News Release Archive - 2015

Protecting National Security Whistleblowers: A New Program

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ExposeFacts, a project of the Institute for Public Accuracy, is pleased to announce the launch of a new Whistleblower and Source Protection Program (WHISPeR). WHISPeR makes ExposeFacts the first journalistic organization to house a program dedicated entirely to providing affordable legal representation to whistleblowers and sources. See video announcement.

To head WHISPeR, ExposeFacts has brought in internationally renowned whistleblower and human rights attorney Jesselyn Radack  as National Security and Human Rights Director. Ms. Radack represents NSA whistleblowers Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake and William Binney, CIA torture whistleblower John Kiriakou and dozens of anonymous national security and intelligence whistleblowers and sources who have been fired, criminally investigated and punished for shedding light on government and corporate illegalities.

Ms. Radack will be joined by National Security and Human Rights Deputy Director Kathleen McClellan, whose decade-plus of legal experience advocating for civil liberties and human rights reforms provides invaluable expertise and support.

Launched by the Institute for Public Accuracy in 2014, ExposeFacts promotes whistleblowing with a unique blend of independent journalism, methodical organizing and public outreach. Institute for Public Accuracy Executive Director Norman Solomon said:

“The government’s unprecedented crackdown on ‘national security’ whistleblowers using the Espionage Act has created a chilling atmosphere for sources and journalists, giving rise to a larger war on information that the public has a right to know. At ExposeFacts, our message from the beginning has been, ‘whistleblowers welcome.’ With the launch of WHISPeR, headed by the unmatched legal powerhouse Jesselyn Radack, ExposeFacts can now provide affordable top-notch legal representation directly to some whistleblowers and sources.”

WHISPeR National Security and Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack said: “ExposeFacts is a cutting-edge initiative already recognizing the need for better source protection and making a tremendous positive impact for whistleblowers and investigative journalism. At WHISPeR, we provide journalists, sources, whistleblowers, and hacktivists with critical affordable legal protection, public advocacy, and the latest in encryption technology. It takes courageous individuals to speak truth to power. WHISPeR protects and amplifies their voices.”

For more information, contact at ExposeFacts:
Jesselyn Radack, jess at exposefacts.org
Kathleen McClellan, kathleen at exposefacts.org
Sam Husseini, sam at exposefacts.org

After Paris: What Needs to Be Changed? * Interventions * Saudi

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Aftermath of alleged coalition strike on Mosul May 21 2015 (via Mosul Atek)

President Obama, speaking from Turkey Monday claimed: “What’s been interesting is, in the aftermath of Paris, as listened to those who suggest something-else-needs-to-be-done, typically, the things they suggest-need-to-be-done are things we’re already doing. The one exception is there have been a few who suggested we put large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground.” [Video at 3:15.] But these analysts give critical background, some pointing to continuing Western interventions and support for Saudi Arabia as major problems fueling the spiral of violence:

CHRIS WOODS, freelance.woods at gmail.com, @chrisjwoods
Woods is with airwars.org, which monitors “the international coalition’s airstrikes against Islamic State (Daesh) in Iraq and Syria.” While many are calling for more bombing of Syria in the past 466 days the group has documented that there have been over 2,800 strikes in Syria and another 5,300 in Iraq.

JAMES PAUL, james.paul.nyc at gmail.com
Author of Syria Unmasked, Paul was executive director of Global Policy Forum, a think tank that monitors the UN, for nearly 20 years. He was also a longtime editor of the Oxford Companion to Politics of the World and executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project. He just wrote the piece “Grasping the Motives for Terror,” for Consortium News which states: “In 2003, the U.S. (in partnership with the United Kingdom) attacked Iraq, seeking regime change from the former ally Saddam Hussein. Washington stayed for eight years until 2011, creating fiendish Islamic militias as part of a vicious counter-insurgency program created by much-admired U.S. General David Petraeus and later turned into doctrine at the Harvard Kennedy School.

“There was round-the-clock bombing, huge prison camps, torture and ongoing military operations throughout the country, leading to a tremendous loss of life among Iraqis (more than a million perished) and complete destabilization of the country.

“In 2011, the U.S. and various allies intervened again, this time in Libya, using air strikes and special operations forces to produce  another ‘regime change.’ The CIA and its Persian Gulf friends armed Islamic militias opposed to the Gaddafi government, while U.S. and allied air forces bombed the capital and other cities, overthrowing the government and creating internal violence and political chaos that continues down to the present.

“In short order, Washington again intervened in Syria — in yet another ‘regime change’ project. A peaceful Arab Spring protest was transformed by the Western powers and their regional allies as they armed and financed rebel groups (including Islamic groups). Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and other regional allies had a hand in the conflict. …

“The evidence is clear. Decades of violent Western policies in the Middle East have caused state collapse, political chaos, civil war and immense human suffering. These policies must change if the terror threat is to decline and the peoples of the region are to enjoy a decent life again.”

ALI AL-AHMED, alialahmedx at gmail.com, @AliAlAhmed_en
The French interior minister stated Sunday he would start the “dissolution of mosques where hate is preached.” Al-Ahmed is director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, which just released a report on “the Saudi government school in Paris and the content of its schoolbooks that promote terrorism and hatred.” He said today: “The solution for this tragedy is not to go around shutting down mosques in France. A huge problem has been the support and weapons the Saudi regime has gotten from France, the U.S. and other countries. Virtually no major political figure in the U.S. has spoken out about this. During the Democratic debate on Saturday, Hillary Clinton said: ‘Turkey and the Gulf nations have got to make up their minds. Are they going to stand with us against this kind of jihadi radicalism or not?’ which was somewhat interesting given how compromised she is by money she’s taken from despotic Saudi and GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] monarchies. Bernie Sanders called on the Saudis to get even more involved in Syria — that they should ‘get their hands dirty.’ The Saudis have through a variety of means fueled the tragedy in Syria and are now bombing Yemen, killing thousands. Their hands are plenty dirty and it’s past time to address that.” See: “France: Saudi Arabia’s New Arms Dealer.”

DAN LAZARE, dhlazare at aol.com
Lazare, author of numerous books including The Frozen Republic, just wrote the piece “How Saudi/Gulf Money Fuels Terror” for Consortium News, which states: “In the wake of the latest terrorist outrage in Paris, the big question is not which specific group is responsible for the attack, but who’s responsible for the Islamic State and Al Qaeda in the first place. The answer that has grown increasingly clear in recent years is that it’s Western leaders who have used growing portions of the Muslim world as a playground for their military games and are now crying crocodile tears over the consequences.

“This pattern had its beginnings in the 1980s in Afghanistan, where the Central Intelligence Agency and the Saudi royal family virtually invented modern jihadism in an effort to subject the Soviets to a Vietnam-style war in their own backyard. It was the case, too, in Iraq, which the United States and Great Britain invaded in 2003, triggering a vicious civil warfare between Shi‘ites and Sunnis. …

“In December 2009, Hillary Clinton noted in a confidential diplomatic memo that ‘donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.’ In October 2014, Joe Biden told students at Harvard’s Kennedy School that ‘the Saudis, the emirates, etc. … were so determined to take down [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war … [that] they poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of military weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad- except the people who were being supplied were Al Nusra and Al Qaeda.’ …

“In April 2003, Philip Zelikow, the 9/11 commission’s neocon executive director, fired an investigator, Dana Leseman, when she proved too vigorous in probing the Saudi connection. [See Philip Shenon, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation (New York: Twelve, 2008), pp. 110-13.]

“Strangest of all is what has happened to a 28-page chapter in an earlier joint congressional report dealing with the question of the Saudi complicity. While the report as a whole was heavily redacted, the chapter itself wound up entirely suppressed. Although Obama promised 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser shortly after taking office to see to it that it was made public, it remains under wraps.”

Syria and Climate Change: Does Global Warming Fuel Conflict?

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At the Democratic Party debate on Saturday night, Sen. Bernie Sanders was asked: “You said you want to rid the planet of ISIS. In the previous debate you said the greatest threat to national security is climate change. Do you still believe that?”

“‘Absolutely,’ Sen. Sanders replied. ‘Climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism and if we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say, you’re going to see countries all over the world, this is what the CIA says, they’re going to be struggling over limited amounts of water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops and you’re going to see all kinds of international conflict. …” [video]

EcoWatch reports: “Climate change will take center stage in Paris at the COP21 climate talks from Nov. 30 – Dec. 11.” See accuracy.org/calendar for upcoming events.

See new piece in TIME magazine: “Drought in Syria Has Contributed to Instability,” which states that while Sanders’ “plea attracted ridicule across the political spectrum, many academics and national security experts agree that climate change contributes to an uncertain world where terrorism can thrive. … A 2014 Department of Defense report identifies climate change as the root of government instability that leads to widespread migration, damages infrastructure and leads to the spread of disease. ‘These gaps in governance can create an avenue for extremist ideologies and conditions that foster terrorism,’ the report says.”

CHRISTIAN PARENTI, christian_parenti at yahoo.com
Parenti is author of Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence. He said today: “The growing crisis of war and state breakdown in the Middle East is partially driven by climate change. We have to deal with climate change — that is, drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions — or face escalating chaos.”

Parenti is professor in the global liberal studies program at New York University. He has reported from conflict zones in the Middle East and studies the history of political violence.

He said U.S. policies “have repeatedly created failed states” in countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.

“Trying to overthrow [Syrian leader Bashar] Assad is a very bad idea. Assad is admittedly a dictator who inherited a state from his father but he is doing more than anyone to fight ISIS. Seeking his violent overthrow, as has been U.S. policy, is to court further disaster and a wider swath of misery.”

In an interview published earlier this year, “Climate Change, Militarism, Neoliberalism and the State,” Parenti stated: “Syria is a prime example. There has been a terrible drought there, which coincided with austerity measures imposed by the Assad government cutting aid to Sunni farmers. Many of them were forced to leave the land, partly due to drought, partly due to the lack of support to properly deal with the drought. Then, they arrive in cities, and there’s more austerity taking place. This is experienced as oppression by the Alawite elite against an increasingly impoverished Sunni proletariat who’ve been thrown off their land.

“This situation then explodes as religious conflict, which is really the fusion of environmental crises with neoliberal economic policies. Of course, the violent spark to all of this is the fact that the entire region is flooded with weapons. Some of these weapons are from the Cold War, and some of those guns are from recent U.S. militarism in the region. There were a lot of vets of the anti-U.S. struggle in Iraq who are Syrian — Mujahideen veterans who went to Iraq and came back to Syria and started to fight. There were Syrians who were selling guns to Iraqi underground groups. These groups were buying their guns back, and re-importing them to Syria.”

After Paris: Is the “War on Terror” Feeding Terror?

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ABC News reports: “French President Francois Hollande is blaming ISIS for a series of attacks across Paris Friday night that left at least 127 dead and many more injured. Hollande called the attacks ‘an act of war’ in a speech Saturday morning local time, and said France ‘will be merciless’ against the ‘barbarians of the Islamic State group.'”

NAFEEZ AHMED, iprdoffice at gmail.com, @NafeezAhmed
An independent investigative reporter, Ahmed is a columnist with Middle East Eye. His books include A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization. He will be attending the “Vigil in Solidarity with the People of Paris” tonight in London, organized by the Christian Muslim Forum.

Earlier this year, he wrote the piece “No Piers Morgan. This is how to destroy the Islamic State,” which states: “Uncontrollable rage and ritual denunciations are not going to defeat IS. To defeat IS, we need to recognize that this Frankenstein’s monster is neither simply a fault of ‘the West,’ nor of ‘the Muslims.’ It is a co-creation of the Western and Muslim worlds, specifically of Western and Muslim ‘security’ agencies who have lost all moral compass in the pursuit of geopolitical prowess, self-aggrandizement and corporate profiteering. Citizens of all faiths and none must stand together in solidarity to reject the violence perpetrated in our name on all sides.”

BARRY LANDO, barrylando at gmail.com
Lando, who lives in London and Paris, is a former producer with “60 Minutes.” His books include Web of Deceit about the history of Iraq. He has written for numerous publications including the International Herald Tribune, Salon, Counterpunch and Truthdig. He just wrote the piece “France is on the Verge of … What?” which states: “‘Is France Ripe for an Authoritarian Regime?‘ What is remarkable about that op-ed piece in the conservative Le Figaro newspaper, is that it was written not in the wake of today’s horrific terrorist attacks in Paris — but the day before. As I write, it is still unclear how many have been killed in the French capital — the reported total has reached at least 140 — but there is no question that the massacre could have a devastating impact on France’s already very shaky democratic institutions.” Lando lived in France for nearly 40 years and his wife is French.

VIJAY PRASHAD, Vijay.Prashad at trincoll.edu, @vijayprashad
Prashad is professor of international studies at Trinity College in Connecticut. He was just on The Real News just before the Paris attacks talking about the recent Beirut and Baghdad attacks: “Is the ISIS Bombing in Beirut a Product of U.S. Policy in the Region?

On Twitter, he just listed “six terror lessons for Hollande,” which are being widely distributed on social media in graphic form:

“1. Grieve for those who have been killed. #terrorlessons no. 1.
2. Find out who did the killing through a forensic police inquiry. Bring them to justice. #terrorlessons no. 2.
3. Try to get to the root of the issue, to what provoked the inhumanity. #terrorlessons no. 3.
4. Erase the conditions of provocation. #terrorlessons no. 4.
5. Do not replicate provocation. #terrorlessons no. 5.
6. If you replicate the provocation (The Bush Strategy), the cycle of violence shall continue. #terrorlessons no. 6.”

PAUL GOTTINGER, paul.gottinger at gmail.com, @paulgottinger
Gottinger is an independent journalist. He recently wrote an analysis of the”war on terror”: “Despite 14 Years of the U.S. War on Terror, Terror Attacks Have Skyrocketed Since 9/11,” which states: “Terror attacks have jumped by a stunning 6,500 percent since 2002, according to a new analysis by Reader Supported News. The number of casualties resulting from terror attacks has increased by 4,500 percent over this same time period. These colossal upsurges in terror took place despite a decade-long, worldwide effort to fight terrorism that has been led by the United States.

“The analysis, conducted with figures provided by the U.S. State Department, also shows that from 2007 to 2011 almost half of all the world’s terror took place in Iraq or Afghanistan — two countries being occupied by the U.S. at the time.”Countries experiencing U.S. military interventions continue to be subjected to high numbers of terror attacks, according to the data. In 2014, 74 percent of all terror-related casualties occurred in Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Syria. Of these five, only Nigeria did not experience either U.S. air strikes or a military occupation in that year.

“The U.S. invasion of Iraq destabilized Iraq and Syria, creating the conditions for the emergence of ISIS, which now controls large parts of the two countries. The invasion of Afghanistan has not been able to wrestle large sections of the country from the Taliban, leaving Afghanistan in state of perpetual war. And the air war to oust Muammar Gaddafi has left Libya in a state of chaos.

“The instability caused by these wars, along with the atrocities perpetrated by U.S.-led forces, which can be exploited for terrorist recruitment, have played a significant role in the increase of terrorism worldwide.”

From Beirut After Bombing: “We are Not Numbers”

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Middle East Eye reports: “Beirut was left reeling on Thursday after two suicide blasts ripped through the Burj al-Barajneh neighbourhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

“At least 37 people have been killed, and 180 more injured, the Lebanese Red Cross said although the figures could yet rise further.

“The attack, which has been claimed by the Islamic State group, was the deadliest to hit Lebanon’s capital since the end of the civil war 25 years ago and comes after a period of relative calm. The last incident in Beirut happened last June when a suicide bomber blew himself up after police attempted to raid his Beirut hotel.”

RANIA MASRI, rania.z.masri at gmail.com, @rania_masri
Masri is an activist in Beirut. She said today: “We are not numbers. I say this as I remember the 43 people killed and the 239 wounded in this terrorist attack on a neighborhood. We are not numbers.

“Among dead and injured are books/backpacks belonging to schoolchildren. …

“Terrorists blow up civilians in ‎Syria‬ and ‎Lebanon‬ and some media tacitly justify it, calling their homes ‘strongholds.'” For example, NPR states: “Suicide Bombing Kills At Least 37 In Hezbollah Stronghold Of Southern Beirut.”

As’ad AbuKhalil writes: “This Al-Qa`idah supporter doubles as a correspondent of Al-Jazeera (he was for years in Pakistan). Here he refers to the two terrorists who detonated bombs in the southern suburbs as ‘fida`iyyin’ [literally ‘those who sacrifice themselves’ or freedom fighters — historically has referred to Palestinian nationalists fighting Israel]. He also calls the bombing ‘professional.'”

Documents Expose FBI’s Targeting of School of the Americas Watch

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ENDRIK VOSS, hvoss at soaw.org
BILL QUIGLEY, quigley77 at gmail.com
MARA VERHEYDEN-HILLIARD, mvh at justiceonline.org
Voss is the national organizer for the School of the Americas Watch; Quigly is an attorney for the SOA Watch Legal Collective; Verheyden-Hilliard is the executive director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund. Today the School of Americas Watch (SOAW) released a statement:

“For at least a decade, the FBI, through local law enforcement, utilized counter-terrorism authority to conduct a widespread surveillance and monitoring operation of School of Americas Watch (SOAW), a nonviolent activist organization founded by pacifists working to close the School of the Americas, later renamed the Western Hemisphere for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).

“Each November, SOAW organizes peaceful vigils and protests in Fort Benning, Ga., where the U.S. Army trains Latin American military officials and dictators responsible for the massacres of opposition groups, the creation of torture centers, and many other known crimes against humanity. Training at the SOA has continued despite public knowledge of graduates engaging in extrajudicial executions and repressing social movements in countries like Chile, Colombia, Honduras, and Mexico.

“The lawyers from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund obtained the redacted documents from the FBI’s Field Office in Atlanta on behalf of SOA Watch. In the ten years of redacted documents, the FBI repeatedly admitted to SOAW’s ‘peaceful intentions.’ Regardless of this acknowledgement, the FBI continued to monitor for the potential of ‘more aggressive protest participants,’ ‘factions of a radical cell,’ and/or other pre-textual alarmist warnings to justify spying on protected First Amendment political activity.” You can read the FBI documents obtained by SOAW and a summary of them here. Also, see from Marcy Wheeler: “How to Make Peaceful Protestors of America’s Torture School Look Like Terrorists.”

The group added: “The uncovered documents show the bureau continued to deploy its Domestic Intelligence Terrorism Squad to monitor activity within the organization using confidential informants inside the movement to gather information. In addition, the FBI’s headquarters and counter-terrorism units were requested to provide the FBI’s Field Office in Atlanta with ‘all intelligence relevant to the SOA, so that this information can be provided to local/military law enforcement agencies.’ The vague, unspecified threat of future violence functioned as the annual excuse for the surveillance of peaceful dissent.”

Verheyden-Hilliard said today: “This unconscionable abuse by the FBI to use its counter-terrorism authority against peaceful political movements — from SOAW, to Occupy, to Black Lives Matter — makes it clear that the FBI cannot be its own watchdog, nor self-regulate. It is time for there to be legislatively enacted prohibitions on the FBI’s use of domestic terrorism authority against peaceful protest and First Amendment-protected free speech activities in the United States,”

SOAW added: “The FBI’s pattern of unwarranted surveillance, allusions to violence, and subsequent reports of peaceful activity continued for years. From 2000 through 2009, undercover agents and confidential informants consistently reported that SOAW-organized protests and vigils were ‘uneventful,’ ‘never expressed or exhibited a propensity for violence,’ and that ‘there has never been any significant incident of violence or widespread property damage.’ FOIA documents ultimately conclude that the demonstrations could comparatively be described as a ‘street festival.’ These documents once again reveal the true role of the FBI functioning as a political surveillance and intelligence operation that uses domestic terrorism authority against peaceful protesters and organizations.”

“SOAW activists from across the Americas are not intimidated, and will once again converge at Fort Benning, Georgia from November 20-22 to speak out against repressive U.S. policies, and to engage in nonviolent direct action (see SOAW.org/november).”

Fast Food Protests Today

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USA Today reports: “Fast-food workers demanding a $15 an hour wage walked out in dozens [of] cities at 6 a.m. Tuesday, kicking off a year-long campaign to muster the political power of 64 million low-wage workers in next year’s presidential election.”

The Real News reports: “Low-Wage Workers to Target Republican Debate in Milwaukee.”

ARUN GUPTA, arun.indypendent at gmail.com, @arunindy
Currently in Seattle, Gupta is an investigative journalist who has written for dozens of publications including the Washington Post, the GuardianThe Nation, and Salon. His reporting on Service Employees International Union’s fast-food worker organizing campaign include, “Fight for 15 confidential” and “Low-wage workers struggles are about much more than wages.”

He said today: “Since SEIU’s fast-food worker organizing campaign — often known as ‘Fight for 15′ — began in 2011, the union has set in motion thousands of workers, made the plight of the working poor a topic of national conversation, opened the door to related efforts like $15 Now, and turned a slogan into reality with $15 minimum-wage laws in Seattle, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and New York City. The protests are timed one year before the 2016 election. The Hill reports: “’The Fight for $15 has shown it can influence the politics around wages and the economy,’ Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress, said in a statement. ‘This movement is creating a new voting bloc that frankly has too often been ignored by the political process.'”

“But as evidenced by the 270 nationwide rallies intended to influence the 2016 election, Fight for 15 is more a march on the media than a worker organizing campaign. Interviews with dozens of workers and SEIU organizers have revealed workers have almost no input over the goals of the campaign, who is being organized, what is the strategy, or even when or how to protest. As opposed to claims by SEIU that Fight for 15 is a worker-led campaign, the strategy is designed and carried out by the union leadership as well as its P.R. firm, BerlinRosen, that has reportedly been paid tens of millions of dollars by SEIU.

“Practically, SEIU is not building a lasting movement. Without a bottom-up movement gains can erode quickly. In cities like Seattle skyrocketing housing costs are already outpacing most wage gains. A top-down media-driven strategy makes it difficult to address workplace issues that are not as dramatic as low wages, such as erratic schedules or lack of benefits. Broader problems of low-wage workers tend to be overshadowed as well, like long commutes, lack of childcare, substandard housing, poor public services and education, inadequate healthcare, and overpolicing.

“There’s also little historical evidence that ‘rallying’ for elections has much effect. What does change the political process are grassroots movements that disrupt workplaces, schools, and government through sit-ins, blockades, and strikes. This history is crucial to understanding both the nature of Fight for 15, and its potential for change.”

Netanyahu in D.C.

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With Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in the U.S., the following analysts are available for interviews:

Rev. GRAYLAN S. HAGLER,  gshagler at verizon.net
Hagler is with the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, D.C. Earlier this year, Hagler successfully helped worked towards the UCC Church passing a divestment and boycott resolution on Israel. Hagler today said: “It’s ironic that so many are focusing on Palestinian knives given the massive scale of Israeli attacks on Palestinians.” See: “Video: Israeli soldiers fire at car, killing elderly woman.”

South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu wrote to the UCC, urging passage of the resolution, writing that South Africans “recognize institutionalized racism when we see it. We have experienced the corrosive effects of segregation — and have witnessed the healing power and joy of reconciliation. … We grieve over Israel’s decades long oppression of Palestine and Palestinians: The illegal occupation; the expanding West Bank settlements; the separation wall; the siege of Gaza; the manipulation of water rights; the network of checkpoints and settler bypass roads; the detention of people without charges; the travel restrictions, identity cards, and disruption of every aspect of daily life for Palestinians.”

The neoconservative American Enterprise Institute will be giving Netanyahu an award this evening at the National Building Museum; Hagler will be among the protesters outside.

ZAID JILANI, Areo64 at gmail.com, @ZaidJilani
Last month, Jilani wrote the piece “Israel’s Netanyahu Makes One of the Most Absurd Claims About the Holocaust Imaginable.” He recently tweeted that Hillary Clinton “continues campaign to distance herself from Obama by giving Netanyahu a big kiss,” referring to recent statements by Clinton.

Glenn Greenwald recently wrote: “Leaked Emails From Pro-Clinton Group Reveal Censorship of Staff on Israel, AIPAC Pandering, Warped Militarism,” about the Center for American Progress. Jilani worked as a writer at CAP for a time and has followed the recent leaks closely.

What About the “Keystone XL Clone”?

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DAPHNE WYSHAM, daphne at sustainable-economy.org, @daphnewysham
In Portland, Oregon, Wysham is director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Center for Sustainable Economy. She said today: “The Pacific Northwest is facing the carbon equivalent of five Keystone XL pipelines in the form of coal, gas, and oil via rail and pipeline.”

STEVE HORN, steve at desmogblog.com@SteveAHorn
Horn is a writer for Desmogblog, which seeks to “clear the PR pollution that clouds climate science.” He is also a freelance investigative journalist whose work has appeared in Al Jazeera America, Vice News, TruthOut, CounterPunch magazine, Truthdig, AlterNet and other publications.

He said today: “While the Obama White House Keystone XL decision has been touted by most environmentalists and criticized by Big Oil and its front groups, the truth is much more complex and indeed, dirty. That’s because for years behind the scenes the Obama Administration has quietly been approving hundreds of miles-long pieces of pipeline owned by pipeline company goliath Enbridge, which I’ve called the ‘Keystone XL Clone‘ in my reporting.

“That pipeline system does the very same thing the rest of TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline system also already does, even without the northern leg of Keystone XL rejected by Obama: brings dirty, carbon-intensive Alberta tar sands oil across the heartland of the U.S. and down to the U.S. Gulf coast. This probably explains why Enbridge was so confident as to announce it would be spending $5 billion to build holding facilities down in the Gulf, just two days before the White House’s Keystone XL decision.

“We also cannot forget that Energy Transfer Partners is currently pushing forward a pipeline proposal called Dakota Access LLC that would do what Keystone XL’s northern leg sets out to do, but on steroids. That is, bring hundreds of thousands (as opposed to 100,000) barrels per day of oil obtained via hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale basin through the heartland and eventually down to the Gulf coast. Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm, who a year ago called Keystone XL North ‘irrelevant‘ and who was the one who originally lobbied for Keystone XL North to have a Bakken ‘on-ramp,’ for now, is laughing all the way to the bank.”

TPP and China: “It’s the Geopolitics Stupid”

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JOSEPH GERSON, JGerson at afsc.org
Director of programs for the American Friends Service Committee in New England, Gerson recently wrote the piece “More than Economics: TPP, Empire and Common Security Alternatives.”

He said today: “As we can read in the Asian press, ‘It’s the geopolitics stupid: U.S.-led TPP trade pact less about boosting economies than about containing China’s rise.’ The trade pact is the economic dimension of the United States’ military, economic, political and social ‘pivot’ to Asia and the Pacific, designed to contain China and to manage its rise regardless of Chinese interests and aspirations. It is worth noting that only five of the Treaty’s 29 chapters directly address trade.

“Two elements are central to the agreement: deepening the integration of non-Chinese Asia-Pacific economies with the United States, which in turn will serve to reinforce Washington’s campaign to reinforce and expand military alliances encircling China. Second, are the treaty’s provisions for the privatization of state-owned enterprises, the foundations of China’s economy and much of its political system. For Beijing to gain the advantages of deepening engagement with the TPP, whose nations produce 40 percent of world GDP, it would have to undergo an economic and political revolution.

“The best way to make China an enemy is to treat it as such, and we don’t need a new Cold War.

“As the South China Morning Post reports, ‘The pact will strengthen U.S. political and military leadership in the region,’ which will in turn spur the U.S.-Chinese arms race. That will increase the potential dangers of unanticipated military incidents between the two powers, for example in the geostrategically vital South China Sea. It will also result in the wasting of hundreds of billions of dollars and RMBs that should be devoted to achieving economic security and environmental sustainability for the peoples of both nations and the region.

“This zero-sum approach to U.S.-Chinese relations leads China to respond in kind. To counter TPP, China is pursuing a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and an APEC-based [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation] free trade agreement, both of which would exclude the United States. And in response the U.S. military build-up across the Asia-Pacific China is increasing its military spending and arsenals.

“Tensions between rising and declining powers are inevitable, but they can be transformed and overcome through common/shared security trade and military-related diplomacy. We would do well to learn from history and to pursue win-win diplomacy rather than self-defeating zero-sum challenges.”

See from WikiLeaks: “NSA intercepts EU and French diplomats who strongly criticize U.S. trade policies and call TPP treaty a confrontation against China.”