person:bush

US Asked Moderate Syrian Rebels to Fight Al-Nusra « Antiwar.com Blog
http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/05/08/us-asked-moderate-syrian-rebels-to-fight-al-nusra

US foreign policy is constantly remedying the catastrophes it has previously wrought. Bush’s war for regime change in Iraq gave rise to al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Obama’s meddling (and that of his allies in the Gulf) in Syria’s civil conflict prompted AQI to move to Syria and fight Assad as Jabhat al-Nusra. Now the meddling continues to try and eliminate al-Nusra, which has quickly become the foremost element in Syria’s rebellion. It is an endless trail of failures, leading to more interventions, which lead to more failures.

ZCommunications | An Ordinary Radical by Verena Stressing | ZNet Article
http://www.zcommunications.org/contents/192728

However, the biggest demonstration recently has been against gay marriage or marriage equality (marriage pour tous), an utterly ridiculous spectacle and public display of homophobia. To me, this was a symbol of the myth that the French are traditionally left. I once read somewhere that this myth  was invented by the Parisian Bohème and was really only spread by the media until it became a globally accepted cliché. I can easily believe that. In reality, France is very much still an elitist country, where basically the entire political class is recruited from a handful of elite schools, and where the social class you come from is decisive for your career. I can see that every day at my work place. It is also an extremely hierarchical and still very sexist society, despite the fact that for example many more women work than, say, in Germany. To me, “liberté, égalite, fraternité” is really just a slogan at this point, the France of the majority is the #France of the catholic schools, the elite universities, the bourgeoisie and the conservative voting country side.

Former Bush administration official: Israel may be behind use of chemical arms in Syria - West of Eden Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
►http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/west-of-eden/former-bush-administration-official-israel-may-be-behind-use-of-chemical-ar

Retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who once served as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff, believes that the chemical weapons used in Syria may have been an Israeli “false flag” operation aimed at implicating Bashar Assad’s regime.

Wilkerson made his astounding assertion in an interview on Current TV, the network once owned by former Vice President Al Gore and recently purchased by Al-Jazeera.

Wilkerson said that the evidence that it was Assad’s regime that had used the chemical weapons was “flaky” and that it could very well have been the rebels or Israel who were the perpetrators. Asked why Israel would do such a thing, Wilkerson said: “I think we’ve got a basically geostrategically, geopolitical inept regime in Tel Aviv right now.”

The Guantánamo Stain - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/opinion/the-guantanamo-stain.html

All five living presidents gathered in Texas Thursday for a feel-good moment at the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, which is supposed to symbolize the legacy that Mr. Bush has been trying to polish. President Obama called it a “special day for our democracy.” Mr. Bush spoke about having made “the tough decisions” to protect America. They all had a nice chuckle when President Bill Clinton joked about former presidents using their libraries to rewrite history.

But there is another building, far from Dallas on land leased from Cuba, that symbolizes Mr. Bush’s legacy in a darker, truer way: the military penal complex at Guantánamo Bay where Mr. Bush imprisoned hundreds of men after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a vast majority guilty of no crime.

It became the embodiment of his dangerous expansion of executive power and the lawless detentions, secret prisons and torture that went along with them. It is now also a reminder of Mr. Obama’s failure to close the prison as he promised when he took office, and of the malicious interference by Congress in any effort to justly try and punish the Guantánamo inmates.

La guerre en Irak, 10 ans après - Acrimed | Action Critique Médias
http://www.acrimed.org/article4054.html

Depuis le 15 avril 2013 et quatre jours durant, les attentats de Boston et la traque de leurs auteurs ont focalisé l’attention médiatique et phagocyté le reste de l’actualité… Dans le même temps, des attentats ou des combats décimaient des civils en Syrie ou en Irak, qui étaient à peine évoqués dans la presse écrite et ignorés par les radios et les télés. Cette asymétrie dans le traitement des victimes de violence armée démontre l’invraisemblable ethnocentrisme qui régit la production de l’information et paraît tout particulièrement évidente en ce qui concerne l’Irak. Le silence médiatique qui prévaut sur la guerre civile larvée qui sévit dans ce pays, où les affrontements interconfessionnels et les attentats causent la perte de centaines de civils est d’autant plus écrasant qu’il s’accompagne d’une absence totale de bilan d’une invasion prétendument libératrice, déclenchée il y a dix ans.

À l’occasion de ce triste anniversaire, le site américain d’observation des médias, FAIR [1], retrace les premiers jours de l’invasion en relevant toutes les prises de positions des journalistes et autres experts médiatiques ainsi que l’engagement des télévisions et radios américaines dans la propagande belliciste. Nous vous proposons cette traduction en français de l’article original [2]. (Acrimed)

Secret US documents show Brennan’s ‘no civilian drone deaths’ claim was false: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism
http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/04/11/secret-us-documents-show-brennans-no-civilian-drone-deaths-cl

US intelligence officials were aware that at least one civilian had died in drone strikes in Pakistan during 2011, despite claims to the contrary made by the man now running the Central Intelligence Agency.

In June 2011, John Brennan, at the time President Obama’s chief counter terrorism adviser, stated publicly that for ‘almost a year’ no civilian had died in US drone strikes in Pakistan.

But leaked US intelligence documents obtained by news agency McClatchy show this was not true.

Leak reveals Bush administration’s strategy for undermining Chávez
http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/americas/292131-leaked-cable-reveals-bush-administrations-strategy-for-undermining-c

WikiLeaks on Friday released a 2006 State Department cable detailing the Bush administration’s strategy for undermining Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez by supporting alleged pro-democracy groups.

The cable, signed by then-Ambassador William Brownfield, outlines a five-point strategy that includes “penetrating Chavez’s political base,” “dividing Chavismo,” “protecting vital U.S. business” and “isolating Chavez internationally.” Those goals are to be obtained by strengthening “democratic institutions,” according to the cable.

[…] Strengthening democratic institutions, he wrote, “represents the majority of USAID/OTI work in Venezuela.

[…]

The cable is all but certain to rekindle criticism of U.S. support for civil society groups in foreign countries with limited democratic freedom, notably Russia, which has been cracking down on nongovernmental organizations. The cable was first reported by Russia Today, a Kremlin-funded media organization.

#cablegate

Je l’ai ordonné à l’avance, du coup, je vais le recevoir bientôt!
Lucky me!!
Enfin le CD à la mémoire de Margaret Thatcher a été envoyé par la band anglaise.
Bye bye Margaret!

http://www.chumba.com

Chumbawamba – Margaret Thatcher EP ‘In Memoriam’ was mailed out on 8th April, 2013, to all who pre-ordered the CD. No further orders will be taken.

http://www.chumba.com/images/thatch.jpg

#Thatcher #Chumbawamba #in_memoriam #CD

Le département de la Justice (du Obama qui est très différent du Bush) renonce finalement à obtenir les emails des citoyens américains plus facilement : Justice Dept. drops fight against tougher rules to access e-mail
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-03-19/world/37845664_1_mail-warrant-requirement-providers

The Justice Department has dropped its long-standing objection to proposed changes that would require law enforcement to get a warrant before obtaining e-mail from service providers, regardless of how old an e-mail is or whether it has been read.

A lire l’extraordinaire David Ignatius on croirait que la « spirale des tueries sectaires » existait avant l’invasion étasunienne et que David Petraeus n’a jamais créé d’escadrons de la mort.

David Ignatius : Ten years later, recalling Iraq’s hard lessons - The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-ten-years-later-recalling-iraqs-hard-lessons/2013/03/20/5a05890c-90d7-11e2-bdea-e32ad90da239_story.html?hpid=z2

By checking the spiraling sectarian killing, the surge of U.S. troops led by Bush and Gen. David Petraeus saved thousands of Iraqi lives. It’s one thing Americans did right in this painful story.

The Lessons We Aren’t Learning from Iraq | Stephen M. Walt
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/03/21/the_dearth_of_strategy_on_syria

If you want evidence of the tunnel vision that continues to dominate U.S. national security thinking, check out David Sanger’s news analysis yesterday http://seenthis.net/messages/123543 on the “lessons” of Iraq. Sanger checks in with various former policymakers to explore the different implications one might draw from the Iraq experience for the current situation in Syria. 

As expected, there is some difference of opinion expressed by the various people that Sanger interviewed. But what’s striking is how the entire discussion of “lessons” revolves around tactical issues, and none of the people quoted in the article raise larger questions about how the United States is defining its role in the world or the broader goals it is trying to accomplish. Instead, they debate the reliability of pre-war intelligence, whether the U.S. can do a better job when it occupies other countries, or whether the U.S. can figure out ways to intervene in various places without getting sucked into costly quagmires. In short, it’s all about whether we can do these things differently and not about whether we should do them at all.

Opinion: Why Bush, Blair should be charged with war crimes over Iraq - CNN.com
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-bush-blair/index.html

The whole episode regarding the Iraq War is a tawdry tale that has subverted the rule of law and tarnished the reputation of international law.

Without accountability for Western states, how can we expect the rest of world to respect these principles? It is time for Bush and Blair to be thoroughly, independently and judicially investigated for the crimes I suggest have been committed and it is time for the crime of aggression to come into force.

Pour mémoire, le Hezbollah avait été retiré de la liste étasunienne des organisations terroristes après le 11 Septembre 2001 (le groupe avait clairement dénoncé les attentats), et il y était revenu quelques temps après, sur la fois de fadaises éhontées de Dick Cheney. Relire cet article de 2007 : Why is Hezbollah on the Terrorism List ?
http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/04/06/why-is-hezbollah-on-the-terrorism-list

Placed on the “T” list in 1999, Hezbollah was taken off the list a couple of years later following Hezbollah’s strong condemnation of the 9/11 attack on America. Hezbollah was returned to the list when Dick Cheney opined that a “presumed Hezbollah operative” probably met with an Al Qaeda representative in South America in 2001. Similar to Cheney’s Saadam Hussein-Al Qaeda ‘contacts’ claim.

Oui, tu as bien lu : le Hezbollah est aujourd’hui sur la liste des organisations terroristes au motif que Dick Cheney (menteur pathologique) a prétendu que le Hezbollah avait des contacts avec Al Qaeda ! Dix ans après, la logique consisterait donc à retirer le Hezbollah de cette liste, puisqu’on sait évidemment que le Hezbollah et Al Qaeda sont des ennemis mortels, et non des alliés. Ah ah ah… la logique…

The crisis of American capitalism and the war against Iraq - World Socialist Web Site

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/03/19/iraq-m19.html

The crisis of American capitalism and the war against Iraq
By David North
19 March 2013

This article was originally published on March 21, 2003, two days after the onset of the US assault on Iraq.

1. The unprovoked and illegal invasion of Iraq by the United States is an event that will live in infamy. The political criminals in Washington who have launched this war, and the wretched scoundrels in the mass media who are reveling in the bloodbath, have covered this country in shame. Hundreds of millions of people in every part of the world are repulsed by the spectacle of a brutal and unrestrained military power pulverizing a small and defenseless country. The invasion of Iraq is an imperialist war in the classic sense of the term: a vile act of aggression that has been undertaken on behalf of the interests of the most reactionary and predatory sections of the financial and corporate oligarchy in the United States. Its overt and immediate purpose is the establishment of control over Iraq’s vast oil resources and reduction of that long-oppressed country to an American colonial protectorate.

#irak #états-unis

Bush-Aznar Transcript : The War Crime of the Century

Comment Bush a refusé une proposition d’exil de Saddam Hussein et a préféré la guerre

http://www.juancole.com/2007/09/bush-aznar-transcript-war-crime-of.html

The second claim that I made was that Bush was aware of, and rejected, an offer by Saddam Hussein to flee Iraq, probably for Saudi Arabia, presuming he could take out with him a billion dollars and some documents on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. Both provisions were intended by Saddam to protect him from later retaliation. The money would buy him protection from extradition, and the documents presumably showed that the Reagan and Bush senior administrations had secretly authorized his chemical and biological weapons programs. With these documents in his possession, it was unlikely that Bush would come after him, since he could ruin the reputation of the Bush family if he did. The destruction of these documents was presumably Bush’s goal when he had Rumsfeld order US military personnel not to interfere with the looting and burning of government offices after the fall of Saddam. The looting, which set off the guerrilla war, also functioned as a vast shredding party, destroying incriminating evidence about the complicity of the Bushes and Rumsfeld in Iraq’s war crimes.

Lunch with the FT: Noam Chomsky - FT.com
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/afc74988-8c96-11e2-aed2-00144feabdc0.html

Some of Chomsky’s critics have accused him of going easy on the faults of autocrats so long as they are enemies of the US (...) “Suppose I criticise Iran. What impact does that have? The only impact it has is in fortifying those who want to carry out policies I don’t agree with, like bombing.” He argues that any criticisms about, say, Chávez, will invariably get into the mainstream media, whereas those he makes about the US will go unreported. This unfair treatment is the dissident’s lot, according to Chomsky. Intellectuals like to think of themselves as iconoclasts, he says. “But you take a look through history and it’s the exact opposite. The respected intellectuals are those who conform and serve power interests.”

(...) Today he still concentrates his ire on the US on the grounds that it has the most power and he is an American citizen. This makes sense, I say, but doesn’t his position in another community, the anti-war left, mean he also has a duty to call out wrongdoing by its figureheads?

“Maybe some, small percentage should be concerned with that community. But nowhere near the [percentage concerned with the] responsibility for [American] state power and mass media.”

...

Professor Noam Chomsky will be delivering the 2013 Edward W Said London Lecture, programmed by AM Qattan Foundation/The Mosaic Rooms, on March 18 at 7pm; www.mosaicrooms.org

Over 100 Guantánamo Prisoners on Hunger Strike, Citing Threat of Return to “Darkest Days Under Bush” | #DemocracyNow!
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/13/over_100_guantanamo_prisoners_on_hunger

More than 100 detainees held in the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay are reportedly entering their fifth week of a hunger strike sparked by deteriorating conditions. News of the hunger strike first emerged last week, but it appears the action involves far more prisoners than previously thought. In a letter to his attorney, one detainee wrote: “We are in danger. One of the soldiers fired on one of the brothers a month ago. Before that, they send the emergency forces with M-16 weapons into one of the brothers’ cell blocks. ... Now they want to return us to the darkest days under [George W.] Bush. They said this to us. Please do something.” We’re joined by Pardiss Kebriaei, senior staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights and counsel for one of the hunger strikers. [includes rush transcript]

Revealed : Pentagon’s link to Iraqi torture centres
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/06/pentagon-iraqi-torture-centres-link

The Pentagon sent a US veteran of the “dirty wars” in Central America to oversee sectarian police commando units in Iraq that set up secret detention and torture centres to get information from insurgents. These units conducted some of the worst acts of torture during the US occupation and accelerated the country’s descent into full-scale civil war.

#irak

« La #musique comme instrument de #torture » | #documentaire de Tristan Chytroschek

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xwyjgj_la-musique-comme-instrument-de-torture_news

Quelques vieux mythes qui refont surface une fois ou deux, mais très intéressant. Notamment le fil directeur avec Christopher Cerf, compositeur de Sesame Street, consterné par un tel usage de sa musique - en cela bien différent de Bob Singleton, compositeur d’autres chansons pour enfants, qui trouvait que c’était ridicule de supposer que la musique puisse torturer qui que ce soit et qu’après tout, les militaires étaient bien libres d’en faire ce qu’ils voulaient. Le groupe Drowning Pool aussi, qui n’en sort pas bien grandi (si tant est qu’il y ait des fans parmi les habitants de seenthis-land).

#CIA #Guantanamo #Etats_Unis #armée #guerre #armes_acoustiques

Wilson and Plame: The whistleblowers who waited too long to blow the whistle — War in Context
http://warincontext.org/2013/02/27/wilson-and-plame-the-whistleblowers-who-waited-too-long-to-blow-the-wh

Ten years after Colin Powell lied to the UN Security Council to help start the war on Iraq, Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame recount some of the events that led to war, but the final line of their commentary is perhaps all they needed to say:

We did not do nearly enough to prevent this tragedy perpetrated on Iraq, on the world, and on ourselves.

On January 28, 2003, President Bush said: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

Joe Wilson knew at that time that Bush was lying, but he waited until July 6, 2003 before speaking out.

When Valerie Plame heard Powell lying to the UNSC she kept quiet. She didn’t want to lose her job at the CIA.

How many other careerists around Washington are there, who when their consciences told them to speak out, decided to put their material and professional interests first and remain silent — even when as a consequence, hundreds of thousands of people ended up losing their lives?

Torture and Obama’s Drone Program : The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/02/torture-and-obamas-drone-program.html

In some ways, what’s most disturbing about the Obama white paper is not that it tried to set limits in order to ensure that the drone program was within the laws of war. Rather, what seems more worrisome is what it didn’t attempt to figure out, and which no one else seems to be addressing either: namely, whether conventional laws of war should still apply to America’s unconventional counterterrorism program, particularly now that it is over a decade old, and is seemingly morphing into an endless worldwide lethal manhunt.

#drones #droit_international

Obama’s Turn in Bush’s Bind
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/world/obamas-turn-in-bushs-bind-with-defense-policies.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&page

Un article qui se focalise sur les similitudes et les différences entre Bush fils et Obama en matière de politique étrangère, avant que le problème de fond ne soit évoqué tout à fait en fin d’article sans être développé.

some national security specialists said questions about the limits of executive power to conduct war should not depend on the person in the Oval Office.

“That’s not how we make policy,” said Douglas Ollivant, a former national security aide under Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama and now a fellow at the New America Foundation. “We make policy assuming that people in power might abuse it. To do otherwise is foolish.”

» La carte de la honte|
Richard Hétu
http://blogues.lapresse.ca/hetu/2013/02/05/la-carte-de-la-honte
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2013/02/cia-rendition-map2.jpg

Le journaliste Max Fisher du Washington Post a réalisé la carte des 54 pays, dont le Canada, qui ont collaboré avec la CIA dans son programme de détention secrète et de torture de suspects de terrorisme après les attentats du 11 septembre 2001, selon un rapport de l’organisation Open Society Justice publié aujourd’hui.

Selon le rapport, le Canada est le seul à avoir présenté des excuses à une victime de ce programme, en l’occurrence Maher Arar.

#Tortures

Crackpot Pragmatism: Richard Cohen and Torture by Steve Breyman
http://original.antiwar.com/steve-breyman/2013/01/30/crackpot-pragmatism-richard-cohen-and-torture

It’s 2013 and Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen is still conflicted about torture. Why? The proximate cause is that he went to the movies, and saw “Zero Dark Thirty,” which impressed upon some viewers the efficacy of torture in unearthing the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. Cohen considers the movie “fantastic,” Oscar worthy “in the category of ‘thought-provoking.’” The fuller explanation is that Cohen is a crackpot pragmatist.

Le Figaro - Flash Actu : Israël : l’UE prépare un plan de paix
http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2013/01/13/97001-20130113FILWWW00041-israel-l-ue-prepare-un-plan-de-paix.php

L’Union européenne travaille sur un nouveau plan détaillé pour relancer le processus de paix israélo-palestinien, qu’elle envisage de présenter après les élections prévues en Israël le 22 janvier, rapporte le quotidien Yediot Aharonot. Citant des sources diplomatiques à Jérusalem, le journal israélien explique que ce plan prévoit « l’établissement d’un Etat palestinien sur la base des frontières de 1967 avec pour capitale Jérusalem-Est ». « Il comprendra vraisemblablement une demande de gel de toutes les constructions dans les colonies » juives.

Ce plan contiendra « un calendrier clair pour achever les négociations concernant toutes les questions fondamentales en 2013 », et devrait être présenté autour du mois de mars, ce qui donnera le temps à Israël de former un gouvernement après les élections. Selon le journal, cette initiative est parrainée par la France et la Grande-Bretagne, soutenue par l’Allemagne et pourrait être adoptée par toute l’Union européenne.

“““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““

« Feuille de route » pour la paix au Proche-Orient (30/04/2003)
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cahier/proche-orient/a10095