MFS - The Other News

                   Morning  Posting.

• Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.

• Libya Live Blog - March 25. Here .(Al-Jazeera)And here (BBC). Latest here.

HT: The Big Picture - Libya: UN air strikes aid rebels - 33 pictures here.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world lots of seismic activity in Japan between 5.1 and 5.6 today. More info here.

• Updated : The wind directions over Japan. Here.

• Latest official Situation Update No. 59.On 25.03.2011 at 03:56 GMT+2
  
  A Japanese news report claims the nuclear power plant crisis in Fukushima prefecture is level 6 indicating a serious accident on the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale. Japanese news daily, Asahi Shinbun, reported Friday that the amount of iodine leaked from the power plant has reached almost thirty to 1-hundred-10 thousand tera Becquerel per hour. The Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 was categorized as level 7, the worst nuclear accident ever in history, while the one occurred on Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979 was recorded as a level 5 incident.Source .

• High radiation leak suggests damage to No. 3 reactor vessel: agency.A high-level radiation leak detected Thursday at one of six troubled reactors at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant indicates possible damage to the reactor's vessel, pipes or valves, the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Friday.Three workers at the No. 3 reactor's turbine building, connected to the reactor building, were exposed Thursday to water containing radioactive materials 10,000 times the normal level, with two of them taken to hospital due to possible radiation burns to their feet, the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.Hidehiko Nishiyama, spokesman for the governmental nuclear regulatory body, told a press conference, ''At present, our monitoring data suggest the (No. 3) reactor retains certain containment functions, but there is a good chance that the reactor has been damaged.''Nishiyama said the high-level radiation is suspected to have originated from the reactor, where overheating fuel rods are believed to have been partially melted, or a boiling pool that stores spent nuclear fuel, both of which are located in the reactor's building.Following the radiation exposure incident, the nuclear agency ordered the utility known as TEPCO to improve radiation management at the power station, where Japan's worst nuclear crisis is unfolding. The operator began removing the highly radioactive water from the site.The spokesman said further verification is needed to find out how the radioactive water reached the underground site. Huge volumes of water have been poured into the reactor and the pool in the No. 3 reactor building, which was substantially damaged by a hydrogen blast on March 14.The government, which has set the exclusion zone covering areas within a 20 kilometer radius of the Fukushima plant, on Friday encouraged residents within a 30 kilometer radius of the power station to voluntarily leave.Read the full story here.

• Miranda is Obama's latest victim.One of the central pledges of Barack Obama's campaign was that -- as he put it early in his presidency -- the Bush administration had gone wildly wrong because it "established an ad hoc legal approach for fighting terrorism that was neither effective nor sustainable -- a framework that failed to rely on our legal traditions and time-tested institutions; that failed to use our values as a compass." Instead, he implored, we must fight Terrorism only "with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process, in checks and balances and accountability." Thus, he thunderously vowed, "We must never -- ever -- turn our back on its enduring principles for expedience sake."The number of instances in which Obama has violently breached his own alleged principles when it comes to the War on Terror and the rule of law are too numerous to chronicle in one place. Suffice to say, it is no longer provocative or controversial when someone like Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin writes, as he did the other day, that Obama "has more or less systematically adopted policies consistent with the second term of the George W. Bush Administration." No rational person can argue that or even tries to any longer. It's just a banal expression of indisputable fact.Today, the Obama DOJ unveiled the latest -- and one of the most significant -- examples of its eagerness to assault the very legal values Obama vowed to protect. The Wall Street Journal reports that "new rules allow investigators to hold domestic-terror suspects longer than others without giving them a Miranda warning, significantly expanding exceptions to the instructions that have governed the handling of criminal suspects for more than four decades." The only previous exception to the 45-year-old Miranda requirement that someone in custody be apprised of their rights occurred in 1984, when the Rehnquist-led right-wing faction of the Supreme Court allowed delay "only in cases of an imminent safety threat," but these new rules promulgated by the Obama DOJ "give interrogators more latitude and flexibility to define what counts as an appropriate circumstance to waive Miranda rights."The right here is established by the Supreme Court as guaranteed by the Constitution, and the specific right in question -- not to have pre-Miranda statements admissible in court -- is one the administration cannot change and does not purport to. But the guidelines long in place for reading a detainee his rights were vital to preserving the Miranda framework -- for preventing abusive interrogations and coerced statements -- and it is this protection which the Obama DOJ is seriously diluting with such a permissive and discretionary standard.Worse, the administration tried but failed to convince Congress to modify it with legislation. But, as we well know, nothing deters a President's will: so they just went ahead and did it on their own. The very same political faction that spent the last decade decrying assertions of unconstrained executive power and the ignoring of Congressional will in the area of civil liberties is now its enthusiastic champion.When it comes to debates between Left and Right over the Constitution and due process, Miranda has always been viewed as one of the key defining issues. Richard Nixon was obsessed with demonizing the Warren Court for providing too many rights to the accused, and his attacks on Miranda were part of a decades-long war by the American Right on the constitutional liberties established over the last half-century. With a swoop of a pen -- more than 9 years removed from the 9/11 attacks -- Barack Obama has done more to erode Miranda than any right-wing politician could have dreamed of achieving.Hmmmm.....Anyone still believing in democracy?Welcome to 1939 Nazi Germany!The patriots will be the 2012 "Terrorists"!Read the full story here.

• HT:BarryRubin.Secretary of Defense Robert Gates Urges Syria Regime Overthrow Against White House Policy.As I’ve reported, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is horrified by White House policies in the Middle East. Indeed, he has an extra reason for being upset since it is his military forces that have to manage the Libyan mess while simultaneously fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while, on top of that, facing cutbacks and administration social engineering experiments in the armed forces.Just after visiting Egypt, Gates became the first administration official to call openly for the success of the Syrian opposition in overturning that dictatorship. Precisely, he urged the Syrian army to “empower a revolution” as happened in Egypt. His statement was made as demonstrations grow in parts of Syria. (If you want to know more about Syria, you might consider reading my book, The Truth About Syria.)Was he reflecting White House orders on this point? Possible but I doubt it. Let’s see if the president says anything about Syria. The White House did strongly condemn the Syrian government’s “brutal repression of demonstrations.” But that’s the kind of language routinely applied by it to lots of countries. Will anything about the U.S. conciliatory effort toward Damascus change? Senator John Kerry, chief appeaser of the Bashar al-Asad dictatorship, will no doubt go on doing so.Meanwhile, the administration is dumping another ally in Yemen, a country where few should be naïve enough to expect anything approaching democracy.As for Syria, can anyone tell us why the Syrian army will stand by the regime? Okay, I’ll do it. Syria is run by the Alawite minority who simply aren’t real Muslims but pretend to be Shia when that suits them. The Alawites know that a revolution would almost certainly produce an Islamist takeover and certainly a Sunni Muslim one. And such a regime would line a lot of the Alawites up against a wall and…bang, bang, bang.That’s a good incentive for shooting down unarmed demonstrators. Kill or be killed.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.

• County, DHS Officials Stage Mock Terror Excercise Featuring 'Anti-Immigration' Shooters.Local parents, citizens, and grassroots organizations in Treynor, IA, are expressing concern over the proposed scenario for a "domestic terrorism/school shooting" mock drill to be performed in a rural Iowa school district this weekend. The problem, they say, stems from the depiction of the shooting suspects as "anti-immigration, gun enthusiasts."In a document dated March 21, 2011, the Pottawattamie County Emergency Management Agency in conjunction with the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP), Pottawattamie county officials outlined their emergency response plan for a mock school shooting/terrorism exercise scheduled for Saturday, March 26, 2011, at Treynor Community Schools. The plan, Operation Closed Campus, is described as a full scale plan and exercise used to educate players in the proper response of a domestic terrorism or school shooting. Troublesome to parents and community members is the proposed scenario to be acted out by the students, staff, faculty members, and emergency response teams. The scenario details two white males, ages 17 and 18, with ties to anti-immigration groups and gun enthusiasts, opening fire on a group of minority students, hitting a Hispanic student. The scenario then develops into "full-scale chaos" with both white male suspects shooting indiscriminately.Students were sent home with permission slips to participate in the exercise. One parent whose daughter was slated to participate in the mock drill, after reading the proposed scenario, expressed concern over the scenario and its perceived anti-white, pro-illegal immigrant stance. He was told by the local EMS coordinator in charge that his daughter was no longer allowed to participate in the drill and that she nor her father were allowed to be on site on the day of the drill.Local grassroots organizations have actively begun to reach out to local authorities, legislators, and media outlets to express their concern that, as one community member says, "There has never been an incident such as the one they are manufacturing here in the State of Iowa or any other for that matter. This is highly politically motivated, racially inflammatory, and completely egregious."Operation Closed Campus's stated mission is to evaluate the emergency response processes in a "no-fault" setting. The exercise is slated to begin at 9am Central Time and run for four hours.Hmmmm.....At what stage of the 'excercise' do the 'Shutzstaffels' start shouting'Heil Obama'?Read the full story here.

• 'Kinetic military action' or 'war'?Police action, conflict, hostilities and now “kinetic military action.” They’re all euphemisms for that word that this White House and many before it have been so careful not to say: War. Administration officials told congressional aides in a closed briefing earlier this week that the United States is not at war with Libya, and Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes danced around the question in a Wednesday exchange with reporters aboard Air Force One.“I think what we are doing is enforcing a resolution that has a very clear set of goals, which is protecting the Libyan people, averting a humanitarian crisis, and setting up a no-fly zone,” Rhodes said. “Obviously that involves kinetic military action, particularly on the front end. But again, the nature of our commitment is that we are not getting into an open-ended war, a land invasion in Libya.” Those kind of verbal gymnastics to avoid calling a sustained bombing of a foreign country a “war” aren’t flying with members of Congress. “This is an act of war,” Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Ill.), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee told the Rockford Register Star. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), in a letter to the president on Wednesday, said that he was “troubled that U.S. military resources were committed to a war” without a clear goal — or the consent of Congress. So while a United States-led coalition hammers Libya with Tomahawk missiles and precision bombs in support of a rebel challenge to strongman Muammar Qadhafi, a shadow war over the semantics of armed conflict has erupted in the domestic political debate. There’s even a peanut gallery: Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart headlined a segment “America at not-war.” Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) told the Dorchester Reporter that he and his colleagues should have had an opportunity to weigh in on what he said is definitely a “war.” “I take the Constitution kind of seriously and it’s very clear. It doesn’t presume I wouldn’t support it, but I don’t see how you can say shelling an independent country is not an act of war,” Capuano said.“There’s no relevance to the word war,” says Michael Byers, a professor of international law at the University of British Columbia. “If you look at the U.N. charter, it’s framed in terms of the use of force.”Hmmm....You can call it whatever you wish ,he just trampled the Constitution !AGAIN!When will Congress find a bit of guts or do only soldiers and single mothers have courage?Read the full story here.

• HT:IMRA.PM Netanyahu Remarks at start of meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev."Mr. President,

We met here not long ago and have since spoken by telephone. It is true that we have experienced earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand, and in the Middle East and in North Africa. There have been floods, sandstorms, a tsunami and fires. We had a massive fire and I called to thank you. You sent pilots immediately. They showed exemplary courage and professionalism. They made a great impression on us and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and Russian Government again for the rapid assistance that you extended to us in our hour of need.Now, other fires must be put out. None of us know how the shock, which has struck the entire Arab world and a considerable portion of the Islamic world, will end. I think that we have a common desire that there should be stable, progressive and modern governments that aspire toward peace.Israel, Russia and the entire modern world must prevent the establishment here of radical, perhaps radical Islamic, regimes that could threaten the peace of the region, of Israel and of Russia. One such regime aspires to this result and that is the radical regime in Iran, which is not only seeking to arm itself with nuclear weapons but is threatening to use them against us, and is threatening to wreck not only any peace agreement but any modern regime that arises. It wants to return us to the ninth century. We have an interest in stopping the bad and advancing the good. I would be pleased to discuss with you how to advance peace and security in our region. I am anxious to discuss this with you.Again, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the cooperation. We have many, many more areas in which we can cooperate."Hmmm....It can never be worse then the 'support' he gets from Barack HUSSEIN Obama.Read the full story here.

• Netanyahu: Israel ready to react with 'great force'.Following bouts of terror and rocket attacks, prime miniter says: 'Any civilized society will not tolerate such wanton attacks on its civilians'.Israel had been "subjected to bouts of terror and rocket attacks," Netanyahu said following a spate of rocket fire on southern Israel from Gaza and a bombing in Jerusalem that killed one and wounded more than 30 people."We stand ready to act with great force and great determination to put a stop to it," Netanyahu told reporters before a meeting with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates.The prime minister said he had received a "very warm" phone call from US President Barack Obama on Thursday expressing his condolences over the latest attacks. "Any civilized society will not tolerate such wanton attacks on its civilians," he said.Gates, a former CIA director with years of experience in Washington, said US-Israel security ties were as strong as they had ever been at a time when the region is in "turmoil." In Tel Aviv on Thursday, Gates said Washington firmly backed Israel's right to respond to the both the rocket fire and the Jerusalem bombing, which he described as "repugnant acts."Several regional powers have already urged Israel to show restraint amid fears Netanyahu would order another ground invasion of Gaza.Read the full story here.

• HT:AmnonAndJonathan.IF !... Only 1% of 1% is true !...Read and see the full story here.

• Why are Muslim lands in miserable shape?By BURAK BEKDİL.The Muslim world is in an awful shape. It's so sad that the Muslim region, despite its glorious past, today features poverty, misery, hunger, terror and (never-ending) clashes; it looks like a ruin. The situation in Afghanistan, Palestine, Pakistan and Bangladesh is well-known. Now, we have the same situation in Libya and Yemen. Let us not blame this on anyone else, my dear Muslim brothers. Before asking anyone else "why," we should direct the same question to ourselves: Why? Why are we in such a bad shape? We should look for the answer within us, and nowhere else.But I apologize merely for deliberately omitting the "quotation marks" in the opening paragraph, since those words do not belong to this "Zionist" columnist. They, rather, belong to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; quote-unquote... More adorably, Mr. Erdoğan said all that in the Mecca of the Muslim faith, literally, in Mecca... MaashAllah!It is not a secret that I am not a fan of my country's most beloved personality – most, by the number of fans. And writing in this column, I have most often come under criticism for not acknowledging Mr. Erdoğan's metaphysical virtues – although there are many (non-metaphysical) of them that I do acknowledge. But his words in the opening paragraph of this column are my favorite so far. Yes, Mr. Erdoğan is right!For decades, some Muslims and most Islamists fooled themselves with the idea that their misfortunes could only be blamed on Western/Zionist conspiracy theories. They have meticulously avoided self-criticism and, naturally, those "infidel Muslims" like this columnist who, perhaps in different wording, said the same thing the Turkish prime minister said just this week, were "Zionist spies."I would hope that Prime Minister Erdoğan's piercingly realistic "let's-blame-ourselves-brothers" logic found echoes most among the people who are in his most inner circle, who make policy. But only last week, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu proudly said that thanks to new treaties for the removal of entry visas, "my citizens will now be able to pass freely through Syria and 'free Palestine.’"Let's ignore for a moment why the foreign minister referred to Syria as Syria and to the Palestinian territories as “free Palestine.” But I would have expected Mr. Davutoğlu to sit down for a cool moment and ponder why "his citizens" wake up in the dead of the night to queue up in front of foreign embassies with the hope of getting a visa to travel to infidel lands and, preferably, to stay there for good, instead of rushing to "free Palestine." Because they, subconsciously, know that Mr. Erdoğan is right, that Muslims can only blame themselves for their failures – like all other non-Muslim faithful or atheists should do. Because they, subconsciously, know that if they end up as Gastarbeiter they can have a good living; but if they end up in the Libyan desert for a handful of dollars they will probably have to be evacuated – if they are lucky not to have been killed.I shall wholeheartedly agree to and follow Mr. Erdoğan's Mecca teachings, and ask my fellow Muslims a couple of questions in the hope that we may thus explore where we may have gone wrong. Why, for instance, would a majority of Muslims around the world welcome a significant role for Islam in their countries' political life (Pew Research Center poll findings, December 2010) while Hindus or Shintoists around the same globe do not?Why would majorities in Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Nigeria favor changing their current laws to allow stoning as a punishment for adultery, hand amputation for theft and death for those who convert from Islam to another religion? Why would 85 percent of Pakistani Muslims support segregating men and women in the workplace (and 25 percent of Turkish Muslims, or nearly 20 million Turks)?Why would, for example, a local member of Mr. Erdoğan's party declare that "women without the Islamic headscarf are like houses without curtains: They are either for rent or for sale”?Or why would "Muslim warriors" explode a bomb in Jerusalem's central bus station as the evening rush hour begins and kill one woman and injure 50 people, including two pregnant women?Most importantly, why would a Muslim as wise as Mr. Erdoğan, who thinks Muslims should blame themselves for their failures, not follow his own preaching? Source .

• Obama avoiding major Libya address.President Barack Obama is resisting pressure to deliver an Oval Office speech explaining his policy on Libya — in part, because he doesn’t want to equate what he regards as a smaller, time-limited mission with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.Administration officials haven’t ruled out a big speech, but Obama is reluctant to make a major address on Libya until the United States hands over most command and combat duties to its allies.That’s not to say the president won’t talk about Libya over the next few days, aides say, but he’s not likely to succumb to pressure to deliver a long, explanatory address to outline his elusive endgame to the nation until the path ahead becomes clearer.There were signs that might come sooner rather than later on Thursday. For the first time since combat operations began, the vast majority of flights over Libya on Thursday were conducted by U.S. allies, a sharp contrast to the previous 24 hours when American planes flew the majority of missions.Whatever happens, Obama is intent on putting the U.S. in the back seat. As part of an effort to downplay the scope of U.S. involvement, administration officials have flatly refused to call the enforcement of the Libyan no-fly, no-drive zone — which has included the launch of more than hundred cruise missiles and dozens of U.S. aircraft sorties — a “war.”It is “a time-limited, scope-limited military action,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday.Still, the lack of a clearly articulated endgame — or even a rationale for quickly committing U.S. naval and air assets in a third Muslim nation — is making House and Senate members in both parties increasingly uneasy.Their main concern: That Obama’s oft-stated goal of ousting Qadhafi isn’t backed up by the U.N. resolution, which calls only for the use of force in establishing a no-fly-zone and protecting civilians, putting U.S. forces in awkward suspension between humanitarian goals and regime change.“I think he needs to face the nation and tell the nation, and tell Congress, what the endgame is and how this going to play out,” Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday.“Congress is important in this, but the country particularly, addressing the nation about this.”Editorial writers around the country are also asking for a better explanation from the commander-in-chief, with Florida’s Sun-Sentinel, a key outlet in a 2012 battleground state, opining that “it is President Obama’s job to explain to the American people exactly what our mission is, why taking action in Libya is in the U.S. national interest, and what, specifically, is the expected outcome — and what comes next if that expected outcome does not materialize.”Boehner, in particular, has been a critic of Obama’s handling of the Libyan action, and sent the president a detailed list of questions demanding to know the missions parameters, endgame and potential costs.The White House offered a concession of sorts on Thursday, agreeing to Boehner’s request that top administration officials, led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, personally make their case to House members at a classified briefing next Wednesday.Since the U.N. vote, Obama has made several brief statements on Libya, and answered a limited number of questions at press conferences he held during his trip to Latin America. But administration officials have rebuffed reporters who asked why Obama wouldn’t provide a fuller explanation for his Libyan policy.“The president looks forward to communicating to the American public about Libya as he has on multiple occasions already, that he will obviously continue to do it,” Carney said Thursday. “I don’t have an announcement of a forum for the way he will do it next.Hmmmmm......Dictators usually don't explain theirselves.Read the full story here.

• HT:TranslatingJihad.Egypt: Deputy Prime Minister Being Investigated for "Dishonoring the Divine".Facebook Campaign Demands Dismissal of Yahya al-Jamal.Salafi activists in Egypt launched a campaign on Facebook which calls for the dismissal of Dr. Yahya al-Jamal, the Egyptian Deputy Prime Minister. They demanded that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces dismiss him, and they accused him of doing nothing but dividing Egyptians against each other. It appears that al-Jamal cannot keep from igniting controversy and creating more problems in the cabinet of Dr. 'Isam Sharaf, who has thus far been unable to contain the long list of crises and problems on his desk since he emerged in Tahrir Square a little less than a month ago. At that time the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces offered him the leadership of Egypt, as his was the face that the revolutionaries in Tahrir Square accepted to form the Egyptian government. Unlike Sharaf, who appeared compatible with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis who embraced him in Tahrir Square, and cleared the way for him to stand on the podium on the condition that he stand in the middle of their symbols, al-Jamal intentionally collides with the Salafis and provokes their anger. Thus it seems that Sharaf's government contains one who can incite the anger of the Brotherhood and the Salafis, who so far appear to have benefited the most from the 25 January revolution. It does not appear that al-Jamal is ready to back down from angering the Islamists; in fact, it's as if he deliberately pushes their buttons. Just days after Mamduh Isma'il, a member of the Council of the Public Union for Egyptian Lawyers who is also affiliated with al-Gama'a al-Islamiya in Egypt, filed a complaint with the public prosecutor against al-Jamal, accusing him of dishonoring the Divine, al-Jamal again returned to defy the Islamic street in Egypt with his insistence on objecting to the second article in the Egyptian constitution, which stipulates that "the Islamic shari'ah is the principal source of legislation." Al-Jamal said that the word "the" in the phrase "the principal" could be replaced with the word "a" to make it "a principal." This was met with satisfaction from the anti-Islamist community in Egypt, and with fierce anger from the Muslim Brotherhood, especially since al-Jamal's comment about replacing "the principal" with "a principal" coincided with Pope Shenouda's request for the deputy prime minister to add text to the second article of the constitution which would confirm a special status for Copts to observe their own laws. The Salafis consider this an unacceptable "veto" from the Coptic church to the application of the Islamic shari'ah in Egypt. Al-Jamal had previously sparked controversy with his comments on the results of the referendum to amend the constitution, which included an improper reference to the Divine. The public prosecutor in Egypt is investigating accusations against him against the backdrop of these comments under complaint number 4,987 for the year 2011, as well as for his description of Islamists as having "dark minds," and having nothing to do with Islam.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.

• UN creates human rights investigator on Iran.The United Nations' top human rights body appointed a special investigator Thursday to look into human rights abuses in Iran, overcoming resistance from nations that considered it meddling with that country's internal affairs.The vote marks the first time since it was formed five years ago that the UN Human Rights Council has created a new such investigative position for a UN member nation, rather than merely extend the mandate of a previously existing one.All of the previous country-specific investigators were created by the former UN Commission on Human Rights, a body long criticized for being dominated by countries with dubious rights records that the new council replaced.Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, the US representative at the council, told members before the voting that the US and other countries “are gravely concerned about the situation in Iran, where respect for fundamental human rights has deteriorated dramatically in recent years.”Iran's UN mission disagreed, saying that the United States has committed human rights abuses against Palestinians by supporting Israel, against Afghan civilians and against secretly held detainees who also have been tortured.The proposal championed by the United States and Sweden won approval in a 22-7 vote at the council. As many as 14 nations abstained, and four of the council's 47 nations did not participate.Iran and Pakistan echoed what has been a widely held view on the council that such posts are an unnecessary intrusion into their internal affairs.“This politicizes the process,” said Pakistan's UN Ambassador Zamir Akram, speaking for the Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference, which represents most Muslim nations.“As a matter of principle, Pakistan does not support country mandates,” he said. “No country in the world can claim to have an unblemished human rights record.”“This membership has had nothing but a destructive role,” Iran's UN Ambassador Seyed Mohammad Reza Sajjadi said of US participation on the council. Iran, he added, has an “inherent, genuine and deeply rooted” respect for human rights.Hmmmm.....Yup and crows wear stiletto heels?Read the full story here.

• HT:RenewAmerica.Islam and the First Amendment: privileges but not rights.The First Amendment was written by the Founders to protect the free exercise of Christianity. They were making no effort to give special protections to Islam. Quite the contrary. We actually at the time were dealing with our first encounters with jihad in the form of the Barbary Pirates, which is why Jefferson bought a copy of the Koran. He was told by the Bey of Tripoli that Islam requires Muslims to rob, kill and pillage infidel Christians wherever they find them. Jefferson naturally found that hard to believe, so he bought a copy of the Koran to read it for himself. Sure enough, it's right in there, in the 109 verses of the Koran that call for violence against the infidels.Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam. Islam is entitled only to the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy. While there certainly ought to be a presumption of religious liberty for non-Christian religious traditions in America, the Founders were not writing a suicide pact when they wrote the First Amendment.Our government has no obligation to allow a treasonous ideology to receive special protections in America, but this is exactly what the Democrats are trying to do right now with Islam.From a constitutional point of view, Muslims have no First Amendment right to build mosques in America. They have that privilege at the moment, but it is a privilege that can be revoked if, as is in fact the case, Islam is a totalitarian ideology dedicated to the destruction of the United States. The Constitution, it bears repeating, is not a suicide pact. For Muslims, patriotism is not the last refuge of a scoundrel, but the First Amendment is.Hmmmm.....How long before the patriots will be the terrorists?Read the full story here.

• HT:TranslatingJihad."They Hurt Us in Gaza, We'll Hurt Them in Jerusalem".Notice the difference in the description of Palestinian casualties versus Israeli casualties: "some of them were innocent women and children," versus "many settlers and soldiers." Apparently the Israelis have no innocent women and children worth mentioning, only "settlers and soldiers."Ziyad Abushawish, Donia al-Watan Zionist occupation authorities escalated their savage aggression on the Gaza Strip in recent days, exploiting some of the sudden developments in the region. This action is aimed at blocking internal Palestinian reconciliation, as well as preventing the brothers from meeting to work out an agreement on a program for confronting the ongoing aggression against our land and our people.Most of the slain of the Palestinian people, who became martyrs through [the occupation's] barbaric bombings, were civilians. Some of them were innocent women and children. Many people were also wounded in the areas of the bombings, most of which were entirely civilian areas. The Zionists have caused our hearts to bleed, and have gone to extremes in killing and destroying our people in Gaza with total impunity. Western infidel countries have even undertaken to support the aggression and killing, and to find another justification for the Zionist entity to due whatever it wants under the pretext of defending its security against what it falsely terms terrorism. Palestinians have lived with pain and faced death and displacement since the year of the 'nakba' [catastrophe] and yet do not surrender. The oppression which afflicts them only increases their determination to possess all of their legitimate rights in the country, and to not bow down. We have found that the response will come quickly from Jerusalem after resistance fighters in Gaza carried out a response commensurate with their abilities and their available means for defending themselves. The (Palestinian) response came targeting an Israeli bus in the western district of Jerusalem which was stopped near the central bus station, which caused injuries to many settlers and soldiers who were riding or standing near the bus. They know that our response will not be delayed, and that it is coming, and that whoever hurts and oppresses the Palestinian people must pay the price. Experience tells them that aggression, bombing, and killing will not bring them any benefit, and will be returned on their heads in the same way. They know that they can hurt us in Gaza or elsewhere, but we will respond and also hurt them in Jerusalem or elsewhere. They are trapped in a vicious cycle, and the time has come for them to leave our land and our skies.Read the full story here.

• Iron Dome heads south.Following escalation on Gaza border, Israel will station portable air defense system in south on Sunday in order to intercept rockets, mortar shells.Iron Dome put to work: Due to recent escalation on the Gaza Strip border the IDF plans to activate a portable air defense system on Sunday in order to intercept short-range rockets and mortar shells fired from Gaza.The IDF will also check whether the system can work in accordance with the alarm systems. The system's installation may be postponed by a day or two.The Iron Dome system can protect an area as big as 10X10 km from rockets and mortar shells threatening to explode in communities or on vital structures. The system can calculate the trajectory of the rockets and avoid intercepting rockets which are about to land in open areas. However, the Iron Dome cannot intercept objects fired from a distance shorter than 1.737 miles.Last month, the members of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, headed by former Defense Minister Amir Peretz, decided the first Iron Dome batteries should immediately be positioned in the south.Hmmmm.....Lets hope the system works.Read the full story here.

• HT:RubinReport.Egypt's Revolution Plus U.S. Government Mistakes Makes Israel-Hamas War Inevitable.By Barry Rubin .I'm going to make a prediction here that, unfortunately, I'm sure will come true. Any good analyst should be able to see this, yet few will until it happens within the next one or two years:The Egyptian revolution and U.S. policy mistakes make a new Israel-Hamas war inevitable, and as a result it will be a lot more of an international mess.Why?

First, Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, is a revolutionary Islamist movement that views itself as directed by God's will; considers Jews to be subhuman; believes that a willingness to court suicide and welcome death and destruction will bring victory; is certain that it is going to destroy Israel; and is determined to transform Palestinian society into an Islamic utopia, no matter how many people it has to kill. It is indifferent to the well-being, or even physical survival, of the Palestinians it rules.And not one word of that is an exaggeration.Given this situation, there are only two ways to stop Hamas from waging war on Israel. A shorter-range solution is deterrence through strength and weakening Hamas with tough sanctions. The defeat Israel inflicted on Hamas in the 2008-2009 war and the tight sanctions in place until 2010 forced the organization to retrench and be cautious for a while.The only longer-term solution is the overthrow of the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip and the maximum possible destruction of that group's leadership, structures, and resources.Events in Egypt and U.S. policy, however, have destroyed this shorter-range solution and made impossible the longer-range one. If Hamas is confident, it will go to war. With more and better weapons, Hamas will go to war. If it believes that the international environment is permissive--much less supportive!--it will go to war. It's only a matter of timing.Second, the Egyptian revolution removed a regime that defined its own and Egypt's national interest as having an anti-Hamas policy. The Mubarak government did not maintain sanctions and an (imperfect) blockade of weapons' shipments out of concern for Israel. No. It did so because the Egyptian government saw revolutionary Islamism as the main threat to the country and to itself. This was not, as current U.S. officials claim, some cynically manipulated mirage to justify dictatorship. Rather, it was a very logical policy. In addition to the direct threat of Hamas subverting Egypt in cooperation with Islamist groups in the country, the Mubarak government saw Hamas as part of a broader Iran-led strategic threat to Egypt, Sunnis, and Arabs generally. A new government in Egypt, whether radical nationalist, Islamist, or "liberal democratic" will have the opposite view.The Muslim Brotherhood views Hamas as its closest ally and wants it to overthrow the Palestinian Authority as well as to destroy Israel.What makes matters worse, is the Obama Administration's demand--after being shaken by a small incident in which about a half-dozen Islamist militants were killed on a ship after they attacked Israeli soldiers--to minimize sanctions. And then, out of misplaced humanitarian concern, the U.S. government deliberately, albeit indirectly, pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip, thus strengthening Hamas and its popular base of support.By such behavior, the Obama Administration is not just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic; it's enlarging the hole below the ship's water-line, arguing that by doing so it is moderating the ocean. This strategy ensures that there would be a genocidal-oriented, revolutionary Islamist, subversion-spreading, anti-American, brutally repressive, anti-Christian, woman-oppressing, Iranian client regime on the Mediterranean. What's really alarming is that the previous sentence is not in the least bit exaggerated. We're talking about a Taliban-equivalent regime here. Now, U.S. support for a transformation of Egypt with no idea where that would lead, has helped turn that enemy of Hamas into a Hamas ally. The Obama Administration has also supplied one more reason why revolutionary Islamists feel as if the future belongs to them, America is finished in the region, and why they should be even more bold and aggressive. Much of the escalation of attacks on Israel now is the result of Hamas getting new weapons and escalating its use of terrorism on all levels. In addition, we are seeing no significant international action or even criticism of this behavior. On the contrary, the more terrorism Hamas commits, the more Israel is criticized in the Western media.Terrorism works; aggression goes unpunished. Why be surprised that Hamas becomes increasingly confident and aggressive?It is only a matter of time until Hamas once again does what it did at the end of 2008: launch a larger-scale assault on Israel. At that point, Israel will have to respond by a major attack on the Gaza Strip. What will happen? Will Egypt remain neutral? Will its government stop the Muslim Brotherhood and other sympathizers rush arms, money, and even armed Egyptian volunteers into the Gaza Strip? Will the West blame Israel, instead of itself, for the violence? Will the United States take any productive action at all?This crisis is inevitable, though it might take one or at most two years to happen. Yet nobody outside Israel sees--or wants to see--what's coming.Hmmm........Thank you "They don't trust me because of my middle name".Read the full story here.

• Israel can say farewell to peace.The occupation is even more dangerous than it was. The settlements are even more delusional than they were. The status quo has become a firetrap, and all the familiar ways of escaping it have been blocked.By Ari Shavit Say farewell to peace with Syria. Those who believe, like the writer of these lines, in the necessity of the Golan-for-peace formula cannot close their eyes to what is happening. With the great Arab revolt threatening his regime, there is no chance that President Bashar Assad will choose the path of peace. With the Syrian masses rebelling against him, there is no chance that Assad will gamble on peace.The Assad of 2011 lacks the legitimacy to negotiate for peace. The Assad of 2011 lacks the minimal maneuvering room needed to make peace. Even if he wanted peace when he was young, it's too late now. There's no chance that the Syrian dictator will carry out a Sadat-like peace move in the next year or two. Say farewell to peace with Palestine. Those who believe, like the writer of these lines, in the necessity of the two-state solution cannot close their eyes to what is happening. With the great Arab revolt sweeping up Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, there is no chance that he will pay the price needed to reach peace. With the Arab masses thronging the streets, Abbas cannot tell three million Palestinian refugees that he has forged a compromise on the right of return. With the Arab nations seething, Abbas cannot tell them he has compromised on Jerusalem. The Abbas of 2011 lacks the legitimacy to make peace. The Abbas of 2011 lacks the minimal maneuvering room needed to make peace. Even if Abbas wanted peace, it's too late now. There's no chance that the moderate Palestinian leader will carry out a Sadat-like peace move in the next year or two.Say farewell to everything you thought until January 2011. The Middle East has been transformed, root and branch. This is a new, fluid, revolutionary reality. There is no longer any foundation for a solid peace like that with Egypt. There are no longer any strong forces for peace like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf emirates. There are no longer any potential peace partners like Assad and Mahmoud Abbas. On the other hand, there is also no longer any option of deploying force against the rebellious masses. The occupation is even more dangerous than it was. The settlements are even more delusional than they were. The status quo has become a firetrap, and all the familiar ways of escaping it have been blocked. U.S. President Barack Obama bears a share of the responsibility for this new situation. When he decided to play an active role in ousting Egypt's president, he didn't realize that as a result of this move, he would be forced within a month to fire Tomahawk missiles at Libya. He didn't understand that he was undermining the old Middle Eastern order without creating a new one. He didn't understand that he was dooming Israeli-Syrian peace and Israeli-Palestinian peace and endangering Israeli-Egyptian peace.Hmmmmm.....Obama "Israel may benefit from the Arab uprising"Pure idiocy or pure evil?Read the full story here.

• Wary of France, Turkey wants NATO in charge in Libya.Turkey has reiterated its skepticism of French motives in the Libya operation and insisted that NATO should have sole control over all military actions in the North African country, dismissing French calls for an international committee led by France and Britain to be politically in charge.After initially opposing any NATO role in Libya, Turkey has revised its position following a UN Security Council decision last week authorizing use of force and a no-fly zone in the North African country to protect civilians from attacks by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Ankara is now rattled by activism on the part of France, which hastily organized a summit on Saturday of 22 Western and Arab countries and initiated the ongoing military campaign by launching the first aerial attacks on Gaddafi forces hours after conclusion of the summit. Turkish leaders have publicly criticized France for “turning the operation into a show of force” and questioned French motives in the operation, voicing suspicion that some partners seeking to act outside NATO have their eyes on Libya's mineral wealth. The Turkish government thus now demands that planning regarding any military action should be done within NATO, strictly in line with objectives set out in the UN decision.News reports said Turkish F-16s might also be dispatched to the region to protect NATO’s AWACS surveillance planes and tanker planes. Hundreds of Turkish troops will be serving on the ships, which have already been sent to Libya’s coasts before a parliamentary vote in advance preparation for their mission. Two frigates were already in the region while one frigate and the support ship departed on Wednesday.“We want NATO to be fully in charge of command and control of such an operation,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu told reporters after talks with the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, late on Wednesday. “Two channels, two command systems -- this should not exist.”Turkish objections to the nature of the current military campaign on Libya are holding up a deal in NATO on the alliance’s participation in the operations, particularly its planned role in enforcement of the no-fly zone over Libyan airspace. “What France is considering is continuing the operation by the coalition and getting support from NATO at the same time, but this is not what we want. We are saying, if NATO is going to do this, NATO ‘alone’ should do this,” a Turkish official was quoted as saying by Reuters.Meanwhile, the first diplomatic contact between Turkey and France took place on Thursday, when French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe phoned Davutoğlu. The two sides repeated their known positions, but agreed to stay in touch, officials said of the conversation. France opposes NATO control, saying that US-led NATO’s involvement would undermine support for the anti-Gaddafi operation in the Arab world. Davutoğlu, during a telephone conversation with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Wednesday rejected the French argument, putting the United Arab Emirates’ foreign minister on the phone to explain that this is not how the Arabs would feel about NATO leading the operation.Hmmmm....Turkey ....NATO's 'ennemy within'?Read the full story here.