Citizen G'kar: Musings on Earth

September 27, 2010

Israelis "Executed" US Citizen Furkan Dogan

 The UN report found that 6 persons where murdered execution style by Israeli Defense Forces on the Mavi Marmara on May 31, 2010 when activists tried to land supplies to break blockade in Gaza. Just yesterday, another ship carrying Jewish activists from Israel, Germany, the United States and Britain has set sail for Gaza from Cyprus.
The report of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla released last week shows conclusively, for the first time, that US citizen Furkan Dogan and five Turkish citizens were murdered execution-style by Israeli commandos.
The report reveals that Dogan, the 19-year-old US citizen of Turkish descent, was filming with a small video camera on the top deck of the Mavi Marmara when he was shot twice in the head, once in the back and in the left leg and foot and that he was shot in the face at point blank range while lying on the ground.
The report says Dogan had apparently been "lying on the deck in a conscious or semi-conscious, state for some time" before being shot in his face.
The forensic evidence that establishes that fact is "tattooing around the wound in his face," indicating that the shot was "delivered at point blank range."  The report describes the forensic evidence as showing that "the trajectory of the wound, from bottom to top, together with a vital abrasion to the left shoulder that could be consistent with the bullet exit point, is compatible with the shot being received while he was lying on the ground on his back."
Based on both "forensic and firearm evidence," the fact-finding panel concluded that Dogan's killing and that of five Turkish citizens by the Israeli troops on the Mavi Marmari May 31 "can be characterized as extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions." (See Report [.pdf] Page 38, Section 170)

Enhanced by Zemanta

September 23, 2010

UN's Gaza flotilla probe finds Israeli soldiers committed 'willful killing'

The Israelis got a slap on the hand today from the UN. Unfortunately, there is little that will come from this. Another investigation with Turkish and Israeli representatives report is not yet available. That one may have some impact.
A United Nations Human Rights Council investigation concluded that the Israeli military broke international laws during a raid on a Turkish ship that was part of an aid flotilla trying to deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza.
The council’s report, announced Wednesday, was met positively by Turkey but dismissed by Israel as “biased." The report is separate from a UN flotilla inquiry backed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, which includes both an Israeli and a Turkish representative and is seen as carrying more weight than the UNHRC's investigation – but has not yet concluded its work.
In a 56-page report (pdf), the UNHCR's three-member panel wrote that Israeli commandos had committed war crimes during their May 31 raid of the Turkish aid ship the MV Mavi Marmara that left nine Turkish, pro-Palestinian activists dead. Although Israel contends that its soldiers acted in self-defense, the council found that their response was “disproportionate” and that soldiers exercised an “unacceptable level of brutality.”
IN PICTURES: The Gaza flotilla and the aftermath of the Israeli naval raid
“There is clear evidence to support prosecutions of the following crimes within the terms of article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: willful killing; torture or inhuman treatment; wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health,” wrote the report's authors.
The council also found that Israel’s blockade of Gaza is “unlawful” because of the humanitarian crisis, reports the BBC.
 Continued.
Enhanced by Zemanta

September 08, 2010

Hellegers: American Income Inequality is the Cause of our Crisis

The Tea Party movement is just a clever disguise for an oilman to control America. Inequality has always be a moral issue, now it is clearly an economic issue. The rich have seized control of policy making in the US and they may again seize control of government in the next election. As usual, Juan Cole has it right.

Informed Comment

Plutarch, writing almost 2,000 years ago, told us that “an imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.”
Below is a chart that shows the course of income imbalance over the last 93 years in the U.S. If it showed the course of net worth imbalance, it would be much more dramatic. If it showed data for the top tenth of one percent– not just the top ten percent– it would be extraordinarily dramatic.
Inter alia, the chart shows that both the Great Depression of the ’30s and the present crisis were immediately preceded by great buildups in inequality. When ordinary people lack the wealth to buy things– houses for example–the system crashes.
There’s also a lot of data that show that economic equality conduces, quite literally, to the health of society. The correlation between equality and most measures of well-being is stronger than the correlation between wealth and well-being. See Richard G. Wilkinson & Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level (2009). For a good review of that book, see David Runciman in the London Review of Books, Oct. 22, 2009, .
Still, the rich consistently try to destroy egalitarianism, because for their segment, inequality is fine. It means increasingly desperate people trying increasingly hard to serve the rich. The rich also try to destroy the political means by which the rest of society might seek relief, which is exactly Plutarch’s point. Witness the rise of the present-day Tea Parties. A recent article in the New Yorker describes how the Koch brothers– Texas billionaires– have lavishly financed that movement.
In 1980 Ronald Reagan managed to break the egalitarian consensus that had held since FDR. (See the chart.) The key was playing on racial divisions. Reagan’s first campaign speech was in Philadelphia, Misssissippi. That town is famous for one thing only. It’s where three civil rights workers were lynched and murdered in the 1960s. Reagan’s target audience didn’t miss his message. Social justice was cast in terms of giveaways to demonized blacks– mythologized welfare queens in Cadillacs. Reagan’s ascendancy, by his exploitation of the race issue, is described by Thomas B. & Mary D. Edsall in Chain Reaction (1992). Thomas Edsall, until his retirement, was a reporter for the Washington Post.
The U.S. is now more unequal than a number of countries in Latin America. When I was younger it was accepted wisdom that those countries would never get anywhere until they solved the inequality problem.
Enhanced by Zemanta