Monthly Archives: January 2009

Israel hopes to colonize parts of Iraq as ‘Greater Israel’

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On that day, God made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river the Euphrates. The land of the Kenites, Kenizites, Kadmonites; the Chitties, Perizites, Refaim; the Emorites, Canaanites, Gigashites and Yevusites.” – Genesis 15:18-21

Is this why the US is bombing Iraq to smithereens without any consideration to the Iraqis? it is most certainly what Mama and Papa Livni (parents of the minister of foreign affairs minister of Israel Tsipi Livni) believed in. Yep, the parents of the same woman who is at peace with killing over three hundred  innocent Palestinian children.

Israeli expansionists, their intentions to take full control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and permanently keep the Golan Heights of Syria and expand into southern Lebanon already well known, also have their eyes on parts of Iraq considered part of a biblical “Greater Israel.”

Israel reportedly has plans to relocate thousands of Kurdish Jews from Israel, including expatriates from Kurdish Iran, to the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Nineveh under the guise of religious pilgrimages to ancient Jewish religious shrines. According to Kurdish sources, the Israelis are secretly working with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to carry out the integration of Kurdish and other Jews into areas of Iraq under control of the KRG.

Kurdish, Iraqi Sunni Muslims, and Turkmen have noted that Kurdish Israelis began to buy land in Iraqi Kurdistan, after the U.S. invasion in 2003, that is considered historical Jewish “property.”

The Israelis are particularly interested in the shrine of the Jewish prophet Nahum in al Qush, the prophet Jonah in Mosul, and the tomb of the prophet Daniel in Kirkuk. Israelis are also trying to claim Jewish “properties” outside of the Kurdish region, including the shrine of Ezekiel in the village of al-Kifl in Babel Province near Najaf and the tomb of Ezra in al-Uzayr in Misan Province, near Basra, both in southern Iraq’s Shi’a-dominated territory. Israeli expansionists consider these shrines and tombs as much a part of “Greater Israel” as Jerusalem and the West Bank, which they call “Judea and Samaria.”

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Israeli Envoy: Attack on Gaza a ‘Preintroduction’ to Attack on Iran

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After ordering a cameraman to turn off his camera, Israeli Ambassador to Australia Yuval Rotem engaged in a very frank discussion about the recent Israeli war in the Gaza Strip, calling it “a preintroduction” to an attack on Iran that Israel apparently expects within the year.

Before the camera was turned off, Ambassador Rotem said “the best thing to do is to have a very open dialogue if there are no reporters or journalists here,” adding “I am far more reserved in the way I am saying my things (on camera).” Unbeknownst to him however Sarah Cummings, a reporter for Australia’s Seven News service, was actually in attendance at the meeting after having been “accidentally” invited.

Israel has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran, and while its officials have repeatedly attempted to tie the Iranian government to its war on the Gaza Strip this is the first time one of their officials has publicly (if inadvertently so) suggested that the attack on the strip was a warm-up to its long talked about attack on Iran.

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Israel Plans More Gaza Strikes

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The Israeli newspaper Haaretz cites top “decision-makers” as saying the attacks against Hamas and other groups in the Gaza Strip would continue in spite of the continuing efforts by the international community to negotiate a ceasefire. One source is quoted as saying the attacks were meant to show Hamas that strikes would not go unanswered.

But as Israel continues to ratchet up what it is calling retaliatory attacks, Hamas’ own response has been extremely muted. While Israel’s attacks on Hamas have caused numerous casualties (mostly civilians), Hamas hasn’t caused even property damage in Israel.

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Secret Israeli database reveals full extent of illegal settlement

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loss-of-palestinian-land-1946-2008

Picture courtesy Tumeke

the use of private lands to establish or expand them. The painstakingly amassed data was labeled political dynamite.

The defense establishment, led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, steadfastly refused to publicize the figures, arguing, for one thing, that publication could endanger state security or harm Israel’s foreign relations. Someone who is liable to be particularly interested in the data collected by Spiegel is George Mitchell, President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the Middle East, who came to Israel this week for his first visit since his appointment. It was Mitchell who authored the 2001 report that led to the formulation of the road map, which established a parallel between halting terror and halting construction in the settlements.

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The official database, the most comprehensive one of its kind ever compiled in Israel about the territories, was recently obtained by Haaretz. Here, for the first time, information the state has been hiding for years is revealed. An analysis of the data reveals that, in the vast majority of the settlements – about 75 percent – construction, sometimes on a large scale, has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to the permits that were issued. The database also shows that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police
stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents.

Click here to view the secret Defense Ministry database on illegal construction in the territories. It should be noted that the information is given in Hebrew

The data, it should be stressed, do not refer only to the illegal outposts (information about which was included in the well-known report authored by attorney Talia Sasson and published in March 2005), but to the very heart of the settlement enterprise. Among them are veteran ideological settlements like Alon Shvut (established in 1970 and currently home to 3,291 residents, including Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun); Ofra (established in 1975, home to 2,708 residents, including
former Yesha Council spokesman Yehoshua Mor Yosef and media personalities Uri Elitzur and Hagai Segal); and Beit El (established in 1977, population 5,308, including Hagai Ben-Artzi, brother of Sara Netanyahu). Also included are large settlements founded primarily for economic motives, such as the city of Modi’in Illit (established in 1990 and now home to 36,282 people), or Givat Ze’ev outside Jerusalem (founded in 1983, population 11,139), and smaller settlements such as Nokdim near Herodion (established in 1982, population 851, including MK Avigdor Lieberman).

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Dow and S&P Suffer Worst January in History

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The Dow and the S&P both had their worst January in history.

This month has been the worst January for the Dow since 1896, and for the S&P since 1928.

As both Bloomberg and Market Watch point out, the performance of the stock indices in January tends to forecast stock performance during the rest of the year.

So 2009 may be a very bumpy ride.

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U.S. Economy May Keep Sliding After Shrinking Most Since 1982

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The problem with trying to warn people about the disaster pending is that when it happens you’re sort of at a loss of what to put on your blog. I mean now that every other blog worth their business is calling for and to the financial crisis denial it sort of gets boring, doesn’t it.

Oh more financial disaster? Try telling us something we don’t know. But here you have it kids, we’re going down.

By Timothy R. Homan

Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. economy is likely to keep deteriorating in early 2009 after shrinking last quarter by the most since 1982, as consumers and businesses retrench.

The 3.8 percent annual pace of contraction in the fourth quarter was less than forecast, with a buildup of unsold goods cushioning the blow. Excluding inventories, the decline was 5.1 percent, the Commerce Department said yesterday in Washington.

Job cuts announced this month by companies from Starbucks Corp. and Pep Boys – Manny, Moe & Jack to Eastman Kodak Co. mean there’ll be little respite in the first half of this year, economists said. The Obama administration used the figures to reinforce its call for Congress to pass a stimulus package in excess of $800 billion to arrest the economy’s decline.

“The recession is going to last through most of 2009, and we’ll be lucky to have growth back at zero by the end of the year,” Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University economics professor, said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Davos, Switzerland, yesterday. Economic growth “will be pretty tepid for a long time.”

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Time for a new world order: PM

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KEVIN RUDD has denounced the unfettered capitalism of the past three decades and called for a new era of “social capitalism” in which government intervention and regulation feature heavily.

In an essay to be published next week, the Prime Minister is scathing of the neo-liberals who began refashioning the market system in the 1970s, and ultimately brought about the global financial crisis.

“The time has come, off the back of the current crisis, to proclaim that the great neo-liberal experiment of the past 30 years has failed, that the emperor has no clothes,” he writes of those who placed their faith in the corrective powers of the market.

“Neo-liberalism and the free-market fundamentalism it has produced has been revealed as little more than personal greed dressed up as an economic philosophy. And, ironically, it now falls to social democracy to prevent liberal capitalism from cannibalising itself.”

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Backdoor draft: Defense Department Announces Civilian Expeditionary Workforce

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So what do you do when you have millions upon millions of unemployed and you want a global empire on the cheap? You train them to be the armies flunkies. Cleaning, cooking and other menial slave jobs while your other cheap cannon fodder, the young males that could overthrow your regime, kill and get killed while you get richer and richer and richer over their backs. Perfect. And when things get hairy I’m sure you can stick a gun in their hands and have them kill some more of the locals. It should only be a couple of years to get the worlds population back to a sustainable level. He, that’s two birds with one stone! Awesome.

Obama’s promise of a civilian security force is set in motion

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Friday, Jan 30th, 2009

The Defense Department has established a “civilian expeditionary workforce” that will see American civilians trained and equipped to deploy overseas in support of worldwide military missions.

The move is seen by some as an initial step towards fulfilling President Obama’s promise to form a civilian national security force as powerful as the U.S. military.

The intent of the program “is to maximize the use of the civilian workforce to allow military personnel to be fully utilized for operational requirements,” according to a Defense Department report.

The program was officially implemented one week ago, on the 23rd January, when Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed Defense Department Directive 1404.10 (PDF), which provides a summation of the duties the workforce will undertake.

The directive, which is effective immediately, states that civilian employees of the DoD will be asked to sign agreements stating that they will deploy in support of military missions for up to two years if needed.

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The American Economy is Not Coming Back

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President Barack Obama and his economic team are being careful to couch all their talk about economic stimulus programs and bank bailout programs in warnings that the economic downturn is serious and that it will take considerable time to bounce back.

I’m reminded of an experience I had with Chinese medicine when I was living in Shanghai back in 1992. I had come down with a nasty case of the flu while teaching journalism at Fudan University on a Fulbright Scholar program. A Chinese colleague suggested I go to the university clinic. When I told him there wasn’t much point since doctors couldn’t do much for the flu besides recommend fluids and bed rest, he said, “That’s Western doctors. You could go to the Chinese medicine doctors at the clinic. They can help you.”  I figured, what the hell, and we went.  The doctor inquired into the lurid details of my illness—how my bowel movements looked, the color of the mucus in my nose, etc.  He didn’t really examine me physically. Then he prescribed an incredible number of pills and teas and sent me home with a huge bag of stuff, and instructions on the regimen for taking them through the course of each day.  I followed the directions dutifully, and my colleague came by each day to check on my progress.  By the fifth day, when I was still running a fever and feeling terrible, I told him I didn’t think the Chinese medicine was working.  He replied confidently, “Chinese medicine takes a long time to work.”

I laughed at this.  “Sure,” I said. “But the flu only lasts a week or so, and now, when I get better, you’ll say it was the Chinese medicine, right?”

He smiled and agreed. “Yes. You are right.”

Obviously the Obama administration recognizes that it needs to keep the finger of blame for the current economic collapse squarely pointed at the Bush administration, which is certainly fair in large part (though the Clinton deregulation of the banking industry played a major part in the financial crisis and its enthusiastic promotion of globalization began the massive shift of jobs overseas that has left the nation’s productive capacity hollowed out). But it also seems to recognize that it cannot tell the bitter truth, which is that our national economy will never “bounce back” to where it was in 2007.

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Carter Tells Paper Bush Exploited 9/11

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Ok this was in 2004 and given that he has now spoken out as a supporter of a new investigation into the events of 911 it pays to remember his former stance.

LONDON – President Bush has exploited the Sept. 11 attacks, and a timorous American press has not held him to account, former President Jimmy Carter said in an interview published Monday.

Carter was asked by the Guardian newspaper why he failed to win re-election in 1980 against Ronald Reagan after Iranian radicals held U.S. citizens hostage for 444 days, while Bush may win re-election despite misgivings over the Iraq war.

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