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Kingston Peace News - February 2011
That fateful day in September 2001
It all started with a video clip a friend sent me in 2002. It showed that there was an additional building that collapsed along with the two towers on that fateful day on 11th September 2001 that changed world history.
This was the building known as building 7 that was in fact, only a couple of stories less high than Canary Wharf tower. This clip alerted me to the fact that it collapsed in a classic demolition manner. That is, the centre started down first followed by the two sides which allowed it to neatly fall into its own footprint, and yet there were only a few small fires and nothing to cause it to collapse so dramatically.
This aroused my suspicions that the whole 9/11 tragedy was a put up job and I started to thoroughly research the whole operation and quickly came convinced that it was completely stage managed.
At this point I don’t have to convince you of such a thing. That, I have decided is an impossible task. Almost all I speak to about such a thing react with total incredulity and disbelief. Questions like “How could such a thing happen without one of the perpetrators admitting it by now” or eyes glaze and “conspiracy nutter” is mumbled.
There are now groups of academics and professional engineers who want the investigation opened, and if you want to be convinced by thorough analysis and research, go to Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth (AE911Truth). This is not a bunch of paranoid delusionists, but over 1,500 respected professionals who can see that we have been misdirected in the reported conclusions of the cause.
Unless you are entrenched in your idea that 911 was the work of a few Muslim terrorists, if you study this web site you would now been convinced that 911 WAS AN INSIDE JOB. You will then see the scenario as a huge confidence trick like the Emperor’s new clothes that has captured most of the population in a mass delusion.
With the tenth anniversary coming up, it seems to me that we have to extinguish this illusion. And frightening it may seem that the establishment is manipulative in such an evil way that they can kill 3,00 of their own people to justify wars and create repressive laws on its population, we MUST expose this next year and work towards a future world where war and terrorism are revealed as part of this big ugly illusion. Where our future is secure in the peace and harmony that most in our world crave and the huge industrial arms machine is dismantled along with the corrupt structure that supports it.
You may call that impossibly idealistic but let me tell you this. Thousands of people around the world are pushing hard for a reinvestigation of 911 and there is such a can of worms that has opened up about it on the internet, it will be impossible to conceal the hard facts that will point the guilty finger at the true perpetrators. This in turn could turn the world around and make space for this change we all strive to implement. This could be the sweetest revolution in the history of the world.
Des Kay.
Special Report: Dashed Hopes – Continuation of Gaza Blockade
Medical Aid to Palestine, with Oxfam, Amnesty and Save the Children, have published a report into the continued blockade of Gaza nearly six months after the supposed 'easing'. On June 20, 2010, following concerted international pressure, the Government of Israel announced a set of measures to ‘ease’ its illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip. This included: Publishing a list of items not permitted into Gaza and allowing all other items to enter; Expanding and accelerating the inflow of construction materials for international projects; Expanding operations at the crossings and opening more crossings as more processing capacity becomes necessary and security conditions allow; Streamlining entry/exit permits for medical and humanitarian reasons and for aid workers; Facilitating the movement of people in additional ways as conditions and security allow.
Many in the international community, including Quartet Representative Tony Blair, expressed hopes that this would lead to a major change and alleviate the plight of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza. However, five months later, there are few signs of real improvement on the ground as the ‘ease’ has left foundations of the illegal blockade policy intact. In order to have a positive impact on the daily lives of the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, half of whom are children, Israel must fully lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip. While the Government of Israel committed to expand and accelerate the inflow of construction materials for international projects, it has so far only approved 7 per cent of the building plan for UNRWA’s projects in Gaza, and of that 7 per cent only a small fraction of the necessary construction material has been allowed to enter for projects including schools and health centres. In fact, the UN reports that Gaza requires 670,000 truckloads of construction material, while only an average of 715 of these truckloads have been received per month since the ‘easing’ was announced.
Full Report http://www.map-uk.org/files/832_ca_-_dashed_hopes_-_gaza_paper.pdf
Report from the Washington Post, by KARIN LAUB, Monday, January 17, 2011
RAMALLAH, West Bank -- The Palestinians expect to submit their request for a U.N. Security Council condemnation of Israeli settlements this week and will not be deterred by a U.S. appeal to abandon the idea, senior officials said Monday. In recent weeks, the Palestinians have prepared a draft that would have the Security Council declare settlements illegal and demand a halt of their construction. During this time, Palestinian diplomats have tried to win support for the proposed resolution. The appeal to the Security Council is part of a Palestinian strategy to try to isolate and exert pressure on the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
U.S.-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, launched in September, quickly broke down over Israel's refusal to extend a 10-month moratorium on housing starts in West Bank settlements and include east Jerusalem, both claimed by the Palestinians. They say they will not resume talks unless construction is halted.
Saeb Erekat and Nabil Shaath, two senior aides to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said Monday that U.S. officials have urged the Palestinians not to seek an anti-settlement resolution from the Security Council. "We told them (the Americans) very clearly that (this) is something we are not going to do," Shaath said. "We are going to the Security Council."
The Obama administration has repeatedly urged Israel to halt settlement construction, but has failed to get Netanyahu to comply. It remains unclear how the U.S. would vote if a resolution targeting Israel, a close U.S. ally, is brought before the Security Council. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been cool to the Palestinian initiative. Netanyahu has brushed off Palestinian attempts to rally international support, saying there is no alternative to direct talks.
Book Review:- The Will to Resist by Dahr Jamail, Haymarket Books, £14.99.
Dahr Jamail has reported extensively from Iraq, and this is the last paragraph of Andrew Dodgshon’s review in Tribune, 14th May, 2010:-
“The Will to Resist” should be required reading for any politician talking about the Anglo-American adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. For an electorate becoming increasingly frustrated and angry about the waste of lives in Afghanistan following fast on the mess made in Iraq – at the expense of more than a million Iraqi people – Jamail’s account should warrant the relatively short time it will take to read this book. Sometimes a book hits the stands which changes lives, views and outlooks. This is one of those. Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.
From an article in the Guardian in Nov. 2010. – Edited Extract:-
English degrees for £27k - who's buying?
As protests continue over tuition fees, John Sutherland wonders what's to become of arts courses?
“Worth" is what it all boils down to. Whether it's worthwhile for the state, in its own interest, to offer higher education free. Or whether it's worthwhile for the student to pay up to the hilt to get their higher education. A simple either/or.
On the face of it, the government's argument would seem to make sense. A school-leaver is given training at the most advanced level by instructors who are the envy of the world. Once trained, that school-leaver will start working life at a comfortable salary level with the prospect of lifetime earnings of hundreds of thousands of pounds more than fellow school-leavers (poor schmucks) who went straight into the labour market. Why should that young man or woman not pay for the skills they have been expensively taught? Why should those who have not benefited have to pay for them through their taxes?
But what higher education are we talking about here?
There are three world-class universities in this country that will never charge their undergraduates: Sandhurst, Cranwell, and Dartmouth (you can perhaps add Hendon Police College). Not mortar-boards but mortars. Go to the Sandhurst training site and you'll see that what those institutions are offering is better than free – they'll actually pay you to be trained by them. The government abolished the sale of commissions in 1872. But why shouldn't cadets at Sandhurst Military Academy pay £9,000 a year for their tuition, as will undergraduates at the nearby University of Surrey? Officer training is as much a long-term career booster as George Osborne's PPE degree or my PhD.
Why does the government offer military higher education for free? Because it can see a direct payback for the investment. We want to kick ass round the world, punch above our weight. It's high priority. By the same calculus the government has earmarked a few high-priority university subjects (medicine, hard science) and pulled the plug on all the others (arts, humanities, social sciences).
It's wrong headed, as one hopes Simon Schama (their new recruit), will advise them. There are vital, but indirect, paybacks from these supposed no-priority subjects. Those benefits, however are diffuse and, quite likely, three or more electoral terms in the future. This pathologically myopic government of millionaires doesn't care to look that far ahead.
See http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/30/university-tuition-fees-arts-courses-fail?INTCMP=SRCH for the full article
Angela Cooper
Demonstration 26 March 2011
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Neither CND nor Stop the War Coaliton are planning a major demonstration in London this Spring, instead they are calling for us to support this TUC action which has already attracted a lot of advance publicity.
It is essential for the Peace Movement to link the issue of cuts with the damaging and wasteful expenditure on war and armaments – this is rarely linked by commentators on the BBC. , or even by the campaigners themselves, see the publicity leaflet. This is good as far as it goes, but fails to point out that if we were to stop invading and bombing other people’s countries we would probably need no cuts at all.
CND and Stop the War will provide leaflets and placards, or you can make your own. They also want as many peace groups’ banners there as possible, so we will be taking our big banner, and will meet at Waterloo at 10.30 am. Please come along.
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Christian Peace Activist Imprisoned for Arms Protest
Christian peace activist Chris Cole, 47, from Oxford was today imprisoned for 30 days at Westminster Central Magistrates Court for non-payment of a fine following a protest at the opening event of the DSEI arms fair in September 2009. Cole had sprayed 'Build Peace Not War Machines' and "Stop this Bloody Business" across the entrance to the QEII conference centre in central London.
According to a publicity brochure for the event, the UK Defence Conference would be attended by senior officials from the arms industry, the military and the UK government in order "to explore the business opportunities" to be found in responses "to global security threats such as climate change, major population movements, growing water scarcity, competition for energy sources and the continued rise of Islamism."
Defending himself in court Cole said "The arms industry is pushing military solutions to human security threats that in reality need political and humanitarian responses not more weaponry. If we want to be a nation that is committed to building peace and defending the poor, we need to address underlying causes of injustice and not promote the ideology of 'might is right'.
At the original trial in October 2009 Cole was found guilty and ordered to pay £1,545.00 in compensation and £350 in court costs.
This is the fifth time that Cole has been sentenced to imprisonment for nonviolent civil disobedience.
Please send letters or cards of support to Chris Cole, No. A8147A2, HMP Wandsworth, Heathfield Road, London, SW18 3HS
http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/364.html 8th December 2010 International Campaign to Ban Uranium Weapons report:-
148 states have supported a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling on state users of depleted uranium weapons to reveal where the weapons have been fired when asked to do so by affected countries. The resolution was passed by a huge majority, with just four countries opposing the text. As with previous UN resolutions in 2007 and 2008, the UK, US, Israel and France voted against. The number of abstentions was down on previous years after Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Greece, Luxembourg and Slovenia voted in favour. But abstentions were still registered by Australia, Canada, Denmark and Sweden the Russian Federation and some others. while China declined to vote.
The resolution was triggered by growing concern over the US’s failure to release information on the whereabouts of at least 400,000kgs depleted uranium munitions used in Iraq. Question marks also remain over whether the weapons have been used in Afghanistan, Somalia and Chechnya. Research by ICBUW has shown that the rapid release of targeting data after conflicts is crucial in reducing avoidable civilian exposures; recommendations that national authorities monitor soil and water contamination and, where necessary, decontaminate sites, are also reliant on this data.
The UK, US and France maintain that it is up to the users of the weapons to release this data at a time and in a manner of their own choosing. While the UK has shared information on their use of the weapons in Iraq in 2003 with UN agencies, the US has made no effort to do so. It is now 19 years since the first major use of depleted uranium in Iraq.
In a joint statement explaining their position during the first round of voting at the First Committee, the UK, US and France wrote: “[Operative paragraph 6] requests that states that have used depleted uranium in armed conflict to provide information about its use. We have serious doubts on the relevance of such a request, according to IHL [International Humanitarian Law]. We consider that it is up to each state to provide data at such a time and in such a manner as it deems appropriate.” The attempt by these countries to try and conflate the resolution with IHL has been challenged by legal specialists, who pointed out that it is not a question of whether it is appropriate under IHL but rather whether the request in itself is reasonable. It is clear that 148 states felt that it was.
Reacting to the vote, an ICBUW spokesperson said: “It is abundantly clear that even the most conservative mitigation measures are made much more difficult by the failure of states to promptly identify where the weapons have been used. "The US, UK and France’s ongoing apparent policy of non or limited disclosure is outrageous and at odds with their legal obligations to protect civilians and the environment during and after conflict. "The feebleness of their attempted justification for their position makes clear that they have few concerns over the long-term impact of these munitions on civilians, and are instead solely interested in protecting their toxic and outdated weapons. This is the strongest level of support for a resolution on this issue yet and we believe it reflects a growing impatience with the users of these weapons.”
On learning of the results, UK campaigners reacted angrily, accusing the UK government of hypocrisy and of ignoring the wishes of its own parliament. In the run up to the vote, 90 Members of Parliament had signed a motion calling on the government to support the resolution, while representatives from all the main UK parties had written to the press to highlight the text.
A spokesperson for the UK Uranium Weapons Network said: “The UK’s decision to vote against the resolution is extremely disappointing. Sites contaminated by land mines, cluster munitions or depleted uranium all represent a post-conflict hazard to civilians.
"All these sites require remedial work and, as a vast majority of states recognise, including those states that have had to endure the impact of these weapons, this work is impossible without full transparency over where the weapons have been used.”
As with previous years, the resolution was submitted by Indonesia on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement. In addition to the general call for transparency, it also recognised the importance of implementing recommendations by UN agencies to help mitigate the hazards from depleted uranium. Discussion over the long-term impact of these weapons is ongoing but the World Health Organisation and International Atomic Energy Agency both call for sites to be marked, and where necessary decontaminated. The United Nations Environment Programme has called for a precautionary approach to the use of the weapons due to ongoing uncertainties about the environmental behaviour of uranium contamination.
Resolutions passed in 2007 and 2008 accepted the potential risk from depleted uranium weapons and called for more focused research on affected states. This research has been hindered the lack of transparency from users.
Please write to your MP about this failure of our Government to support this resolution.
Newsletter Editor for this issue was Rosemary Addington.
Disclaimer: It is the nature of a newsletter like KPN that views cannot be sought on everything that appears herein, so views expressed are almost never the agreed opinion of the group.
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