments that would scare these other—these alleged hordes of illegal voters away. They were looking for politicized—for improperly politicized US attorneys to file bogus voter fraud cases. GREG PALAST: In the last presidential election, officially, three million votes were cast and never counted. This time, it could go a lot higher. And then, there is the chronic shortage of voting machines. In Ohio last time, voters in prosperous white neighborhoods waited only fifteen minutes to vote, while voters in poor black areas waited in line four hours. It all adds up, and it can change the outcome. TOVA WANG: If you combine people who are disenfranchised by voter ID, people who are disenfranchised by other things, such as there not being enough voting machines, combined with people who will be shut out because they have been left off the voter registration list, that’s enough to swing the election. GREG PALAST: If the final count is as close as the polls indicate, the next man in that house won’t be chosen by counting the votes, but by blocking the voters. AMY GOODMAN: A report on voting rights filed by investigative journalist Greg Palast for BBC Newsnight. When we come back from break, he joins us live. Then we’ll be talking to the Secretary of State of Ohio and find out about a new report on voter purging around the country. Stay with us. [break] AMY GOODMAN: Greg Palast, BBC investigative reporter, joins us here in our firehouse studio, author of Armed Madhouse, as well as The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Democracy and Regulation. Right now, he has teamed up with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to investigate this year’s election. They’ve just released a voting guide comic book called Steal Back Your Vote. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Greg Palast. GREG PALAST: Glad to be here. Let’s see how many we can steal back. AMY GOODMAN: And your piece is coming out in Rolling Stone next week. Just summarize what we just watched, what you found as you traveled the country, the most egregious problems of people taken off the voting rolls. GREG PALAST: Well, that’s the problem, is that we have millions and millions and millions of people being purged off the voter rolls, like in the state of Colorado, it was stunning to find out that one in five voters had their names simply erased by the Republican secretary of state. And then George Bush found—picked her out and made her the head of the US Elections Assistance Commission, as—you know, our joke in the comic book is that Bush wanted to name her “purgin’ general,” but Rove said it was a bit too much. So, this is one of the big problems. You’re going to have millions of people walk into the voting booth, if you’re in Colorado, especially in New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Michigan—if you have any foreclosure problems, anything, they’re going to tell you you can’t vote, and they’re going to try to either get you out of the voting booth or give you a provisional ballot. And what we’re trying to tell you is how you can, in effect, steal it back. So, look, Kennedy and I are coming out with an exposé in Rolling Stone next week on the massive theft of the vote in November. And we were kind of shaken up about it, because—so, Jesse Jackson recommended to us, said, “Look, that’s so grim. You’re going to discourage people from voting. They’re going to say there’s no chance. So you’ve got to do something.” So what we did is we—you know, facing a democracy crisis in America, we did what you have to do, which is to create a comic book. And it’s twenty-four pages of full color with the idea that it tells you—it gives you the Rolling Stone story, with Ted Rall and other great comics laying it out, but then also telling you how you—you know, how you steal it back. And so, we have six ways that they’re stealing the election, but then seven ways you can steal it back. JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, one of the things that we were talking as the film was playing, the—you’re not often getting Democratic leaders in some of these states really raising a ruckus about this issue. GREG PALAST: Oh, yeah. JUAN GONZALEZ: And why is that? In terms of your investigations, for instance, in New Mexico, you mentioned that some of the Democratic leaders were willing to go along with these kinds of purges. GREG PALAST: Well, as—you know, why don’t Democrats stand up? For the same reason as jellyfish. They don’t—you know, invertebrates, but—or as my co-author, Kennedy, said, they’re cowards. But, you know, he’s true blue. I’m not a Democrat. And, by the way, the guide is totally nonpartisan, so you—which means you can take it into the booth with you, by the way, to protect yourself, the Steal Back Your Vote comic. And why don’t the Democrats protect voters? Because they’re in on the game. As you saw in New Mexico, you had Democratic Party officials knocking off the Native American vote, which is huge in New Mexico. It’s a swing vote in New Mexico. And they’re all Democrats—Native Americans—almost to a one. But they wanted to stop a uranium mine locally, and so the local policy want their baksheesh from the uranium mine are knocking off Native American votes. We see this in Colorado, we see this in Florida, where local Democratic officials are in on the purge, in on the game, trying to block the low-income minority voters. There are so many dangers now for the new voter, for the minority voter, for the elderly voter. There are so many tricks that they’re using now. It’s not one thing. You know, I think a lot of people remember me from busting open the Florida purge of 2000 when Katherine Harris said that thousands of black folk were felons, when their only crime was voting while black. You know, that was kind of the magic bullet they gave in Florida. Kennedy, my co-author of the comic book and Rolling Stone article, showed how they stole Ohio. Now what we see is a nationwide kind of Floridation of the nation, under something called the Help America Vote Act, because, you know, Bush is now trying to help us vote. It’s under the Help America Vote Act, where it’s like a whole series of things. So we have the mass purges. We have new ID laws. How many new voters in America that have just signed up and all of those Obamaniacs realize that if you mail in your ballot on a first-time vote, almost every state requires you to also include a photocopy of your government ID? Obama is going to lose a million votes from absentee ballots which are mailed in without ID. It’s a new requirement. They don’t tell you that. In some cases, like Kentucky, you’ve got to serve—you have to notarize it. I mean, it’s completely out of control, the mass purging. But there are things—I don’t want—again, I got to go back to Jesse Jackson’s admonition: don’t be discouraged. In fact, you should be encouraged. You should have the courage to now protect your vote. JUAN GONZALEZ: And what are some of the ways you can fight back? GREG PALAST: Yeah. Well, in Steal Back Your Vote, we actually—besides the wonderful comic book, we have a pullout page, which you can get at stealbackyourvote.org, that we have print copies. Download copies. Download them right now, stealbackyourvote.org. But some of the things you can do is, first of all, don’t mail in your ballot. There’s just too many ways that they can throw it out: you didn’t have your ID, you didn’t have your—you know, you’re not—you’re on some type of purge list, you don’t know it. Vote early. Today, right now in Ohio, what are you doing after this program? You’re voting. That’s what you’re doing. In Ohio, in Indiana, you can vote right now. In Florida, you can vote right now, in many states, because if you are on a purge list, Amy and Juan, then you have time to correct it, to scream. We also have the 800 number from Election Protection, so that—bring this in with you, by the way, please. Don’t leave the voting booth. And then we say things like—that’s number four. AMY GOODMAN: Just go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. GREG PALAST: One, don’t mail in your ballot. Don’t go postal. Second, vote early, vote now. Three, register and register. What we mean by that is check your registration. We give you a place to go from our sponsor Voto Latino. We also have this in Spanish, Voto Latino. AMY GOODMAN: You mean, you go online. GREG PALAST: Go online to stealbackyourvote.org, and then you can check your registration and see if you’re valid, how you’re registered, because you better know how it’s spelled. You know, if you’re Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., you better have ID that says “Jr.” on it. The fourth thing is vote unconditionally, not provisionally. Three million people were handed provisional ballots. Now, if you’re a white listener to this program, you may not know what a provisional ballot is. If you’re Hispanic or you’re black, you sure know what it is, because they gave out three million in almost all minority areas. Provisional ballots are what you get if there’s a dispute on your ballot or your ID. They challenge you. Some guy with a Blackberry from the Republican Party is challenging you. And I’m not being partisan. It’s just the Republicans that are doing this, challenging you. You get a provisional ballot, and then they throw it out. Don’t accept a provisional ballot. Demand adjudication. Go to stealbackyourvote.org for the steps on how you do it. The fifth one is—I call it “occupy Ohio, invade Nevada.” What that means is you should be working, you should be working on Election Day. You should vote early now, and on Election Day help people get out the word, get out the comic book, get out—you know, get out the protection. You can’t win anymore by 51 percent. You’ve got to win by 56. I’m not an Obama supporter, but I do believe that every single vote should count. Six, we call it date a voter. As our sponsor Jesse Jackson said, arrive with five. But, you know—and what we say is, like bowling and love, don’t vote alone. The reason is, you have to protect each other. And when you go in in a group, it’s a lot easier to have the courage to stand up to the vote thieves when they’re challenging you. And then, of course, last one is, make the democracy demand, which is that if there is games with the vote, the election doesn’t end then on November 4th. It’s Wednesday that counts as much as Tuesday. We have to change the culture of America, where we stop shrugging our shoulders, like after 2000, 2004, and say we’re going to count the votes right now. AMY GOODMAN: Well, Greg Palast, I want to thank you for being with us. Greg Palast and Robert Kennedy, Jr. have come out with a new comic book, Steal Back Your Vote. “Hold it! Who said you could vote?” is on the front page, but they say you can, and they have ways to do it. Thanks very much for being with us. Look forward to your piece in Rolling Stone next week. Read On. Senator Leahy Concerned about NorthCom’s New Army Unit By Matthew Rothschild 09/10/08 "The Progressive Magazine" -- October 7, 2008 -- Senator Patrick Leahy is concerned about the Pentagon’s decision to designate an Army unit to Northern Command. On October 1, the Pentagon, for the first time ever, dedicated an Army force specifically to NorthCom, which is in charge of securing not some foreign region but the United States of America. The unit it assigned is the 3rd Infantry, First Brigade Combat Team, which has spent three of the last five years in Iraq. It was one of the first units to get to Baghdad, and it was active in retaking and patrolling Fallujah. One of its specialties is counterinsurgency. This marks a change for NorthCom, which was established on October 1, 2002. Its website still says it “has few permanently assigned forces,” and that “the command is assigned forces whenever necessary to execute missions, as ordered by the President and the Secretary of Defense.” Leahy “asked for a briefing from his staff” on this development and “wants to monitor the situation,” an aide to Leahy said. Leahy was instrumental in getting Congress to repeal the “Insurrection Act Rider” in the 2006 defense appropriations bill. That rider had given the President sweeping power to use military troops in ways contrary to the Insurrection Act and Posse Comitatus Act. The rider authorized the President to have troops patrol our streets in response to disasters, epidemics, and any “condition” he might cite. Leahy said last December that this rider “made it easier for the President to take over the Guard and to declare martial law.” In a Senate statement on April 24, 2007, he cautioned against inserting the military “into domestic situations.” As he put it: “One of the distinguishing characteristics of the United States is that we do not use the military to patrol our communities and neighborhoods.” A few months before that, he warned that we must ensure that “the military is not used in a way that offends and endangers some of our most cherished values and liberties.” The repeal of the rider was signed by Bush on January 28, though Amy Goodman reports that “Bush attached a signing statement that he did not feel bound by the repeal.” The roles the 1st Brigade Combat Team will take on at NorthCom are a bit unclear. “They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control,” said the Army Times when it first reported on it. These duties would be in addition to dealing with “potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.” Soldiers in the unit “also will learn how to use ‘the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has field,’ 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them,” the article noted. Cloutier even bragged to the Army Times: “I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered.” The Army Times has since issued a correction, stating that the “non-lethal crowd control package” is “intended for use on deployments to the war zone, not in the U.S.” NorthCom’s own press release of September 30 says, “This response force will not be called upon to help with law enforcement, civil disturbance, or crowd control.” The unit will have its regular weapons, however. It will store other weapons in “containers,” and will have access to tanks, as Amy Goodman has reported and the Pentagon has confirmed. The Army is taking a strong interest in this deployment. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey personally observed the combat team’s training exercise, entitled “Vibrant Response,” which was held at Fort Stewart, Georgia, last month. According to NorthCom’s public affairs department, Gen. Casey “pointed out that being part of the new force requires a shift in thinking for soldiers who are accustomed to taking charge.” One soldier in the exercise said he learned that the troops should “preposition containers and equipment.” NorthCom’s website, in a section on frequently asked questions about Joint Task Forces—Civil Support, cites “DoD Directive 3025.1” as laying out the criteria for how the Pentagon will respond in domestic situations. That directive talks about “military support in dealing with the actual or anticipated consequences of civil emergencies.” Those civil emergencies could be “arising during peace, war, or transition to war.” While it states that such support “does not include military support to local law enforcement,” there is a provision in the directive for the military to take over functions of the civilian government. Military personnel “shall not perform any function of civil government unless absolutely necessary on a temporary basis under conditions of Immediate Response. Any commander who is directed, or undertakes, to perform such functions shall facilitate the reestablishment of civil responsibility at the earliest possible time,” the document states. Under this “Immediate Response” exception, local military commanders can even act without prior approval from their superiors. “Imminently serious conditions resulting from any civil emergency or attack may require immediate action by military commanders, or by responsible officials of other DoD agencies, to save lives, prevent human suffering, or mitigate great property damage,” it says. “When such conditions exist and time does not permit prior approval from higher headquarters, local military commanders and responsible officials of other DoD Components are authorized by this Directive, subject to any supplemental direction that may be provide by their DoD Component, to take necessary action to respond to requests of civil authorities.” The Pentagon’s decision to dedicate the First Brigade Combat Team to NorthCom has raised alarms, especially in the context of the current economic crisis. In Bush’s National Security Presidential Directive 51, he lays out his authority in the event of a catastrophic emergency. In such an emergency, “the President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government” and will coordinate with state, local, and tribal governments, along with private sector owners of infrastructure. NSPD 51 defines a catastrophic emergency as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function.” Notice the use of the word “or” above. In our current circumstances, it might be more relevant to read the definition this way: “any incident . . . that results in extraordinary levels of . . . disruption severely affecting the U.S. . . . economy.” President Bush could declare a catastrophic emergency today. And he’d have the 3rd Infantry, First Brigade Combat Team, well trained from its years patrolling Iraq, at his disposal here at home. EDITOR'S NOTE: Matthew Rothschild was on Democracy Now! on October 7 debating Army Col. Michael Boatner, USNORTHCOM future operations division chief.

Many Approved Torture Eagle Editorial 09/10/08 "The Wichita Eagle" -- When it comes to the Bush administration's disgraceful decision to torture terrorism suspects, there are plenty of officials to share the shame. New documents provided to Congress confirm that Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, led meetings in 2002 in which officials discussed specific "enhanced" interrogation methods. Those attending reportedly included Vice President Dick Cheney, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and then-CIA Director George Tenet. What's particularly noteworthy about these meetings is that they occurred, and the torturing of detainees began, months before the administration had a legal opinion saying that it was OK to torture -- as shoddy as that opinion was. Torture and degrading treatment are clearly prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and by U.S. law. In addition, the 1984 Convention Against Torture specifically states there are "no circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency," that could be "invoked as a justification of torture" or "other acts of cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment." To try to circumvent these clear prohibitions, and provide cover for the torturing that had already been occurring, administration attorneys tried to redefine "torture" to be so severe and so prolonged ("lasting months or years") that it was nearly impossible to commit. It also claimed that the infliction of pain had to be the "precise objective" and not a byproduct of the abuse, according to Jane Mayer's authoritative book "The Dark Side." Thus, according to administration attorneys, an interrogator could know that torturing would cause pain, but if "causing such harm is not the objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent" to be guilty of torture. Harold Koh, dean of Yale Law School, described these claims as "perhaps the most clearly erroneous legal opinion I have ever read." In addition to violating the law -- and, according the Red Cross, possibly committing war crimes -- the United States gained little if any new quality intelligence by torturing, according to CIA and FBI officials. In fact, torturing detainees (including some who were innocent) hurt our ability to obtain good intelligence while undermining our ideals and damaging our reputation and credibility worldwide. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft reportedly said at one of those White House meetings that "history will not judge us kindly." Nor should the American public. For the editorial board, Phillip Brownlee Copyright The Wichita Eagle

A GLASS OF CAMEL MILK The Value Chain of Wisdom. As consumers, when we drink a glass of camel milk, we take for granted the chain of processes and services that delivered that nice glass of fresh (Smoked aroma) camel milk to our dinner tables. The delivery of that glass of camel Milk starts with the green pastures, the rain season, the grazing of the she camel and how she is milked ( just like humans, she has to be in the right mood). Like that fresh camel milk, everything in life has a value chain, where it progresses from something that seems useless to a complex thing that is optimized for a specific purpose. A data point on a graph, may not mean much to a viewer, but the collection of many data points lead to a trend. Likewise, a trend may not be useful if another dimension is added, as it reduces again to a data point, however, a collection of different trends gives us the view of a wider picture, and as we rise above all these trends, we see a wholesome picture, much larger and much more indicative of the simplicity in the complexity of its parts. For Example, We have a data point (e.g. temperature), a collection of data points give us a segment of a curve or a segment of line ( Information or trends of temperatures over a period), a collection of these lines give us a 3D Surface projection( Knowledge base ), and as we pool together a collection of knowledge from different researchers, we have what is known as "Theory" or in layman's terms, a (Wisdom). So Wisdom is the highest level of the intellectuality. Allah Says in Quraan " He who is granted Wisdom, has indeed been blessed with the greatest of gifts" You see Nomad paesano, in this world of ours, not everyone likes everyone else, however, living together is possible, and its increasingly becoming necessary as we realize that the cost of getting rid of people we don't like is becoming expensive, we cant even throw fellow humans out of this planet as it costs more money launching them to outer space instead of incinerating them like Hitler did to the Jews ( Who have since created their own ethno-religious based State known as Israel on top of another nations land, and they are now busy giving the hell in return to oppressed Palestinians ), and as the Americans did to the American Indians ( who they've boozed to extinction to thank them for the turkey they served), and the Japanese ( who they've pulverized with a nuclear inferno), and the Vietnamese ( who they've Carpet Bombed, raped and killed by the thousands), and The Iraqis ( who they've inflamed their dormant sectarian hatred as a controlled demolition of a nation that stood united for ages) , and lately Somalis ( who they've messed up so bad through Ethiopian proxy peasant army invasion and molestation of a country, ( who for the past 20 years followed everything in the books of their teachers, the Americans, to empty Somalia of its people, unfortunately, the more Somalis are killed, the survivors seem to be spawning more babies making up for the dead which infuriates those who are trying to get rid of them). The moral here is, Its too expensive to get rid of people you hate. So A better idea is for different people of different religions and cultures is to learn to live together. We don't have to love our neighbor literally, as Jesus taught Christians, we need just to try ( a bumper sticker reads : (God Loves you and I am trying). You see Nomad paesano, today, technology is drawing peoples of different background too close for comfort, while warlord politicians and bad economic and political decisions they make are forcing many Somalis to leave their native towns like Kurtunwaarrey, to seek a safer havens in the west, which is already devastated by financial crisis in addition to a global warming hovering over our heads caused by deforestation, mass production and urbanization. In such a scenario, temperatures will rise as well as emotions, when your host country neighbor finds herself living next door to you, a funny looking neighbor who cooks aromatic foods that cause heartburn. If the wave of this synthetic-wars-initiated migration continues, which is partially caused by the western countries Imperial designs in the third world. We will have the ripples of the regional wars spill over to the west, igniting the clash of civilizations in many western cities as immigrant populations swell and local sensitivities play to the emotions which can create bloody confrontations. So, what is the solution. I think the west has to come in terms with the realities of the times. 1. There will be more chocolate people than vanilla people on earth before the end of this century. (Due to global warming which will make most of the planets inhabitants chocolate colored, Personally, I like both flavors) 2. There will be more Muslims than followers of any other faith on earth before the end of this century. All adherents of other faiths are rapidly on the decline, while adherents of Islam, either by birth rate or by conversion is alarmingly increasing to the Neo-cons nightmare 3. Muslims are being radicalized at a faster rate by Neo-con policies of hegemony and wild goose chase. Radicalization, means, more and more Muslims will be going back to their culture and roots ( the Arabic word Salafia, literally means, going back to original teachings of Islam as practiced by the first three generations of Islamc Caliphate), and in the same manner in which Jews were radicalized after the horrible holocaust to produce men like Sharon and a state like Israel. The question then is; what is the wisdom in dealing with this global phenomena with more of the same undue strategy of bloodshed and madness? ( Madness is defined as "doing the same thing over and over expecting to get a different result") Why NOT: 1. Allow a Model Muslim State to be established in a single Muslim country for all to see and judge accordingly, free market competition also icludes faith and ideologies. If Jews can have their dream state with western funding, why cant Muslims have their own dream model state in their countries? is it for fear that the west will be in short supply of taxi drivers? If the west stops meddling in the Muslim world, a great number of them will put an Islamist government in power, which is exactly what the west fears, similarly, like how your western neighbors perceive you, their Neo-con leaders think the Islamists will cook too spicy a policy that will cause a heartburn very hard to digest. In Somalia, the CIA is closely working to make sure that any government that comes to power is a pro-western government ( meaning a quasi protectorate like Puerto Rico only this one is paid by the UN handouts to keep em hungry and always begging), and hence, the current perceived division of the Islamic resistance who may have been infiltrated by their adversaries). So, in effect, the CIA reasons, if we cant get the clowns of the Somali TFG to run the country on our behalf according to our best interest and schedule, then, let us work with the moderate elements of the Islamists. ( in political relativistic terms, both sides, have moderates, and since opposites attract, the extremists in the white house, the NEO-CONS, prefer to work with "moderates" that meet their demands without objections) What is wrong with this formula? Well, the CIA is prolonging the agony, why not cut it short and do business directly with the radical Islamists? since the other side of the conflict, the neocons, are also radicals who are of late becoming Socialists by nationalizing failing financial institutions as well as totaliterians and fascists. Islam sponsors welfare for the poor, Neocons sponsor welfare for the rich, thus this global war on "Terror" Because what the CIA sees as "radicals" in Somalia, are what the local Somalis see as the heroes who stand up to the Goliath Imperialists, historical arch-enemy Ethiopia, and the despicable ruthless warlords. As long as there is a confrontation and a conflict of interests, any Somali working with the invading/occupying Tigre army and their American masters will be seen as (disgraced ugly national traitors), sooner or later, they will meet the same fate like his Ethiopian Tigres fate, for good or bad, but there will be no place for them in Somalia's future no matter how forceful their masters try. By aligning itself with the despised warlords, the USA has lost all respect among the previously unpolarized people who, before this confrontation, had no ideological predisposition to be against American interests in the region. Today the common Somali street person sees all the evil in the land as American Sponsored ( American war planes have just dropped tons of food, ( sorry, I meant BOMBS) for hungry Somalis on rural Somalia recently to kill some "terror" suspects and some collateral damage, dozens of people and their animals. So, in a conflict of interest, the best way to resolve the conflict is with wisdom, which is the missing ingredient in the western political value-chain pot. As we've said, the value chain that leads to wisdom begins with raw data, then, set of Information, then a Knowledge base, and at the end, a Pure Wisdom. The CIA has collected a lot of (information) about Somalia, they know Somalis clan by clan, they can inflame hostilities in any which way they desire in a matter of days ( like the Olymics games), and if they want, can stop it by a phone call. They also have some (knowledgebase) provided by Somali pro-western "intellectuals", but unfortunately for America as well as for poor Somalia, the CIA seems to score ZERO in (Wisdom) to solve the dilemma in the horn. That is why its policies have failed consistently for the past 20 years and counting. Well, solution of any problem lies squarely with those capable in sustaining it, namely, the parties to the conflict, since every other periphery party is a scavenger looking for side benefits by providing services to the parties in a conflict (The scavengers are, the United Nations, the NGOs, the neighboring countries, Kenya and Ethiopia, are all enjoying the prolonging of the Somali dilemma, thus the scavengers are winning financially, peace is their common threat. But every day in which peace is blocked by the scavengers advice, the USA is wasting its valuable resources which it needs badly these days, diminishing its chances of reaching its own goals, and for Somalis, its even worse, they are at rock bottom, and they are digging even deeper. Which brings us to the Wisdom. The English say, Honesty, is the Best Best Policy. which is missing in politics! If the Americans who have an interest in Somalia are not transparent about their motives and covert operations in Somalia, like how they lied about Iraq's WMD, their lie about Somalia can only work temporarily, until one day, truth surfaces. So let us put forward what is the American geopolitical interest in Somalia. George Bush The Father and the EX Boss of the CIA, summed up the objectives of the USA in Somalia in three points in 1990; 1. Strategic. 2. Economic. 3. Islamic Fundamentalism ( Today, its called Terrorism). Remember in 1990 the Bin Laden Family was investing with the Bush Family in USA in defense contracting companies. And the late Sheikh Usaamah Bin Laden ( May Allah Have mercy on his soul, it is reported that he died in 2001 of kidney failure) was just emerging from his Jihad with the Soviets in Afghanistan as an ally of the USA. 1. The Strategic objective means that Somalia's Sovereignty has to be compromised, and has to yield to that of America since America is more powerful than Somalia economically and militarily, therefore, we have a conflict of interest, Somalia wants to be a little Sovereign nation, and America wants to make it a strategic guard post for other future wars in the oil rich region, ( Now they have to agree with Russians, as well as Somali Pirates and the Islamists on who should control Somalia's 3000 Kilometer long shores). 2. The Economic Objective is about OIL, American companies want Somali Oil and Gas rights exclusively, worried about the Chinese courtship of African countries including Somalia, this objective can be dealt with, with complete transparency if everyone follows market fundamentals of demand and supply ( But Noecon America wants all energy resources in the world to itself alone, greed is lethal) 3. Fighting Islamic Fundamentalists. This objective is going to wear America out, and its allies in the long run, for the following reasons: 1. Wars, in economic terms, are loss making, the only wealth a war can produce is stealing other nations resources, but its a risky venture, because the booty is not guaranteed, just like it is in Iraq, which may be the root cause o Americas fall from its financial superpower status. 2. Islamic Fundamentalists will only increase with hostilities; that only beats the purpose. Every dead Muslim, creates ten Muslims angry at the west, and for every missile the USA hits with Somali goat herders, a survivor will be a ticking bomb for whoever he thinks killed his father, violence's vicious circle does not end if no wisdom is at hand. 3. Islamic Fundamentalism is an ideology, you cant fight an ideology with guns, because the guns will fight for it willingly, unlike the highly paid western armies, fighters for an ideology fight for free, and even sacrifice their lives for their ideologies. Guns don't remove ideologies, its ideologies that can remove guns, so a negotiated ideological confrontation may be more fruitful than proxy wars. Imagine if the famous Today Show in America hosts an ideological dialogue between the NEOCONS and the US Created Al QAEDA? I bet it would be very enlightening! The above leads us to dealing with the problem with more wisdom. OK, what do the Islamists in Somalia want? Here is a Wisdom: "Nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature...what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action. If you know these things about a person, you can touch him at the core of his being" - William Bernbach. Before we answer this question, an explanation of the above wisdom may be in order. The Nobel prize Committee that has just announced the awards for human excellence in the sciences, the arts and world peace have not set up a prize for the understanding of the the complex human nature. We humans strive to understand everything around us except our very human nature. Machiavellian explanation of the human nature which dominates the political arena of the planet revolves around mankind"s fears and love for power, however, Machiavelli failed to understand the spiritual dimension that drive men of faith to brave overcoming the seemingly impossible challenges of life. The human nature is in constant search for happiness, life and security. So, how do we explain when a young man in his early twenties abstains from drinking alcoholic beverages, extramarital sex, and parties? when all he wants to see is a just society, in which the poor are cared for, justice is administered to all, and peace prevails in the land so that he can focus on his pleasure of prayers and worship of his maker. How do we explain to that young man who have seen the result of his vision materialize for six months in Somalia, peace prevailing the land, and even the pirates halting their piracy while the law of Allah was high above the land, only to see it it stolen by the same criminals who held the nation hostage for twenty years while serving the strategic objectives of the "the free world"? How do we explain to that young man when the media tells him that the same criminals who push drugs, prostitution, who kill the innocent are hired to rule the country on behalf of their foreign bosses? and that he is a terrorist? Before I go any further, I want to share this story with you, it is very inspiring, specially in these days, the moral of the story is that you can't lock up an idea, even if you don't like it! It's the story of a place called Mouseland. Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do. They even had a Parliament. And every four years they had an election. Used to walk to the polls and cast their ballots. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. And got a ride for the next four years afterward too. Just like you and me. And every time on election day all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big, fat, black cats. Now if you think it strange that mice should elect a government made up of cats, you just look at the history of Canada for last 90 years and maybe you'll see that they weren't any stupider than we are. Now I'm not saying anything against the cats. They were nice fellows. They conducted their government with dignity. They passed good laws--that is, laws that were good for cats. But the laws that were good for cats weren't very good for mice. One of the laws said that mouseholes had to be big enough so a cat could get his paw in. Another law said that mice could only travel at certain speeds--so that a cat could get his breakfast without too much effort. All the laws were good laws. For cats. But, oh, they were hard on the mice. And life was getting harder and harder. And when the mice couldn't put up with it any more, they decided something had to be done about it. So they went en masse to the polls. They voted the black cats out. They put in the white cats. Now the white cats had put up a terrific campaign. They said: "All that Mouseland needs is more vision." They said:"The trouble with Mouseland is those round mouseholes we got. If you put us in we'll establish square mouseholes." And they did. And the square mouseholes were twice as big as the round mouseholes, and now the cat could get both his paws in. And life was tougher than ever. And when they couldn't take that anymore, they voted the white cats out and put the black ones in again. Then they went back to the white cats. Then to the black cats. They even tried half black cats and half white cats. And they called that coalition. They even got one government made up of cats with spots on them: they were cats that tried to make a noise like a mouse but ate like a cat. You see, my friends, the trouble wasn't with the colour of the cat. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats, they naturally looked after cats instead of mice. Presently there came along one little mouse who had an idea. My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea. And he said to the other mice, "Look fellows, why do we keep on electing a government made up of cats? Why don't we elect a government made up of mice?" "Oh," they said, "he's a Bolshevik. Lock him up!" So they put him in jail. But I want to remind you: that you can lock up a mouse or a man but you can't lock up an idea. ------Tommy Douglas (1904 -1986) was one of Canada's best known New Democrats. To be contiuned. .................... .................... .................... .................... .................. Nur 2008 eNuri Political Islam We Attack Problems, Not People!

Bush, McCain Abuse Their Legacy. By Robert Scheer 08/10/08 "Creators Syndicate" -- I am not a conventionally religious man, or even a very superstitious one, but I do wish George W. Bush would stop asking God to bless America. Every time he does, we seem to be visited with another plague, suggesting divine wrath over our president's evil ways. How else to explain the persistent calamity that has marked this administration: a pointless but very costly war over nonexistent Iraqi WMD, the destruction by flood of New Orleans, the betrayal of the nation by the moneychangers - from Enron to Goldman Sachs - who Bush welcomed into the temple of the White House? What's next? Pestilence, frogs, locusts or incurable boils? Dare we risk four more years of catastrophic misrule by a "W" alter ego? For those indifferent to the serious implications of that question, I recommend Oliver Stone's new bio-flick, which brilliantly captures the "banality of evil" that has controlled our political life these past eight years. The phrase, from Hannah Arendt's depiction of the mundane cruelty that so marked much of the daily experience of European fascism, has a frightening resemblance to the mindset of the Republican leadership that has damaged this nation's reputation for democratic integrity. Cynicism rules even as ritualistic prayer breaks, as depicted in the film "W," abound. The pretense of piety earns the president and his accomplices a get-out-of-jail-free card; at no point in the film, with scenes captured so accurately and far more depressingly from real life, do any in the top ranks of the Bush administration accept one iota of accountability for how much damage they have wrought. Unrepentant, the same Republican apparatchiks are employing the familiar Rovian tactics of divide and conquer to continue their hold on power. Once again, they seek to focus attention on hot-button social issues and patriotic litmus tests to draw attention from the fact that family values are being destroyed by the loss of jobs and homes. Perhaps John McCain is not a perfect replica of Bush, but the parallels go beyond the senator's enthusiastic support for the toxic mix of Bush's imperial foreign policy and his arrogant indifference to the travails of our domestic existence. Neither man seems to have a sense of how we actually live or what we need from government. How else to explain their common antipathy to Social Security and Medicare which, after public education, represent the nation's most successful programs? Can you imagine the panic today if McCain and Bush had succeeded in tying Social Security to investments in the stock market? They view government as nothing more than a proud sponsor of the military-industrial complex while ignoring the threat to homeland security from corporate pirates. Don't say we weren't warned. Bush came into office fervently believing that what was good for Enron and its CEO Kenneth Lay, Bush's top financial sponsor whom he called "Kenny Boy," was good for the country. So, too, McCain, who chose Phil Gramm as co-chair of his presidential campaign, ignoring the huge loophole in Gramm's Commodity Futures Trading Act that allowed Enron, where his wife Wendy Gramm served on the board of directors, to so shamelessly game the energy market. Trumpeting the benefits of the legislation he tacked on to an omnibus spending bill the day before the 2000 Christmas recess, Gramm stated: "It protects financial institutions from over-regulation. It provides legal certainty for the $60 billion market in swaps." Those swaps created the toxic investments that U.S. taxpayers are now stuck with in order to save those unregulated financial institutions from bankruptcy. McCain, who should have learned the cost of radical deregulation from his own involvement in the savings-and-loan scandal as one of the infamous "Keating Five," totally bought Gramm's line. McCain was the chair of Gramm's 1996 presidential bid and, up until major Wall Street firms collapsed, continued to echo the insistence of the former Texas senator-turned banker that there was no real crisis in the financial markets. McCain evidences all of the distorted priorities of a son of privilege doing battle with the legacy of more gifted and responsible family ancestors, which is the underlying motivator attributed to Bush in Stone's movie. Both Bush and McCain grew up as spoiled screwups, repeatedly bailed out of trouble by their highly accomplished fathers, in McCain's case an admiral, and both assume, as a matter of legacy, that they have a right to rule. What they ignored in their legacy was a Christian's obligation to make the economic system that handsomely rewarded their kin at least minimally responsive to the needs of ordinary folk. Robert Scheer is author of a new book, "The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America." Copyright Creators Syndicate Inc

Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets Ready to Carry Out "Crowd Control" Members of Congress were told they could face martial law if they didn't pass the bailout bill. This will not be the last time. By Naomi Wolf 08/10/08 "AlterNet" -- Background: the First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, three to four thousand soldiers, has been deployed in the United States as of October 1. Their stated mission is the form of crowd control they practiced in Iraq, subduing "unruly individuals," and the management of a national emergency. I am in Seattle and heard from the brother of one of the soldiers that they are engaged in exercises now. Amy Goodman reported that an Army spokesperson confirmed that they will have access to lethal and non lethal crowd control technologies and tanks. George Bush struck down Posse Comitatus, thus making it legal for military to patrol the U.S. He has also legally established that in the "War on Terror," the U.S. is at war around the globe and thus the whole world is a battlefield. Thus the U.S. is also a battlefield. He also led change to the 1807 Insurrection Act to give him far broader powers in the event of a loosely defined "insurrection" or many other "conditions" he has the power to identify. The Constitution allows the suspension of habeas corpus -- habeas corpus prevents us from being seized by the state and held without trial -- in the event of an "insurrection." With his own army force now, his power to call a group of protesters or angry voters "insurgents" staging an "insurrection" is strengthened. U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman of California said to Congress, captured on C-Span and viewable on YouTube, that individual members of the House were threatened with martial law within a week if they did not pass the bailout bill: "The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. … Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day and a couple of thousand on the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no." If this is true and Rep. Sherman is not delusional, I ask you to consider that if they are willing to threaten martial law now, it is foolish to assume they will never use that threat again. It is also foolish to trust in an orderly election process to resolve this threat. And why deploy the First Brigade? One thing the deployment accomplishes is to put teeth into such a threat. I interviewed Vietnam veteran, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and patriot David Antoon for clarification: "If the President directed the First Brigade to arrest Congress, what could stop him?" "Nothing. Their only recourse is to cut off funding. The Congress would be at the mercy of military leaders to go to them and ask them not to obey illegal orders." "But these orders are now legal?'" "Correct." "If the President directs the First Brigade to arrest a bunch of voters, what would stop him?" "Nothing. It would end up in courts but the action would have been taken." "If the President directs the First Brigade to kill civilians, what would stop him?" "Nothing." "What would prevent him from sending the First Brigade to arrest the editor of the Washington Post?" "Nothing. He could do what he did in Iraq -- send a tank down a street in Washington and fire a shell into the Washington Post as they did into Al Jazeera, and claim they were firing at something else." "What happens to members of the First Brigade who refuse to take up arms against U.S. citizens?" "They'd probably be treated as deserters as in Iraq: arrested, detained and facing five years in prison. In Iraq a study by Ann Wright shows that deserters -- reservists who refused to go back to Iraq -- got longer sentences than war criminals." "Does Congress have any military of their own?" "No. Congress has no direct control of any military units. The Governors have the National Guard but they report to the President in an emergency that he declares." "Who can arrest the President?" "The Attorney General can arrest the President after he leaves or after impeachment." [Note: Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi has asserted it is possible for District Attorneys around the country to charge President Bush with murder if they represent districts where one or more military members who have been killed in Iraq formerly resided.] "Given the danger do you advocate impeachment?" "Yes. President Bush struck down Posse Comitatus -- which has prevented, with a penalty of two years in prison, U.S. leaders since after the Civil War from sending military forces into our streets -- with a 'signing statement.' He should be impeached immediately in a bipartisan process to prevent the use of military forces and mercenary forces against U.S. citizens" "Should Americans call on senior leaders in the Military to break publicly with this action and call on their own men and women to disobey these orders?" "Every senior military officer's loyalty should ultimately be to the Constitution. Every officer should publicly break with any illegal order, even from the President." "But if these are now legal. If they say, 'Don't obey the Commander in Chief,' what happens to the military?" "Perhaps they would be arrested and prosecuted as those who refuse to participate in the current illegal war. That's what would be considered a coup." "But it's a coup already." "Yes." Naomi Wolf is the author of Give Me Liberty (Simon and Schuster, 2008), the sequel to the New York Times best-seller The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (Chelsea Green, 2007).

Naden sis You are right, its sister Malika's, not yours, will edit my post. Nur

Author writes: "Instead, it once again went to war pumped up on our own propaganda -- especially the conjoined beliefs that the United States was the "indispensable nation," the "lone superpower," and the "victor" in the Cold War; and that it was a new Rome the likes of which the world had never seen" Allah says in Quraan: ........ Allatii lam yukhlaq mithlahaa fil bilaad!" meaning ( the likes of which the world had never seen") Nur

Allahumma Salli Calaa Muxammad, wa calaa aali Muxammad, Allahumma baarik calaa Muxammad wa calaa aali Muxaamad. Allahumma aati muxammadan al wasiilata wal fadiilata wa abcath-hu maqaaman alladii wacadtuh, waxshurnaa macal anbiyaa wa saalixiin, wa siddiiqiin wa shuhaadaa wa xasuna ulaaika rafiiqaa. Allahuma ijcalnaa min ummatuhi fiddunyaa, wa arzuqnaa shafaacatah fil aakhira, wasqinaa min xawdih. Amin Nur

Naden sis You write: " Careful, Nur."."" Precisely sis, because I care, I wrote that statement, rest assured that every word of it has a purpose, and I am glad it cought your attention. Besides, Allah says in Quraan speaking of Abraham's confrontation with his folks: "How should I fear your idols, when yourselves dont fear to assoicate others with Allah, who themselves are not vested with an authority from Allah., Which party should feel secure in that case?" You write: " Revisit your statement, walaal, and perhaps restate after you've carefully defined 'democracy', 'idolatry', and 'shirk' and why you think the former is a form of the latter" Naden sis. Here is my statement: "Today, Shirk continues to mutate, taking new forms that most of devout followers of Islam are not suspecting, such as the Idol of Democracy. How many "Muslims" suspect that Democracy is a new form of Major Shirk." First: Definition of Democracy. Walaalo, briefly, "Democracy" a greek word and its Latin analogue " Republic" mean literally Power to the people, simply speaking it collides head on with Islam which stands Power to Allah ALONE, and for mankind, absolute surrender, Allah does not compromise on his domonion as you may know, he is no weak god. To prepare you for a detailed discussion on your question, may I first remind you of our past discussion so we can catch up and brush on concepts we have agreed on before. in our past discussion thread titled ( Islam and Democracy, which one is more Modern?) Sister Malika wrote: "Dont you think,Islam and democracy have some principles in common,the respect for individual rights, liberty, equality, rejection of absolute power, limiting the role of state, and supremacy of the law?"." I answered: "Democracy means Demo ( People) and Cracy(Rule). Other attributes are not Democracy but ideals that existed way before Democracy exisited."" NOTE: REJECTION OF ABSOLUTE POWER: Absolute Power is EVIL when Humans claim it in the form of Papacy, Democracy, etc., but its RIGHT when attributed to Allah alone. Sister Malika asked: "It is just that after the influx of westerners in the lands of the Muslims they have been able to influence,changes in our juridistial systems hence the confusion...of what is democracy and how does it operate in an Islamic country without the secular influence."" I Answered: "Demcracy can not operate properly in a genuine Islamic country, the application of Democracy denies the Sovreignty of God ( Allah) over His dominion, Democracy is the epitome of human rejection of God's authority and Sovereignty over their collective affairs. The confusion you see is when the system is rigged, imagine a cat walking on duck's feet? "" SECOND: Definition of Shirk Shirk, linguistically in the Arabic language , in the Dictionary of ( Maqaayiis Allugha) by Ibn Faaris, we have: Shirk is composed of three letters, Sheen, Raa, and Kaaf. has following connotations: A. Mukhaalata (Be part of, mix with, etc.) B. Musaaxaba ( Companionship) C. Mushaaraka ( Partnership) Hence, lingusitically Shirk means " recognizing a person or an istitution to be a partner, Companion, or mix with another" For Shirk to take place we need: 1. Partners. 2. Property. 3. Sovereign to arbitrate dispute between partners. 4. Law, set by the Sovereign. In Islam, Allah owns the universe and its contents, by virtue of creation, Allah is the only one with a recorded claim on the entire Universe. He does not have partners, nor is He taking any suggestions to consider investors, as He alone owns the property and the Finance ( sustenance- RIZQ). Allah is Sovereign in that He depends on no one, while everything else of His creations depend on Him for sustenance and exisitence. He sent wise men known as Messengers and Prophets to warn mankind not ascribe partners with Him, and to devote to Him alone, because ascribing human or object partners with Allah is the absolute injustice committed on earth known as SHIRK. Thirdly: Idolatry The Dictionary gives the following definitions of Idol, root for Idolatry. 1. An image of a god, used as an object or instrument of worship 2. In monotheistic belief, any heathen deity any object of ardent or excessive devotion or admiration 3. A false notion or idea that causes errors in thinking or reasoning. 4. Archaic anything that has no substance but can be seen, as an image in a mirror. Democracy fits all above definitions: 1. Image of A God: Democracy challenges Allah's power on regulating people's affairs, so it practically sets itself as a God. 2. Excessive Devotion: Billions of Dollars are spent on elections every four years to select a clown controlled by an interest group, while meanwhile, millions sleep hungry and crying in many homes on our planet. People set huge parliaments to worship this Democracy GOD, there are more worshippers at parliaments than Churches and Synagogoes combined ( I cant say the same about Masjids ( Mosques), al hamdulillah they are increasingly being populated by victims of Gearoge Bush's War On Islam.) It was reported by Tabari the following Hadeeth: Adi Ibn Hatim ( Christian convert) said: "I came to the Messenger of Allah wearing on my neck a golden cross, the (Messenger of Allah) said to me, " O Adi, take off this Idol from your neck", then I took it off, and as he read the verse in Surah Baraa'ah, "They ( Christians and Jews) have made their Priests and Rabbis, Lords other than Allah" upon hearing that verse, I said, " O Messenger of Allah, we ( Christians) do not worship them ( our Priests), He ( the Messenger of Allah) said " (Dont they legislate contrary to what Allah has legislated), making forbidden what Allah permitted, and making permitted what Allah forbade, and you ( Christians) follow them in that?" I said " Yes", ( the Messneger of Allah) said:" That is how you worship them ( your Priests and Rabbis) (instead of Allah). Which is SHIRK! 3. False Notion or Idea: The falsehood, all in its name ( People's Power ), people have no power, and what looks like power is stolen by by their politicians. 4. Archaic: It has no substance, like the Budha Idol, it sits majestically speechless on high hills, adorn by followers for what it does not own, nor owe to anyone. ( In hiya illaa asmaa'un sammeytumuuhaa antum wa aabaa ukum, maa anzala Allah bihaa min sultaan) thats the Quraan's meaning of Archaic. Lastly, you ask: "And could you explain why you placed muslims in quotes." Juts like I put quotes around "Terrorists" which you have never asked me why. Nur

Thierry & Abu Salman bros. There is no question of the immense value Sheikhul Islam has added to the Islamic Scholarly works in aqeedah, specially at time in which Shirk reappeared in the Arabian peninsula with vengence due to the ignorance of the descendants of the taabicu tabiciin. However, While Tawheed is constant in its simple message and meaning, Shirk, aided by Sheitan, mutates for each generation. To conceal its venom, shirk takes new forms, new manifestations not readily recognizable by latent generations. For that reason, Allah as a mercy for this Ummah sent many Mujaddids at intervals of time whenever the strength of the Tawheed message diminished and Shirk prevailed. Sheikhul Islam, Ibn Taimiyah, single handedly corrected many aqeedah misconceptions with Xujjah the fitnah of the Khalq al Quraan, a form of Shirk in the Asmaa-wal-Sifaat as well as the definition of iman, Islam , Kufr and Nifaaq, to remove the rubble of inherited polemics from Khawaarij and Murji'ah, as well as other Zanaadiqah of his time. Likewise, Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Abdulwahhab, in his time, tirelessly showed the emergent Shirk of the Ibaadah, the worship of dead saints, and other bidac innovations that all lead to the heavy duty Shirk. Today, Shirk continues to mutate, taking new forms that most of devout followers of Islam are not suspecting, such as the Idol of Democracy. How many "Muslims" suspect that Democracy is a new form of Major Shirk? Since Allah sent Messengers at intervals of time, making Abraham's Shahaada of Tawheed ( Kalimatan Baaqiyatan fi caqibihi lacallahum yarjicuun), a reference point of an everlasting word of true Tawheed, our challanege today is to renew the tawheed message to a new generation in their language culture and jargon. How will a generation who have not lived the polemics of Ibn Taymiya's adversaries, the Grave worship and innovations during Ibn Abdel Wahaab's time ever appreciate the true meaning of Tawheed as related to the central concept of Sovreighnty of Humans to legislate secular laws that make pervertion Halaal?. If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you show him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. What is needed today is to give students tools that can aid learning no matter where they are. Gone are the days when the only means for getting knowledge was the scene of some forty students sitting in a Halaqa ( Circle) around a Faqeeh giving a lesson, today, knowledge is passed in multiple means (multimedia), the internet, fingertips away are volumes of the greatest works of Islam with cross reference database in Arabic that can be carried effortlessly on a flash memory chip on a key holder. The challenge is, are our Sheikhs upto the times? are they meeting the challenges posed by the mutation of Shirk to warn the ummah as Sheikh Muhammad Abdelwahaab and Ibn Taymiyah have done in their respective times, and as the Prophets have communicated the same concept of Tawheed with a different twist respectively to their folks to correct a lifestyle that diverged from the Tawheed path? Looking back at history, we learn from the Quran, that every message was unique, yet, at the end, it was converging with the Tawheed message, because each Shirk was different, and as a result, with different manifestation. 1. The Shirk of Qowm Nuux 2. The Shirk of Qowm Hood 3. The Shirk of Qowm Salix 4. The Shirk of Qowm Ibrahim ( Abraham) 5. The Shirk of Qowm Lut 6. The Shirk of Qowm Yusuf ( Josef) 7. The Shirk of Qowm Shuceyb 8. The Shirk of Qowm Musa ( Moses) 9. The Shirk of Qowm Issa ( Jesus) 10. The Shirk of Quraish. Shirk of Ummat Muxammad: 1. Shirkul Tacteel (Rubuubiyah) 2. Shirkul andaad (Rububiyah) 3. Shirkul Ibaadah (Uluuhiya) If we compare the ancients to our ummah today, the parallels are many, ignorance is enhanced when we study the Quraan as a narration of old stories ( Asaateerul awaliin), instead of a manual to keep our feet form on Siraatul Mustaqeem through Tawheed. A reading of the Quran with Tadabbur can vividly show the similarities of this Ummah's ways to that of the Children of Yacqub and Nasaaraa, the Christians, two nations who went astray from the straight path, and on whose heels we are willingly following even to an aligator's cave. Nur

" Owners of capital will stimulate working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks which will have to be nationalized and State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to Communism" Karl Marx , 1867 "The corporate thieves, those who insisted they be paid tens of millions of dollars because they were the best and the brightest, have been exposed as con artists. Our elected officials, along with the press, have been exposed as corrupt and spineless corporate lackeys. Our business schools and intellectual elite have been exposed as frauds. The age of the West has ended. Look to China. Laissez-faire capitalism has destroyed itself. It is time to dust off your copies of Marx.. " Chris Hedges, "Truthdig" .................... .................... ........ A Must See Video. America is an overweight nation with over U$ 12 Trillion debt to the rest of the world, and the world will no longer tolerate the insatiable appetite of America for financing unjust, oppressive and hegemonic wars with borrowed money paid by toilet papers printed by US Mint with no Gold Standard to back it. China will be the universal manufacturer of most goods for the planet, a wealthy nation in terms of human Capital (The Gifted And Talented Chinese School Children are equal to all of American School Children, willing to work for a dollar a day!) while India, another Human-Capital rich nation, will transform itself as worlds knowledge based economy by leveraging its English language advantage to become the IT programming outsource of choice for the the rest of the world. Together, China and India will form the new emerging multipolar Super Power known as the BRIC group ( Brazil, Russia, India and China). The BRIC and the Oil exporting nations ( OPEC) will demand payment in some acceptable form, not US treasury bonds, which has lost its luster and value, but with other hard currencies such as the Euro , the Yuan or the Yen. When that happens, Sh...... Happens ( Rumsfeldt) Enjoy the Video Nur -------------------- -------------------- ---------- How to Deflate the Superpower of Toilet Papers By Matthias Chang It Is So Stoopid To Borrow US Dollar "Toilet Papers" For Trade Finance. There Can Be Only A Credit Crunch For Dollars If You Are Stoopid Enough To Want To Be Paid And To Pay In Dollars. Otherwise, There Is Only An Illusion Of A Global Credit Crunch. This Is The Global Con Game By Bernanke, Paulson December 20, 2008 "ICH-- -It may have made some sense, post-World War II to dollarise international trade when the so-called “Free World” was supposedly threatened by the “Communist Bloc” and the Imperial United States was offering “protection” in exchange for financial dominance. The imperial design for financial dominance was the Bretton Woods dollar reserve currency scheme. Since those days, the US has been abusing its financial power by the use of its greatest invention, the “toilet paper printing press” (now, the modern “electronic printing press”) to issue irredeemable fiat money. Now the world is flooded with trillions of this toilet paper, namely US dollars. The US Superpower is at the very precipice of the abyss and a wrong move will plunge it into the black-hole of financial Armageddon. The world will not face Armageddon, only the US. The rest of the world will suffer pain, deservedly so, for being so Stoopid in believing in the use of US toilet papers as money! To avoid this catastrophe, Ben Bernanke and Paulson as directed by their Shadow Money-Lender masters have devised an insidious scheme. The ultimate con-game! Basically, what they have done is to try to turn a weakness into perceived strength. Let me explain. Countries have been so used to trading in dollars that they cannot think otherwise. They continue to borrow dollars to finance their imports. Their corporations continue to borrow dollars to finance their business expansion. It is as if the world is addicted to dollars, as a drug addict is addicted to cocaine and or crack! The world has been brainwashed into thinking that without the US toilet paper, their global economy would come to a grinding halt. How Stoopid! Yet this is exactly the state of mind of governments and central banks all over the world. China is a case in point: blind reliance on the US dollar. But fortunately, they have other strengths which will see them through this painful period. Taking advantage of this temporary idiotic global mindset, the Fed and the US Treasury have deliberately triggered a credit crunch for US dollar denominated toilet papers. The major global banks are hoarding the toilet papers and with-holding cross-border financing of every kind. There is an ocean of toilet paper (literally in the trillions) but there is now created, a deliberate shortage of these very same toilet papers. But where is the money? There is no money. It is an illusion! What a ridiculous contradiction. But that is the present reality. The Fed has stated that they will pump US$8.5 trillion to resolve the crisis! You have to give credit where credit is due. This is indeed a brilliant con-game and the whole world has fallen for it hook, line and sinker – almost the whole world! I refuse to accept this state of affairs. Yet, the Nobel Laureates in economics have missed this stark reality by a thousand miles and are coming up with all kind of theories for the present global credit crunch of US toilet paper. Alternatively, it may be that as paid-scribes, they have been directed to spew economic nonsense to confuse other economists. How was this illusion set up? This happened when all of a sudden, and in total connivance, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea and Singapore got into the act by entering into swap facilities with the FED, each requesting a hefty US$35 Billion to “overcome their liquidity problems.” These countries could not get enough toilet papers! Wow! Even the great magician Houdini would not have come up with this grand illusion of shortage in currency when there is an ocean of funny money. But it is an illusion and a Stoopid one at that. So now, Bernanke and Paulson is advertising to the whole world, that they are prepared to do anything and use all financial weapons, including financial nuclear weapons to defeat the crisis. For those countries that are short of toilet papers, the US will be the global guarantor and will be willing to lend trillions of toilet papers to help them weather the financial crisis and the credit crunch. How generous of the FED and the US Treasury. But there is a catch. The catch being – countries must continue to use the worthless toilet papers in global trade. In one masterful stroke, the US has created an artificial demand for dollars thereby rescuing in the short term the plunging value of the dollar. Since the global banks are not willing to lend and are insolvent, the mighty FED, the nasty and abhorrent creation of the global Shadow Money-Lenders, will be the lender of last resort to the whole world. It will be business as usual. That is what they hope. This is their final gambit. The last magic show! And as I have written earlier, this is the OBAMA’s GAMBLE! Countries need not trade in dollars, as after all, they are not even BUYING “MADE IN AMERICA GOODS”. AMERICA IS A NET IMPORTER, NOT EXPORTER. So central banks of the world, especially the Third World, and the emerging powers of China and Russia: you have no need for US toilet papers when you sell your national products to countries other than the US. And in so far as the U.S. is concerned, why are you demanding to be paid in toilet papers? Why are you not demanding payment in your own currency? China and Russia are at the present moment on the wrong course. They hold trillions of US dollar denominated debts but act as if they are at the mercy of the US, fearing that if they do anything unfavourable to US or cahllenge the hegemony of the greenback, there will be a massive slump in the value of the dollar. But that is a given in any event. So why play a game that has been rigged in the favour of the global Shadow Money-Lenders. There is no reason why Russia and China should be in a recession or experience slower growth. They are suffering from the present so-called credit crunch because they continue to manage their economies in dollar terms and in a dollar mindset. The US is playing suicide poker and calling one last card. They have nothing on the table but toilet paper. The US will collapse in a minute, if not sooner if China and Russia were to categorically call the US’s bluff and say: 1) Close down the derivative casino now! 2) Buy back all the toxic wastes which you have unloaded on the unsuspecting global economies with currencies of our choice! 3) Since the US is in debt, the US must now borrow in the currencies of our choice to repay past debts and new loans! Failure to comply will result in a credit crunch to US banks and companies. US can continue to use domestically their worthless toilet papers (to wipe the shit off the ceiling fans, if there are any left hanging from the ceilings) but there will be no more credit in toilet papers. Period. There will be loans only in other currencies. This is the checkmate. . So China and Russia should wake up and do what is necessary to save their economies as well as the global economy or their economies will end up in the shit hole as they are now playing the US / UK rigged game. I am not surprised at the present state of mind of Chinese and Russian bankers. They have sent some of their best brains to be trained in Harvard etc., and by the fraudsters in Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup etc. They have all been infected with the Ponzi disease and as such cannot think otherwise. Otherwise, how do you explain their mental paralysis? This is a simple financial puzzle. There is no credit crunch. There is only a false or an illusion of credit crunch for US toilet papers. Once there is no demand for dollars, there will be no credit crunch for dollars. The Shadow Money-Lenders con-game will be exposed for what it is – a giant fraud. Not unlike that of Bernard Madoff, only a thousand times more insidious and toxic. I hope that I have made myself absolutely clear to the financial officials in Russia and China. If China and Russia and the third world continue to stand pat, these economies deserve to be in the dog house. Bernanke and Paulson are going to destroy the US and the global economy so as to fulfil the grand design of the Shadow Money-Lenders. Stop them before it is too late. The Count-down has started! Matthias Chang - http://futurefastfor ward.com/ -------------------- -------------------- ---------- -------------------- -------------------- ---------- -------------------- --- What Exactly is Money? A separation of truth and myth about our monetary system By Jon Ronnquist December 13, 2008 "ICH" --- The problem with money is essentially a question of faith. Money is a promise represented in paper, metal and digits and is as valuable as it is trustworthy. And because trust is a volatile and abstract thing at best, so is money a risky business. Its usefulness is of course undeniable. In a world as complex and multifaceted as this one, barter becomes increasingly limited as a practical means of exchange. And yet we should do well to remember that for all its practicality, money posses a very real danger, the obvious one being devaluation. But that is by no means the only or the most serious threat posed by money. As in all matters of faith, manipulation is the far greater evil. The gold standard against which currency was once levelled is now the distant memory of a bygone age. Whatever value is represented by your Dollars, Pounds and Euros is now set solely against the trust of the user, which is to say what buyers and sellers believe it to be worth. And so it should be and must be. No man would take money for his livestock or labour if he did not believe it would be accepted in kind by the purveyors of his own needs. This is basic economics and I see no reason to bore anybody with such things. The point is that money, as a concept, is sound and necessary. But what happens when it falls into the hands of those who see money as something more than a simple mechanism of trade? Those who see in it also an opportunity to consolidate power. Then we are in trouble. There are several axioms which govern the function of money. Adhered to, they guarantee fair and good use. Abused, they are the gateway to untold troubles. First, money is not a commodity, but a public service. In itself it has no real value or use beyond the facilitation of exchange. If this is hard to digest, try eating it, planting it or getting it to mow your lawn. And like all essential public services, it fares best in the hands of representative government. Second, money must exist in a quantity that is relatively equal to the volume of exchange it expedites. Where the supply is insufficient it creates an artificial strangulation of trade, where necessary and vital transactions become arbitrarily halted for want of worthless paper. Where it is allowed to exist in excessive quantities, the value of real goods and services is artificially lowered to the detriment of all. A money supply which is not regulated professionally and competently will begin to outweigh it own benefits. Third, some cap must exist on savings. Money removed from the supply and set to one side must be replaced to ensure it does not violate its own primary purpose by deflating. If it is reintroduced in excessive quantities it will also have the effect of causing inflation. This does not become a problem if deposits and withdrawals from saving are relatively balanced. It also illustrates that huge stockpiles of unreasonable wealth violate the laws upon which money operate and should not be allowed. Fourth and last, money must be introduced into circulation as payment, not debt. To make money available on the condition that it must be taken back out of circulation in equal or greater measure is a violation of its purpose and leads to all manner of problems. Earth in the twenty-first century being the most obvious one. As populations rise, production increases and trade expands, more money must be made available to facilitate it. The question of how this is done fairly is simple but requires first and foremost a sound government. Money must be introduced through payment for goods and services of universal benefit to the population. This means direct investment into public infrastructure, services and institutions. Healthcare, roads, bridges, libraries, parks, highways, schools, research and science, welfare institutions, water and power infrastructure, the maintenance of public parks and wildlife reserves and public transport to name a few. In this fashion the benefit is egalitarian and money will trickle into first the secondary economy (automobile production, private services, finance, electronics, etc.) and eventually into the luxury economy (holiday providers, premium branded good, unessential services, etc.). The extent to which the second and third tiers of the economy are successful is dependant on the state of essential services, as it should be. Otherwise we get luxury sports cars driving down deteriorating highways and criminal opulence in the face of inhumane poverty. And for those who are thinking this is some kind of socialist/communist rhetoric, I pray you wake up soon. This is reality. What we live today is a twist on that reality and one that we better star seeing for what it is. Contrary to popular belief, the great failed Marxist experiments of the age are not failures of those philosophies so much as proof that there is no room left in the order of things to even try them. It is a dominant idea in modern politics that too much government is “bad for business”. But that is an argument made by business that has no place in the civilized world and it is true only from that very narrow and twisted point of view. And where the common man agrees, it is only on the understanding that modern government are not really governments at all, but representatives of private power. A government run by and for the people is an absolute must if society is to progress at all. If a government is charged with the responsibility to uphold the rights of those it represents it must be empowered to do so. The right to political freedom, democracy and a fair chance at success are all very pretty sentiments, but what about the right to work, to food, water, shelter and education? Surely these things are as important. For government to ensure all the rights of citizenship, it must have either ownership of or at least firm regulatory power over all the institutions which provide them. But unless you can find a private enterprise willing to provide these services without profit as its primary concern, they are best left to government. Essential human needs, which are all derived from the very earth we inhabit, must not and can not become sources of private profit. This doesn't mean that those who bear the greatest burden of responsibility should not be compensated accordingly, it means the institutions themselves should not be allowed to develop selfish domineering ambitions and the stockpiles of wealth to pursue them. This is not socialism, but humanity. Another thing that should not be allowed to happen to money is it's pining against the value of other currencies. When it is, it immediately becomes a commodity in its own right, traded like goods with the aim of increasing wealth. This is an essential violation of the axioms which govern money and a gateway to extensive abuse. Trade done over borders would need to be handled in a global market place with its own currency, against which only commodities are assigned value, not currencies. The value of sugar would be assigned in this currency on any given day based solely on existing demand and so on. Such a trade currency would have no paper form, but would only be a numeric value assigned to all traded commodities, its purpose being to form a barrier between different national currencies to avoid them becoming commodities. The alternative would be one government, one people, one currency. But this is a utopian dream that would require a separate dissertation all together. My reference to a world government should not be confused with the one being pushed for today. The New World Order as it has come to be known, is entirely devoted to what would sit at its head, not who it would pretend to represent. The above is a rough outline of what money is supposed to be and how it is supposed to work. Unfortunately reality is a stark contrast to this. The reason is quite simple. Every axiom outlined above has been heavily violated by those entrusted to care for our monetary systems. In doing so, money has come to serve a second and very sinister purpose, one that almost seems to justify its eradication from use all together and the introduction of a clean start. Before the post office, the water works, the phone companies and the coal mines were auctioned out of the hands of the people and into those of for-profit private enterprise, another public service was sold to the private sector, the money works. In an age none are old enough to remember, and a frighteningly small percentage of us even know about, the production, supply and regulation of national currencies was surrender by government after government. If anyone wonders when things really started going wrong for planet earth, that was the day. Almost every daily hardship we suffer now has its roots at least partially set in this dark era. But more important than the fact is the reason. It would be nice to believe that it was simply the suggestion of a group of concerned citizens who thought they could do a better job and that governments obliged out of genuine concern for its populations. We do not even need to know what was said or exactly how this was done to know that is not true. The men responsible and their successive dynasties have had a long time to prove their intentions and the proof is overwhelmingly in favour of the notion that it was done with a view to turning the world into a feeble shadow of its former self. Why would men do this? For power? Control? Sure. What are they afraid of? You and me. But I fancy that they see us not as we are, but with red eyes, split hooves and forked tails. But whatever the reason, the facts remain the same. The first and primary violation of these new private national banks was to create money only as debt. This of course ensured that a country's debts would grow in direct proportion to its economy. This is a fact so illogical that it leaves the mind boggled and helpless to make sense of it. But only so long as you assume the intent was benevolent. See it for the sheer evil that it is and you need be confused no more. Think of it this way. A trader does business between two markets several miles apart. To move his products back and forth between them he needs carts. But carts cannot be made or owned, they can only be borrowed. And for every cart that is borrowed two must be returned in due course. So he borrows ten carts on the understanding that he must return twenty by year's end. Only by year's end he not only has but ten carts, he needs another ten to keep up with his expanding business. His only choice is two borrow forty new carts. Twenty to return as payment for the first ten and twenty for use. And now he owes eighty carts by year's end. And the better things get, the deeper in debt he is. And the circle can never be broken. So why doesn't he just make his own carts? It would be easy enough. Only by the time he comes to this simple conclusion, the law, the courts and the police are all in the cart borrowing enforcement business. And so it is with the money supply today. All the money, the land and the commodities on earth could not pay all the debt. And as interest is ever due and mounting, borrowing must grow to keep up. Where does the cycle end? By all appearances, it's ending now. And what has come to an end exactly? Production? Resources? Human intelligence? No. Borrowing has slowed down, thereby interrupting the unstoppable cycle and calling a halt to trade through an artificial scarcity of money. Is this real? No. Your willingness to work hasn't changed and nor has your desire for the things you would buy with your earnings. Everything is in place to allow life to go on, bar one thing. The worthless paper and coinage that serve as nothing but a tool of interaction. If everyone simply agreed, we could start printing our own money at home and use it to go on as we did. Provided it didn't get out of hand, (which it would on account of the prevalence of certain mindsets) life would just go on. Because money is just paper and an idea backed by trust, nothing more. But when it is controlled out of personal interest by a greedy few, we can see how it is also a very effective control mechanism. First replace supply with loans, then when the country is irreversibly in debt control those loans. Withdraw credit for a while, strangle the economy until it screams for more debt and supply it. Or flood the economy with worthless money and then recall debts fast and wait for the inevitable chaos to ensue. Delegate your divine right of money creation for interest to commercial banks and watch the population strangle itself with unmanageable debt. Allow Wall Street to create value out of thin air by turning confidence into price tags which soon have no comparable relation to the things they are attached to, as banks increase lending to make them affordable to you and me. Wait for the population to buckle under under the strain of unmanageable debt, then lend more to their governments. Watch wars begin and lend to each side. Every time the cycle comes full circle, the concentration of power is a little less diluted and a lot more frightening. Ever wonder why your representatives in government seem helpless to make real changes to bad situations? It's because the situations are only bad from where you're standing and he or she couldn't change them if they wanted to. They just don't have permission. From who? From the people that own your mortgage and his. From the people who lend your county, state and country the paper it needs to go on at all costs. From the people who own your car, your TV and your fridge. If you want something to change, you need to ask them. And they won't want them to change. So what does a man do? Call me an anarchist, I'm beyond caring about semantics and sentiment and being a good boy. If you can't afford to comfortably repay what you owe in a reasonable amount of time, don't pay it. Declare bankruptcy, leave your phone off the hook, move to Mexico. So you'll be persona non grada with the credit people. They never liked you in the first place and now you'll never have to do business with them again. The point is that we need to see money for what it is. It's just paper and that's all. Would you revere you toilet roll in a similar fashion? That's because you know it's just toilet paper, useful, handy but not essential. And when it runs out there are other ways, you don't have to stop using the toilet. One means of circumventing a crash created by a lack of national currency is the creation of a local currency. This has been done throughout history on many occasions to counter the collapse of national banks. It's a shame to think that the ingenuity such a bold plan would require is fatally lacking in most modern communities, who have become so dependant on the vicious circle of big banks, big employers and big chain stores for their survival that such a radical departure from the comfort of the status quo would almost certainly be beyond the imagination. Saying that, pressure can have a miraculous effect on the mindset. I don't know if things are too far gone to allow for hope of real change, but I think we are about to find out one way or the other.

WHY AM I HERE? HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH A REPORT Summary Ishmael Noor, a 37-year-old shepherd from the ( Occupied Western Somali Region) in Ethiopia, looked up with tears in his eyes. He said that in 2004, Ethiopian forces—who had already killed his mother, father, brothers, and sisters—murdered his wife days after they were married. They then slaughtered his goats, beat him unconscious, and slashed his shoulder to the bone. In December 2006, Noor crossed through Somalia into Kenya, heading for the nearest refugee camp in search of medical care. But when he did not have enough money to pay a 1,000 shilling ($15) bribe, the Kenyan police bundled him into a car and took him to Nairobi. A few weeks later, he was herded onto an airplane with some 30 others, flown to Somalia, and handed over to Ethiopian military officers—the same forces that he had previously fled. Several days after that, Noor was flown to Ethiopia. Noor’s story fits a larger pattern. In early 2007, at least 90 people were rendered from Kenya to Somalia, and then on to Ethiopia. Many were held incommunicado and without charge for months, and some were held for more than a year. A few—including a Canadian and nine who assert Kenyan nationality—remain in detention even now. The whereabouts of others—including several Somalis, Ethiopian Somalis, and Eritreans—are unknown. These renditions and detentions followed a US-backed Ethiopian military intervention in Somalia. In late 2006, the Ethiopian military, in support of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, ousted Islamist authorities from the Somali capital Mogadishu. The fighting caused thousands of Somalis to flee across the border into Kenya, including some who were suspected of terrorist links. Kenyan authorities arrested at least 150 men, women, and children from more than 18 countries―including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada―in operations carried out near the Somali border. Suspecting the detainees of having links to terrorism, the Kenyans held them for weeks without charge in Nairobi. Over the course of three weeks from January 20 to February 10, 2007, the Kenyan government rendered dozens of these individuals―with no notice to families, lawyers or the detainees themselves―on flights to Somalia, where they were handed over to the Ethiopian military. Ethiopian forces also arrested an unknown number of people in Somalia. Those rendered were then transported to detention centers in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and other parts of Ethiopia, where they effectively disappeared. Denied access to their embassies, their families, and international humanitarian organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the detainees were even denied phone calls home. Several detainees have said that they were housed in solitary cells—some as small as two-by-two meters—with their hands cuffed in painful positions behind their backs and their feet bound together any time they were in their cells. In Addis Ababa, a number of prisoners were questioned by US intelligence agents. From February to May 2007, Ethiopian security officers daily transported detainees—including several pregnant women—to a villa where US officials interrogated them about suspected terrorist links. At night the Ethiopian officers returned the detainees to their cells. After US officials would end their interrogation of a detainee, the Ethiopian government usually sent them home. Of those known to have been interrogated by the US government, just eight Kenyans remain in Ethiopia. (A ninth Kenyan in Addis Ababa was rendered to Ethiopia in July 2007 after American interrogations reportedly stopped.) These men, who have not been subjected to interrogation since May 2007, would likely have been repatriated long ago but for the Kenyan government’s longstanding refusal to acknowledge their claims to Kenyan citizenship or to take steps to secure their release. In August 2008, Kenyan authorities visited these men for the first time, some 18 months after they were first rendered to Ethiopian custody. The Ethiopian government has also used the rendition program for its own purposes. For years, the Ethiopian military has been trying to quell domestic Somali and Oromo insurgencies that receive support from neighboring countries, such as Ethiopia’s archrival, Eritrea. The Ethiopian intervention in Somalia and the multinational rendition program provided them a convenient means to gain custody over people whom they could interrogate for suspected insurgent links. Once these individuals were in detention, Ethiopian military interrogators and guards reportedly subjected them to brutal beatings and torture. Noor was one of their victims. The questions Noor’s Ethiopian interrogators asked were frequent, he told Human Rights Watch, and always the same: “Are you al Qaeda? Are you an (Somali ) rebel? Are you part of the Somali insurgency?” Each time he said no, he was beaten, sometimes to the point of unconsciousness. When he resisted answering their questions, they targeted his testicles. Then, in February 2008, some 14 months after his original arrest, the Ethiopians evidently decided Noor was no longer worth the trouble. They dumped him, along with 27 others, just over the Somali border. The men were met by a Somali officer who told him that he was very sorry, that their arrest was a mistake, and that they were all innocent. Now Noor is back in a refugee camp, limping, and urinating blood—still waiting for the healthcare he came searching for nearly two years ago. Others are even less fortunate. Bashir Makhtal, for example, a dual Canadian-Ethiopian citizen who was rendered to Somalia on the same plane as Noor, remains in Ethiopian custody because of his alleged connections to the ( Western Somalia Liberation Front) (ONLF). Now reportedly being tried by a military court, Makhtal is still being denied access to his attorney, and has received just one consular visit during his 18 months of detention. Mohammed Abulmalik, a Kenyan arrested in Mombasa in February 2007, taken to Nairobi, and then disappeared for over a month, ultimately ended up in the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, where he is still being held without charge. Several Kenyans are also being held in Addis Ababa, and the whereabouts of other detainees are unknown. Human Rights Watch remains deeply concerned about those individuals mistreated in the Horn of Africa rendition program. It is long past time for the Ethiopian government to provide basic due process rights to the people who remain in its custody, and for Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and the United States—the governments implicated in what are enforced disappearances under international law—to disclose the identities, fates, and whereabouts of past and present detainees. Arrest, Detention, Rendition, and Torture Conflict in Somalia In June 2006, an alliance of Islamic courts (Islamic Courts Union, ICU) took control of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, driving the then-ruling Somali warlords from power.1 Although many Mogadishu residents welcomed the security brought by the ICU, the bellicose, Islamist bent of some ICU leaders set off alarm bells in Washington and Addis Ababa. Among the leadership of the ICU was Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a former leader of the militant Islamist group known as al-Itihaad, which the United States designated a terrorist group shortly after September 11, 2001.2 US officials warned that the ICU was sheltering suspects responsible for the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, stoking fears that Somalia was fostering Islamic radicalism.3 Ethiopia had its own reasons for concern. Ethiopia’s archrival Eritrea supported the ICU, and joint ICU-Eritrean support for Ethiopian insurgency groups, such as the ( Occupied Western Somalia National Liberation Front) (ONLF) and Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), added to the Ethiopian government’s fears.4 In December 2006, following the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1725 authorizing an African Union intervention in Somalia, a US-backed Ethiopian offensive ousted the ICU from Mogadishu and installed the weak Somali Transitional Federal Government in its place. The fighting caused hundreds of people to head towards the Kenyan border, including some suspected of terrorist and insurgent links.5 Arrests and Detentions in Kenya and Somalia As hundreds fled the fighting, Kenyan military and police officers stepped up security along the Kenyan border. During late December 2006 and January 2007, Kenyan security forces arrested at least 150 individuals of some 18 different nationalities—including US, UK, and Canadian citizens—at the Liboi and Kiunga border crossing points with Somalia. Men, women, and children, some as young as seven months old, were then transferred to prisons and other detention facilities in and around Nairobi. Most were held for weeks without access to a lawyer, family members, or diplomatic representatives, and without charge (with one exception), in violation of international law. Their detentions were neither in compliance with Kenyan immigration law6 nor criminal law, which requires a criminal suspect to be charged as soon as is practicable (presumed to be within 24 hours in all non-capital cases and 14 days in all capital cases).7 A 23-year-old pregnant woman from Kenya who was arrested in Kiunga said she was held in a filthy jail cell along with a nine-year-old boy. She told Human Rights Watch that when Kenyan police officers learned that her husband had been killed in the fighting in Somalia, they joked about it, saying that now they would date her. When family members tried to visit her, they were turned away. “I used to cry every night,” she said. “It was hell.”8 Several detainees reported being interrogated by plainclothes Kenyan police officers who worked for the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU), a specialized wing of the Kenyan police that was set up in 2003 and receives several million dollars in US support each year.9 Kenyan security forces and foreign intelligence services also closely cooperated during this initial detention and interrogation phase. US nationals Daniel Maldonado and Amir Meshal, and four UK nationals, were questioned by US and UK intelligence agents, respectively, while at the same time being denied access to a lawyer or even an opportunity to make a phone call.10 In some cases, family members, aided by human rights organizations such as the Muslim Human Rights Forum, hired lawyers for these detainees. Lawyers filed more than 30 habeas petitions on their behalf. But in several cases, the authorities blatantly disregarded court orders and ongoing judicial proceedings by moving detainees to other places of detention or rendering them to Somalia.11 Others were arrested by the Ethiopian military in Somalia before they ever made it across the border into Kenya. Individuals reported being beaten—sometimes brutally—by the Ethiopian forces that captured them.12 One detainee described being taken to a US outpost near the Kenyan border, but still inside Somalia, where two plainclothes US officials interrogated him for several hours before he was flown to Kismayo and Addis Ababa.13 Renditions to Somalia and Ethiopia Over the course of three weeks—on January 20, January 27, and February 10, 2007—Kenyan officials secretly—without notifying relatives or lawyers—flew at least 85 people, including 19 women and 15 children, from Kenya to Somalia.14 The January flights were chartered by African Express Airways from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to Mogadishu; and the February flight was chartered by Bluebird Aviation from Wilson Airport to Baidoa, about 250 kilometers northwest of Mogadishu in Somalia. Individuals described being called out of their cells in the early hours of the morning, transported to the airport, and then handcuffed, blindfolded, and boarded onto planes, without ever being told where they were being taken or why. When the planes arrived in Mogadishu and Baidoa, Kenyan authorities handed the detainees over to Ethiopian military forces. As one detainee described the scene in Mogadishu: The plane was surrounded by Ethiopian military when we got off. We were brought to an open area near the plane and blindfolded. Two soldiers grabbed me and yelled at me: “You are a terrorist. We will kill you. We will sell you.” Then they took me to a so dusty room in the airport with the others where we spent two nights.15 Some were flown to Addis Ababa within days, where they were held in various detention facilities. Other detainees reported being driven from Mogadishu to Baidoa, where they were held for months without charge, and interrogated and tortured by men in Ethiopian military uniforms. From there, Ethiopian authorities transported them to a military detention facility in Awassa, Ethiopia, and finally on to another military detention facility in Ambo, Ethiopia, where the torture reportedly continued. In February 2007, Kenyan officials arrested a then-34-year-old Kenyan, Mohammed Abdulmalik, as he was crossing into Kenya from Somalia.16 Abdulmalik was then transported to Nairobi, where he was held without charge, without access to a lawyer or family members, and without ever being brought before a judge. Reportedly moved out of his Nairobi jail cell on February 27, he effectively disappeared until March 26, 2007, when the US Department of Defense issued a press release saying that Abdulmalik had been transferred to Guantanamo.17 In July 2007, Kenyan officials also secretly expelled another group of three men overland into Somalia, all of whom were ultimately taken into Ethiopian custody. The Ethiopian authorities released two of these men in July 2008, but one, Adbikadir Mohamed Adan, remains in custody in an Ethiopian prison in Addis Ababa.18 Those arrested by Ethiopian forces in southern Somalia reported being taken to Kismayo, then to Baidoa and on from there.19 US Intelligence in Addis Ababa A US government official confirmed to Human Rights Watch that agents of both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation questioned detainees in Addis Ababa in early 2007.20 Former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch have consistently described US intelligence agents as operating out of a villa. Every morning, Ethiopian guards reportedly called some number of detainees out of their cells, blindfolded them, and drove them to the villa to be interrogated by US personnel. Every night the guards returned the detainees to various detention sites throughout Addis Ababa, where they were held without access to international monitors such as the ICRC, lawyers, or consular representatives, and were not allowed to contact their family members to inform them of their whereabouts. One detainee said that during one of these interrogation sessions, the US officials yelled in his ear so loudly that he was convinced he would lose his hearing.21 Another described being forced to stand for some five hours between interrogations with his hands cuffed in a painful position behind his back.22 Others said that the US officials photographed and fingerprinted them, and then asked numerous questions. One detainee told Human Rights Watch: They wanted to know where I was from, what I was doing in Somalia, why I was there. They didn’t believe me for such a long time. They also kept on showing me pictures of people I didn’t know and trying to get me to identify them.23 One detainee described being returned each night to a villa guarded by Ethiopian police, where the lights were kept on around the clock, music was blaring, and his hands and legs were tied together so that he could not move around his cell.24 Another detainee described being held for nearly two months in solitary confinement in a two-by-two meter corrugated metal cage. He said that he was moved to a communal cell in April 2007, around the same time that the US personnel stopped interrogating him.25 By May 2007, interrogations by foreign intelligence officials had reportedly ended. Within a few months, almost all of the detained foreign nationals had been sent home, leaving a Canadian-Ethiopian named Bashir Makhtal, several Kenyans, and an unknown number of Somalis and Eritreans.26 US government officials did not respond to Human Rights Watch’s request for additional comment. But US officials have previously argued that they were following the law and justified in their actions because they were investigating past attacks and current threats of terrorism.27 Some former detainees described being interrogated by other foreign intelligence officers as well. Human Rights Watch was not able to confirm these allegations.28 US Aid to the Region In addition to its direct role in interrogations, the US government provided indirect support to Kenyan and Ethiopian actions through the millions of dollars channeled specifically to Kenyan and Ethiopian counterterrorism initiatives and other security-related programs. In fiscal year 2007, the United States sent Ethiopia some $12 million and Kenya $5 million in security-related assistance.29 Both countries also shared in the $14.2 million provided to Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, and Tanzania as part of a new East Africa Regional Security Initiative.30 In fiscal year 2008, an estimated $9.4 and $18.4 million in security-related funds are expected to flow from the United States to Ethiopia and Kenya, respectively. More than $1 million is specifically allocated to Kenya’s Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, the unit that reportedly took the lead in the arrests, detentions, and interrogations in Kenya.31 The Ethiopian Role The Ethiopian government served as the detaining authority for foreign nationals of interest to US and possibly other foreign intelligence officers. For four months between February and May 2007, Ethiopian police and military officers transported detainees back and forth from their cells to interrogation sessions by US officials. Between March and May 2007, Ethiopian authorities also brought several of these detainees to military court, where they were asked a series of biographical questions and then sent back to their prison cells. To our knowledge, none of the detainees were represented by a lawyer, and none were charged with a crime. When US officials lost interest in those held, so did their Ethiopian counterparts. Within a month of the last reported interrogation by a US intelligence officer, almost all of the foreigners from outside the region—including several Swedes, an American, a Dane, and a South African—were released. Of those known to have been interrogated by the United States, only eight remain in Ethiopian custody.32 The Ethiopians also used the rendition program for their own purposes. For years, the Ethiopian military has been trying to quell domestic Somali and Oromo insurgencies that receive support from neighboring countries such as Eritrea.33 The multinational rendition program allowed them to take custody of a number of people with suspected insurgent links. Most of these men were never taken to Addis Ababa, but instead were brought from Baidoa to military detention in Awassa, Ethiopia, and then further military detention in Ambo. At each stage, Ethiopian military interrogators and guards reportedly subjected detainees to brutal beatings and torture. Detainees said that guards pulled out their toenails, held loaded guns to their heads, crushed their genitals, and forced them to crawl on their elbows and knees on gravel until they were bloodied and exhausted. They were forced to sign (or fingerprint) papers they could not read. One detainee released in 2008 explained: They handcuffed me and tied my legs together and sat me against the wall. I was told that I was a member of the ICU. I was told that I was a terrorist. I was told that I was a member of the ONLF. I told them they were wrong. Then they started beating me. They used a big wooden stick and a metal rod and beat me on my knees, on my elbows, and on my wrists. Eventually I fainted. When I woke there were burns on the back of my left shoulder. I think they may have used electricity.34 Whereas international attention focused on the Western nationals caught up in the rendition program, little attention has focused on these men, who suffered horrific abuse and torture. Several, such as Noor and Yusuf, whose stories are detailed below, were released in February 2008 after months in detention, with only an apology. Both are now living in refugee camps on the Kenyan border, fearing for their safety and still suffering from the torture. The “Disappeared” In April 2007, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledged that Ethiopia was holding in its custody at least 41 individuals who had been transferred from Kenya. It subsequently released all the women and children, as well as several men, between April and August 2007. But Ethiopian officials have never acknowledged the detention of the other rendition victims, even though all accounts indicate that the more than 85 men and women flown to Somalia from Nairobi were handed over to Ethiopian military forces then operating in Somalia as soon as they landed. HumanRights Watch’s request for information from the Ethiopian authorities (see Appendix A) was never answered. As discussed in the section “International Legal Standards” below, an enforced disappearance occurs when state officials or agents arrest or detain an individual followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the person or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places the person outside the protection of the law.35 Nine Kenyan nationals and one Canadian-Ethiopian remain in Ethiopian prisons, some 15 to 21 months after they were first arrested. The whereabouts of 22 Somalis, Ethiopian Somalis, Eritreans, and Kenyans rendered to Somalia in early 2007 remain unknown. The following men are known to be in custody in Addis Ababa: Bashir Makhtal, a dual Canadian-Ethiopian citizen, born in Ethiopia and granted refugee status by Canada in 1991. Kenyan officials arrested Makhtal at a border crossing in December 2006, secretly flew him to Mogadishu on January 20, 2007, and handed him over to Ethiopian authorities. Three days later, Ethiopian officials flew Makhtal from Mogadishu to Addis Ababa, where he was placed in solitary confinement and kept separate from other detainees.36 Makhtal’s grandfather was reportedly a founding member of the ONLF, which undoubtedly made Makhtal a prime suspect for the Ethiopians.37 A now-released detainee who last saw Makhtal in July 2007, as Makhtal was being escorted from the toilet at a prison in Addis Ababa, described his condition: “He was limping. He had a deep cut in one of his legs. He looked weak. He looked so famished.”38 Still in Addis Ababa, Makhtal is reportedly slated for trial before a military tribunal for terrorism-related activities and could face the death penalty. In July 2008, Makhtal received his very first consular visit in Ethiopia, some 16 months after he had been rendered there. In August 2008, a representative of the Canadian government who met with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said that Makhtal would have legal representation at his trial.39 But his lawyer continues to be denied access and, as far as Human Rights Watch knows, no subsequent consular visits have been allowed. Eight Kenyans rendered to Ethiopia in January and February 2007: Said Khamis Mohammed, Kassim Mwarusi, Ali Musa Mwarusi, Swaleh Ali Tunza, Hassan Shaaban Mwazume, Bashir Chirag Hussein, Abdallah Khalfan Tondwe, and Salim Awadh Salim.40 Seven of these men (all but Salim Awadh Salim) were told that they were going to be released in May 2007, only to be moved to a private house that served as a detention facility in the outskirts of Addis Ababa. They were held there for almost a year, before being moved back to an old police station where they had been held previously. There, they rejoined Salim. In February 2007, another Kenyan escaped from detention. The Ethiopian police reportedly retaliated against the remaining Kenyans, subjecting them to a brutal beating. Officers were said to have broken the leg of Swaleh Ali Tunza, a 40-year-old Kenyan who now fears he may ultimately lose his leg. Another detainee, 50-year-old Bashir Chirag Hussein, is reportedly weak and in constant pain, due in part to the beatings by the Ethiopian police. A third, Abdallah Khalfan Tondwe, said that he can no longer use his left hand. Beatings reportedly compounded the injuries Tondwe suffered in a car accident when being transported from Mombasa to Nairobi after his initial arrest.41 The detainees described insufficient food, inadequate healthcare, and unsanitary conditions in detention. None of the detainees have ever been permitted visits by family members or an international humanitarian organization such as the ICRC, and none have had access to a lawyer since they were brought to Ethiopia. In phone interviews with Human Rights Watch, the Kenyan detainees spoke of their plight. “I can’t sleep well. I miss my family. Please, I need you to help us to go home,” said one detainee.42 “I am Kenyan. My mother is Kenyan. My father is Kenyan. Everyone else has been sent home. Why am I still here? Why isn’t Kenya helping us?” said another.43 In August 2008, Kenyan police officers visited these men for the first time since they were deported. The officers reportedly told the eight Kenyans that they would be released within weeks.44 Adbikadir Mohamed Adan—a Kenyan-Somali arrested in July 2007 in Kenya. Kenyan officials reportedly drove Amen and two others across the border, where they were eventually turned over to Ethiopian custody. The other two men were released in June 2008, but Amen remains incarcerated in an old police station in Addis Ababa. He is reportedly being held in solitary confinement in a two-by-two-meter cell, separated from the other Kenyans in the facility.45 The whereabouts of another 22 men who were rendered from Kenya to Somalia in January 2007 remain unknown. These men were listed as passengers on the January 20 and 27 flight manifests, yet have not been heard from since. They may have been released; they may still be in Ethiopian custody; or they may have been transferred elsewhere: 46 1. Tafara Basisa—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Ethiopian Oromo) 2. Lama Takal—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Ethiopian Oromo) 3. Badada Lami—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Ethiopian Oromo) 4. Tesfale Kidane—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Eritrean) 5. Saleh Idris—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Eritrean) 6. Hussein Ali Said—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Kenyan) 7. Salama Ngama—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Kenyan) 8. Saidi Shifa—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Kenyan) 9. Tsumo Solomon Adan Ayila—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Kenyan) 10. Mugeta Tasiifa—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown) 11. Nur Mohammad Zain—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown) 12. Mohammad Hassan—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown) 13. Abdullahi Mohammad—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown) 14. Sakata Sakare—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown) 15. Shariff Jamal—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown) 16. Jamal Abdal—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown) 17. Ahmed Hassan—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown) 18. Mohammad Abdullah—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown) 19. Abdijani Ahmed—rendered 1/20/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown) 20. Abdulrashid Mohamed—rendered 1/27/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Kenyan) 21. Abdi Kadir Maalin—rendered 1/27/07 to Mogadishu (reportedly Somali) 22. Hassan Shaban—rendered 1/27/07 to Mogadishu (nationality unknown) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 In December 2004, several Islamic law (sharia) courts joined forces under the leadership of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a schoolteacher from Mogadishu, to form the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). By October 2006, the ICU was in control of seven of the ten regions of south-central Somalia. 2 For a further analysis of the rise of the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia and related US concerns, see Human Rights Watch, Shell-Shocked: Civilians Under Siege in Mogadishu¸ vol. 19, no. 12(A), August 2007, http://hrw.org/reports/2007/somalia0807/, pp. 19-22. 3 Mike Pflanz, “Al-Qaeda taking over Mogadishu, says US,” The Daily Telegraph, December 16, 2006 (quoting US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer). 4 Although the relationship between ICU leaders and Ethiopian insurgencies has never been fully explained, the ONLF and OLF both had a presence in Mogadishu in 2006. In addition, both the ONLF and OLF had previously received Eritrean training as well as logistical and military support. See Human Rights Watch, Collective Punishment: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in the ****** area of Ethiopia’s Somali Region, June 2008, http://hrw.org/reports/2008/ethiopia0608/, pp. 29-30; see also Human Rights Watch, Shell-Shocked, pp. 17-18, 22-23. For a history of the conflict between the Ethiopian government and the ONLF, see Human Rights Watch, Collective Punishment, pp. 13-32. 5 See Human Rights Watch, Shell-Shocked, pp. 23-26. 6 Under Kenyan immigration law, those unlawfully in Kenya can be detained pending removal pursuant to an order in writing from the Minister. See Immigration Act (Kenya), sec. 8, as amended 1972. Kenyan law also gives immigration and police officers the authority to arrest those believed to be unlawfully present. Immigration Act, sec. 12. But pursuant to the Kenyan Constitution, art. 72(2), infra n. 7, the individual must either be charged with a crime or subject to a removal order as soon as is reasonably practicable, which is presumed to be 24 hours in non-capital cases. Human Rights Watch is only aware of three deportation orders being issued in these cases, none of which were issued within the 24-hour time limit. Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Harun Ndubi, Kenyan lawyer, September 23, 2008. 7 Constitution of Kenya, art. 72(2), as amended 1998. If the defendant has not been brought to court within these time periods, then the government has the burden of proving that it was not reasonably practicable to bring the defendant to court sooner. 8 Human Rights Watch interview with former detainee, Nairobi, February 23 and 26, 2007 (name withheld). 9 Human Rights Watch has learned that the ATPU is expected to receive some US$3 million in direct and indirect US aid in fiscal year 2008. 10 Raymond Bonner, “A Lark Back to Africa Turns Into Somali Nightmare,” International Herald Tribune, April 16, 2007; Judy Peet, “Family Asks Congress’ Aid to Rescue Son,” The Star-Ledger, May 17, 2007; Al-Amin Kimanthi and Alan Butt, eds., Muslim Human Rights Forum, Horn of Terror: Revised Edition, September 2008, pp. 28-29; Muslim Human Rights Forum, Horn of Terror: Report of US-Led Mass Extra-ordinary Renditions from Kenya to Somalia, Ethiopia, and Guantanamo Bay, July 6, 2007, p. 10. 11 Muslim Human Rights Forum, Horn of Terror, July 6, 2007, p. 8; Muslim Human Rights Forum, Horn of Terror: Revised Edition, September 2008, pp. 22-23. 12 Human Rights Watch interviews with former detainees, Nairobi, July 20, 2008, and Ifo Refugee Camp, Kenya, July 23 and 24, 2008 (names withheld); Human Rights Watch telephone interview with former detainee, September 9, 2008 (name withheld). 13 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with former detainee, September 9, 2008 (name withheld). This account is consistent with other descriptions of a US presence in Ras Kamboni, Somalia, in January 2007. See Human Rights Watch, Shell-Shocked, p. 25, n. 82. 14 Although the flight manifests list only 85 individuals, there are indications that many more may have been rendered from Kenya to Somalia in early 2007. See, for instance, Muslim Human Rights Forum, Horn of Terror: Revised Edition, September 2008, p. 10, n. 3. For copies of the flight manifests, see Horn of Terror: Revised Edition, pp. 52-55. 15 Human Rights Watch Interview with former detainee, Nairobi, July 20, 2008 (name withheld). 16 Official Report, [Kenyan] National Assembly, April 3, 2007, p. 285 (Mr. Munya, Assistant Minister, Office of the President, acknowledging Abdulmalik’s arrest and subsequent deportation). Although Kenyan authorities have denied that Abdulmalik has Kenyan citizenship, Human Rights Watch spoke to family members and neighbors who confirmed that Abdulmalik was born in Kenya to parents with Kenyan citizenship. 17 US Department of Defense Press Release, no. 343-07, March 26, 2007. Kenyan authorities have claimed that they deported Abdulmalik to Somalia and do not know how he ended up in US custody in Guantanamo. See Official Report, [Kenyan] National Assembly, April 3, 2007, pp. 285-286. 18 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Al-Amin Kimanthi, August 28, 2008; Human Rights Watch telephone interview with detainee, August 27, 2008 (name withheld). 19 Human Rights Watch interview with former detainees, Nairobi, July 30, 2008 (names withheld); Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with former detainee, August 17 and 19, 2007, and September 9, 2008 (name withheld). 20 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with FBI official, September 19, 2008 (name withheld). 21 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with detainee, August 27, 2008 (name withheld). 22 Human Rights Watch interview with former detainee, July 9, 2007 (name and place withheld). 23 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with detainee, August 27, 2008 (name withheld). 24 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with former detainee, September 9, 2008 (name withheld). 25 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with detainee, August 27, 2008 (name withheld). 26 One of the Kenyans reportedly escaped in February 2008. Although the Kenyan government has long disputed these men’s claims of Kenyan citizenship, documents provided to Human Rights Watch by Al-Amin Kimanthi of the Muslim Human Rights Forum strongly suggest that these men are in fact Kenyan, or at least have credible claims to Kenyan citizenship. 27 Anthony Mitchell, “US Questions Terrorism Suspects at Secret Prison,” Associated Press,April 3, 2007 (citing unnamed US government officials). 28 Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with current and former detainees, August 27 and September 9, 2008 (names withheld). Human Rights interview with former detainee, July 9, 2007 (name and place withheld). 29 These figures are the sum total of US government funding provided through the following programs: Foreign Military Financing (FMF), International Military Education and Training (IMET), Nonproliferation, Anti-terrorism, Demining and Related (NADR), Peacekeeping Operations (PKO), Regional Defense Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program (CTFP), and Department of Defense funding pursuant to Section 1206 of the FY2006 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). See Congressional Budget Justification, Summary Tables, FY 2009, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/101408.pdf (accessed September 10, 2008), pp. 13-14; Nina Serafino, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2006, May 15, 2008, p. 4. 30 Nina Serafino, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2006, May 15, 2008, p. 4. 31 In addition, approximately $1.9 million-worth of security and law enforcement courses are expected to benefit the ATPU as well as other law enforcement agencies. Data provided to Human Rights Watch by US congressional staff. 32 These are the eight still-detained Kenyans that were rendered from Kenya in January and February 2007. One more Kenyan was rendered in July 2007, making a total of nine Kenyans in Ethiopian custody as of this writing. 33 For a detailed discussion of abuses perpetrated by the Ethiopian military against suspected insurgents, see Human Rights Watch, Collective Punishment. See also Human Rights Watch, Shell-Shocked, pp. 18-23. 34 Human Rights Watch interview with former detainee, Nairobi, July 20, 2008 (name withheld). 35 See UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, adopted December 18, 1992, G.A. res. 47/133, 47 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49) at 207, U.N. Doc. A/47/49 (1992), preamble. 36 Human Rights Watch interview with Suleiman Abdi, Ifo Refugee Camp, July 23, 2008; Human Rights Watch interview with Ishmael Noor, Ifo Refugee Camp, July 24, 2008. Abdi was traveling with Makhtal at the time of their arrest; both Abdi and Noor were on the same plane with Makhtal from Nairobi to Mogadishu; and Ethiopian forces brought Noor and Makhtal together on the same plane to Addis Ababa. Suleiman Abdi and Ishmael Noor are pseudonyms. 37 Debra Black, “Ottawa Finally Meets with Prisoner,” Toronto Star, July 22, 2008. 38 Human Rights Watch interview with former detainee, Ifo Refugee Camp, July 24, 2008 (name withheld). 39 Paul Koring, “Canadian in Ethiopian Jail to Get Lawyer, Envoy Says,” Globe and Mail, August 6, 2008; “Canadian in Ethiopia Could Face Death Penalty,” CBC News, June 6, 2008. 40 The Kenyan government has long disputed these men’s claims of Kenyan citizenship. But documents provided to Human Rights Watch by Al-Amin Kimanthi of the Muslim Human Rights Forum strongly suggest that these men are in fact Kenyan, or at least have credible claims to Kenyan citizenship. 41 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with detainee, August 27, 2008 (name withheld). 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 “We Will Only Act After Getting Report,” Sunday Nation, August 6, 2008 (Kenyan Minister of Foreign Affairs Moses Wetang’ula confirming that a team of Kenyan officers traveled to Ethiopia to interview the Kenyans reportedly in Ethiopia custody); Weekly Muslim News Update, “Expedite the Return of the Detainees,” Friday News Bulletin, September 5, 2008 (quoting Kenyan Internal Security Minister George Saitoti as saying that he expected the Kenyans in Ethiopia to be repatriated “within a week”); Human Rights Watch telephone interview with detainees, August 27, 2008 (names withheld). 45 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Al-Amin Kimanthi, Muslim Human Rights Forum, August 26, 2008. 46 This list has been updated based on Human Rights Watch’s information as of September 29, 2008. In addition to those that appeared on the flight manifests and are listed here, the names of two other s reportedly held in Mogadishu—Mohamed Said Mohamed and Nasru Toko, both said to be Kenyans—were relayed in text messages from fellow detainees to their relatives on January 21 and 22, 2007. Telephone interview with Al-Amin Kimanthi, September 29, 2008 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- Case Studies Ishmael Noor “I have suffered three times. I lost my family. I was beaten and tortured. And then I was arrested and tortured again. Now I am a refugee whose life hangs in the balance. I have nothing left to lose,” Noor told Human Rights Watch.47 Noor, a 37-year-old shepherd from the ****** region of Ethiopia, is now living in a refugee camp along the Kenya-Somali border. Noor told Human Rights Watch that in 2004, days after his marriage, Ethiopian forces murdered his wife. They had already killed Noor’s mother, father, brothers and sisters. Two months later, members of the Ethiopian army attacked him while he was bringing his goats and sheep to a local watering hole. Noor said that they slaughtered some of the animals with a knife and shot the rest. They then beat him unconscious and slashed his shoulder to the bone. A young girl who saw the attack alerted some local villagers, who slowly nursed him back to health. Noor spent two months recuperating, before starting on what turned out to be a three-month journey out of Ethiopia, through Somaliland, and into southern Somalia. He eventually ended up in Dobley, a small Somali town near the Kenyan border where his half-sister lived. “At times I was so desperate for food, I ate grass,” Noor told Human Rights Watch. Noor’s half-sister fed and housed him for close to a year. But the lingering pain from his wounds persisted. “At times, I would lose all feeling in my left side, like I was semi-paralyzed. It would take up to a week for the feeling to come back. Other times, my left side hurt so much it felt like my bones were cracking,” he said. Eventually, his half-sister told him she could no longer afford to support him and talked him into seeking medical care at one of the refugee camps across the border in Kenya. “I didn’t want to go, but she insisted,” Noor said. Arrest and Detention in Kenya Noor joined seven other families traveling across the border, sometime around late December 2006 or early January 2007. He spent two days in the transit center in Liboi, Kenya, before boarding a bus to the nearest refugee camp, about two hours away. But the journey was cut short when the bus was stopped by Kenyan security personnel. The officers ordered all the passengers to get off the bus and show identification. Noor failed to produce identification, and the officers pulled him aside along with four Somali girls. The girls produced refugee ration cards and were released, but the police held onto Noor, demanding 1,000 Kenyan shillings (about US$15) as a bribe. Noor said that he offered all the money he had—about 600 Kenyan shillings—but the officers were not satisfied. The bus drove away, leaving Noor with the security officers. Noor said that the police then put him in the back of a Land Cruiser and drove him to a local police station, where he spent four nights. On his last night there, five Oromos and one Somali joined him; all six said they had been arrested crossing the border. The next day, a Kenyan officer took them to Garissa, the regional police headquarters, where they spent another four nights in a small room with more than 30 others, before being transported to Nairobi. Noor said that in Nairobi, Kenyan officials interrogated him twice. They asked him about his background, including repeated questions about his connections with the Islamists in Somalia and the ****** National Liberation Front (ONLF), an insurgent group that operates in Ethiopia. After the second interview, a Kenyan-Somali official told Noor that there was no evidence he had done anything wrong, and promised that he would be released. Rendition to Somalia and Ethiopia Kenyan police officers called Noor out of his cell at around 4:00 a.m. on January 20. He expected to be released. Instead, he was driven to the Nairobi airport, where he joined some 30 others and was forced to board a large white plane. Said Noor: We were handcuffed behind our backs with white plastic cuffs that were very painful. Our shoes were removed and we were pushed into the plane. Our legs were tied and we were tied down to the seat of the plane. I saw one man being beaten—officers were kicking him, punching him, and holding him down. I don’t know why. Noor said he had no idea where they were going until they landed in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. They were met by the very forces that Noor had fled a little more than a year before—the Ethiopian military. “I thought that the Ethiopian forces would shoot and kill me,” Noor said. “I was so scared.” The Ethiopian military led him and the others to a big open space near the sea, where they spent several hours in the hot sun with no water. All 30 were then herded into a dusty room in the airport. Three days later, Noor was called out of his room, along with Canadian-Ethiopian Bashir Makhtal, 11 Oromos, and three Eritreans. They were again handcuffed and taken to what looked like an Ethiopian military plane—again, with no knowledge of where they were going or why. Several hours later, they landed in Addis Ababa. Interrogations and Torture in Ethiopia Noor spent four months in Maekalawi prison—the central investigation department in the center of Addis Ababa—in a cell with several others, with no fresh air and no natural light. Every few days, members of the Ethiopian military called Noor out for interrogation. He said the questions were almost always the same: They asked me: “Are you a terrorist? Are you part of the Islamic Courts Union? Are you part of ONLF?” When I said no, they told me they would chop me into little pieces if I did not confess. But I refused to confess to something I am not. Then they would start to beat me. They beat me from head to toe. They used a stick made from a tree called bahrasaf that is known for its hardness. The stick was about two feet long, two to three inches wide. They also used the butt of their gun. They beat me on my upper arms, on my legs, on the back of my head, on the bottom of my feet. At one point they broke my foot by my pinky toe. Sometimes it is still so painful that I cannot sleep. They would tie my hands behind my back and force me to lean against the wall. If I fell over, then they would beat me on my side that was exposed. If they thought I was too strong, they would target my testicles. Then I would usually fall unconscious. I often urinated blood. Even now, I still sometimes have drops of blood in my urine. I haven’t had an erection since that time. Noor said that the interrogations and beatings usually lasted 30 minutes or more. They happened every few days. He said that one time he was interrogated and beaten almost continuously for two full days. Sometime in June 2007, the Ethiopian military transported Noor to a military base in Ambo, in Oromia, central Ethiopia, where he joined several other Somalis and Oromos who were already there. After a few months, plainclothes interrogators who reportedly came from Addis Ababa showed up to do their own interrogations. Noor said that the first time they just took pictures and fingerprints and asked questions, without any beatings. But a month later they came back: They started with the same questions: “Are you a terrorist? Are you al Qaeda? Are you part of the Islamic Courts Union? Are you ONLF?” When I said no to all, they put a pistol to my head and told me to confess or I’d be shot dead. They didn’t shoot, but started beating and kicking me. Once I picked up a stick and repelled the hand of an interrogator who was about to strike me. They then started beating me all over my body—my head, my hands, my side, my back. Eventually I fainted. When I awoke, an interrogator who spoke Somali came to help. He took me to get fresh air and water. He then took me to a room, gave me a document with lots of pages and told me to fingerprint each page. I cannot read or write, and no one told me what the document said. Noor said that he was forced to put his fingerprints on three documents during his time in captivity. He claimed that he was never told what any of them said. Release and Return to Kenya Sometime in late January 2008, Ethiopian military officers told the Ambo prisoners that they were all being sent home. A day later, a large group of Oromos were reportedly released. Ethiopian authorities then loaded the 28 remaining Ethiopian ******is and Somali nationals into a vehicle and drove them over the Somali border to Baidoa. All 28 were then handed to military officers working for Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government. A general came and addressed them. He told them that he was sorry, that he realized the arrests were mistakes, and that they would be free. When someone asked if they could have a letter acknowledging their innocence, he said no. When someone else asked if they could have money or transport home, he again said no. They were then released into the town of Baidoa, without food or money, or any way to get back home. Several local residents took them in, clothed them, fed them, and helped Noor and several others get enough money together to make the trip back to Dobley, near Kenya’s border. Noor showed up at his half-sister’s home in late February, some 14 months after he originally left. “She was shocked,” Noor said. “She thought I was dead.” After a few weeks his half-sister once again told him she could no longer afford to keep him there and urged him to go to Kenya for medical care. He crossed the border once again—headed for the same refugee camp he had tried to reach over a year earlier. He has been living there since March 2008, still limping and urinating blood. “See this stone?” Noor asked, unwrapping the plastic around a small pebble he pulled out of his shirt pocket. “I took this stone when I left the prison in Ethiopia. This is my remembrance. No human rights group, no journalist, no family member, no government ever came to visit me. I can’t read or write. This is my only proof that I was arrested, held, and tortured there.” Salim Awadh Salim Salim Awadh Salim, a 36-year-old Kenyan, is to date being held without charge in an Ethiopian prison in Addis Ababa—some 20 months after he was arrested.48 According to Salim’s wife, Fatima Chande, they traveled from Kenya to Somalia in 2006 looking for work. When after about five months the fighting in Somalia intensified, he and Fatima decided to return to Kenya. They joined several others—including a young woman named Halima—as they made their way across the border and into the southern Kenyan town of Kiunga. As they later learned, Halima Badroudine is the wife of Fazul Abdullah Muhammad, a terrorist suspect long wanted by the United States for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. The day after their arrival in Kiunga, the local chief told them that they needed to register with the police. The group of eight, including four children, went to the police station as instructed. But instead of registering them, the officer in charge ordered their arrest. Four days later, Kenyan authorities transported all eight men, women, and children to Nairobi. Men and women were separated into different cells. Plainclothes officers who were believed to work for the Kenyan Anti-Terrorism Police Unit interrogated them. At one point, the officers reportedly forced Salim to strip naked as he was interrogated about his alleged connection to Fazul Abdullah Muhammad. On January 27, 2007, Kenyan authorities called both Salim and Fatima out of their cells, blindfolded and handcuffed them, took them to the airport, and forced them onto a plane with approximately 40 others. They did not know where they were going until they landed in Mogadishu. Men and women were separated and held in rooms guarded by Ethiopian soldiers. Ten days later, they were flown by military plane to Baidoa. They spent a night sleeping on the ground near the plane, before being flown to Addis Ababa the next morning. Addis Ababa At first, Salim and Fatima were held in the same detention center. But within a week or so, Salim was moved to solitary confinement in what has been described as a secret house run by Ethiopians. Ethiopian officers cuffed his hands behind his back and tied his legs together whenever he was in the cell. Each morning, Ethiopian officers took him to another secret house for interrogations. There, US interrogators questioned him about his background, his travels to Somalia, and the terrorist suspect, Fazul Abdullah Muhammad. After two months, Ethiopian officers returned Salim to the old police station where Fatima was being held. Ethiopian authorities released Fatima in April 2007. As she was leaving, Salim asked her to pray for him and said that he hoped to join her within a week.49 Around that time, the pace of interrogations of Salim slowed. Daily interrogations became weekly interrogations, and then bi-monthly. In May 2007, his US interrogators reportedly told him that they believed him, that they realized he was telling the truth, and that he would soon be released. That was his last interrogation. A few days later, eight other Kenyans were told that they were going to be released and moved out of his cell. Salim spent close to a year alone, thinking that the others had all been sent home to Kenya. A former detainee who last saw Salim in June 2007, described him as “frail, extremely depressed, and starting to lose all hope.”50 In May 2008, seven of the Kenyans were returned to his cell, where they are now being held together. They had never been released. None have ever been permitted a visit by family members or a humanitarian organization such as the ICRC, granted access to a lawyer, or ever charged with a crime. “All the other foreigners that we were held with here have been released. No one cares about us,” said Salim. “Please help us.” Ali Yusuf Yusuf, a 30-year-old father of four, was working for the United Nations in Somalia when he was arrested by the Ethiopian military in January 2007. He spent 13 months in Ethiopian custody, where he alleges that he was brutally beaten and tortured before his release in February 2008.51 On January 2, 2007, Yusuf and his driver Ahmed were on their way to the Somali town of Kismayo when they were stopped by an Ethiopian military convoy of about 15 trucks. According to Yusuf, at first the officers said they wanted directions and an escort to a nearby town. But soon they started accusing both Yusuf and Ahmed of membership in al Qaeda. Yusuf told Human Rights Watch that the Ethiopian soldiers demanded that he and Ahmed get out of their car. Ethiopian officers stripped Yusuf down to his underwear and a vest, and beat and kicked him until he fell unconscious. When he regained consciousness, he was tied up under a tree with Ahmed, with fighting going on all around them. After several days, they were taken to the airport in Kismayo and then flown to Addis Ababa, where they spent almost three months in a shared prison cell. Their conditions then sharply deteriorated. In March 2007, they were taken to a military base in Awassa, about four hours south of Addis Ababa. For five months they lived in an underground cell, with no light and no fresh air. Food generally consisted of two biscuits a day. Yusuf described a pattern of beatings and abuse: Often at night, the military officers would come to our cell and hit our heads and bodies against the wall. Sometimes they would hit and kick me in the testicles. One time they put a knife in my shoulder and told me I was al Qaeda. When I said no, I wasn’t, they would move the knife around in my shoulder. I was so weak and malnourished that I hardly even bled. But my shoulder still hurts from that injury. Sometime in July or August 2007, Yusuf and Ahmed were moved once again—this time to Ambo. Although a number of other Somalis were being held in Ambo at the same time, Yusuf and Ahmed were kept in a separate, underground cell. According to Yusuf, the interrogations continued: The interrogators kept insisting that I was transporting chemical weapons for al Qaeda. I didn’t know what they were talking about. Finally, they showed me the first aid kit they had taken out of my car when I was first arrested. They took out the flares used for emergencies. They were the plastic kind, with liquid inside, that created large floodlights when broken in two. When I tried to explain, they beat me. Finally, I convinced them to let me show them that they were just lights. But even after that, they still said I was al Qaeda. Another time they cracked the butt of a gun over my head. When I started to faint, a different officer held me up and told me I was a terrorist. I still have the scars from that beating. On January 26, 2008, Ethiopian officers told Yusuf and Ahmed that they were going home. The officers took Yusuf and Ahmed outside where they joined the 26 other Somalis being held in Ambo. It was the first time that they had seen the others. It was also the first time they had seen daylight in months. Yusuf said: My eyes could not adjust to light. Everything was so blurry. It hurt to look. They tried to feed us, but I couldn’t even eat. I was so weak. I could barely stand. On February 5, Ethiopian authorities turned over Yusuf, Ahmed, and the other Somalis to Somali military officers. A general from the Transitional Federal Government apologized to them, told them they were innocent, and ordered their release. None of them had any money, food, or clothes, other than what they were wearing. A hotel owner let Yusuf and Ahmed stay at his place, agreeing to accept payment later. Yusuf borrowed a phone, and called home. It was the first time his family had heard from him since his arrest. A few days later, UN officials helped arrange his transport home. Kamilya Mohamed Tuwein Kamilya Mohamed Tuwein, a 43-year-old mother of three from Dubai, traveled with two business partners to Nairobi on January 9, 2007, in the hopes of securing a deal to supply diesel from Kenya to Tanzania. Their meetings were delayed until January 11, so they went to Malindi in Kenya to pass their two free days.52 On January 10, Kenyan security agents showed up at their hotel and raided their rooms. They returned again that evening, ordered the three to pack their things, and took them to the police station. When Tuwein asked why they were arrested, the police would not answer. The next day, Kenyan security officers drove Tuwein, her two business partners, and four others to Nairobi. “When we arrived at Nairobi police headquarters, the police greeted us by saying, ‘Welcome, al Qaeda,’” Tuwein said. The police officers took Tuwein’s cell phone and passport and interrogated her for more than three hours about her alleged al Qaeda connections. They took her to another police station, where she spent 17 nights in a women’s cell that she described as smelly, dirty, and awful. She told Human Rights Watch: We kept asking to speak to our embassies. They said, “When the right time comes.” At one point, one of the police commanders told us if we paid a 35,000 shilling (US$500) bribe, we would be set free. One of the other women’s daughters hired a lawyer after they had all been held in the cell for about two weeks. The lawyer filed a habeas petition, but before Tuwein could be brought to court, she was rendered to Somalia. On January 28, 2007, Kenyan officials took Tuwein to the airport and forced her onto a government-chartered airplane headed for Mogadishu, without telling her where she was going or why. It was her first time in Somalia. After arrival in Mogadishu, Ethiopian soldiers separated the male passengers from the women and children. They took the women and children—about 22 in total—to a crowded, windowless room in the airport, where the group was held for 10 days. Several of the other women were pregnant. On February 5, Ethiopian soldiers took the entire group from the airport room and loaded them onto a military plane. They spent one night in Baidoa, before being taken to Addis Ababa the next morning. Tuwein was put in a cell with three other women—including Halima Badroudine, the wife of Fazul Abdullah Muhammad, and Fatima Chande, the wife of Salim Awadh Salim—and four children. “They didn’t even let me call home, to let my children know I was alive,” Tuwein explained. “Finally I stopped eating. I went on a hunger strike for three days. All I wanted was to be able to make a phone call.” After about two weeks, Ethiopian authorities took Tuwein and six other women to a villa outside of town—about a 45-minute drive. She told Human Rights Watch that a bearded, Caucasian, English-speaking man, who said that he was from a US government agency, took her fingerprints and photos, and asked her several questions once she arrived at the villa. In the evening, the Ethiopian officials returned Tuwein and the others to their prison cells in Addis Ababa. Tuwein told Human Rights Watch that she was only taken to the villa one time, but that Fazul Abdullah Muhammad’s wife, Halima, was transported there daily for a week. Tuwein was released in March 2007, three months after she was first arrested. She was never visited by an embassy representative, an independent humanitarian agency such as the ICRC, or a lawyer at any point during her custody in Kenya, Somalia, or Ethiopia. She was not allowed to make a phone call home until the day that she was released. Suleiman Abdi Abdi is a 40-year-old ethnic Somali from the ( Ethiopian Occupied Western Somali ) area of eastern Ethiopia, now living in a Kenyan refugee camp along the Somali border.53 Abdi left the ( Occupied Western Somalia National Liberation Front) region in 2004, and moved to Dobley, a border town about 30 kilometers from Liboi, one of the main crossing points into Kenya. He regularly traveled back and forth to Kenya to buy and sell goods. Around December 28, 2006, Abdi joined a group of seven men—including Canadian-Ethiopian national Bashir Makhtal—headed for the border. Abdi said that he was planning to stay in Kenya only briefly before returning to his home in Dobley. But before they reached the Kenyan-side transit center, they were intercepted by Kenyan police. The police ordered them out of their car and into a police vehicle, and drove them to a nearby police station. “I protested. I crossed the border all the time,” Abdi told Human Rights Watch. “But they didn’t respond to me, and I was taken.” The next day, Kenyan police moved them to the regional headquarters in Garissa, where they were held for five nights in a congested cell and interrogated by plainclothes police. Said Abdi: They interviewed me twice and asked the same things: where I was from, where I grew up, whether or not I had any links with the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). At the end of the second interview, a Somali-speaking officer told me that there was no evidence I had any connections with the ICU, but that I would be charged with being illegally in Kenya. On January 15, 2007, Kenyan police bundled Abdi and several others onto police vehicles and drove them to Nairobi. Five days later, on January 20, security officers called Abdi out of his cell and drove him to the airport, where about 30 other detainees had already been assembled. Officers herded them onto an African Express Airways plane, cuffed their hands behind their back and tied their legs to the seat. The plane landed in the Mogadishu airport, surrounded by Ethiopian military. After four nights, Ethiopian military officers drove Abdi and several others to Baidoa, where they were put into a tent with some 80 others, mostly ethnic Oromos. According to Abdi, he was then subjected to interrogations and torture: Every day interrogators would call different people out for interrogations. After two weeks, the interrogators—an Ethiopian and a Somali interpreter—called me. They said I was a member of the Islamic Courts Union, a war criminal, a terrorist plotter. I told them they were wrong. They started torturing me. They pulled out my toenails. They beat me with a wooden stick on my hands, on the tops of my feet, on my knees, on the left side of my face. Eventually I fainted. Other detainees told me that the interrogators dragged me back to the tent, still unconscious. The next day, Ethiopian military officers loaded Abdi and several others onto military vehicles for a three-day journey to Awassa, Ethiopia. The left side of Abdi’s face become swollen from the beatings and affected his vision. He said: I started to feel like I had a big ball in my head. One morning, I couldn’t see. I asked for a light. Everyone started laughing because it was morning and bright. For the next three months, I couldn’t see at all. My fellow prisoners helped me with everything—eating, going to the toilet, everything. I wouldn’t have survived without them. Eventually, military officers took pity on Abdi and took him to a doctor who gave him some drops for his eyes. Slowly, he started to recover vision in his right eye. It took almost a year for him to be able to see light out of his left eye. “Even now, I can’t see clearly out of my left eye,” Abdi said. “I only see vague shapes and color.” In July 2007, Ethiopian authorities again moved Abdi, this time to Ambo, where he was held with several Oromos and Somalis—including Ishmael Noor. The interrogations continued, carried out by plainclothes officers who reportedly came from Addis Ababa. “The questions were always the same,” Abdi said. “They asked about my biography. They wanted me to say that I was a member of the ICU or ONLF. When I wouldn’t agree, they would beat me.” Abdi was released in February 2008, one of the 28 men taken to Baidoa and handed over to military officers belonging to Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government. He has since moved his entire family to a refugee camp in Kenya, close to the Somali border: I was in jail for 13 months and six nights. I was never allowed a phone call home. I was never taken to court. I was never seen by the ICRC or any rights group. I never received any sympathy or help from any government or any individuals. Now I have no peace. I am scared. Swaleh Ali Tunza Swaleh Ali Tunza is a 40-year-old Kenyan who has been held without charge by the Ethiopians since January 2007.54 According to family members and an eyewitness, Kenyan officials arrested Tunza in Kiunga in early January 2007 and secretly flew him to Mogadishu on January 28, where he was handed over to Ethiopian authorities, and ultimately transported to Addis Ababa. For two months, Ethiopian authorities held him incommunicado in solitary confinement, in a small two-by-two-meter cage-like cell made of corrugated iron. In the mornings, they regularly took him to a villa to be interrogated by US officials. In the evenings, they returned him to his cell and allegedly handcuffed him in a painful position. Tunza told Human Rights Watch that the US officials showed him photographs of people for him to identify. They accused him of connections to the ICU and terrorism and questioned him about alleged associations. His hands were frequently cuffed behind his back in painful positions. At least once, Ethiopian guards reportedly forced him to stand for hours on a stone block in between interrogations. In April 2007, the interrogations ended. The Ethiopian officials moved Tunza out of solitary confinement into a cell with others. A month later, they told him he would be released—only to move him and seven other Kenyans to a separate place of detention. In February 2008, Ethiopian police officers broke Tunza’s leg just above his ankle during a beating following the escape of one of the other detainees. Tunza said that although he spent almost a month in the hospital, his leg never properly healed, and is now swollen and causes constant pain. Tunza worried that his leg may ultimately need to be amputated. In the 21 months Tunza has been in Ethiopian custody, he has never been charged with a crime, never visited by a lawyer or a humanitarian agency, and never allowed to speak with his family. His brother told Human Rights Watch, “I miss him so much. Our family needs him.”55 Abdullah Hamid Hamid, 42 years old, heard that the Islamic Courts Union had brought peace to Mogadishu, and decided to travel there in late 2006. But when the Mogadishu airport was bombed on December 25, he became scared for his safety and joined a group of about 30 people, including several who were sick or injured, going to Kenya.56 On January 8, 2007, Ethiopian military forces fired upon the group near the Kenyan border. Hamid and others escaped into the forest where they hid for the night. The next day, Ethiopian soldiers captured Hamid as he went to collect water. They gagged, bound, and beat him, and then airlifted him by helicopter to Ras Kamboni, a Somali town near the Kenyan border. Upon arrival in Ras Kamboni, Ethiopian military forces drove him about 20 minutes to an area that Hamid described as an “American outpost.” According to Hamid, three US officials—two white men and a black man—questioned him about what he was doing in Somalia and told him he had better cooperate or they would hand him over to the Ethiopians. After about three hours, the US officials did in fact hand him to the Ethiopians, who flew him to Kismayo, where he was kept for three days before being taken to Baidoa and then Addis Ababa. Upon arrival in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian authorities took Hamid to a private house, where he was put in a room by himself, with his hands cuffed behind his back and legs shackled at all times he was in the cell. (He later learned that Salim Awadh Salim was held there as well.) Hamid described the detention facility: They would often play music all day and night because they knew we didn’t like to hear music. They kept the lights on and would poke their heads in at any time. The handcuffs were made of rope and tied so tight. It was so painful. In fact, I still have scars from where the rope cut into my skin. But they also brought us really good food. I think they wanted us to be well-fed so that we would be helpful during the interrogations. Just about every morning, the Ethiopian guards took him to a villa for interrogations. Usually he was taken to a villa with US officials, where he was asked to identify people in photos and all kinds of questions about what he was doing in Somalia. “I knew they were Americans because they talked about contacting the White House,” Hamid said. Hamid reported being taken to other villas where he was interrogated by other foreign intelligence officials as well. After about a month, Hamid went on a hunger strike, demanding to be taken to court. In March 2007, he was brought before a military court with several others. The judge told them that the court would determine whether they were prisoners of war or illegal combatants. His request for a lawyer was denied. At the next court session a month later, the military prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence and that they needed to do further investigation. He was never brought back to court. Hamid told Human Rights Watch that sometime around April 2007, the Ethiopian military moved him from the private house to an old police station on Haile Salassie road where he remained in solitary confinement, held in a two-by-two-meter cage. Then, in May he was moved to a cell with several others, and eventually released in June. “Nobody knew what happened to me,” Hamid said. “I thought I would never see my family again. I thought about committing suicide. Now I am just so happy to be free.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 47 The account in this section is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with Ishmael Noor, Ifo Refugee Camp, Kenya, July 24, 2008. Ishmael Noor is a pseudonym. 48 Unless otherwise specified, the account in this section is based on a Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Salim Awadh Salim, August 27, 2008. 49 Human Rights Watch interview with Fatima Chande, Moshi, Tanzania, April 28, 2007. 50 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with former detainee, September 9, 2008 (name withheld). 51 The account in this section is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with Ali Yusuf, Nairobi, Kenya, July 28, 2008. Ali Yusuf is a pseudonym. 52 The account in this section is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with Kamilya Mohammed Tuwein, Dubai, UAE, April 4, 2007. 53 The account in this section is based on a Human Rights Watch interview with Suleiman Abdi, Ifo Refugee Camp, Kenya, July 23, 2008. Suleiman Abdi is a pseudonym. 54 Unless otherwise specified, the account in this section is based on a Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Swaleh Ali Tunza, August 27, 2008. 55 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Abdallah Ali Tunza, brother of Swaleh Ali Tunza, September 4, 2008. 56 The account in this section is based on Human Rights Watch telephone interviews with Abdullah Hamid, August 17 and August 19, 2007, and September 9, 2008. Abdullah Hamid is a pseudonym. His nationality has been withheld at his request. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------- International Legal Standards The systematic rendition of individuals from Kenya to Somalia, and Somalia to Ethiopia, violated several fundamental human rights guarantees under international law. These include the prohibitions on arbitrary detention; torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; and enforced disappearance.57 The Ethiopian government violated international law in its torture and other mistreatment of persons in custody. Ethiopia ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1993, and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture) in 1994. Both conventions prohibit torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. By rendering detainees to Somalia, Kenya violated its obligation not to “expel, return (‘refuter’) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that the person would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”58 In 2006, the UN Committee against Torture, the international expert body responsible for monitoring compliance with the Convention against Torture, explained that in order to fulfill the non-defilement obligation, states “should always ensure that suspects have the possibility to challenge decisions of defilement”—something the Kenyan government has failed to do. The Somali Transitional Federal Government similarly violated its non-refoulement obligation to the extent that it helped facilitate the deportations from Somalia to Ethiopia.59 Kenya also violated international law when it expelled individuals who, based on their identification documents, appeared to be Kenyan citizens and those with valid Kenyan visas or residency documents. The Kenyan government’s deportation of Kenyan nationals and other persons lawfully in Kenya to Somalia without judicial or other competent review violates fundamental rights against arbitrary deportation provided under the ICCPR.60 Kenya and Ethiopia’s detention of men, women, and children without access to a judicial authority and without charge, and holding them incommunicado from family members, legal counsel, and diplomatic representatives, violated international law prohibitions on arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances.61 In 2006, the UN General Assembly adopted the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (Convention against Enforced Disappearance). The convention defines “enforced disappearance” as: The arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.62 The Convention against Enforced Disappearance prohibits enforced disappearance both in peacetime and wartime. It requires states to hold all detainees in officially recognized places of detention, authorize communications with detainees’ families and legal counsel, and give competent authorities access to detaineesand maintain official records of all detainees.63 Kenya signed the convention on February 6, 2007, but has not yet ratified it. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has stated that the crime of enforced disappearance “is a continuous crime until the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person becomes known.”64 Persons “disappeared” in Kenyan, Somali, or Ethiopian custody who have since been transferred elsewhere remain the legal obligation of the relevant state so long as their fate or whereabouts remain unknown. Finally, while the US government was not directly responsible for arresting, detaining, or rendering individuals into Ethiopian custody, it definitely knew of the renditions, and, at a minimum, took advantage of the abusive activities of the Kenyan, Somali, and Ethiopian governments to interrogate terrorist suspects of interest, raising serious concerns about US government complicity in the abuses. The US government also provided substantial funds to the Ethiopian military, supported its operations in Somalia, and trained Kenyan security forces in counterterrorism. It continues to supply millions of dollars in counterterrorism assistance to both Kenya and Ethiopia, describing these nations as key partners in the region, without ever publicly raising concerns about ongoing arbitrary detentions and rendition-related abuses. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 57 See, for example, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), G.A. res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 52, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171, entered into forceMarch 23, 1976, arts. 7 & 9; Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture), G.A. res. 39/46, annex, 39 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 51) at 197, U.N. Doc. A/39/51 (1984), entered into force June 26, 1987; Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, G.A. res. 47/133, 47, U.N. GAOR Supp. (No 49) at 207, U.N. Doc. A/47/49 (1992). 58 Convention against Torture, art. 3(1). 59 Somalia ratified both the ICCPR and the Convention against Torture in 1990. 60 ICCPR, art. 12 (“No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country”), and art. 13 (concerning aliens lawfully in the territory of a state party to the ICCPR). 61 Article 9 of the ICCPR states that “[n]o one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are established by law.” Incommunicado detention arises when detainees are denied access to lawyers, family members, and physicians. In 2003, the UN Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution holding that “prolonged incommunicado detention may facilitate the perpetration of torture and can in itself constitute a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or even torture.” 147/1983, Selected Decisions of the Human Rights Committee under the Optional Protocol, UN Doc. CCPR/C/OP/2 1990, p. 176. 62 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 20, 2006, opened for signature on February 6, 2007, art. 2. The treaty will enter into force 30 days after 20 states have ratified it in accordance with article 39. 63 Convention against Enforced Disappearance, arts. 1, 17. 64 Report of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, Commission on Human Rights, E/CN.4/2006/56, December 27, 2005, para. 10.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH REPORT! More Blowback from the War on Terror The U.S.-backed Ethiopian military has secreted away scores of "suspects" – including pregnant women and children – and fueled anti-American rancor in Africa. By Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel, published in Salon October 1, 2008 Ishmael, a 37-year-old shepherd from the (Ethiopian Occupied Western Somalia) region in Ethiopia, looked at me with tears in his eyes. Ethiopian forces – who had already killed his mother, father, brothers and sisters – murdered his wife days after they were married. They then slaughtered his goats, beat him unconscious, and slashed his shoulder to the bone, he said. In December 2006, Ishmael crossed through Somalia into Kenya, heading for the nearest refugee camp in search of medical care. But when he didn't have enough money to pay a 1,000 shilling ($15) bribe, the Kenyan police bundled him into a car and took him to Nairobi. Less than a month later, he was herded onto an airplane with some 30 others, flown to Somalia and handed over to the Ethiopian military – the same forces that he previously fled. Ishmael is a victim of a 2007 rendition program in the Horn of Africa, involving Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and the United States. There are at least 90 more victims like him. Most have since been sent home. A few – including a Canadian and nine who assert Kenyan nationality – remain in detention even now. The whereabouts of 22 others – including several Somalis, Ethiopian from (Ethiopian Occupied Western Somalia), and Eritreans – remain unknown. In late 2006, the Bush administration backed a full-scale Ethiopian military offensive that ousted the Islamist authorities from Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. The fighting caused thousands of Somalis, including some who were suspected of terrorist links, to flee across the Kenya border. Kenyan authorities arrested at least 150 men, women and children from more than 18 countries – including the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada – in operations near the Somali border, and held them for weeks without charge in Nairobi. In January and February 2007, the Kenyan government then unlawfully put dozens of these individuals – with no notice to families, lawyers or the detainees themselves – on flights to Somalia, where they were handed over to the Ethiopian military. Ethiopian forces also arrested an unknown number of people in Somalia. Those rendered were later transported to detention centers in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and other parts of Ethiopia, where they effectively disappeared. Denied access to their embassies, their families and international humanitarian organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, the detainees were even denied phone calls home. Several detainees have said that they were housed in solitary cells, some as small as two meters by two meters, with their hands cuffed in painful positions behind their backs and their feet bound together any time they were in their cells. An unknown number of them – likely dozens – were questioned by the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in Addis Ababa. From February to May 2007, Ethiopian security officers daily transported detainees – including several pregnant women – to a villa where US officials interrogated them about suspected terrorist links. At night the Ethiopian officers returned the detainees to their cells. For the most part, detainees were sent home soon after their interrogation by US agents ended. Of those known to have been interrogated by US officials, just eight Kenyans remain. (A ninth Kenyan in Addis Ababa was rendered to Ethiopia in August 2007, after US interrogations reportedly stopped.) These men, who have not been subjected to any interrogation since May 2007, would likely have been repatriated long ago but for the Kenyan government’s longstanding refusal to acknowledge their claims to Kenyan citizenship or to take steps to secure their release. Recently I spoke by telephone to several of the still-detained Kenyans. They described water-soaked mattresses, insufficient food and inadequate healthcare. Two said they have trouble walking, following beatings by Ethiopian officials, and a third said he can no longer use his left hand. “I can’t sleep here. I miss my family. Please, I need you to help us to go home,” one detainee pleaded with me. In mid-August 2008, Kenyan authorities visited these men for the first time. The officials reportedly told the detainees they would be home within a few weeks. But more than a month and a half has passed with no apparent follow-up. In addition to working with the US, the Ethiopians used the rendition program for their own ends. For years, the Ethiopian military has been trying to quell domestic Somalis from the (Ethiopian Occupied Western Somalia) and Oromo insurgencies that receive support from neighboring countries, such as Ethiopia's archrival, Eritrea. The multinational rendition program provided them a convenient means to continue this internal battle – and get their hands, with US and Kenyan support, on those with suspected insurgent links. Ishmael was one of their victims. The questions his Ethiopian interrogators asked were nonstop, and always the same: "Are you al-Qaida? Are you an ******i rebel? Are you part of the Somali insurgency?" Each time he said no, he was beaten, sometimes to the point of unconsciousness. When he resisted answering, they targeted his testicles. Then, in February 2008 – some 14 months after his original arrest – the Ethiopians decided Ishmael was no longer worth the trouble. They dumped him, along with 27 others, just over the Somali border. The men were met by a Somali officer who told him that he was very sorry, that their arrest was a mistake and that they were all innocent. Now Ishmael is back in the refugee camp, limping and urinating blood. He is still waiting for the healthcare he came searching for nearly two years ago. Almost everyone I spoke with assumed – whether true or not – that the United States backed the arbitrary arrest and unlawful rendition of men like Ishmael and the still-detained Kenyans. Almost everyone assumed that the Ethiopians operate with America's blessing. Their stories have circulated, fueling anger and resentment. As one man, whose childhood friend became one of the rendition victims, told me, "Now when I go to the mosque, I pray to God to punish the Americans." To be sure, the United States is not the main culprit when the Kenyans unlawfully render suspects or the Ethiopians torture them. But when US officials interrogate rendition victims who are being held incommunicado, the United States becomes complicit in the abuse. The U.S. is funding the Ethiopian military, supporting its activities in Somalia and training Kenyan security forces in counterterrorism – so as US-backed military and police forces in the region brutalize their domestic opponents in the name of fighting terrorism, the United States is often blamed. The United States could change those perceptions by demanding higher standards of its foreign partners and cutting off aid to abusers. It otherwise risks fueling the very problem – anti-American militancy – that it seeks to solve. For starters, the US could demand the release or fair trial of any rendition victims still stuck in Ethiopian custody. At the end of our interview, Ishmael looked at me with sad eyes. "I have suffered three times," he told me. "I lost my family; I was beaten and tortured, and then I was arrested and tortured again. Now I have nothing to lose."

Is it true that the resistance against the Ethiopian Occupation of Somalia is so divided and at each others throat, that they are on the verge to switch their guns from the Ethiopians targets to each other for their mutual assured destruction ( MAD)? Or is it just a wishful thinking by the TFG boys? Nur

When is a Holocaust Not a Holocaust? By William Blum When is a holocaust not a holocaust? W hen the perpetrators call it a victory. 04/10/08 "ICH" - -- Although the "surge" has failed as policy, it appears to be succeeding as propaganda. It seems to be the only thing that supporters of the war have to point to, and so they point, and they point, and they point. Allow me to point out that while there has been a reduction in violence in Iraq -- now down to a level that virtually any other society in the world would find horrible and intolerable, including Iraqi society before the US invasion and occupation -- we must keep in mind that thanks to this lovely little war more than half the population of Iraq is either dead, crippled, traumatized, confined in overflowing American and Iraqi prisons, internally displaced, or in foreign exile. Thus, the number of people available for being killers or victims is markedly reduced. Moreover, extensive ethnic cleansing has taken place in the country (another good indication of progress, n'est-ce pas?). Sunnis and Shiites are now living more in their own special enclaves than before, none of those stinking mixed communities with their unholy mixed marriages, so violence of the sectarian type has also gone down; and the powerful movement of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr has had a cease-fire in effect for many months, unconnected to the surge. On top of all this, US soldiers, in the face of numerous "improvised explosive devices" on the roads, have been venturing out a lot less (for fear of things like ... well, dying), so the violence against our noble lads is also down. Remember that insurgent attacks on American forces is how the Iraqi violence all began in the first place. Just imagine -- If the entire Iraqi population over the age of 10 is killed, disabled, imprisoned or forced into exile there will probably be no violence at all. Now that would really be victory. No American should be allowed to forget that Iraqi society has been destroyed. The people of that unhappy land have lost everything -- their homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their health care, their legal system, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their security, their past, their present, their future, their lives. But they do have their surge. William Blum is the author of: Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2. Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower. West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir. Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire. Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org - BBlum6@aol.com

Did Vladimir Lenin Predict The Banking Disaster Of 2008? "Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism" By V. I. Lenin LCW vol.22, Lenin enumerated the following five features characteristic of the epoch of imperialism: The epoch of imperialism opens when the expansion of colonialism has covered the globe and no new colonies can be acquired by the great powers except by taking them from each other, and the concentration of capital has grown to a point where finance capital becomes dominant over industrial capital. Lenin enumerated the following five features characteristic of the epoch of imperialism: (1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; (2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy; (3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; (4) the formation of international monopoly capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and (5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed. [Lenin, Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism, LCW Volume 22, p. 266-7.] "[imperialism] is something quite different from the old free competition between manufacturers, scattered and out of touch with one another, and producing for an unknown market. Concentration [of production] has reached the point at which it is possible to make an approximate estimate of all sources of raw materials (for example, the iron ore deposits)... [throughout] the whole world. Not only are such estimates made, but these sources are captured by gigantic monopolist associations [now called multi-national conglomerates]. An approximate estimate of the capacity of markets is also made, and the associations "divide" them up amongst themselves by agreement. Skilled labor is monopolized, the best engineers are engaged; the means of transport are captured – railways in America, shipping companies in Europe and America. Capitalism in its imperialist stage leads directly to the most comprehensive socialization of production; it, so to speak, drags the capitalists, against their will and consciousness, into some sort of a new social order, a transitional one from complete free competition to complete socialization. "Production becomes social, but appropriation remains private. The social means of production remain the private property of a few. The general framework of formally recognized free competition remains, and the yoke of a few monopolists on the rest of the population becomes a hundred times heavier, more burdensome and intolerable." (p. 205) "The development of capitalism has arrived at a stage when, although commodity production still "reigns" and continues to be regarded as the basis of economic life, it has in reality been undermined and the bulk of the profits go to the "geniuses" of financial manipulation. At the basis of these manipulations and swindles lies socialized production; but the immense progress of mankind, which achieved this socialization, goes to benefit... the speculators." (p. 206-207) Monopoly, oligarchy, the striving for domination and not for freedom, the exploitation of an increasing number of small and weak nations by a handful of the richest or most powerful nations – all these have given rise to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism which compel us to define it as parasitic or decaying capitalism. … It would be a mistake to believe that this tendency to decay precludes the rapid growth of capitalism. It does not. In the epoch of imperialism, certain branches of industry, certain strata of bourgeoisie and certain countries betray… now one and now another of these tendencies. On the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before.” Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, VI Lenin, Selected Works in one volume, p 260 (ch.7) Parasitism and the Decay of Capitalism...parasitism is characteristic of imperialism... the deepest economic foundation of imperialism is monopoly. This is capitalist monopoly, i.e., monopoly which has grown out of capitalism and which exists in the general environment of capitalism, commodity production and competition, in permanent and insoluble contradiction to this general environment. Nevertheless, like all monopoly, it inevitably engenders a tendency of stagnation and decay....Certainly, the possibility of reducing the cost of production and increasing profits by introducing technical improvements operates in the direction of change. But the tendency to stagnation and decay, which is characteristic of monopoly, continues to operate, and in some branches of industry, in some countries, for certain periods of time, it gains the upper hand.... imperialism is an immense accumulation of money capital in a few countries, amounting, as we have seen, to 100,000-50,000 million francs in securities. Hence the extraordinary growth of a class, or rather, of a stratum of rentiers, i.e., people who live by “clipping coupons”, who take no part in any enterprise whatever, whose profession is idleness. The export of capital, one of the most essential economic bases of imperialism, still more completely isolates the rentiers from production and sets the seal of parasitism on the whole country that lives by exploiting the labour of several overseas countries and colonies.... Imperialism....CH. 10... the bourgeoisie to an ever-increasing degree lives on the proceeds of capital exports and by “clipping coupons”. It would be a mistake to believe that this tendency to decay precludes the rapid growth of capitalism. It does not. In the epoch of imperialism, certain branches of industry, certain strata of the bourgeoisie and certain countries betray, to a greater or lesser degree, now one and now another of these tendencies. On the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before; but this growth is not only becoming more and more uneven in general, its unevenness also manifests itself, in particular, in the decay of the countries which are richest in capital.... ...the tendency of imperialism to split the workers, to strengthen opportunism among them and to cause temporary decay in the working-class movement, revealed itself much earlier than the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries; for two important distinguishing features of imperialism were already observed in Great Britain in the middle of the nineteenth century—vast colonial possessions and a monopolist position in the world market. Marx and Engels traced this connection between opportunism in the working-class movement and the imperialist features of British capitalism systematically, during the course of several decades. For example, on October 7, 1858, Engels wrote to Marx: “The English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat alongside the bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is of course to a certain extent justifiable.”[15] Almost a quarter of a century later, in a letter dated August 11, 1881, Engels speaks of the “worst English trade unions which allow themselves to be led by men sold to, or at least paid by, the middle class”. In a letter to Kautsky, dated September 12, 1882, Engels wrote: “You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy. Well, exactly the same as they think about politics in general. There is no workers’ party here, there are only Conservatives and Liberal-Radicals, and the workers gaily share the feast of England’s monopoly of the world market and the colonies.” [13] (Engels expressed similar ideas in the press in his preface to the second edition of The Condition of the Working Class in England, which appeared in 1892.)... The distinctive feature of the present situation is the prevalence of such economic and political conditions that are bound to increase the irreconcilability between opportunism and the general and vital interests of the working-class movement: imperialism has grown from an embryo into the predominant system; capitalist monopolies occupy first place in economics and politics; the division of the world has been completed; on the other hand, instead of the undivided monopoly of Great Britain, we see a few imperialist powers contending for the right to share in this monopoly, and this struggle is characteristic of the whole period of the early twentieth century. Opportunism cannot now be completely triumphant in the working-class movement of one country for decades as it was in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century; but in a number of countries it has grown ripe, overripe, and rotten, and has become completely merged with bourgeois policy in the form of “social-chauvinism”. [14] http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch10.htm

Our Man in Kabul Says US Strategy is Failing • French weekly reveals ambassador's dispatch • Jihadis flooding into Afghanistan, says general By Julian Borger, diplomatic editor and Simon Tisdall in Washington 04/10/09 "The Guardian" -- - Britain's ambassador to Afghanistan believes the US strategy there is failing, Nato reinforcements would be counter-productive and that it would be better if "an acceptable dictator" came to power in Kabul in the next few years, a French satirical weekly reported yesterday. The comments attributed to Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles were included in a diplomatic dispatch sent on September 2 from a French diplomat in Kabul and published by the French weekly, Le Canard Enchaîné, which combines investigative journalism and satire. The French diplomat, Jean-François Fitou, quoted Cowper-Coles as saying in a meeting: "The American strategy is destined to fail. "The coalition presence - particularly the military presence - is part of the problem, not the solution," Cowper-Coles is quoted as saying. More Nato troops would have "a perverse effect". "It would identify us even more clearly as an occupying force and multiply the number of targets [by insurgents]." According to the published memo, he also says the elected Afghan government of Hamid Karzai had lost all trust, and that it would be a "positive thing" if in five to 10 years, after the departure of British troops, the country was governed by "an acceptable dictator". A Foreign Office statement issued yesterday said: "It is not for us to comment on something that is presented as extracts from a French diplomatic telegram, but the views quoted are not in any way an accurate representation of the British government's approach. We work closely with our US allies in all aspects of decision making and regularly review our approach." British officials have expressed deep concern over the security situation in Afghanistan, and have clashed with the US over elements of policy, such as counter-narcotics. The leaked memo has emerged at a time of deepening gloom over the security situation in Afghanistan. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said it had "deteriorated markedly" over the past six months, and pointed to the increasing attacks on aid workers. At least 30 have been killed so far this year. General David McKiernan, the top US commander in Afghanistan, warned yesterday that militant Islamist jihadis were flooding into the country from all corners of the Muslim world to join the Taliban's fight against the Nato alliance, mostly via Pakistan. "They are very well trained. They are good at attacks on soft targets. They are Uzbeks, Chechens, Punjabis, Arabic [sic], Europeans," he said. Speaking at a press conference in Washington, McKiernan said efforts were underway to improve cooperation with the Pakistani military and intelligence services to halt the flow of jihadis. While he welcomed recent changes at the top of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, he described the ISI as "historically and institutionally complicit" in Taliban activities in Pakistan's tribal areas. McKiernan confirmed he was seeking an additional three US combat brigades - approximately 10,500 soldiers - to reinforce the 40-country Nato International Security Assistance Force mission. He said the troops should be deployed as quickly as possible. The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Friday October 3 2008 In the article below about comments attributed to Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, Britain's ambassador to Afghanistan, we said that the French weekly Le Canard Enchaîné published a diplomatic dispatch from French diplomat Jean-François Fitou, which reported on a meeting on September 2 and quoted Cowper-Coles's comments to the effect that he believes the US strategy in Afghanistan is destined to fail. In fact Le Canard Enchaîné reported that the dispatch was sent on September 2 and was about a meeting that had just happened; the date of the meeting is not clear. This has been corrected

The Bush Doctrine & The 9/11 Commission Report: Both Authored by Philip Zelikow By David Ray Griffin 04/10/08 "ICH " -- - Thanks to the interview of Sarah Palin by Charles Gibson of ABC News on September 11, the “Bush Doctrine” has become part of American political discourse much more fully than it was before. Thanks to that interview and the commentary that followed, Governor Palin and millions of other Americans learned of the existence and meaning of this fateful doctrine---fateful because, as New York Times reporter Philip Shenon has pointed out, it was used to “justify a preemptive strike on Iraq.”1 Thus far, however, the commentary following that interview has not brought out the fact that the document in which the Bush Doctrine was first fully articulated---the 2002 version of The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (NSS 2002) [pdf]---was written by the same person who was primarily responsible for the 9/11 Commission’s report: its executive director, Philip Zelikow. This fact constituted an enormous conflict of interest that should, at the very least, keep Americans from referring to the 9/11 Commission as a model to be emulated---as did John McCain this September 15 in suggesting that “a 9/11-type commission” should be set up to study the causes of the recent financial crisis. As Shenon shows in his 2008 book, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, Zelikow’s authorship of NSS 2002, in conjunction with his close relationship to the Bush White House that this authorship illustrated, means that when the 9/11 Commission was formed in 2003, he should never have been chosen to be its executive director. In the first part of this essay, I discuss the Bush Doctrine as articulated in NSS 2002. In the second part, I discuss Zelikow’s authorship of this document. In the third part, I discuss how he, in spite of this authorship, became the Commission’s executive director, and why this was problematic for the credibility of The 9/11 Commission Report. The Bush Doctrine According to international law as reflected in the charter of the United Nations, a preemptive war is legal in only one situation: if a country has certain knowledge that an attack by another country is imminent---too imminent for the matter to be taken to the UN Security Council. Preemptive war, thus defined, is to be distinguished from “preventive war,” in which a country, fearing that another country may some time in the future become strong enough to attack it, attacks that country in order to prevent that possibility. Such wars are illegal under international law. Preventive wars, in fact, belong under the category of unprovoked wars, which were declared at the Nuremburg trials to constitute the “supreme international crime.”2 This traditional distinction between “preventive” and “preemptive” war creates a terminological problem, because preventive war, being illegal, is worse than preemptive war, and yet to most ears “preemption” sounds worse than “prevention.” As a result, many people speak of “preemptive war” when they really mean preventive war. To avoid any confusion, I employ the term “preemptive-preventive war” for what has traditionally been known as preventive war.3 People known as neoconservatives (or simply neocons), the most powerful member of whom has been Dick Cheney, did not like the idea that America’s use of military power could be constrained by the prohibition against preemptive-preventive war. In 1992, Cheney, in his last year as secretary of defense, had Paul Wolfowitz (the undersecretary of defense for policy) and Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby write the Defense Planning Guidance of 1992, which said that the United States should use force to “preempt” and “preclude threats.”4 In 1997, William Kristol founded a neocon think tank called the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).5 In 1998, a letter signed by 18 members of PNAC---including Kristol, Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, and James Woolsey---urged President Clinton to “undertake military action” to eliminate “the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction.”6 Only after 9/11, however, were the neocons able to turn their wish to leave international law behind into official US policy. As Stephen Sniegoski wrote, “it was only the traumatic effects of the 9/11 terrorism that enabled the agenda of the neocons to become the policy of the United States of America.”7 Andrew Bacevich likewise wrote: “The events of 9/11 provided the tailor-made opportunity to break free of the fetters restricting the exercise of American power.”8 The idea of preemptive-preventive war, which came to be known as the “Bush doctrine,” was first clearly expressed in the president’s address at West Point in June 2002, when the administration began preparing the American people for the attack on Iraq. Having stated that, in relation to “new threats,” deterrence “means nothing” and containment is “not possible,” Bush dismissed preemption as traditionally understood, saying: “If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long.” Then, using the language of preemption while meaning preemptive-prevention, he said that America’s security “will require all Americans . . . to be ready for preemptive action.”9 Having been sketched in June 2002, the Bush Doctrine was first fully laid out that September in NSS 2002. This document’s covering letter, speaking of “our enemies’ efforts to acquire dangerous technologies,” declares that America will, in self-defense, “act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed.”10 Then the document itself, saying that “our best defense is a good offense,” states: “Given the goals of rogue states and terrorists, the United States can no longer rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past. The inability to deter a potential attacker, the immediacy of today's threats, and the magnitude of potential harm that could be caused by our adversaries' choice of weapons, do not permit that option. We cannot let our enemies strike first.”11 In justifying this change of doctrine, NSS 2002 argues that the United States must “adapt” the traditional doctrine of preemption, long recognized as a right, to the new situation, thereby turning it into a right of anticipatory (preventive) preemption: “For centuries, international law recognized that nations need not suffer an attack before they can lawfully take action to defend themselves against forces that present an imminent danger of attack. . . . We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries. . . . The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, . . . the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.”12 With this argument, NSS 2002 tried to suggest that, since this doctrine of preventive preemption simply involved adapting a traditionally recognized right to a new situation, it brought about no great change. But it did. According to the traditional doctrine, one needed certain evidence that an attack from the other country was imminent. According to the Bush Doctrine, by contrast, the United States can attack another country “even if uncertainty remains” and even if the United States knows that the threat from the other country is not yet “fully formed.” The novelty here, to be sure, involves doctrine more than practice. The United States has in fact attacked several countries that presented no imminent military threat. But it always portrayed these attacks in such a way that they could appear to comport with international law---for example, by claiming, before attacking North Vietnam, that it had attacked a US ship in the Tonkin Gulf. “Never before,” however---point out Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, who call themselves Reagan conservatives---“had any president set out a formal national strategy doctrine that included [preventive] preemption.”13 This unprecedented doctrine was, as we have seen, one that neocons had long desired. Indeed, neocon Max Boot described NSS 2002 as a “quintessentially neo-conservative document.”14 And, as we have also seen, the adoption of this doctrine was first made possible by the 9/11 attacks. Halper and Clarke themselves say, in fact, that 9/11 allowed the “preexisting ideological agenda” of the neoconservatives to be “taken off the shelf . . . and relabeled as the response to terror.”15 Zelikow and NSS 2002 The 9/11 attacks, we have seen, allowed the Bush-Cheney administration to adopt the doctrine of preemptive-preventive war, which the neocons in the administration---most prominently Cheney himself---had long desired. One would assume, therefore, that the 9/11 Commission would not have been run by someone who helped formulate this doctrine, because the Commission should have investigated, among other things, whether the Bush-Cheney administration might have had anything to gain from 9/11 attacks---whether they, in other words, might have had a motive for orchestrating or at least deliberately allowing the attacks. Amazing as it may seem, however, Philip Zelikow, who directed the 9/11 Commission and was the primary author of its final report, had also been the primary author of NSS 2002. Lying behind Zelikow’s authorship of NSS 2002 was the fact that he was close, both personally and ideologically, to Condoleezza Rice, who as National Security Advisor to President Bush had the task of creating this document. Zelikow had worked with Rice in the National Security Council during the Bush I presidency. Then, when the Republicans were out of power during the Clinton years, Zelikow and Rice co-authored a book together. Finally, when she was appointed National Security Advisor to Bush II, she brought on Zelikow to help with the transition to the new National Security Council. Given that long relationship, Zelikow evidently came to mind when Rice found the first draft of NSS unsatisfactory. According to James Mann in Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet, this first draft had been produced by Richard Haass, who was the director of policy planning under Colin Powell in the State Department.16 Although this draft by Haass is evidently not publicly available, an insight into what it contained might be provided by an address Haass had given in 2000 entitled “Imperial America.” While Haass called on Americans to “re-conceive their global role from one of a traditional nation-state to an imperial power,” his foreign policy suggestions were very different from those of the neocons. Saying that “primacy is not to be confused with hegemony” and that “[a]n effort to assert U.S. hegemony is . . . bound to fail,” he called for acceptance of the fact that the world in coming decades “will be a world more multipolar than the present one.” Also, insisting that “[a]n imperial foreign policy is not to be confused with imperialism,” which involves exploitation, he stated that “imperial America is not to be confused with either hegemonic America or unilateral America.” In the new world order that he envisaged, “The United States would need to relinquish some freedom of action,” which would mean that it “would be more difficult to carry out preventive or preemptive strikes on suspect military facilities.” He suggested, moreover, that “[c]oercion and the use of force would normally be a last resort.” The United States would instead rely primarily on “persuasion,” “consultation,” and “global institutions,” especially the UN Security Council.17 In any case, whatever the exact nature of the draft for NSS 2002 that Haass produced, Rice, after seeing it, wanted “something bolder,” Mann reports. Deciding that the document should be “completely rewritten,” she “turned the writing over to her old colleague . . . Philip Zelikow.”18 Given the hawkish tone of the resulting NSS 2002, we might assume that Zelikow was simply taking dictation from Cheney, Rumsfeld, or Wolfowitz. According to Mann, however, “the hawks in the Pentagon and in Vice President Cheney’s office hadn’t been closely involved, even though the document incorporated many of their key ideas. They had left the details and the drafting in the hands of Rice and Zelikow, along with Rice’s deputy, Stephen Hadley.”19 It would seem, therefore, that we can take this “quintessentially neo-conservative document,” which used 9/11 to justify exempting the United States from international law, as reflecting Zelikow’s own thinking. This means that, besides being aligned with the Bush-Cheney White House personally (by virtue primarily of his friendship with Rice) and structurally (by virtue of helping her set up the new NSC), he was also closely aligned ideologically with Cheney and other neocons in the administration. Such a person obviously should not have been put in charge of the 9/11 Commission, given the fact that one of the main questions it should have investigated was whether the Bush-Cheney administration had any responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, whether through incompetence or complicity. Pursuing the possibility of complicity in particular would have required the Commission to ask whether the administration would have had motives for wanting the attacks. Given the fact that Zelikow had authored the document that provided the doctrine of preemptive-preventive warfare desired by leading members of this administration, he would have been one of the worst possible choices to lead such an investigation. The story of how Zelikow was, nevertheless, chosen to be the executive director has been told by Philip Shenon in The Commission. Zelikow and the 9/11 Commission In their preface to The 9/11 Commission Report, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the Commission’s chair and vice chair, respectively, said that the Commission “sought to be independent, impartial, thorough, and nonpartisan.” In light of the fact that the 9/11 attacks had occurred during the watch of the Bush-Cheney administration, being “independent” and “impartial” would have meant, above all, being fully independent of this administration. With Zelikow as its executive director, the 9/11 Commission could have been independent of the Bush-Cheney administration only if the executive director’s role was merely that of a facilitator, meaning a person who did not influence either the Commission’s research or the content of its final report. Some people, in hearing Zelikow described as the 9/11 Commission’s “executive director,” may assume that he had that kind of role. As Shenon has shown, however, nothing could be further from the truth. Zelikow ran the Commission and took charge of the writing of its final report. With regard to the work of the Commission, Zelikow sought, and largely achieved, total control. He achieved this control through several means. First, the work of the Commission was done not by Kean, Hamilton, and the other commissioners who, by virtue of appearing on television during the Commission’s open hearings, became the public face of the Commission. The work, instead, was done by the 80-some staff members. Second, Shenon points out, these staff members worked directly under Zelikow: “Zelikow had insisted that there be a single, nonpartisan staff.” This meant that none of the commissioners would “have a staff member of their own, typical on these sorts of independent commissions.” Zelikow thereby prevented “any of the commissioners from striking out on their own in the investigation.”20 Third, none of the commissioners, including Kean and Hamilton, were given offices in the K Street office building used by the Commission’s staff. As a result, “most of the commissioners rarely visited K Street. Zelikow was in charge.”21 Fourth, even though the Commission would not have existed had it not been for the efforts of the families of the 9/11 victims, “the families were not allowed into the commission’s offices because they did not have security clearances.”22 Fifth, Zelikow made it clear to the staff members that they worked for him, not for the commissioners. He even prevented direct contact between the staff and the commissioners as much as possible. “If information gathered by the staff was to be passed to the commissioners, it would have to go through Zelikow.”23 Although the commissioners forced Zelikow to rescind his most extreme order of this nature---that the staff members were not even to return phone calls from the commissioners without his permission24---he largely, Shenon reports, achieved his goal: “Zelikow’s micromanagement meant that the staff had little, if any, contact with the ten commissioners; all information was funneled through Zelikow, and he decided how it would be shared elsewhere.”25 Indeed, Shenon says, Zelikow insisted “that every scrap of secret evidence gathered by the staff be shared with him before anyone else; he then controlled how and if the evidence was shared elsewhere.”26 Although the fact that the 9/11 Commission was controlled by someone who was essentially a member of the Bush-Cheney White House was bad enough, even more contrary to the Commission’s alleged independence was the fact that Zelikow had determined its central conclusions in advance. In their 2006 book, Without Precedent, which is subtitled The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission, Kean and Hamilton claimed that, unlike conspiracy theorists, they started with the relevant facts, not with a conclusion: they “were not setting out to advocate one theory or interpretation of 9/11 versus another.”27 They admitted, however, that after Zelikow divided the staff into various teams and told them what to investigate, he told team 1A to “tell the story of al Qaeda’s most successful operation---the 9/11 attacks.”28 So, the question that most Americans probably assume to have been one of the 9/11 Commission’s main questions---“Who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks?”---was not asked. The Bush-Cheney administration’s theory was simply presupposed from the outset. The fact that the Commission’s conclusion had been predetermined was made even clearer by Kean and Hamilton’s admission that an outline of the final report was prepared in advance by Zelikow and his former professor Ernest May (with whom he had previously coauthored a book).29 Shenon revealed more about this startling fact. Pointing out that Zelikow and May had prepared this outline secretly, Shenon wrote: “By March 2003, with the commission’s staff barely in place, the two men had already prepared a detailed outline, complete with ‘chapter headings, subheadings, and sub-subheadings.’” When Zelikow shared this document with Kean and Hamilton, they realized that the staff, if they learned about it, would know that they were doing research for a predetermined conclusion.30 And so the four men agreed upon a conspiracy of silence. In Shenon’s words: “It should be kept secret from the rest of the staff, they all decided. May said that he and Zelikow agreed that the outline should be ‘treated as if it were the most classified document the commission possessed.’ Zelikow . . . labeled it ‘Commission Sensitive,’ putting those words at the top and bottom of each page.”31 The work of the 9/11 Commission began, accordingly, with Kean and Hamilton conspiring with Zelikow and May to conceal from the Commission’s staff members the fact that their investigative work would largely be limited to filling in the details of conclusions that had been reached before any investigations had begun. When the staff did finally learn about this outline a year later (in April 2004), some of them began circulating a two-page parody entitled “The Warren Commission Report--Preemptive Outline.” One of its chapter headings was: “Single Bullet: We Haven’t Seen the Evidence Yet. But Really. We’re Sure.”32 The point, of course, was that the crucial chapter of Zelikow and May’s outline could have been headed: “Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda: We Haven’t Seen the Evidence yet. But Really. We’re Sure.” Besides controlling the Commission’s work and predetermining its conclusions, Zelikow also, Shenon says, largely “controlled what the final report would say.”33 He could exert this control because, as Ernest May reported, although the first draft of each chapter was written by one of the investigative teams, Zelikow headed up a team in the front office that revised these drafts.34 Indeed, Shenon adds, “Zelikow rewrote virtually everything that was handed to him---usually top to bottom.”35 Given the control exerted by Zelikow over the investigative work of the 9/11 Commission and its final product, it is not inaccurate to think of the report of the 9/11 Commission as the Zelikow Report. In light of the foreseeable fact that the executive director of the 9/11 Commission would be able to exert such control over its work and final product, how could Kean and Hamilton, knowing that the Commission needed to be---or at least appear to be---independent of the Bush administration, have chosen Zelikow for this position? Did they not fear that his personal, structural, and ideological closeness to the Bush-Cheney administration could easily lead him to be more interested in protecting it from blame than in discovering and publishing the truth about how the 9/11 attacks were able to succeed? That this would not have been an unreasonable fear is shown by the fact that many members of the Commission’s staff, Shenon reports, said that Zelikow’s conflicts of interest resulted in a “pattern of partisan moves intended to protect the White House.”36 At least part of the answer as to how Zelikow became the executive director, Shenon reveals, is that Zelikow, in applying for the position, concealed some of his conflicts of interest from Kean and Hamilton. The résumé he gave them mentioned the book he had co-authored with Rice and his appointment to the White House intelligence advisory board---two conflicts of interest that Kean and Hamilton deemed “not insurmountable.”37 But Zelikow’s résumé failed to mention some other problems---most crucially his authorship of NSS 2002. Given the fact that this document had been used to “justify a preemptive strike on Iraq,” as Shenon says, it would have been in Zelikow’s interest “to use the commission to try to bolster the administration’s argument for war---a war that he had helped make possible.”38 And in fact, Shenon points out, Zelikow did try to use it for just this purpose, even trying to insert statements into the final report connecting al-Qaeda to Iraq (this being one of few times that Zelikow did not get his way).39 Zelikow was also dishonest with the Commission in another way, Shenon reports. Although “Zelikow had promised the commissioners he would cut off all unnecessary contact with senior Bush administration officials to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest,” he had continuing contacts with both Karl Rove and Condoleezza Rice. “More than once, [the Commission’s executive secretary] had been asked to arrange a gate pass so Zelikow could enter the White House to visit the national security adviser in her offices in the West Wing.”40 The secretary’s logs also revealed that Rove---who was the White House’s “quarterback for dealing with the Commission” (according to Republican member of the 9/11 Commission John Lehman)--- called the office “looking for Philip” four times in 2003, after which, she said, Zelikow ordered her to quit keeping logs of his contacts with the White House.41 Implications for The 9/11 Commission Report Shenon’s revelations of Zelikow’s close and ongoing relationship with the White House, his authorship of NSS 2002, and his duplicity should make people, at the very least, suspect that The 9/11 Commission Report is less of a truth-seeking than a political document, designed to protect the Bush-Cheney administration. However, as helpful as Shenon’s book is, it fails to mention an even more serious conflict of interest created by Zelikow’s authorship of NSS 2002: If the Bush-Cheney White House enabled the 9/11 attacks in order to reap foreseeable benefits---such as the Bush Doctrine and carte blanche to attack Iraq (with its enormous oil reserves) and Afghanistan (through which the administration wanted to enable the construction of an oil-and-gas pipeline)---it would have been in Zelikow’s interest to cover up this fact. In my 2005 book, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, I have provided abundant evidence that this is indeed what he did. In my most recent book, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé, I have pointed out---in what must be one of the longest footnotes of all time42---that Shenon, while revealing many problematic facts about Zelikow’s behavior, failed to mention any of the ways in which the Zelikow Report used dishonesty to support the Bush-Cheney administration’s implausible interpretation of 9/11, according to which the attacks were orchestrated and carried out solely by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.43 David Ray Griffin is Professor Emeritus at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University in California. He has published 34 books, including seven about 9/11, most recently The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008), from which the present essay has been drawn. 1 Philip Shenon, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation (New York: Twelve, 2008), 170. 2 See Steven R. Ratner, “Crimes against Peace” (http://www.crimesofwar.org/thebook/crimes-against-peace.html). 3 I previously used the term “preemptive-preventive war” in “Neocon Imperialism, 9/11, and the Attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq,” Information Clearing House, February 27, 2007 (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17194.htm). 4 Barton Gellman, “Keeping the U.S. First: Pentagon Would Preclude a Rival Superpower,” Washington Post, March 11, 1992 (http://www.yale.edu/strattech/92dpg.html); cited in Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 141. 5 See Halper and Clark, America Alone, 26, and “Project for the New American Century,” Right Web, updated June 20, 2008 (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1535.html). 6 PNAC, Letter to President Clinton on Iraq, May 29, 1998 (http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm). 7 Stephen J. Sniegoski, “Neoconservatives, Israel, and 9/11: The Origins of the U.S. War on Iraq.” In D. L. O’Huallachain and J. Forrest Sharpe, eds., Neoconned Again: Hypocrisy, Lawlessness, and the Rape of Iraq (Vienna, Va.: IHS Press, 2005), 81-109, at 81-82. 8 Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 91. 9 “President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point,” June 1, 2002 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html). 10 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2002/nss.pdf), cover letter; this document henceforth referred to as NSS 2002. 11 NSS 2002, 6, 15. 12 Ibid., 15. 13 Halper and Clarke, America Alone, 142. 14 Max Boot, “Think Again: Neocons,” Foreign Policy, January/February 2004 (http://www.cfr.org/publication/7592/think_again.html), 18. 15 Halper and Clarke, America Alone, 4. 16 James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 316. 17 Richard N. Haass, “Imperial America,” delivered November 11, 2000, Brookings Institution (http://www.brookings.edu/articles/1999/09diplomacy_haass.aspx). 18 Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, 316. 19 Ibid., 331. 20 Shenon, The Commission, 69, 83. 21 Ibid., 69-70, 86. 22 Ibid., 167. 23 Ibid., 83. 24 Ibid., 84-85. 25 Ibid., 317. 26 Ibid., 277. 27 Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton (with Benjamin Rhodes), Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 269-70. 28 Ibid., 116. 29 Ibid., 270. 30 Shenon, The Commission, 388-89. 31 Ibid., 389. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid., 390. 34 Ernest May, “When Government Writes History: A Memoir of the 9/11 Commission,” New Republic, May 23, 2005; cited in Bryan Sacks, ”Making History: The Compromised 9-11 Commission,” in Paul Zarembka, ed., The Hidden History of 9-11 (New York: Seven Stories, 2008), 223-60, at 258n10. 35 Shenon, The Commission, 321. 36 Ibid., 319. 37 Ibid., 59. 38 Ibid., 170. 39 Ibid., 104, 130-33, 181, 321. 40 Ibid., 106-07. 41 Ibid., 175-76, 106-07. In their 2006 book giving “the inside story of the 9/11 Commission,” Kean and Hamilton said, after reporting that the 9/11 families had protested Zelikow’s appointment as executive director because of his conflicts of interest: “But we had full confidence in Zelikow’s independence” (Without Precedent, 28-29). In light of Shenon’s revelations, we must conclude that Zelikow was not the only one who shaded the truth. 42 David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008), 333-38n70. 43 To read statements by architects, engineers, firefighters, pilots, political leaders, scholars, scientists, former CIA officials, retired military officers, and others who find the official theory of 9/11 implausible, see the Patriots Question 9/11 website (http://www.patriotsquestion911.com).

Stoit brother Every thing fits in " Islam Inside". Nur

Nomads, Allah SWT said in Quraan that the reason for the imposition of the fasting month was " Lacallakum Tattaquun" "That you may ( Learn how to ) be observers of Allah's commandments" The question I posed seems no to attract any answers, does this mean that no one has benefited from it? or that no one wants to share lessons learned in case they have benefited. In case we have failed in this month, you can still turn your failure to success by sharing your failure stories, a clever way to still salvage some Thawaab from Allah by helping with your lessons so others may benefit from it next Ramadan I met a friend last night who seemd to put on some extra pounds ( Kilos), I joked about his apparent expansion in the middle, "Nur, its Ramadan", he confessed, the month of the mashwiyaat, bur and Sambuusi. Have you lost weight in Ramadan? or have you gained weight in Ramadan? or may be you are about the same? well, I am not talking about physical weight, I am talking about sins! Ramadan was prescribed in order that we reduce the sin load we carry on our backs, if we have indeed utilized Ramadan for the purpose for which Allah prescribed, we should feel lighter, not in pounds or kilos, but in spirit. Nur