US Navy SEAL community in anger over pompous victory boast by Obama Administration over Bin Laden raid

Will Navy SEALs swift-boat Obama over the bin Laden raid?
A backlash is growing to the victory dance over the terrorist's death, fueling concerns that Obama's biggest foreign policy success could be turned against him

THE WEEK (Opinion Brief)
Posted: May 1, 2012

 Many Navy SEALs are not happy that President Obama is "taking the credit for killing Osama bin Laden," says Toby Harnden at Britain's The Daily Mail. Quoting retired and active SEALs, both on the record and off, Harnden makes the case that many SEALs resent Obama for using the group as "ammunition" in his re-election campaign. Some U.S. commentators dismissed the report as a conservative hatchet job, but others aren't so sure, saying Republicans could use the SEALs' alleged complaints to undercut Obama's most visible foreign policy success, much the way the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth decimated John Kerry's image as a decorated war hero in 2004. Is Obama about to be swift-boated?

President Obama talks with U.S. Navy Vice Admiral William H. McRaven, 
who led the NAVY SEALs' Team Six, just 

days after Osama bin Laden was killed last year. 

 Photo: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

Obama is skating on thin ice: "The frustration — or even anger — within the SEAL community is real," and if Obama's not careful, he could see his greatest foreign policy asset slip away, says Michael Hastings atBuzzFeed. Conservatives' "stagey outrage" over Obama trumpeting the death of bin Laden could find a more publicly palatable vehicle in the SEALs, and I wouldn't be surprised to see "navysealsagainstobama.com sprout up soon." The Obama campaign might want to reconsider whether "spiking the football, again, and again, and again, in public" is such a good idea, after all.
"Will the Navy SEALs swift boat Obama?"

Maybe he deserves to be swift-boated: "When you take too much credit, you open the door to blowback that gives you too little," says Paul Mirengoff at Powerline. The SEALs' reaction to Obama's "campaign of self-congratulation" was utterly predictable, and the president's real problem is that he doesn't have much else to brag about. "Other than the killing of bin Laden, nothing much springs to mind."
"Obama encounters blowback from the SEALs"

Read: SEALs slam Obama for using them as 'ammunition' in bid to take credit for bin Laden killing during election campaign 

But Obama is not going to back down: Mitt Romney's campaign is trying to "push what amounts to a 'Navy Seals for Truth' pitch," but it can't hide the fact that Mitt is weak on this issue, says Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. Romney says "even Jimmy Carter" would have ordered the raid on bin Laden, but his past statements, in which he played down the possibility of sending troops into Pakistan, legitimately call into doubt what Romney would have done. You can "expect the Obama campaign to keep hammering the fact that Romney opposed" an aggressive policy vis-a-vis bin Laden. 

"The British are coming"

And he shouldn't cave to Republican bullying: The so-called outrage over bin Laden is a transparent effort "to intimidate Democrats into not mentioning" his death at all, says Michael Tomasky at The Daily Beast. From George W. Bush down, Republicans consider 9/11 their issue, and "it really grates their cheese that Obama, of all people, is the one who has earned the right to boast about killing bin Laden." Republicans will "wail" every time Obama mentions anything connected to 9/11, and Democrats "should be afraid no longer" to present themselves as the toughest party. 
"How the GOP became a party of whiners over Osama"

Qatar becoming a new force to be reckoned with: Opens new Interbank Rate, competition to the LIBOR?

Qatar Opens Interbank Rate: Now Most Important Little Country in Middle East?

A.M. Freyed
Infowars.com
May 3, 2012

Bloomberg and Qatar Central Bank Launch Interbank Rate … QIBOR will enhance transparency and promote liquidity … Qatar Central Bank (QCB) and Bloomberg LP are partnering to launch the first ever Qatar Interbank Offer Rate (QIBOR) fixings in a move aimed at encouraging a more active interbank market in Qatar, executives announced today … HE Sheikh Abdulla Saoud Al Thani, Governor of Qatar Central Bank, commented, “In establishing the first-ever benchmark interbank rate in Qatar it was vital that we worked with a partner with deep expertise and credibility in this area. Bloomberg is the market leader for financial data and extending our relationship with them will help position Qatar as a growing force in the global financial markets.” –SunHerald (5/2/12)

Here we go again. Just when we thought little Qatar couldn’t grow any mightier, the country’s financial officials are going to help establish an Interbank Offer Rate for the world’s top banks (QIBOR).

Qatar will be helped in this process by the powerful, elitist, financial media firm “Bloomberg LP,” run by its eponymous owner and Mayor of New York … Michael Bloomberg.

More from the article, above: “Interbank rate fixings are used around the world to provide a daily reference point for banks borrowing unsecured funds from other banks in the local wholesale banking market and this announcement brings Qatar into that market for the first time.”

How big is the market? Estimates range up to US$90 trillion! (That’s the amount of money that QIBOR can affect.)

This is a market that’s ripe for the plucking, given the controversy around the London bank rate (LIBOR). The LIBOR market has been hit by allegations that bank rates were not estimated honestly but were essentially “fixed” in a way that allowed participants to solicit speculative offers against them – that might then lose those speculators money.

Little Tyke to Mighty Player

The planned QIBOR is just one more sign of Qatar’s growing influence in the Middle East. Here are some others:

• Sources say that Qatar’s small but highly-supplied and Westernized army was instrumental in the Libyan war and that about 5,000 Qatar troops are helping run Libya even now. This is a well-kept secret.

• Qatar’s Al Jazeera news station is as ubiquitous in the Middle East as CNN is in the US, Europe and South America. In fact, the two media firms function in tandem – spreading Western propaganda with skill and finesse.

• Qatar is an essential ally of NATO and the US when it comes to a huge military base situated there that the US used to launch its second invasion into Iraq.

• Qatar recently won the right to host the 2022 World Cup and is using the situation to raise its profile as sports-center within both the Middle East and Europe.

Additionally, Qatar’s ruling group is oriented around the Saud family’s fundamentalist-Islamic Wahhabism. The rising influence of little Qatar under Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani is partially being managed by a larger, westernized global elite that placed Al Thani on the throne decades ago.

As has been pointed out many times, this global elite is seemingly creating world government via thesis, antithesis … synthesis. The “synthesis” in this case is supposed to be an amalgamation of East (Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Emirates, etc.) and the West.

But before the synthesis can take place, opposites must be established. That’s what is still going on now. Via war to destabilize the Middle East’s secular governments, the elites are creating an Islamic crescent out of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, etc.

These same elites are using little Qatar as a base to expand a worldwide Islamic presence. They are in a sense bankrolling Islam to turn it into a true modern force.

Once a (controlled) Islam is regnant, as it used to be, Western elites will likely force a synthesis out of the two opposing religious forces (east and west) that will change the face of finance globally.

The goal seems to be to make a world economy far more viable for the billions of Muslims who have no such expectations or ambitions currently.

Little Qatar has apparently emerged at the center of the world-spanning globalist conspiracy!
The evidence is becoming increasingly clear. Qatar’s amalgamam of wicked (Western sponsored) Wahhabism plus the noxious emergent brew of international sports, high finance and faux Middle Eastern journalism all put it at the foul center of this larger elite strategy.
Qatar’s little-known role as a facilitator of Libya’s recent military evisceration plus its evident position at the center of the projection of NATO and US military power make it a country to watch closely.

Now the powers-that-be are busy turning it into a financial center as well. This was to be the role of the Arab Emirates, especially Dubai – but these rulers have not proven effective, at least not yet.

Enter Qatar – or rather, re-enter Qatar with an even higher profile, one that bears watching for those who are convinced that world government is being planned and that a Westernized Middle East is key to the furtherance of this insatiable ambition.

A final thought: Nothing likely happens by accident when it comes to these global elites. If LIBOR is under attack, it is not merely a coincidence but a way of destroying LIBOR in order to transfer the facility to the Middle East.

Criminal indictments are produced … directed history is manifest. Believable? One could argue that Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is being deliberately taken apart for similar reasons.

The gravity of the world is shifting east?

Californian student left in holding cell by DEA for 5 days without food/water slams them with $20 million claim...and rightly so

California student left in cell for five days files $20M claim against DEA

NY Post/NEWSCORE
Posted: May 3, 2012

AP PHOTO/U-T SAN DIEGO, K.C. ALFRED

SAN DIEGO -- The California student who was forgotten about by agents and left alone in a holding cell for five days without food or water filed a $20 million claim Wednesday against federal drug officials.

Attorney Eugene Iredale sent the demand notice on behalf of UC San Diego senior Daniel Chong, 23, to the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) general counsel, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

"The deprivation of food and water for four and one-half days while the person is handcuffed the entire time constitutes torture under both international and domestic law," the claim said.

Chong has said he was eventually forced to drink his own urine to survive after being detained and locked in the five-by-10-foot windowless cell after a drug raid on April 21.

He was discovered April 25 and rushed to the hospital, where he spent five days being treated for a perforated lung, possible kidney failure and other illnesses.

Earlier Wednesday, the DEA issued an apology to Chong in the form of a statement from the top federal drug agent in San Diego, acting special agent in charge William R. Sherman.

"I am deeply troubled by the incident that occurred here last week," the statement said, without mentioning Chong by name. "I extend my deepest apologies to the young man and want to express that this event is not indicative of the high standards that I hold my employees to. I have personally ordered an extensive review of our policies and procedures."

The repercussions from the incident reached Washington on Wednesday, with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, set to review the case.

"Chairman Issa and the Oversight Committee will be asking the DEA for an explanation of this outrageous incident," Issa's spokesman, Frederick Hill, told the Union-Tribune.
Meanwhile, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting an investigation.

At a news conference Tuesday, Chong said he screamed and kicked at the door of his cell but days passed while he was locked inside.

"I heard them around me," he said. "Every door opening around me."

The engineering student said he became badly dehydrated and began hallucinating after two days. He bit his eyeglasses to break the glass and scrawl the words "Sorry Mom" on his arm. He also tried to eat some of the glass amid his confusion.

"I had to recycle my own urine," Chong said. "I had to do what I had to do to survive."

Plans to build "Titanic II and launch by 2016,"...no really I`m not kidding

The 'zombie-like' Titanic replica
An Australian mining tycoon says he'll launch the Titanic II in 2016. Will anybody book a passage?

The Week
Posted on May 2, 2012, 9:35 am

(Image left): Clive Palmer poses in front of an artist impression of the Titanic II at MGM Studios, Los Angeles: The Australian billionaire promises his new ship will be state-of-the-art -- and safe. Photo: AP Photo/Crook Publicity

Just weeks after the 100th anniversary of the loss of the Titanic, a billionaire Australian mining magnate, Clive Palmer, has announced plans to build a scale-sized replica of the ill-fated ship, which hit an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage in 1912. Palmer says the new ship, Titanic II, "will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic," but safer. What will the new version of the Titanic be like... and will anybody dare book a passage on it? Here, a brief guide:

Will Palmer's ship be exactly like the Titanic?
In many respects, yes. Palmer has hired a research team to make sure the new ship looks and feels as much like the Titanic as possible. The replica will have the same dimensions as the 886-foot, 40,000-ton original ship, making it small by today's standards. It will also have 840 luxury cabins designed like those of the Titanic's era. The new ship will even have four funnels on top, just like the coal-powered Titanic.

How will Titanic II be different?
For one thing, the smokestacks will be purely decorative; the new ship will be diesel-powered, so it won't need them. The dummy funnels won't be wasted space, though. They'll house an internet cafe, restaurant, and theater. In the spot where the coal boilers were on the original ship, Titanic II will have space for an exhibition on the Australian territory of Queensland, where Palmer has tourism investments. The ship will also have changes in the bow and hull to make it more fuel efficient and maneuverable, and, Palmer says, it will have "state-of-the-art 21st-century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems."

So it'll be safe?
Yes... although, remember, the original Titanic was thought to be unsinkable, until it hit an iceberg and went down in the icy North Atlantic, killing some 1,500 passengers and crew. The new ship "is going to be designed so it won't sink," with all of the modern technology available to prevent a disaster, Palmer says. "Of course," he tells the Sydney Morning Herald, "it will sink if you put a hole in it."

When will it set sail?
Palmer says construction will start late next year. He has signed a preliminary deal to have Titanic II, and three other cruise liners, built in China. (The deal isn't yet a firm order, but merely a "memorandum of understanding.") Palmer hasn't said how much building the ship will cost, but if all goes as planned, the ship will set sail on its maiden voyage in 2016, carrying 1,680 passengers from England to New York, on a route similar to that of the original Titanic.

Will people really want to board a new Titanic?
That remains to be seen. Palmer realizes that some people won't want to set foot on a ship meant to conjure up memories of one of the deadliest peacetime maritime tragedies in history. "Of course, if you are superstitious," Palmer says. "you never know what could happen." Also, cruise aficionados might find Titanic II a bit cramped, as it will offer less than half the space per passenger as the luxurious Queen Mary 2. Still, Titanic nostalgia is still going strong, so there will be plenty of morbid curiosity about this "zombie-like" resurrection of the ill-fated ship, says Maura Judkis at The Washington Post. "Here's hoping the second time around, the Titanic's journey will be smooth sailing."

Sources: ABC News, Associated Press, Cruise Critic, Sydney Morning Herald, Washington Post

NTC DICTATORSHIP: New laws criminalize support for Gaddafi family (Libya S.O.S)

Posted by Libya S.O.S. 
May 2, 2012 at 22:51    

Image credit: Libya S.O.S

The NTC has approved a law criminalizing any glorification of Muammar Qadaffi or any support for him or the ex-regime!!

Also passed at the NCT’s meeting on Tuesday was a law expropriating all the assets of Qaddafi and members of his family.

NTC spokesman Muhammed Al-Hareizi confirmed to Libya Herald that the two new laws had been passed. They would be made public on Thursday he said.


Qadaffi family assets have in practice been seized within Libya, but NTC believes that there are more to be discovered. A law will enable a funded "government" department to spend time and effort tracking down assets.

In Italy five weeks ago, the authorities seized more than $1.5bn in Libyan assets, mainly shareholdings in major companies, with the false explanation that they belonged to Gaddafi. These, however, were seized at the request of the ICC. Now Libya needs to pursue its own assets abroad and have them seized back!

This NTC style "democracy" has no room for these people's will. Image credit: Libya S.O.S

Glorification of Qaddafi and support for him may lend you a LEGAL jail time in newly imposed NTC dictatorship! Up to now a NTC's witch hunt for "Gaddafi's supporters" was done illegaly, tortures of people in illegal prisons included (such as: making them eat green flags and jump like monkeys in cages if they happen to be black, electrocution, pulling out fingernails, rape etc). Even Doctors Without Borders ran away from Misurata cause they were sick with patching up illegal prisoners for the continuation of tortures. Now a simple universal accusation "of being Qaddafi supporter" will be enough for you to legally place behind the bars your first neighbor who plays too loud music, a business competitor, a lady who sold you an out of date vegetable at the market, a boy who pushed you in secondary school in front of the girls... Understandably, citizens in other parts of the world sometimes wish people who simply go on their nerves to go to hell or jail as well, but luckily they have no judiciary support to send them there. In Libya such laws, believe it or not, are now in existence!

Besides, the biggest tribes in Libya are supporters of Gaddafi, such as Warfalla tribe, which numbers 2 million Libyans (the country has 6 million citizens in total). It is not difficult to see that "jail construction industry" might be the next big thing apart from oil in the new Libya. Political prosecutions will replace kidnappings for ransom in this branch of industry. After all, kidnappings for ransom (based on the same "You are Gaddafi supporter" principle) are soooo-last-year.

What do the accomplices in crime, such as HRW, UN and Amnesty say about this? Nothing, why should they? It fits their puzzle. Besides, they are too busy spending your money on the next imperialistic aim, enslaving other nations and taking away their rights in one of the most profitable industry on earth : creating Orwellian PR war games.

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength"

Please visit Libya S.O.S on all news currently in Libya free of the lies from mainstream media.

Treasure hunter reported to have located Bin Laden`s body

This Treasure Hunter Says He Has Located Bin Laden’s Body

BY JESUS DIAZ
Gizmodo.com
MAY 2, 2012

Photo property and courtesy of Gizmodo.com

That smiling guy is Bill Warren, the Californian treasure hunter who claimed he was searching for Osama Bin Laden's dead body back in June 2011. He didn't find him then, but now he claims he has located the cadaver.

Talking to Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Warren says he has no doubt about where Osama is:

     "I've located where they threw him away. I'm the only one with this information. He's 200 
     miles to the west of the Indian city of Surat."

Warren—who claims he has discovered more than 200 shipwrecks during his career as a treasure-hunter—says that bin Laden's body is still at that same location, deep under water. His thought is that, since the Navy weighted down the bag, the body hasn't moved from where it was dropped. He is now trying to rent Russian deep diving equipment to locate his payload, and to conduct DNA tests once he finds him.

• UPDATE: Treasure Hunter Fears Assassination Over Search For Bin Laden’s Body

At least, that's what he believes. He says he pinpointed the drop point from photos recently released by the US Navy.

Warren is now in Azerbaijan, apparently working for their government in a contract to locate some old ships. But he is ready to start the diving for Osama's body bag: he says he's aiming at starting the mission on June 1, and that he may be able to find the body in "under a week." He also claims that the search would last a maximum of three months. He declares that his only fear is that the US Government would kill him or sink his boat.

Warren is now searching for $200,000 to finance the whole operation (Bill, I suggest Kickstarter). He wouldn't have needed that money had he located the Trinidad, the famous Spanish ship loaded with Aztec gold that sunk in the coast of California in 1540. Warren has repeatedly tried to locate that treasure, once in 1976 and then again in 1987. Back then he claimed he had located the Trinidad, but obviously he didn't.

Conspiracy theories

The same could probably be true with Bin Laden's body. It's highly unlikely that, even if he were right about the location—and again, there's very little chance he is—he would be able to find a body bag in the bottom of the deep sea.

Warren says he is doing this because he doesn't "believe the Obama administration" and he wants to have proof that it is really his body. But, if he doesn't believe President Obama and the United States Navy, why would the body be down there at all? If he thinks that they are lying, the most logical thing is to believe that they never buried the body at sea.

But who knows, maybe Bill will prove himself right this time. Or maybe the body will not be there because Osama bin Laden is alive and well, playing cards and drinking mai tais with Elvis and Marilyn, in that secret government paradise island in the middle of the Pacific.

When you have an intelligence agency like MI5 endorsing a presidential candidate, like Moussa in Egypt right now, you know its not in the interests of democracy

'MI6 endorsing Amr Moussa for Egypt president'
Press TV
May 2, 2012


A team of British spies from UK’s foreign spying apparatus MI6 are in Egypt to run the election campaign of Amr Moussa, who’s affiliated to Western and US governments, a report said.

After several reports and close observations of the secrecy surrounding Amr Moussa’s election campaign, a reporter working for the Islam Times in Cairo confirmed that there are a team of British intelligence officers that are running Moussa’s presidential campaign.

The sources also confirmed that Britain has agreed with Amr Moussa to train a squad of its secret intelligence agents to work in Egypt through British ambassador to Cairo “James Watt”.

The group had been sent to Cairo as part of a tourist group three months ago, but the group carried out studies on the conditions under which the Egyptian people are living and mapped out the demography of the country based on classes and sects.

According to reports British spies are directly leading the financial spending of Moussa’s electoral campaign, on which a huge amount of money is spent.

Amr Moussa is an Egyptian politician and diplomat who was the Secretary General of the Arab League, a 22-member forum representing Arab countries, from 1 June 2001 until 1 June 2011. Previously he served in the government of Egypt as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1991 to 2001. He is a candidate in the 2012 presidential election.

MOL/JR/HE

The Obama Administration obstructing justice in Israeli-occupied Palestine on Human-Rights Commission probe into illegal settlements...`aint that a surprise

U.S. pressing UN Human Rights Commissioner to put off West Bank settlements probe
Israeli Foreign Ministry officials believe the aim of Obama administration pressure is to postpone the probe until at least after the presidential elections in November.

By Barak Ravid
Haaretz
May 2, 2012

The Obama administration is trying to delay the establishment of a panel appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

U.S. Middle East envoy David Hale met in Bern last week with UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay and asked her not to advance the matter in the near future.

An Israeli settlement near the West Bank city of Nablus. 

Photo credit: AP

According to the text of the decision to establish the panel, it is meant "to investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem." However, the UN Human Rights Commissioner has yet to formulate a clear mandate for the panel and has not appointed a chairman or members.

For all the latest updates follow Haaretz on Facebook and Tumblr

Foreign Ministry officials noted that the U.S. wants to postpone the establishment of the panel to the latest possible date, hoping this will lead to the unofficial burial of the matter. However, the assessment is that it will not be possible to prevent the establishment of the panel, so the aim is therefore to delay it until at least after the U.S. presidential elections in November.

On March 30, a week after the decision by the UN Human Rights Council, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon traveled secretly to Washington to meet with his U.S. counterpart Bill Burns. Ayalon asked for help in thwarting the establishment of the panel and even suggested that the U.S. publicly threaten to quit the UN Human Rights Council if the panel is established.

The Americans did not respond to that threat, as they view membership in the UN Human Rights Council as a central issue in the foreign policy of the Obama administration. However, the Americans agreed to pressure the UN Human Rights Commissioner on the date of the establishment of the panel and the mandate that it will receive.

Following the UN Human Rights Council's decision to establish the panel to investigate the settlements, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman decided to halt cooperation with the UN Human Rights Commissioner and her staff and to boycott the proceedings of the UN Human Rights Council.

A Foreign Ministry official told Haaretz that one of the people who tried to change Lieberman's mind from taking that step was none other than Israel's ambassador to UN institutions in Geneva, Roni Leshno-Yaar.

Leshno-Yaar came to Israel several weeks ago for policy consultations, met personally with Lieberman, and tried to convince him to go back on the decision. Leshno-Yaar said that the damage of the decision would outweigh the benefits.

Lieberman listened to Leshno-Yaar, but did not accept his view. Leshno-Yaar returned to Geneva and received written instructions to cut all ties with the UN Human Rights Commissioner and to not appear at UN Human Rights Council discussions. Consequently, much of the work of Israel's envoy to UN institutions in Geneva was frozen in place.

Incidentally, Leshno-Yaar will finish his role in Geneva in a few months and return to Israel to serve at the Foreign Ministry headquarters in Jerusalem as the deputy director-general of ties between Israel and the UN.

100 black teens beat white couple in Norfolk...media completely BURIES story

A beating at Church and Brambleton

By Michelle Washington
The Virginian-Pilot
© May 1, 2012

Wave after wave of young men surged forward to take turns punching and kicking their victim.

The victim's friend, a young woman, tried to pull him back into his car. Attackers came after her, pulling her hair, punching her head and causing a bloody scratch to the surface of her eye. She called 911. A recording told her all lines were busy. She called again. Busy. On her third try, she got through and, hysterical, could scream only their location.

Church and Brambleton. Church and Brambleton. Church and Brambleton.

It happened four blocks from where they work, here at The Virginian-Pilot.

Two weeks have passed since reporters Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami - friends to me and many others at the newspaper - were attacked on a Saturday night as they drove home from a show at the Attucks Theatre. They had stopped at a red light, in a crowd of at least 100 young people walking on the sidewalk. Rostami locked her car door. Someone threw a rock at her window. Forster got out to confront the rock-thrower, and that's when the beating began.

Neither suffered grave injuries, but both were out of work for a week. Forster's torso ached from blows to his ribs, and he retained a thumb-sized bump on his head. Rostami fears to be alone in her home. Forster wishes he'd stayed in the car.

Many stories that begin this way end much worse. Another colleague recently wrote about the final defendant to be sentenced in the beating death of 19-year-old James Robertson in East Ocean View five years ago. In that case, a swarm of gang members attacked Robertson and two friends. Robertson's friends got away and called for help; police arrived to find Robertson's stripped, swollen corpse.

Forster and Rostami's story has not, until today, appeared in this paper. The responding officer coded the incident as a simple assault, despite their assertions that at least 30 people had participated in the attack. A reporter making routine checks of police reports would see "simple assault" and, if the names were unfamiliar, would be unlikely to write about it. In this case, editors hesitated to assign a story about their own employees. Would it seem like the paper treated its employees differently from other crime victims?

More questions loomed.

Forster and Rostami wondered if the officer who answered their call treated all crime victims the same way. When Rostami, who admits she was hysterical, tried to describe what had happened, she says the officer told her to shut up and get in the car. Both said the officer did not record any names of witnesses who stopped to help. Rostami said the officer told them the attackers were "probably juveniles anyway. What are we going to do? Find their parents and tell them?"

The officer pointed to public housing in the area and said large groups of teenagers look for trouble on the weekends. "It's what they do," he told Forster.

Could that be true? Could violent mobs of teens be so commonplace in Norfolk that police and victims have no recourse?

Police spokesman Chris Amos said officers often respond to reports of crowds fighting; sirens are usually enough to disperse the group. On that night, he said, a report of gunfire in a nearby neighborhood prompted the officer to decide getting Forster and Rostami off the street quickly made more sense than remaining at the intersection. The officer gave them his card and told them to call later to file a report.

The next day, Forster searched Twitter for mention of the attack.

One post chilled him.

"I feel for the white man who got beat up at the light," wrote one person.

"I don't," wrote another, indicating laughter. "(do it for trayvon martin)"

Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teen, died after being shot by a community watch captain with white and Hispanic parents, George Zimmerman, in Florida.

Forster and Rostami, both white, suffered a beating at the hands of a crowd of black teenagers.

Was either case racially motivated? Were Forster and Rostami beaten in some kind of warped, vigilante retribution for a killing 750 miles away, a person none of them knew? Was it just bombast? Is a beating funny, ever?

Here's why their story is in the paper today. We cannot allow such callousness to continue unremarked, from the irrational, senseless teenagers who attacked two people just trying to go home, from the police officer whose conduct may have been typical but certainly seems cold, from the tweeting nitwits who think beating a man in Norfolk will change the death of Trayvon Martin.

How can we change it if we don't know about it? How can we make it better if we look away?

Are we really no better than this?

Michelle Washington is a columnist for The Virginian-Pilot. 
Email: michelle.washington@pilotonline.com

Amr Moussa calls Camp David Accords "dead and buried"

Egypt-Israel Camp David Accords dead and buried: Amr Moussa
Press TV
Tue May 1, 2012

The former Egyptian Arab League secretary general and presidential candidate in Egypt, Amr Mousa, speaks during a press conference in Cairo, April 22, 2012. Photo credit: Press TV

Egyptian presidential candidate Amr Mousa says the Camp David Accords signed by his country and the Israeli regime in 1978 are "dead and buried."

Addressing a mass rally in southern Egypt on Sunday, the former Arab League chief described the agreement as a document which should be put "on the shelves of history," Ha'aretz reported.

The Camp David Accords were signed by then Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978, following thirteen days of secret negotiations at Camp David in Washington D.C.


The deal comprises of two agreements, a Framework for Peace in the Middle East, and a Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel. The latter agreement led to the signing of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in 1979 which also took place in the United States.

"The Camp David Accords is a historical document whose place is on the shelves of history, as its articles talk about the fact that the aim of the agreement is to establish an independent Palestinian state," said Mousa.

Mousa seems to be speaking about the first part of the Camp David Accords, signed in 1978, which included articles on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

"This accord is dead and buried," the leading Egyptian presidential candidate stressed.

"There is an agreement between Israel and Egypt that we will honor as long as Israel honors it," he added however, apparently referring to the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty.

His remarks come against the backdrop of tense ties between Cairo and Tel Aviv since the downfall of former dictator Hosni Mubarak last year.

Egypt recently announced plans to halt natural gas exports to Israel. There have been growing calls in Egypt for a review of relations with the Tel Aviv regime.

DB/MA/HJL

Qatar, becoming the bastion of the globalists` war on Islam

yourdictionary

Little Qatar Emerges as Point Man for West’s Phony Religious and Media War Against Islam


A.M. Freyed
Infowars.com
May 1, 2012

Soccer meets politics at Doha’s Mohammed Abdul Wahhab Mosque … Qatar’s increasing engagement in European soccer and international sport is just one leg in the small Gulf State’s high-risk attempts to position itself as a global player ‘on the right side of history,’ James M. Dorsey writes in his analysis on the Gulf State’s growing influence in international sport. … A multi-domed, sand-colored, architectural marvel, Doha’s newest and biggest mosque, symbolizes both Qatar’s bold storm into the 21st century and the pitfalls that that march entails. It’s not the mosque itself that raises eyebrows but its naming after an 18th century warrior priest, Sheikh Mohammed Abdul Wahhab, the founder of Islam’s most puritan sect. – Middle East Online (4/21/12)

The global elite’s religious wars are heating up and little countries like Ireland and the Middle East’s Qatar are at the center of it. This is part of a larger strategy, it would seem, to help speed the implementation of world government.

There seems no doubt that the elites that apparently want to run the world continue to exploit every kind of difference between people and cultures that they can.

Starting after 9/11, modern religious wars have become even more pervasive. Afghanistan and Iraq have come into the line of fire for a decade now. And Middle East secular regimes have been taken down with dizzying speed recently.

This is obvious for anyone who wants to look. The powers-that-be are apparently building an Islamic arc in the Middle East and Africa via the installation of various radical-to-moderate Islamic regimes in such places as Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya, to mention a few. The idea seems to be to create various religious and political blocs that can then be exploited for purposes of propaganda.

The elites always work this way, via divide-and-conquer. They are using thesis, antithesis, and synthesis to build a global world order that will feature both East and West. Religion is the anvil and war is the hammer.

Is a special strategy to be employed? Once Barack Obama is re-elected, if he is, the US President (with more “latitude”) might well emerge as a peace-maker between East and West. He will cement his manipulated legacy and the world will take another step toward a dangerous global unification.

The program seems obviously deliberate. Even Syria is on the firing line. Vladimir Putin has objected to the global elite’s takeover of Syria but chances are that after the election, Putin will withdraw his veto and the Assads will fall. Syria, too, may become an Islamic state.

Enter Qatar

But what is most intriguing among these manipulations is the role that the Arab Emirates and countries like Qatar continue to play. These small countries are easily manipulated and have seemingly become the center of a strategy intended to combine East and West.

Little Qatar is the founder of the major Arab wire service Al Jazeera. Qatar is surely a well-fitted cog in the global elites’ mechanism, or so it would seem. Its Emir was put in place by the US; in fact, the US initially attacked Iraq from a huge military base there.

Al Jazeera, the news service, is a kind of Arab CNN. It is not a genuine artifact. Instead, it seems aimed at indoctrinating Islam with an Islamic/Western admixture of monetary paradigms (central banking, debt, etc.) and generally the warfare/welfare state.

Qatar, like Bahrain and other small countries in the Middle East are laboratories of an East/West amalgamation. The tools used in this cultural mix ‘em up are actually anything and everything that comes to hand, including sports...

(click here to read the full article)

Cenk Uygur`s (TYT) honest and real assessment of the 2012 White House Corespondents` Dinner and sad current state of affairs of our government (MUST WATCH)

Published on Apr 30, 2012 by TheYoungTurks
http://youtu.be/U3tSpRDoPZk

The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur had mixed feelings about attending the White House Correspondents Dinner. He shares his reaction after the event. Also check out his blog about it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/whcd_b_1462244.html

Subscribe to The Young Turks: http://bit.ly/eWuu5i

Difference between a successful man and a failure... (Maxwell Maltz)

Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk, and to act. 

~ Maxwell Maltz

Tears to give a clearer view of life... (Alex Tan)

Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see Life with a clearer view again.

~ Alex Tan

Watch the 2012 White House Correspondents` Dinner (w/ Jimmy Kimmel)

Published on Apr 28, 2012 by JimmyKimmelLive
Jimmy Kimmel Hosts the 2012 White House Correspondents' Dinner

Jimmy Kimmel Live's YouTube channel features clips and recaps of every episode from the late night TV show on ABC.

Subscribe for clips from the monologue, the interviews, and musical performances every day of the week. Watch your favorites parts again, or catch-up on any episodes you may have missed

Channel: http://www.youtube.com/jimmykimmellive
Subscribe: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=jimmykimmellive

Copyright Disclaimer [Rubaiat`s Blog]:The use of incidental copyrighted material is covered under 'Fair Use' (Copyright Act, 1976) Title 17 U.S.C Section 107, with particular emphasis on such use for educational and non-profit purposes. Under Sec. 107 of the Copyright Act (1976), allowance is made for 'Fair Use' for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. This video and/or material may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this video and/or information is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.Fair Use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of Fair Use (Moe, AllSeeingEye). If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'Fair Use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act-
In Aug 2008, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose, California, ruled that copyright holders cannot order a deletion of an online file without determining whether that posting reflected "fair use" of the copyrighted material.
[View the blog`s full Fair Use Copyright Disclaimer at the end of the homepage] 

Zionist ally and Israeli lobbyist U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman in Saudi Arabia "adamant" for more "substantive military aid" to terrorists in Syria

US Senator, Saudi King Discuss Syria Crisis
Al-Manar/AFP
5/1/2012

Photo credit: Al-Manar/AFP

US Senator Joe Lieberman discussed Syria crisis with Saudi King Abdullah and other senior officials during a visit to the Kingdom.

Lieberman also met with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, Defense Minister Prince Salman bin Abdul Aziz -- who recently held talks at the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to discuss the Syria crisis -- and General Intelligence chief Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz.

"The senator is traveling in the Middle East this week, focused on the continuing crisis in Syria and other issues related to US national security in the region," Lieberman aide Whitney Phillips told AFP.

It is the second trip to the region in three weeks for Lieberman, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee and also sits on the Armed Services Committee.
The Senator has advocated further US intervention in Syria, including the arming of Syrian opposition groups against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

And while he stressed he wanted "no (US) boots on the ground" in Syria, he was “adamant” about the need to provide more “substantive military aid”.

"At some point we simply have to say, 'we're going to help them, we're going to give them weapons to defend themselves,' and that will make them strong and more organized", Lieberman said last week at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

On Sunday he was in Qatar, where he met with the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Khaled al-Attiyah, Phillips said.

Typical Israeli 'in-justice'

IDF closes probe into Israeli air strike that killed 21 members of Gaza family
Military prosecution says will take no legal steps against those responsible for deaths of Samouni family, killed in their home during Operation Cast Lead.

By Amira Hass
Haaretz
5/1/2012

Israel's military prosecution announced Tuesday that no legal steps will be taken against those responsible for the killing of 21 members of the Samouni family during the 2009 Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

A letter was received by the human rights group B'Tselem from Major Dorit Tuval, Deputy Military Advocate for Operational Matters. Tuval said that the case has been closed after the investigation has found that the attack on the civilians, "who did not take part in the fighting," and their killing were not done knowingly and directly, or out of haste and negligence "in a manner that would indicate criminal responsibility.

In this Jan. 5, 2009 file photo, Palestinians carry the bodies of 

three toddlers Ahmed, Mohamed, and Issa Samouni, who were 

killed in an Israeli strike, during their funeral in Gaza City.

Photo by: AP

B'Tselem activists condemned the decision and called for an alternative investigatory body to probe such incidents.

On the morning of January 4, Givati commanders ordered the dozens of members of the extended Samouni family to leave the three-story house (the home of Talal Samouni), which they then turned into their outpost. The soldiers told them to gather in the one-story home of Wail Samouni, on the other side of the road and about 30 meters southeast. The Samounis took the fact that the soldiers themselves concentrated the family in one building, and saw that there were infants, children, women, elderly people and unarmed men, as insurance that they would not be harmed.

Despite the intense firing heard all around them that entire evening, the family's fears were mitigated by the proximity of the soldiers who had assembled them into the one home. Several of the Samouni men even left the house on Monday morning (January 5) to collect wood for a fire, hoping to bake pita and heat up tea.

They also called out to a relative who had remained in his home, a few meters east of them, and suggested he join them because their house was safe.

In conversations with Haaretz, the Samouni men explained how they felt safe due to the proximity of the IDF soldiers and due to the fact that the soldiers who gathered them in the house saw that they are all civilians.

According to testimonies given to Haaretz and Breaking the Silence by soldiers who took part in the attack, then-Givati Brigade commander Col. Ilan Malka concluded from UAV images of the house that armed Palestinians were inside.

He then ordered an aerial strike on the house, killing one person on the spot. When the casualties went back inside the house, another missile was shot on the house and 20 more people were killed, including three babies and six children between the ages of 5 to 16. Some 40 people were wounded.

Some of the casualties were trapped in the destroyed house, among the bodies, for three days, until the IDF allowed rescue services to arrive at the house and evacuate the bodies.

Attorney Yael Stein of B'Tselem said in response, "It cannot be that in a well-managed system no person will be found guilty of the army operation that led to the killing of 21 people who were not involved in combat, and resided in a structure on the instructions of the army – even if the attack was not done purposefully," she said.

"The manner in which the army rids itself of responsibility in this case… again illustrates the need for an investigatory body outside of the army."