Category Archives: Issues

The Islamist-secular battle is under way

Rami G Khouri writes: Three great battles over political power have been unleashed across the Arab world and will persist for many years, until a new political order stabilizes in every country. One in particular is now reaching an important point that will reveal much about the current political character of Arab societies. The three battles are those between military and civilian authorities (democracy vs. autocracy), between Islamists and secularists (the authority of God vs. the citizenry), and between narrow ethnic/tribal/sectarian identity and a more inclusive national identity (tribe vs. state).

These contests will take years to play themselves out, because they comprise such complex factors as identity, allegiance, collective solidarity, access to state power and resources, and self-preservation. Some of them will endure for decades or more, as we have witnessed in the lively American context between fundamentalist Christians and more secular politicians vying for presidential power, over two centuries after the American independence years first defined religion-state ties.

In the Arab context, we are at an important station in the long road to the new, more participatory, democratic and accountable, national political governance systems. The issue at hand on this stop is about the balance between Islamists and secularists.

This is not a turning point, but simply a stop along the long road, a point at which some decisions will be made by society as a whole, and the march forward will continue, with other decisions to be made at other stops. Many in the region and abroad often jump to hasty conclusions that the various Arab revolutions and uprisings have been reversed and nullified because the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists have now taken over political systems in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, and are in the process of dominating the opposition movements in Syria. This is a premature rush to judgment.

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‘Judaizing’ Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem, with backing from Americans

Jeff Halper writes: Driving Palestinians out of their homes in “east” Jerusalem is, as you can imagine, a dirty business. But its not terribly difficult. The Palestinians are a vulnerable population, poor (70% subsist on less than $2 a day), completely unprotected by the law or Israeli courts, and targeted by determined Jewish settlers with all the money and political backing in the world – much of its coming, of course, from the US, mainly from orthodox Jews and Christian Zionists.
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Over the past few days settlers led by Arieh King have been harassing Palestinian residents of Beit Hanina where, according to King, settlers will “very soon” take over four houses, plus an additional two houses in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where violent nighttime evictions aided by the Israeli police have become commonplace. The immediate target of window-breaking, curses, violent encounters and now a police search of the home “for weapons” is the Natche family of Beit Hanina.

King is the front-man for Irving Moskowitz, a wealthy owner of bingo casinos in Hawaiian Gardens, a poor Latino community near Los Angeles, who is bankrolling some 17 settlements around East Jerusalem to “buffer” the Old City and “Judaize” East Jerusalem (see the StopMoskowitz website.) A friend and benefactor of Netanyahu, Moskovitch was behind the opening of the tunnels under the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem in 1996 that resulted in the deaths of 80 Palestinian protesters.

The Moskowitz/King strategy is to establish settlements in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods, often in houses acquired by dubious and violent means. Among the settlements established or on the way are the City of David (Silwan), just below the al-Aqsa mosque; Ma’ale Zeitim and Ma’ale David in the Ras-el-Amud quarter on the southern side of the Mount of Olives; Beit Hoshen on the Mount of Olives, where several Palestinian families were violently evicted from their homes and which flies an enormous Israeli flag; Beit Orot, on the northern part of the Mount of Olives, where last year Mike Huckabee laid the foundations for an expanded settlement; the Shepherds Hotel and Sheikh Jarrah, now renamed Shimon Hatzadik; a plot in the village of Anata to the east of the Hebrew university; and now the homes in Beit Hanina. [Continue reading…]

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What if Israel bombs Iran?

Gary Sick writes: Imagine that you wake up tomorrow morning and discover that during the night. Israeli planes had conducted a bombing raid on Iran. How would your world have changed?

Apart from the sensational headlines and breathless reports, the initial change might not be very significant. You would probably want to know whether the United States approved or assisted in the attack on Iran’s nuclear sites. In fact, it doesn’t really matter. Just about everyone in the world will assume that the U.S. was complicit, regardless of what Washington says.

Let’s assume that Israel notified the Obama administration about the same time the planes were taking off, if only to ensure that U.S. aircraft and missiles in the Persian Gulf region would not interfere with the bombers and refueling aircraft as they passed over one or more Arab countries. But for Iran and just about everyone else, the fact that most of the Israeli aircraft and bombs were made in the U.S. would be all they needed to know.

On that first morning, the U.N. Security Council would convene in emergency session to consider a resolution denouncing the Israeli raid. If the United States vetoed the resolution, that would remove any lingering doubt of U.S. complicity.

Perhaps more significant, however, would be European support of the resolution. This would signal the beginning of the collapse of the sanctions coalition against Iran that had been so laboriously assembled over the past several years. Both the Europeans and the Americans had operated on the tacit belief that crippling sanctions were an alternative to war. With the outbreak of war, that assumption would no longer be valid.

What would Iran do? Everyone would be poised for a massive military response. They might be surprised.

Iran would almost certainly give the required 90 days notice of its intention to quit the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and terminate inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iranian officials would not necessarily announce that they intended to proceed with development of a nuclear weapon, but they would certainly make clear that as a nonnuclear state that had been attacked by another state with nuclear weapons, that was a decision that was entirely up to them. All enriched uranium stocks would be removed from IAEA seal, and all monitoring cameras would be removed.

A different twist would be introduced if Iran had succeeded in shooting down one or more of the Israeli planes. One or more Israeli pilots in Iranian hands would sharply increase the risk of further escalation by either the United States or Israel.

Of more general significance, the markets would realize that some two million barrels a day of Iranian oil were now removed from the world market for an indeterminate period of time, and the price of oil would jump. The head of the IMF has suggested that an immediate increase of 20% to 30% could be expected.

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Obama to clear way to tighten Iranian oil sanctions

The New York Times reports: President Obama said on Friday that there is enough oil in world markets to allow countries to rely less on imports from Iran, a step that could increase Western actions to deter Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Mr. Obama is required by law to decide by March 30, and every six months after, whether the price and supply of non-Iranian oil is sufficient to allow for countries to cut their oil purchases from Iran.

Mr. Obama’s decision was announced Friday afternoon in a conference call. He made the decision after consultations with a number of oil exporters that had agreed to increase production. The decision comes even as gas prices have risen in recent months, a rise that his political advisers say could hamper his re-election efforts.

The new sanctions, passed as part of the defense budget and mandated by the Senate in a rare 100-to-0 vote, penalize foreign corporations or other entities that purchase oil from Iran’s central bank, which collects payment for most of the country’s energy exports. The penalties are meant to pressure Iran to curb its nuclear program.

The law includes loopholes that allow Mr. Obama to waive the measures if they threaten national security or if gas prices increase.

Gas prices in the United States have climbed about 19 percent this year on worries about a confrontation with Iran, investor speculation about higher prices and other factors. A gallon of gas currently costs an average of $3.93, up from about $3.30 a gallon in December. The rising prices have weighed on economic confidence and cut into household budgets, a concern for an Obama administration seeking re-election.

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U.S. anti-terrorism law curbs free speech and activist work, court told

The Guardian reports: A group political activists and journalists has launched a legal challenge to stop an American law they say allows the US military to arrest civilians anywhere in the world and detain them without trial as accused supporters of terrorism.

The seven figures, who include ex-New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, professor Noam Chomsky and Icelandic politician and WikiLeaks campaigner Birgitta Jonsdottir, testified to a Manhattan judge that the law – dubbed the NDAA or Homeland Battlefield Bill – would cripple free speech around the world.

They said that various provisions written into the National Defense Authorization Bill, which was signed by President Barack Obama at the end of 2011, effectively broadened the definition of “supporter of terrorism” to include peaceful activists, authors, academics and even journalists interviewing members of radical groups.

Controversy centres on the loose definition of key words in the bill, in particular who might be “associated forces” of the law’s named terrorist groups al-Qaida and the Taliban and what “substantial support” to those groups might get defined as. Whereas White House officials have denied the wording extends any sort of blanket coverage to civilians, rather than active enemy combatants, or actions involved in free speech, some civil rights experts have said the lack of precise definition leaves it open to massive potential abuse.

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Israel Defense Ministry plan earmarks 10 percent of West Bank for settlement expansion

Akiva Eldar reports: For years Israel’s Civil Administration has been covertly locating and mapping available land in the West Bank and naming the parcels after existing Jewish settlements, presumably with an eye toward expanding these communities.

The Civil Administration, part of the Defense Ministry, released its maps only in response to a request from anti-settlement activist Dror Etkes under the Freedom of Information Law.

In some places the boundaries of the parcels outlined in the maps coincide with the route of the West Bank separation barrier.

The state has argued before the Supreme Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague that the route of the separation barrier was based on Israel’s security needs. But Civil Administration’s maps and figures, disclosed here for the first time, suggest the barrier route was planned in accordance with the available land in the West Bank, intended to increase the area and population of the settlements.

A total of 569 parcels of land were marked out, encompassing around 620,000 dunams ‏(around 155,000 acres‏) − about 10 percent of the total area of the West Bank. Since the late 1990s, 23 of the unauthorized outposts were built on land included in the map. The Civil Administration is endeavoring to legalize some of these outposts, including Shvut Rahel, Rehelim and Hayovel.

Etkes believes this indicates the settlers who built the outposts had access to the administration’s research on available land − more proof of the government’s deep involvement in the systematic violation of the law in order to expand settlements, he says.

The maps name numerous communities that do not exist. These include Shlomzion, on land belonging to the Palestinian town of Aqraba, east of Nablus; Lev Hashomron, on the land of Kafr Haja, between Nablus and Qalqilyah; Mevo Adumim, on the lands of al-Azariya and Abu Dis; and Mitzpeh Zanoah and Mitzpeh Lahav, in south Mount Hebron.

The names of several sites suggest they are earmarked for the expansion of existing settlements, although some of the parcels are several kilometers distant from their namesakes. These include Immanuel Mizrah, Elkana Bet, Beit Aryeh Gimmel and Tekoa Sheet’hei Mir’ey, among others.

The maps also mark 81 sites on 114,000 dunams in areas A and B, which are under Palestinian civil control, indicating the Civil Administration began identifying available land before the Oslo Accords. But these parcels have not been updated in several years because Israel cannot build settlements on them.

All the other areas − 506,000 dunams in Area C, have been updated in the past decade. This implies the administration earmarked the sites as reserves for future use, says Etkes.

More than 90 percent of this land is east of the separation barrier, beyond the main settlement blocs.

“This means the administration currently updates the ‘land bank,’ flouting the peace process, which is based on the two-state principle,” Etkes said.

Most of the marked areas − 485,000 dunams in area C − are classified as state lands. About 7,600 dunams are classified as “Jewish land” from before 1948, and 12,800 dunams are unclassified. way. Presumably the administration sees them as state lands, says Etkes.

Under international pressure Israel has drastically reduced new claims of land for the state. In a letter to Nir Shalev of Bimkom − Planners for Planning Rights, the Civil Administration said that in 2003-09 a total of 5,000 dunams were declared state lands, as opposed to hundreds of thousands of dunams in previous decades.

Some 375,000 dunams in Area C are not included in the jurisdiction of the settlements, which take up some 9.5 percent of the West Bank.

A 2007 Peace Now report indicated that only nine percent of the land in the settlements’ jurisdiction were in use. The administration’s map reveals the existence of another land reserve. Although only a small part has been officially allocated to the settlements, it is being constantly updated by the administration.

The Civil Administration said in a response that the maps are a data bank that is updated from time to time and does not indicate plans to expand settlements, which is a complex procedure requiring discussions and permits.

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Polish ex-official charged with aiding CIA

The New York Times reports from Warsaw: The former head of Poland’s intelligence service has been charged with aiding the Central Intelligence Agency in setting up a secret prison to detain suspected members of Al Qaeda, a leading newspaper here reported on Tuesday, the first high-profile case in which a former senior official of any government has been prosecuted in connection with the agency’s program.

The daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported that the former intelligence chief, Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, told the paper that he faced charges of violating international law by “unlawfully depriving prisoners of their liberty,” in connection with the secret C.I.A. prison where Qaeda suspects were subjected to brutal interrogation methods.

When President Obama took office in 2009, he said he wanted to “look forward, as opposed to looking backward” and rejected calls for a broad investigation of C.I.A. interrogations and other Bush administration counterterrorism programs. In sharp contrast, the Poles see the case as a crucial test for rule of law and the investigation by prosecutors here has reached the highest levels of Polish politics.

One of Poland’s prime ministers during the period when terrorism suspects were alleged to have been subjected to torture in Poland, Leszek Miller, could be charged before Poland’s State Tribunal, the newspaper said.

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Azerbaijan: Israel’s secret staging ground

Mark Perry writes: In 2009, the deputy chief of mission of the U.S. embassy in Baku, Donald Lu, sent a cable to the State Department’s headquarters in Foggy Bottom titled “Azerbaijan’s discreet symbiosis with Israel.” The memo, later released by WikiLeaks, quotes Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev as describing his country’s relationship with the Jewish state as an iceberg: “nine-tenths of it is below the surface.”

Why does it matter? Because Azerbaijan is strategically located on Iran’s northern border and, according to several high-level sources I’ve spoken with inside the U.S. government, Obama administration officials now believe that the “submerged” aspect of the Israeli-Azerbaijani alliance — the security cooperation between the two countries — is heightening the risks of an Israeli strike on Iran.

In particular, four senior diplomats and military intelligence officers say that the United States has concluded that Israel has recently been granted access to airbases on Iran’s northern border. To do what, exactly, is not clear. “The Israelis have bought an airfield,” a senior administration official told me in early February, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.”

Senior U.S. intelligence officials are increasingly concerned that Israel’s military expansion into Azerbaijan complicates U.S. efforts to dampen Israeli-Iranian tensions, according to the sources. Military planners, I was told, must now plan not only for a war scenario that includes the Persian Gulf — but one that could include the Caucasus. The burgeoning Israel-Azerbaijan relationship has also become a flashpoint in both countries’ relationship with Turkey, a regional heavyweight that fears the economic and political fallout of a war with Iran. Turkey’s most senior government officials have raised their concerns with their U.S. counterparts, as well as with the Azeris, the sources said.

The Israeli embassy in Washington, the Israel Defense Forces, and the Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, were all contacted for comment on this story but did not respond.

The Azeri embassy to the United States also did not respond to requests for information regarding Azerbaijan’s security agreements with Israel. During a recent visit to Tehran, however, Azerbaijan’s defense minister publicly ruled out the use of Azerbaijan for a strike on Iran. “The Republic of Azerbaijan, like always in the past, will never permit any country to take advantage of its land, or air, against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which we consider our brother and friend country,” he said.

But even if his government makes good on that promise, it could still provide Israel with essential support. A U.S. military intelligence officer noted that Azeri defense minister did not explicitly bar Israeli bombers from landing in the country after a strike. Nor did he rule out the basing of Israeli search-and-rescue units in the country. Proffering such landing rights — and mounting search and rescue operations closer to Iran — would make an Israeli attack on Iran easier.

“We’re watching what Iran does closely,” one of the U.S. sources, an intelligence officer engaged in assessing the ramifications of a prospective Israeli attack confirmed. “But we’re now watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan. And we’re not happy about it.” [Continue reading…]

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Op-ed: Israel’s plan to attack Iran put on hold until next year at the earliest

Articles in Haaretz quite often blur the lines between reporting, analysis, and commentary. Amir Oren provides the following interpretation of the facts, concluding that Israel will not launch an attack on Iran this year. Who knows whether his is the definitive interpretation?

News that the IDF just cancelled Passover vacation provides yet a new element of uncertainty, though the one thing about which we can remain certain is Israel’s continuing desire to perpetuate a high level of uncertainty about its intentions.

Amir Oren writes: At 8:58 P.M. on Tuesday, Israel’s 2012 war against Iran came to a quiet end. The capricious plans for a huge aerial attack were returned to the deep recesses of safes and hearts. The war may not have been canceled but it has certainly been postponed. For a while, at least, we can sound the all clear: It won’t happen this year. Until further notice, Israel Air Force Flight 007 will not be taking off.

According to a war simulation conducted by the U.S. Central Command, the Iranians could kill 200 Americans with a single missile response to an Israeli attack. An investigative committee would not spare any admiral or general, minister or president. The meaning of this U.S. scenario is that the blood of these 200 would be on Israel’s head.

The moment the public dispute over whether to attack Iran is put in those terms, Israel has no real option to attack in contravention of American declarations and warnings.

That’s the negative side. The complementary positive side was presented this week, on Tuesday evening. At 8:20, Pentagon spokesman George Little announced that the Defense Department would be seeking more money to help Israel fund the Iron Dome antimissile defense system.

Noting that support for Israel’s security was a top priority for U.S. President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Little said that, given the Iron Dome system’s success in intercepting 80 percent of the rockets fired from Gaza this month, the Defense Department “intends to request an appropriate level of funding to support such acquisitions, based on Israeli requirements and production capacity.”

Thirty-eight minutes after that, Defense Minister Ehud Barak publicly thanked both Panetta and himself (“The decision was the result of contacts between the Defense Ministry and the Pentagon” ).

Israelis may be the world champions of chutzpah, but even biting the hand that feeds you has its limits when the bitten hand is liable to hit back. When Barak thanked the Obama administration “for helping strengthen Israel’s security,” he was abandoning the pretension to act against Iran without permission before the U.S. presidential elections in November.

For all intents and purposes, it was an announcement that this war was being postponed until at least the spring of 2013.

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After military strike, Iran probably could rebuild most centrifuge workshops within six months

Bloomberg reports: Iran’s “workshops” for making nuclear centrifuges and components for the devices are widely dispersed and hidden, adding to the difficulties of a potential military strike by Israel, according to a new report by U.S. congressional researchers.

Neither Israel nor the U.S. is certain of the locations of all such facilities, analysts at the Congressional Research Service wrote in the report obtained today. The analysts cited interviews with current and former U.S. government officials familiar with the issue who weren’t identified.

Israel’s capability to halt or set back Iran’s nuclear program through a military strike has been central to the debate over whether Israel should undertake such a mission alone. While President Barack Obama has urged more time for economic sanctions to work, Israeli officials led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak say it may soon be too late to prevent Iran from developing the capability to produce a nuclear weapon.

The possibility of dispersed facilities complicates any assessment of a potential raid’s success, making it “unclear what the ultimate effect of a strike would be on the likelihood of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons,” the report found.

A U.S. official said in April 2011 that there “could be lots of workshops’ in Iran,” the authors said. Last month, a former U.S. government official with “direct experience” in the issue told the researchers that “Iran’s centrifuge production is widely distributed and that the number of workshops has probably multiplied ‘many times’ since 2005 because of an increase in Iranian contractors and subcontractors working on the program.”

“An attack that left Iran’s conversion and centrifuge production facilities intact would considerably reduce” the time Iran would need to resume its nuclear work, said the congressional researchers led by Jim Zanotti, a Middle Eastern affairs specialist. He wrote the report with analysts Kenneth Katzman, Jeremiah Gertler and Steven Hildreth.

Israel, the U.S. and European allies say they are concerned that Iran may begin trying to produce the highly enriched uranium needed for a nuclear weapon. Iran says its nuclear program is intended solely to generate power and for medical research. Centrifuges spin at high speeds to separate uranium isotopes.

Michael Hayden, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said in January “that neither the U.S. nor Israel knows the location of all key Iranian nuclear-related facilities,” according to the congressional researchers.

Assessments vary on how much impact a military attack would have on Iran’s centrifuge facilities. An executive branch official who wasn’t named told the research service last month that Iran doesn’t have enough spare centrifuges or components to install new devices immediately, the authors wrote. A former official said the same day that Iran probably could rebuild or replicate most centrifuge workshops within six months, the researchers said.

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Palestinians forge new strategies of resistance

Ben White writes: A one-state solution in Palestine/Israel is a subject being increasingly discussed and debated. One way in which the conversation has emerged is through an analysis of the current situation as a de facto one state, a regime which privileges Jews above Palestinians (the latter being granted or denied different rights according to geography and legal status).

This challenges the orthodoxy that makes a clean distinction between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In doing so, it not only provides a framework for interpreting various policies, but also counters the fragmentation of Palestinians over the decades into “Israeli Arabs”, “West Bank” or “Gaza” Palestinians, Jerusalemites – and of course, refugees.

But apart from this discursive “reintegration”, as the apartheid regime has been consolidated irrespective of the “Green Line”, a new generation of Palestinian activists is breaking down old divisions imposed by Israel and forging new connections and strategies of resistance.

Lana Khaskia is an activist from Haifa. Last October, she worked alongside other comrades to organise a hunger strike in support of Palestinian prisoners. The action went under the name “Hungry for Freedom”, a slogan Lana says covers “many demands that can be summarised in one demand: ending Zionist colonialism in all of historic Palestine”. [Continue reading…]

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Why most Israelis don’t give a damn about the Palestinians

Noam Sheizaf points out that Israelis are not divided between those who support the two-state solution versus those who favor annexing the West Bank. What most Israelis prefer rather than any of the alternatives is the status quo — a situation in which Palestinians are deprived of human rights.

For some reason, people find it hard to accept that the current situation is desirable for Israelis. It certainly isn’t optimal, but considering the alternatives, it is probably the best.

It’s enough to come on a week’s visit to Israel to understand the appeal of the status quo. Despite occasional outbreaks of violence in the south and north, Israelis enjoy stability, prosperity and a general sense of security. According to the theory of “convincing Israelis to abandon the West Bank,” this was supposed to be the right moment for concessions, but the exact opposite is true: When things are going so well, it would be totally irrational to move in any other direction, either by annexing the West Bank or by leaving it.

Israelis understand that instinctively, regardless of what they say in polls on the desired solution to the conflict. Actually, even in polls, when faced with the option of maintaining the status quo, Israelis are likely to prefer it to the two-state solution. A Palestinian state becomes the preferable option only when presented on its own (“do you support/oppose…”) or when it is compared to annexing the West Bank.

See for example question 6 of the January 2012 Peace Index: A clear Jewish majority (57.3 percent) agrees with the following statement:

… even long-term continued rule in the territories will not prevent Israel from remaining a Jewish and democratic state.

This result is consistent with previous polls, I was told. In a panel I attended at Tel Aviv University, Prof. Ephraim Yaar, who runs the peace index, explained that Israelis’ political choices are irrational, since they don’t elect leaders that reflect their support for the two-state solution. But his own polls prove the opposite: that Israelis actually support the status-quo, and choose their leaders accordingly. The record-breaking support for Prime Minister Netanyahu, a man whose entire political history is a tale of maintaining the diplomatic status quo, can be easily explained in this framework, and so can the collapse of the parliamentary peace camp. There is not one Knesset party that has leaving the West Bank as the single most important issue on its agenda today – mainly because everyone knows that the public prefers the current state of affairs. So maybe it’s time to stop blaming the settlers alone.

But aren’t Israelis concerned about the long run? Well, when making political choices, most people don’t pay much attention to the long run, and politicians are even more likely to be focused on the immediate impact of their decisions. Anyway, the “unsustainable” occupation is proving itself to be pretty sustainable thus far. In the last decade, and especially since the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005– a move that was initiated, as Sharon himself said, in order to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank– Israel has been able to resist international pressure at a relatively low cost and maintain control over the territories it captured in 1967, while suffering the lowest number of casualties than at any other time. Never in its history has the gap – military, economic and in terms of international support – between Israel and its neighbors been so wide. The status-quo might not be perfect, but from the point of view of the average Israeli – not to mention that of his elected official – it represents the best alternative.

In other words, the major problem right now is that an inherently immoral order represents the most desirable political option for Israelis. All the left’s effort to demonstrate the problems the occupation creates – like the burden on the state budget – won’t help, since political choices are made based on alternative options, and right now the alternatives are more expensive, more painful, and more dangerous.

It should be noted that the status quo will remain the best option regardless of developments on the Palestinian side. Even if the Palestinians in the occupied territories recognize Israel as a Jewish state or vote Hamas out of office – even if they all join the Likud – from an Israeli cost/benefit perspective, keeping things as they are will remain preferable to the alternatives of either pulling out of the West Bank or to annexing it.

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Welcome to the United States of Orwell, Part 1: Our one last chance to preserve the Bill of Rights

Charles Hugh Smith writes: This Congress and President Obama have shredded the Bill of Rights. We have one last chance to restore the Founding Fathers’ bastion against a rogue Central State: the Bill of Rights.

“Everything that Richard Nixon did to me, for which he faced impeachment and prosecution, which led to his resignation, is now legal under the Patriot Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).” Daniel Ellsberg. Can Congress legalize tyranny by passing a law that says it can? Can Congress shred the Bill of Rights by passing a law that says it can? Well, Congress has passed such a law, and President Obama–the most effective Trojan Horse president in American history, a plutocrat dressed as a “progressive”– rushed to sign it on New Years Eve 2011 when nobody was looking.

This is not a partisan issue, though various flaks and toadies are attempting to make it so. Here is how the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) describes the NDAA:Indefinite Detention, Endless Worldwide War and the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

He signed it. We’ll fight it. President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law. It contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. The dangerous new law can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. He signed it. Now, we have to fight it wherever we can and for as long as it takes.

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