Notorious Abu Ghraib Prison Shut Down Over Security Concerns - Muftah
▻http://muftah.org/notorious-abu-ghraib-prison-shut-security-concerns
On Tuesday April 16th, the Iraqi government ordered the closure of Baghdad’s Central prison, formerly known as the infamous Abu Ghraib prison where first Saddam Hussein’s regime and then the U.S. military were known to torture their opponents, many of whom were held captive without trial.
#Iraq shuts infamous #Abu_Ghraib prison
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/iraq-shuts-infamous-abu-ghraib-prison
Iraq has closed Abu Ghraib prison, made infamous by Saddam Hussein’s regime and US occupation forces, due to security concerns following a mass breakout last year, the justice ministry said Tuesday. The country is suffering a protracted surge in violence that has claimed more than 2,550 lives so far this year, and the area west of Baghdad where the prison is located is particularly insecure. read more
السفير العربي : : عمر الجفال — الخمر في العراق : فتوى الجنرال وفتاوى المعمَّمين
▻http://arabi.assafir.com/article.asp?aid=1720
La longue descente aux enfers de l’Irak à travers les étapes successives de la prohibition de l’alcool, depuis Saddam Hussein à aujourd’hui. Fort instructif !
In The Darkness Of #Dick_Cheney
▻http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/mar/06/darkness-dick-cheney/?page=2
... we live still in Cheney’s world. All around us are the consequences of those decisions: in Fallujah, Iraq, where al-Qaeda-allied jihadis who were nowhere to be found in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq have just again seized control; in Syria, where Iraqi jihadists play a prominent part in the rebellion against the Assad regime; in Afghanistan, where the Taliban, largely ignored after 2002 in the rush to turn American attention to Saddam Hussein, are resurgent. And then there is the other side of the “war on terror,” the darker story that Cheney, five days after the September 11 attacks, was able to describe so precisely for the country during an interview on Meet the Press:
We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies…. That’s the world these folks operate in, and so it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.
The day after Cheney made these comments President Bush signed a secret document that, according to longtime CIA counsel John Rizzo, was the most comprehensive, most ambitious, most aggressive, and most risky Finding or MON [Memorandum of Notification] I was ever involved in. One short paragraph authorized the capture and detention of Al Qaeda terrorists, another authorized taking lethal action against them. The language was simple and stark…. We had filled the entire covert-action tool kit, including tools we had never before used.
This memorandum, as Rizzo remarks, “remains in effect to this day.” So too does Congress’s Authorization for the Use of Military Force that Bush signed the following day. More than a dozen years later these are the two pillars, secret and public, dark side and light, on which the unending “war on terror” still rests. Though we have become accustomed to President Obama telling us, as he most recently did in the State of the Union address, that “America must move off a permanent war footing,” these words have come to sound, in their repetition, less like the orders of a commander in chief than the pleas of one lonely man hoping to persuade.
#legs
clichés arabes
Morsi, dans sa « cage » d’accusation ("T’es qui toi ? demande-t-il au président du tribunal, tu sais à qui tu t’adresses ?"
A rapprocher (grillage et tenue blanche réglementaire) de cette image (août 2011)
Satellite images show the vulnerability of the Arab region to climate change
▻http://www.un-spider.org/about-us/news/satellite-images-show-vulnerability-arab-region-climate-change
#climat #changement_climatique #moyen_orient #eau #déforestation
J’ai travaillé sur cette question au cours de ma période PNUE, avec des géographes de l’université de Genève, en particulier Hassan Partow qui avait fait l’analyse ds images ; C’est une étude assez ancienne (début des années 2000), et il semble que depuis, les marais se soient réconstitués. Saddam Hussein avait asseché artificiellement ces marais pour faire plier les populations chiites du sud du pays.
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/z20rluuj6435sta/irak%20wetlands.png
Le rapport complet peut-être téléchargé là :
▻http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/1000/1716/meso2.pdf
The Mesopotamian marshlands : demise of an ecosystem. (Early warning and assessment technical report, 3)
by Hassan Partow ; United Nations Environment Programme. Division of Early Warning and Assessment.
Pour archive : l’intervention de Hassan Nasrallah sur OTV du 3 décembre : S.Nasrallah : Saudis Operate Azzam Brigades, Our Presence in Syria Will be Praised
▻http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?fromval=2&cid=14&frid=23&seccatid=14&eid=123771
His eminence noted that since the beginning, the Saudi Arabia dealt with Iran as an enemy and Saddam Hussein’s war on Iran was financed by the Saudis. Iraqi and Iranian peoples paid for that war as well as the Palestinian people and the Kuwaitis.
“Saudi war on Iran hasn’t stopped since 1979. The Saudi party doesn’t dare to launch direct war with anyone, but fights through proxies and pays for them in Syria, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon,” he said.
Hezbollah leader highlighted that the problem between the Saudi Arabia and Iran is fundamental, noting that Prince Al-Walid Bin Talal’s speech does not express the Sunni view. Saudis problem with Iran is not sectarian because they had problems with Egypt, Yemen and Syria before. Those countries do not adopt the Shiite sect.
“The Saudi Arabia does not accept any partner. It wants to make all Arab countries subordinate to it.”
He also pointed out that “the Saudi intelligence is behind many of the bombings in Iraq, and operates some branches of al-Qaeda,” expressing beliefs that the Abdullah Azzam Brigades are actually standing behind the bombing of the Iranian embassy in Beirut two weeks ago, revealing that Saudi Arabia supports such groups.
Fair Game (2010) : une proie pas si facile
▻http://www.lecinemaestpolitique.fr/fair-game-2010-une-proie-pas-si-facile
Le 28 janvier 2003, George W. Bush alors Président des Etats-Unis donnait son discours annuel sur l’état de l’Union devant la Chambre des représentants et le Sénat [1]. « The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase […]
Hassan Rohani à l’ONU : une nouvelle rhétorique empreinte de prudence | Nouvelles d’Iran
▻http://keyhani.blog.lemonde.fr/2013/09/25/que-signifie-le-discours-de-hassan-rohani-a-lonu
S’il faut retenir un seul enseignement du premier discours du président iranien, Hassan Rohani, devant l’Assemblée générale des Nations unies, mardi 24 septembre, c’est qu’il a avant tout cherché à ne pas s’attirer les foudres des plus conservateurs en Iran, d’où ses nombreuses critiques faites à l’Occident et particulièrement aux Etats-Unis et leur politique de « l a guerre froide ».
On sent bien toute la sympathie de « la rédaction du Monde » pour l’Iran…
Hassan Rohani a également écarté cette théorie selon laquelle l’Iran représenterait une vraie « menace ». Selon le président iranien, cette « menace imaginaire » a été « développée et maintenue pour faire oublier une longue liste de crimes pendant les trois dernières décennies », dont celles d’" avoir donné à Saddam Hussein des armes chimiques « et d’ » avoir soutenu les talibans et les membres d’Al-Qaida ".
(…)
Dans une autre attaque contre l’Occident et notamment contre les Etats-Unis, M. Rohani a condamné l’utilisation des drones contre les innocents et aussi "l’assassinat des scientifiques nucléaires iraniens ", que Téhéran impute à des iraniens, formés en Israël.
Mais où va-t-il chercher tout ça ?
On sent bien, aussi, que la rédaction du Monde regrette déjà Ahmadinejad…
Quelles différences avec son prédécesseur, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ?
Peu après sa première élection en 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad s’était prononcé devant l’Assemblée générale des Nations unies. Pendant ce discours, il avait fustigé les Etats-Unis et également le fonctionnement de l’ONU. La question nucléaire iranienne avait été au centre de ses propos.
(…)
Pour son dernier discours, en septembre 2012, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad avait adopté un ton plutôt prophétique, annonçant un « printemps » pour toutes les nations, faisant manifestement allusion au retour du douzième imam chiite, l’imam Mehdi.
British PM cites Holocaust as a reason for military action in Syria
Haaretz Sep. 17, 2013
Ils sont devenus fous ! L’holocauste comme justification des interventions étrangères. Pour Guy Mollet, dirigeant socialiste français en 1956, Nasser était un Hitler au petit pied ; ensuite se sont succédé les Hitler (Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Bachar Al-Assad). Une manipulation de l’histoire et des leçons à tirer du génocide des juifs.
▻http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.547603
British Prime Minister David Cameron said he will establish a national commission to ensure that Britain has a “permanent and fitting” Holocaust memorial.
On Monday, speaking at a dinner marking the Holocaust Educational Trust’s 25th anniversary, Cameron said he would personally chair the first session of the commission.
“At a time when anti-Semitism is returning in some parts of mainland Europe, it is more important than ever that as a whole country, we do everything possible to make sure that the memory of the Holocaust is preserved from generation to generation,” he said.
Cameron cited the legacy of the Holocaust as a reason he had pushed for military action in Syria, although he lost a crucial parliamentary vote in late August authorizing an intervention. He suggested that those who opposed him would come to feel “shame.”
“It’s an extraordinary human emotion, but somehow when genocide is taking place, the shame of not acting sometimes doesn’t quite register properly until afterwards,” he said.
“When we look back at Srebrenica and Rwanda, we wonder now why we didn’t do more at the time. When something truly terrible happens, it’s as if we put up a defense mechanism and try and rationalize why we are powerless to act. The same could so easily be true of Syria.”
Archives - Irak / 11 septembre
L’incroyable histoire du mensonge qui a permis la guerre en Irak
▻http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/l-enquete-de-l-obs/20130308.OBS1260/l-incroyable-histoire-du-mensonge-qui-a-permis-la-guerre-en-ira
C’est le plus grand mensonge de l’histoire de l’espionnage - le plus meurtrier aussi. Une mystification imaginée par un quidam qui a servi de prétexte principal à l’invasion de l’Irak, il y a dix ans. Cette extraordinaire affaire est apparue au grand jour le 5 février 2003, à l’ONU.
Ce soir-là, dans un discours resté célèbre, le secrétaire d’Etat américain, Colin Powell, lançait au monde : « Il ne peut faire aucun doute que Saddam Hussein a des armes biologiques » et « qu’il a la capacité d’en produire rapidement d’autres » en nombre suffisant pour « tuer des centaines de milliers de personnes ». Comment ? Grâce à des « laboratoires mobiles » clandestins qui fabriquent des agents atroces tels la « peste, la gangrène gazeuse, le bacille du charbon ou le virus de la variole ». Sûr de son fait, le puissant Américain ajoute : « Nous avons une description de première main » de ces installations de la mort. Du moins, le croit-il.
« Pétrole contre nourriture » : qui jugera les responsables de la destruction de l’Irak ? - Les blogs du Diplo
►http://blog.mondediplo.net/2013-01-23-Petrole-contre-nourriture-qui-jugera-les
Irak, Guantanamo, etc : pourquoi Bush & Obama ne seront sans doute jamais jugés ▻http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/monde/20120525.OBS6558/torture-pourquoi-bush-ne-sera-t-il-sans-doute-jamais-juge.html
Irak : 10 ans après la guerre, Blix appelle à ne pas répéter l’erreur en Iran
▻http://www.lexpress.fr/actualites/1/monde/irak-10-ans-apres-la-guerre-blix-appelle-a-ne-pas-repeter-l-erreur-en-iran_
« Le monde a la mémoire courte. L’échec et les erreurs tragiques commises en Irak ne sont pas pris suffisamment au sérieux », déclare l’ancien diplomate suédois âgé de 82 ans à un groupe restreint de journalistes, dont celle de l’AFP, lors d’un passage à Dubaï.
« Dans le cas de l’Irak, il y a eu une tentative de la part de certains pays d’éradiquer des armes de destruction massive qui n’existaient pas. Aujourd’hui, on parle de s’en prendre à l’Iran, pour éradiquer des intentions qui n’existent peut-être pas. J’espère que cela n’arrivera pas », ajoute-t-il.
Ancien ministre suédois des Affaires étrangères, Hans Blix avait dirigé de 1981 à 1987 l’Agence internationale de l’énergie atomique (AIEA) et été nommé en janvier 2000 directeur exécutif de la Commission de contrôle, de vérification et d’inspection (COCOVINU).
Les inspecteurs des Nations unies chargés de rechercher la présence d’armes de destruction massive avaient travaillé sous sa direction entre fin 2002 et début 2003 en Irak, sans rien trouver.
M. Blix s’était opposé à l’intervention militaire contre ce pays, qui a été déclenchée le 20 mars 2003 par l’ancien président américain américain George W Bush et l’ex-Premier ministre britannique Tony Blair au nom des armes de destruction massive qu’était censé détenir Saddam Hussein.
Auteur, après la guerre, du livre « Irak, les armes introuvables », il avait plaidé jusqu’au bout pour la poursuite des inspections.
La Maison Blanche avait dépêché après l’invasion de l’Irak une équipe 1.000 inspecteurs chargés de fouiller le pays, qui n’avaient pas trouvé non plus d’armes prohibées.
#11septembre #9/11 #11/9
Md. Rep. Chris Van Hollen speaks from 1988 Iraq gas experience in backing Syrian strike - The Washington Post
▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-rep-chris-van-hollen-speaks-from-1988-iraq-gas-experience-in-backing-syrian-strike/2013/09/07/1544cb92-174c-11e3-804b-d3a1a3a18f2c_story.html?hpid=z2
“I have always found it cruelly ironic that the United States and the world did nothing when Saddam Hussein actually used chemical weapons against his people, and then wrongly went to war more than 15 years later when Saddam Hussein did not even have any chemical weapons,” Van Hollen said.
Today, Van Hollen wants to make sure Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad doesn’t escape punishment as Saddam did in 1988. He is helping to lead the effort to round up congressional support to authorize President Obama to carry out air and missile strikes to deter Syria — and others — from using poison gas again.
(...)
Even Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler refrained from using chemical weapons on the battlefield.
“I’m well aware of the argument that this was a bloody civil war in which over 100,000 people have already been killed. Some people ask, ‘What’s the difference?’ ” Van Hollen said.
“But there is a reason that the international community for almost 90 years has banned the use of poison gas. That’s because it’s a weapon of mass destruction that kills indiscriminately,” he said.
He noted that last month’s gas attack killed more people at one time than any other assaults during the Syrian fighting.
(...)
“I strongly believe that if the United States and the international community had taken some action [in 1988], then it would have reined in Saddam Hussein early on, that the failure to act emboldened Saddam Hussein to take reckless action, including the invasion of Kuwait,” Van Hollen said.
La moraline dégouline, l’Élysée s’en ripoline
▻http://www.dedefensa.org/article-la_moraline_d_gouline_l_lys_e_s_en_ripoline_07_09_2013.html
Article du 7 septembre 2013 – contribution de Badia Benjelloun
Lors d’une conférence de presse tenue en marge du G20, l’homme qui parle au nom de la France a énoncé un propos qui mérite d’être pris au mot. Il évoquait une coalition des nations européennes forcément vertueuses contre l’innommable :
« Sinon une large coalition devra se former, se forme en ce moment même, pour rassembler tous les pays qui n’acceptent pas qu’un pays, qu’un régime puisse utiliser des armes chimiques » (2)
Coup sur coup, des documents déclassifiés de la CIA confirment sa responsabilité dans l’organisation du coup d’État contre le gouvernement iranien de Mossadegh en 1953, prélude à un régime dictatorial asservi aux intérêts étasuniens, et l’implication des autorités étasuniennes dans la fourniture des armes chimiques à Saddam Hussein qui ont permis le gazage de l’armée iranienne et de ses opposants à Halabja en 1988. On estime à plus de 180 000 morts l’exécution du programme de destruction des villages kurdes par Saddam Hussein avec l’assistance des US(a).
Nous espérons que François Hollande et son Ministre des Affaires Étrangères qui se prend abusivement pour un Ministre de la Guerre, renseignés tous deux officiellement sur l’origine des gaz livrés à Saddam pour ses tueries, déploieront des efforts punitifs proportionnels au désastre humain occasionné contre le pays responsable de la livraison.
De même, ils doivent sanctionner avec la plus extrême des sévérités l’usage avéré de plusieurs tonnes d’uranium appauvri en isotope 235 et enrichi en isotope 238 en 2003 en Irak, particulièrement à Falloujah qui a de plus reçu des pluies de napalm.
Ils ne devront pas oublier dans leur comptabilité de moralistes une autre arme chimique prohibée, le phosphore blanc qui a abondamment arrosé la population palestinienne incarcérée dans la prison de Gaza en 2008-2009.
Israël ne s’en est pas caché. Il n’est nul besoin de se faire apporter des preuves par l’ONU, des films authentiques et le recensement des dégâts qu’aucun pervers ne songera à imputer à un autre responsable que l’armée d’occupation sioniste sont disponibles. Des rapports médicaux font état d’un nombre anormal de naissances d’enfant malformés dans les familles palestiniennes résidant dans des zones ayant reçu des impacts de missiles à l’uranium appauvri.
Quand ça commence comme ça, tu sais que la suite va être splendide :
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2013/09/05/la-syrie-et-le-spectre-de-l-irak_3471369_3232.html
Saddam Hussein doit savourer depuis la tombe une manière de revanche posthume.
Et ça ne rate pas, l’éditorial (#l'odeur_du_napalm) d’Alain Frachon se conclut par un tout aussi magnifique :
La parole d’Obama contre celle de Vladimir Poutine. Le choix est-il si difficile ?
John Kerry droit dans ses bottes en 2002 : The Democrats and Weapons of Mass Destruction
▻http://www.accuracy.org/release/375-the-democrats-and-weapons-of-mass-destruction
JOHN KERRY: “Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations don’t even try? … According to intelligence, Iraq has chemical and biological weapons … Iraq is developing unmanned aerial vehicles capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents…” (Oct. 9, 2002)
Kerry’s Judgement Questioned Because of Pro-War Vote
▻http://www.accuracy.org/release/kerrys-judgement-questioned-because-of-pro-war-vote
Professor of politics and chair of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco, Zunes said today: “John Kerry’s attacks on the International Court of Justice, his defense of Israeli occupation policies and human rights violations, and his support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq raise serious questions about his commitment to international law and treaty obligations. His false claims of Iraqi ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and his repeated denial of human rights abuses by allied government well-documented by reputable monitoring groups raise serious questions about his credibility. …
The NYPD Division of Un-American Activities
Has the NYPD’s Demographics Unit Stopped Any Terror Plots ? — New York Magazine
▻http://nymag.com/news/features/nypd-demographics-unit-2013-9/#print
Pire que la #surveillance de la #NSA, celle (toujours en cours malgré sa fracassante inefficacité) des #musulmans (et plus au passage) des #Etats-Unis par le #NYPD,
(...)
The activities [NYPD Ray] Kelly set in motion after 9/11 pushed deeply into the private lives of New Yorkers, surveilling Muslims in their mosques, their sporting fields, their businesses, their social clubs, even their homes in a way not seen in America since the FBI and CIA monitored antiwar activists during the Nixon administration. It was a proactive approach, but, in constitutional terms, a novel one.
To reinvent the Intelligence Division, Kelly called on David Cohen, a former senior CIA officer who was a year into a post-retirement stint with the Wall Street insurance giant American International Group. Kelly offered a rare opportunity not just to return to intelligence work but also to build something from scratch—in effect, the city’s own CIA.
(...)
Cohen eagerly accepted. Cohen didn’t come alone. To build his new program, Cohen wanted someone by his side with access to the most sensitive intelligence, someone who could play a role in day-to-day operations. With a phone call to Langley, Cohen persuaded CIA director George Tenet to lend him Larry Sanchez. Like Cohen, Sanchez was an analyst who’d come up through the ranks. Unlike Cohen, Sanchez still had a blue CIA badge and the privileges that came with it.
(...)
Cohen and Sanchez’s appointments represented a major shift in mind-set at the NYPD. Police are trained to uphold the law. By comparison, CIA officers are trained to subvert laws and operate undetected in places where the Constitution doesn’t apply. They are forbidden from doing this in America.
(...)
Sanchez told colleagues that he had borrowed the idea from Israeli methods of controlling the military-occupied West Bank, the swath of land captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. But the proposal ignored some important differences between the U.S. and Israel. Brooklyn and Queens, for instance, were not occupied territories or disputed land. There was no security wall being erected in New York City. And, where Muslims are concerned, no one would choose Israel as a model of civil liberties.
Nevertheless, Cohen liked the idea. (...)
(...)
Inside the NYPD, the document was regarded as a masterwork and the foundation for everything the department would build subsequently. It was part autobiography, part history, and part ideology. One senior NYPD official took to calling it Cohen’s Mein Kampf.
(...)
Most important for the secretly planned Demographics Unit, Haight ruled: “For the purpose of detecting or preventing terrorist activities, the NYPD is authorized to visit any place and attend any event that is open to the public on the same terms and conditions as members of the public generally.”
(...)
To accomplish their goals, however, Cohen and Sanchez needed to go far beyond what the FBI could do. (...)
Far from raising concerns about a police department taking it upon itself to reconsider constitutional rights, Congress enthusiastically embraced Cohen’s views.
(...)
About once a week, they filed reports on conversations they’d eavesdropped on. Nobody trained the rakers on what exactly qualified as suspicious, so they reported anything they heard. (...)
(...)
Surveillance turned out to be habit-forming. Cohen and Sanchez’s efforts also reached beyond the Muslim community. Undercover officers traveled the country, keeping tabs on liberal protest groups like Time’s Up and the Friends of Brad Will. Police infiltrated demonstrations and collected information about antiwar groups and those that marched against police brutality. (...)
(...)
Confirmation that the activities of the Demographics Unit went far beyond what federal agencies were permitted to do was provided by the FBI itself. Once, Sanchez tried to peddle the Demographics reports to the FBI. But when Bureau lawyers in New York learned about the reports, they refused. The Demographics detectives, the FBI concluded, were effectively acting as undercover officers, targeting businesses without cause and collecting information related to politics and religion. Accepting the NYPD’s reports would violate FBI rules.
Cohen told his officers the FBI had its rules and the NYPD had its own. He was no longer constrained by the politicians. The NYPD was governed by the City Council, which had effectively given Kelly carte blanche to run the department as he saw fit.
In the fall of 2005, a senior CIA officer named Margaret Henoch attended a briefing with Sanchez and other NYPD officials. The meeting was a wide-ranging discussion of the NYPD’s new capabilities, including its Demographics Unit.
Henoch had a reputation as a skeptic. During the run-up to the Iraq War, when CIA analysts concluded that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, they put a lot of stock in statements by an Iraqi defector code-named Curveball. (...)
She didn’t see how the Demographics reports could be used to draw conclusions. “I think this is a really impressive collection of what’s where, but I don’t understand how it helps you,” Henoch told the NYPD brass. If it was useful, she figured, maybe the CIA could replicate it. But she didn’t understand how collecting troves of information on local businesses and religious affiliations helped find terrorists.
She asked if there was some success story that summed up the program’s usefulness in its first two years. When she didn’t get an answer, she assumed that the NYPD was being coy with a potential rival. Even in the post-9/11 era, intelligence agencies often jealously guarded their secrets.
“I figured they were just lying to me,” Henoch recalled. It did not occur to her that there might not be any stories to tell.
(...)
“At the very least, we can eliminate this guy from our list if he’s not a terrorist,” (...) “And we can find out who the terrorists are. And that’s your job.”
The truth, though, was that raking didn’t eliminate anybody from a list. It just expanded the NYPD’s files. (...)
(...)
Because the rakers never received specialized training, their reports contained numerous errors. Sephardic Jews and Lebanese Christians were mistaken for Syrian Muslims.
The reports began looking the same (...). No matter how detailed, they never matured into criminal cases. If terrorist cells operated in New York, (...), why weren’t the police making arrests? That’s how they’d dismantled drug gangs in the Bronx. Gang members, like terrorists, were secretive, insular, and dangerous. (...)
(...)
Whatever the shortcomings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act oversight system, at least there is, theoretically, a check on the agency’s activities. But in New York City, for Muslim citizens and activists of many stripes, there is no such outside system meant to safeguard their privacy. The NYPD conducts its oversight in-house. City Hall doesn’t review intelligence programs the way Congress does. Courts can step in to settle questions about constitutionality, but only if somebody finds out about programs that are designed to remain secret forever.
In 2010, the Demographics Unit was renamed the Zone Assessment Unit over fears about how the title would be perceived if it leaked out. But *rakers still troll Muslim neighborhoods, filing an average of four new reports every day, searching for hot spots. The Muslim community is marbled with fear, afraid to speak openly because an informant could be lurking near.
Kelly is unapologetic. Like the department’s use of the tactic known as stop-and-frisk, raking is a tactic Kelly maintains is legal. He said the program is operating just as it always has. “Nothing” has changed, Kelly boasted to The Wall Street Journal earlier this year.
(...) [but] now, the lawyers [are] arguing that Kelly and Cohen, in their effort to keep the city safe, have crossed constitutional lines. Regardless of the outcome, the NYPD’s programs are likely to join waterboarding, secret prisons, and NSA wiretapping as emblems of post-9/11 America, when security justified many practices that would not have been tolerated before.
2012 : ▻http://www.rts.ch/info/monde/4214133-comment-new-york-espionne-ses-musulmans.html
Après plus de six ans de surveillance des quartiers musulmans de New York, d’écoutes et de fichage des mosquées, l’Unité secrète de démographie de la Police de New York (NYPD) n’a obtenu aucune piste ni de quoi déclencher une enquête terroriste.
Syria, Assad, and the History of Chemical Weapons : The New Yorker
▻http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/08/syria-assad-and-the-history-of-chemical-weapons.html
Un bon rappel,
One of the first tweets I saw about the news said that Syria now had its “Halabja”—a reference to the chemical-weapons attack on the insurgent Kurdish town of Halabja by Saddam Hussein’s military in 1988, which killed as many as five thousand civilians. At the time, Saddam was a tacit ally of the West, fighting a gruesomely bloody conflict against neighboring Iran, in an earlier version of the lethal Sunni-Shiite split which has now made Syria its central battleground. Saddam initially denied responsibility for Halabja, although it later emerged that his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid—or, as his enemies knew him, “Chemical Ali”—had carried it out, just as he had many other chemical attacks in the war from 1980 to 1988, in which as many as a million Iranians and Iraqis died. The reaction of the Reagan Administration, which had been providing Saddam’s military with information of the Iranian troop concentrations from AWACS surveillance in order to assist his missile-targeting against them, was initially to side with Saddam by suggesting that Iran had also used chemical weapons in the fighting. It was a shameful attempt at disinformation. Before long, when the facts of the attack became obvious, the U.S. position was amended.
The Halabja episode is an example of the nettlesome moral politics that arise whenever there are allegations of chemical-weapons use.
Voir aussi ▻http://seenthis.net/messages/142500
Ex-MI6 boss makes sensational threat to reveal secrets of Iraq dodgy dossier
▻http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2372119/Ex-MI6-boss-makes-sensational-threat-reveal-secrets-Iraq-dodgy-dossier.
A former head of MI6 has threatened to reveal explosive new details behind the ‘dodgy dossier’ scandal if he objects to the long-awaited findings of the Chilcot Inquiry into Britain’s role in the Iraq War.
Sir Richard Dearlove, 68, who provided intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) that was apparently ‘sexed up’ by Tony Blair’s Government, has spent the last year writing a detailed account of events leading up to the war.
Playing Politics With Religion - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/opinion/global/playing-politics-with-religion.html?_r=1
Par #OUSAMA_MAKDISI
The fact that Bashar al-Assad is an Alawite and that many of the leading military forces are controlled by Alawite officers is an obviously salient factor in exacerbating sectarian tensions in Syria. But the regime is not Alawite in any religious sense. Like the ostensibly “Sunni” regime of Saddam Hussein that long brutalized Iraq, it is essentially despotic.
(...)
The main characteristic of these regimes has not been sectarianism; they manipulate any division among their people to secure and keep power. By contrast, the dynasties of Saudi Arabia and Qatar reject religious pluralism as a matter of state ideology. Both countries have encouraged an extraordinary outpouring of sectarian incitement against the Shiites of the Arab world in a bid to retain absolute power and to undermine what they regard as their most formidable regional foe: Shiite Iran. Tehran has close ties to Damascus and is patron to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
But the intervention by Saudi Arabia and Qatar against the Assad regime is not necessarily for sectarian reasons. Rather, both monarchies have secular interests, namely preserving the region’s pro-Western petroleum order, which provides great benefits to the Saud and Thani regimes. To the extent that they are involved in a major struggle against Iran, they do so in explicit coordination with the United States.
Thus the sectarian dimension cannot and must not be isolated from the far more obvious and salient secular geopolitical one. It is politics that pushes sectarianism, that provides it with the enabling context, and that now encourages and legitimates the devastating violence across sectarian lines that is ravaging Syria and Iraq and Lebanon.
#instrumentalisation_du_religieux ressorts du #sectarisme #moyen_orient #géopolitique
Syrie. Armes chimiques (14 juin 2013)
L’utilisation de gaz sarin par Assad n’est qu’une “fabrication” selon le responsable de la commission des affaires internationales de la chambre basse du parlement russe
▻http://en.rian.ru/russia/20130614/181661349/US-Chemical-Weapons-Report-in-Syria-'Fabricated'--Russian-MP.html
Alexei Pushkov établit un lien entre les informations selon lesquelles Saddam Hussein détenait des armes de destruction massive et celles concernant l’utilisation de gaz sarin par le régime d’Assad. Dans les deux cas il s’agit de « fabrications » américaines. Il considère qu’Obama suit les traces de Bush junior.
Kurds who suffered Saddam Hussein chemical weapons attack accuse French suppliers
▻http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/kurds-who-suffered-saddam-hussein-chemical-weapons-attack-accuse-fren
Twenty survivors of Saddam Hussein’s deadly 1988 chemical weapons attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja have requested a judicial investigation of French suppliers, saying executives knew what they were sending to the Iraqi dictator.
Saddam ordered the poison gas strikes to crush a Kurdish rebellion, which was seen as aiding Iran in the final months of its war with Iraq; 5,000 people died.
Gavriel Mairone, a lawyer for the group that filed the complaint in France, said those who survived continue to suffer health problems and are demanding the weapons’ suppliers take responsibility.
Hassan Nasrallah, tout ça pour ça !
Il y a quelques mois seulement nous étions encore minoritaires à vouloir convaincre nos amis arabes et musulmans du péril de l’organisation terroriste dite « Hezbollah ».
Aujourd’hui, les premières photos et séquences vidéos qui nous viennent d’une ville en ruine, appelée Qousseir (centre-ouest), sont reçues par nos mêmes amis arabes et musulmans comme une gifle. Un sentiment amer de trahison, en découvrant le vrai visage confessionnel et obscurantiste de Nasrallah et de ses miliciens endoctrinés comme lui dans des Hawza de haine en Iran.
Cette vidéo qui fait le tour du monde arabe et musulman, montre des miliciens en train de scander des psaumes confessionnels en mettant un drapeau confessionnel sur le minaret de la mosquée Omar ibn al-Khattâb , dévoilant ouvertement l’objectif d’une intervention du Hezbollah : la haine confessionnelle.
J’avais tiré la sonnette d’alarme sur une telle dérive et un tel péril, le jour même de la pendaison barbare du regretté Saddam Hussein, un des rares chefs d’Etat arabes à avoir compris le péril et les desseins funestes des Ayatollahs iraniens. Ses lâches bourreaux avaient scandé les mêmes psaumes. Les mains liées, Saddam avait alors réagi dignement et lâché sa célèbre sentence « هي هاي المرجلة؟ » (Est-ce ça la bravoure ?).
هي هاي المرجلة يا حسن نصر الله؟
Est-ce ça la bravoure Hassan Nasrallah ?
Exploiter ainsi, lâchement et indignement, le martyre du petit-fils du prophète de l’islam, l’imam Hussein, est révoltant et répugnant. Honte à Ali Khamenei et Hassan Nasrallah. L’imam Hussein rassemblait et unifiait, alors que ces deux fanatiques divisent et détruisent.
La réponse du berger à la bergère ne tardera pas. Et l’imam Hussein sera satisfait de voir le monde musulman et l’Iran débarrassés du fanatisme et de l’obscurantisme des Ayatollahs.
Lire la suite ►http://chahidslimani.over-blog.com
▻http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1jMIu8i0nA&feature=player_embedded
شبيه صدام حسين يثير حماس المعتصمين أمام السفارة العراقية- فيديو « عمان نت
▻http://ar.ammannet.net/news/198213
شبيه صدام حسين يثير حماس المعتصمين أمام السفارة العراقية- فيديو
Rêve ou cauchemard ? Un sosie de Saddam Hussein suscite les passions à Amman sur fond de colère dans la population jordanienne contre les exactions des nervis de l’ambassade irakienne (du gouvernement Maliki) contre des avocats locaux, défensant les droits de l’homme. (Vidéo sur le lien.)
▻http://ar.ammannet.net/wp-content/plugins/magic-fields/thirdparty/phpthumb/phpThumb.php?src=http://ar.ammannet.net/wp-content/files_mf/1369158439Image81.jpg&w=300&h=220&iar=1
Irak : la sécurité dans le jeu des escrocs
►http://www.argotheme.com/organecyberpresse/spip.php?article1732
Le déchaînement de la violence islamiste sur fond ethnique, des sectes en plein déchirement, est le nouveau régime et climat que subissent les irakiens. Mais aussi la corruption et toutes les crises imaginables pour détériorer un pays et un peuple qui espèrent encore la démocratie. La chute de Saddam Hussein en Irak, sur de fausses accusations, fut la première démonstration de remise en ordre de systèmes républicains dans le monde arabe. Ce retour précurseur à l’alternance au pouvoir, ouvre la grande (...)
#Monde #international #politique #relations #diplomatie #affaires #Terrorisme #islamisme #AlQaeda #politique #MondeArabe #faitdivers #société #fléau #délinquance #religion
Une dé-dé-baathification en Irak ? ▻http://news.antiwar.com/2013/04/07/the-un-de-baathification-of-iraq
AFP: Iraq cabinet unveils sweeping reform of Saddam law
▻http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hWRP-VL2IqiUxeg0XUcH33waF0Iw?docId=CNG.0a12831fb7b4e57d3cb72580dd689b5
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s cabinet unveiled sweeping reforms to a law barring members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party from public life on Sunday as part of moves to placate angry rallies by the country’s Sunni Arab minority.
The amendment to the De-Baathification law still needs to be approved by parliament, where it is expected to face stiff opposition, but it is among a raft of concessions to demonstrators who have alleged that the Shiite-led authorities unfairly target the Sunni community.
The protests since December lie at the heart of a political dispute that has pitted Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who is Shiite, against several of his erstwhile national unity government partners with less than two weeks to go before provincial elections, Iraq’s first polls since 2010.
“This law (of De-Baathification) has excluded many talented people and prevented the country from (benefiting from) their services,” Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlak said in a statement summarising the reforms.
Ministers approved a draft amendment that would allow Baath party branch chiefs, or firqa-level members, to rejoin the civil service, and would provide for pension payments for many members of the Fedayeen Saddam, a paramilitary organisation loyal to the ousted dictator.
It would also put a time limit on the law, ensuring that only names blacklisted by the end of 2013 would be restricted from public life.
In all, the draft law would allow thousands of people to either enter the civil service or receive pensions.
“If you want to create a state, you need reconciliation,” said Mahmud Othman, an independent Kurdish MP opposed to the current De-Baathification laws which, he said, were “punishing the people” with links to Saddam’s regime.