ET Williams

The Doctor of Common Sense

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Obama Administration Adopts Resolution to Kill Free Speech

The Religion Of Peace

By Patrick Goodenough

Flags of member nations flying at United Nations headquarters inNew York City. (U.N. Photo by Araujo Pinto)

(CNSNews.com) – The U.N. General Assembly on Monday adopted a resolution condemning the stereotyping, negative profiling and stigmatization of people based on their religion, and urging countries to take effective steps “to address and combat such incidents.”

No member state called for a recorded vote on the text, which was as a result adopted “by consensus.”

The resolution, an initiative of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), is based on one passed by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council in Genevalast spring. The State Department last week hosted a meeting to discuss ways of “implementing” it.

Every year since 1999 the OIC has steered through the U.N.’s human rights apparatus a resolution condemning the “defamation of religion,” which for the bloc of 56 Muslim states covered incidents ranging from satirizing Mohammed in a newspaper cartoon to criticism of shari’a and post-9/11 security check profiling.

Critics regard the measure as an attempt to outlaw valid and critical scrutiny of Islamic teachings, as some OIC states do through controversial blasphemy laws at home.

Strongly opposed by mostly Western democracies, the divisive “defamation” resolution received a dwindling number of votes each year, with the margin of success falling from 57 votes in 2007 to 19 in 2009 and just 12 last year.

This year’s text was a departure, in that it dropped the “defamation” language and included a paragraph that reaffirms “the positive role that the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the full respect for the freedom to seek, receive and impart information can play in strengthening democracy and combating religious intolerance.”

The nod to freedom of expression won the resolution the support of theU.S.and other democracies, with the Obama administration and others hailing it as a breakthrough after years of acrimonious debate.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took the opportunity of the State Department-hosted talks with foreign governments, the OIC and other international bodies last week to stress the importance of freedom of speech in the U.S.She argued that “the best way to treat offensive speech is by people either ignoring it or combating it with good arguments and good speech that overwhelms it.”

Saudi initiative singled out for praise

Nonetheless, the resolution adopted in New York on Monday does contain elements that concern some free speech and religious freedom advocates.

It calls on states “to take effective measures to ensure that public functionaries in the conduct of their public duties do not discriminate against an individual on the basis of religion or belief.”

Governments also are expected to make “a strong effort to counter religious profiling, which is understood to be the invidious use of religion as a criterion in conducting questionings, searches and other law enforcement investigative procedures.”

“Effective measures” to counter cases of religious stereotyping and stigmatization include education, interfaith dialogue and “training of government officials.”

And in the worst cases, those of “incitement to imminent violence” based on religion, the resolution calls on countries to implement “measures to criminalize” such behavior.

Also of note is the fact that the resolution singles out for praise only one interfaith initiative – and that initiative was established bySaudi Arabia, a leading OIC member-state with a long history of enforcing blasphemy laws.

The resolution commends the establishment of the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, “acknowledging the important role that the Centre is expected to play as a platform for the enhancement of interreligious and intercultural dialogue.”

(Another clause welcomes “all international, regional and national initiatives aimed at promoting interreligious, intercultural and interfaith harmony and combating discrimination against individuals on the basis of religion or belief,” but the Saudi one alone is recognized specifically.)

Monday’s adoption of the text took place without a debate. Earlier, when a General Assembly committee considered the draft resolution, a delegate of Poland – speaking on behalf of the European Union – raised concern about the fact it mentioned by name only one center for interreligious dialogue, even though there were numerous such facilities around the world.

The E.U. was also concerned that the resolution considered the world as “monolithic religious blocs,” while religious hatred was primarily a threat to individual freedoms, he said.

Despite those concerns, the E.U. was prepared to join consensus and support the resolution.

TheU.S.representative, John Sammis, said the United States was pleased to join the consensus.

It had been unable to support previous resolutions of this type because they sought to restrict expression and were “counterproductive,” he said, but the new one upholds respect for universal human rights.

“The United States welcomes all international, national, and regional initiatives that respect universal human rights and that recommend these types of measures to promote interfaith harmony and combating discrimination against individuals on the basis of religion or belief,” Sammis said. “Such initiatives can promote respect for religious diversity in a manner that respects universal human rights.”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/un-adopts-religious-intolerance-resolution-championed-obama-administration

 

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Hugo Chavez calls Obama’s a Clown

 

By: MACKENZIE WEINGER

Hugo Chávez blasted President Barack Obama as a “clown” and an “embarrassment” who has turned theUnited States into a “disaster” after Obama criticizedVenezuela’s ties withIran andCuba, according to a report Tuesday.

Chávez’s comments came in the wake of Obama’s Monday written interview with the Caracaspaper El Universal, where the U.S. president questioned Venezuela’s connections to those countries. Chávez hit back strongly at Obama on state TV Monday, according to The Guardian, saying the president gave the interview only to “win votes” in the 2012 election.

“Mr. Obama decided to attack us,” Chávez said. “Now you want to win votes by attackingVenezuela. Don’t be irresponsible. You are a clown, a clown. Leave us in peace … Go after your votes by fulfilling that which you promised your people.”

“Focus on governing your country, which you’ve turned into a disaster,” Chávez said, according to The Guardian.

Chávez’s comments were prompted by Obama’s response to an El Universal question about what theU.S.government thinks ofVenezuela’s ties toIranandCuba. Obama told the paper, “It seems to me that the ties betweenVenezuela’s government andIranandCubahave not served the interests ofVenezuelaand its people.”

“We are concerned about the government’s actions, which have restricted the universal rights of the Venezuelan people, threatened basic democratic values and failed to contribute to the security in the region,” Obama said, according to The Guardian.

ReferencingIran, Obama wrote, “Sooner or later,Venezuela’s people will have to decide what possible advantage there is in having relations with a country that violates fundamental human rights and is isolated from most of the world.”

On Tuesday, Chávez landed inUruguayfor a summit ofSouth America’s trade bloc, Mercosur. This is the Venezuelan president’s first trip abroad since he was diagnosed with cancer.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70694.html

 

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Occupy Movement Supporters Hack into Cop’s Personal Information

I'm a Occupy Wall Street Idiot

Computer hackers are avenging the Occupy movement by exposing the personal information of police officers who evicted protesters and threatening family-values advocates who led a boycott of an American Muslim television show.

In three Internet postings last week, hackers from the loose online coalition called Anonymous published the email and physical addresses, phone numbers and, in some cases, salary details of thousands of law enforcement officers all over the country.

The hackers said they were retaliating for police violence during evictions of Occupy protest camps in cities around the country, but law enforcement advocates slammed the disclosures as dangerous.

“I hope the individuals behind these cyberattacks understand the consequences of what they are doing,” said John Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. “There are very dangerous criminals out there who might seek retribution” against any of these police officers.

Another hacker calling himself ihazcAnNONz struck the website of the Florida Family Association. The group opposes gay marriage and has promoted a successful but highly controversial boycott of advertisers on the reality TV show “All-American Muslim.”

Occupy D.C. protesters stand off with police as they block 14th and K streets NW inWashingtonon Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011. (T.J. Kirkpatrick/TheWashingtonTimes)

The group says the show is “propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Shariah law.”

Supporters of the show say it depicts ordinary Muslim-American families living their normal lives, and they accuse its critics bigotry.

The hacker, ihazcAnNONz, warned theFloridafamily group, “Your hatred, bigotry and fear mongering towards Gays, Lesbians and most recently Muslim Americans has not gone unnoticed!”

In an Internet posting, he told the family association he was reading its email, and he provided email addresses and partial credit-card information of two dozen or so of the group’s supporters. He referred to the Occupy Wall Street movement’s slogan about the “1 percent” and the “99 percent.”

“I am going to assume most of the people who receive your newsletter, email you and make donations are potentially part of the 99 percent … who have been mislead by all of your [expletive] and god talk,” he wrote, adding that he therefore would not post confidential information on them.

The family association did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

Last week, a hacker calling himself Exphin1ty posted the email and physical addresses, phone numbers and encrypted passwords of more than 2,400 police officers and corporate security executives.

“We have seen our fellow brothers and sisters being teargassed for exercising their fundamental liberal rights,” he wrote.

He urged fellow hackers with access to greater computing power to crack the encryption on passwords and see if the victims had used the same password for any other accounts.

Websites that require users to register typically store data such as names, email addresses and passwords on their servers.

Many websites encrypt passwords and credit-card details, but passwords can be decrypted with sufficient computer-processing power if users have employed a word that can be found in a dictionary. People often use the same password for multiple accounts, a practice security experts decry.

“We encourage all of our […] friends to deface and leak [the officers’] twitters, facebooks and private email accounts,” Exphin1ty said.

The targeted police officers and security personnel were members of the Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail (CLEAR), a nonprofit group that promotes cooperation between local police forces and retail corporations throughout theUnited States.

The group did not respond to an email requesting comment.

A hacker called Abhaxas also posted 18,000 emails, names and passwords of customers from Specialforces.com, a website that sells military-styled clothing and weapon accessories. A brief review suggested that many of them might be police officers or military personnel and identifiable as such by their emails.

David Thomas, who responded to an email sent to the website, said Specialforces.com had secured the site and alerted all its customers to the breach.

Hackers under the banner “Operation Pig Roast” posted the names, phone numbers, home addresses and salaries of nearly 70 senior members of the Houston Police Department after an eviction there. However, they insisted that they did not “condone nor do we wish violent behavior against families of these officers.”

They claimed they got the information legally and not by hacking into websites. One computer expert said they probably broke no law.

“Publishing personal details about people — if it doesn’t involve hacking — is, on its face, legal,” said Aaron Titus of Identity Finder, a firm that sells software to help companies secure or destroy personal data. “It’s not illegal to compile and publish information that’s available in public records.”

Alan Brill, senior managing director for Kroll Inc.’s cybersecurity practice, said he is seeing an increasing number of attacks aimed at illegally getting personal data from websites.

He said many small- and medium-sized businesses assumed they would not be targets or wrongly thought they lacked the resources to address security questions.

With “‘hacktivism’ growing on a global scale, it is the height of folly to presume you won’t be a target,” he said, referring to a term for hacker-activists.

He noted that the tools for hacking website databases and for automated scanning of thousands of sites, searching for vulnerabilities, are available commercially, meaning almost anyone could accomplish this kind of computer attack.

Mr. Brill and Mr. Titus agreed that database hacking for financial rewards or just vandalism is growing even faster than politically motivated hacking, making it impossible to predict who might become a target.

“People say, ‘Why would they attack us?’ The answer is, ‘Because you’ve got a website,’” Mr. Titus said.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/dec/20/hackers-post-cops-personal-data-online/?page=2

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Why are The North Korean’s Crying over Kim Jong-IL

 

Communism Is Good

 

 

Governments should mark North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il’s death with a clear demand that the new leader choose a path of reforming the country’s abysmal human rights situation, Human Rights Watch said today. 

Kim Jong-Il exercised total control for 17 years over one of the world’s most closed and repressive governments. He was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of North Koreans through widespread preventable starvation, horrendous prisons and forced labor camps, and public executions. Kim family rule, starting with his father, Kim Il-Sung in 1948, is projected to continue with Kim Jong-Il’s son, Kim Jong-Un. 

“Kim Jong-Il will be remembered as the brutal overseer of massive and systematic oppression that included a willingness to let his people starve,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “When he assumes leadership, Kim Jong-Un should break with the past and put the human rights of North Koreans first, not last.”

Kim Jong-Il’s legacy includes the fate of the tens of thousands who have died in the kwanliso camps for alleged enemies of the state, where today an estimated 200,000 North Koreans continue to work and die in conditions of near starvation and brutal abuse. In this system, the sins of one member of the family condemn an entire generation to imprisonment. A steady stream of former prisoners who escaped North Korea have testified to Human Rights Watch and other organizations how even children born inside such camps grow up to inherit their parents’ prisoner status.

Leaving the country without official permission is considered an act of treason, punishable by torture and imprisonment, yet tens of thousands have fled in the last two decades, and thousands more continue to risk their lives every year to escape.

“North Korea under Kim Jong-Il has been a human rights hell on earth,” said Roth. “Kim Jong-Il ruled through fear generated by systematic and pervasive human rights abuses including arbitrary executions, torture, forced labor and strict limits on freedom of speech and association.” 

In his final report to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Vitit Muntarbhorn, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republicof Korea, rightly classified the human rights situation in North Koreaas “horrific and harrowing” and as sui generis, or in its own category. There have been growing calls from governments and civil society organizations for the establishment of a UN commission of inquiry to examine whether crimes against humanity have been committed in North Korea. 

“The international community should take this transitory period of power inNorth Korea to press for the country’s new leader to steer the country in a new direction and cease repression of its citizens,” said Roth. “Pressing North Korea to comply with human rights demands contained in the latest UN General Assembly resolution onNorth Korea, and allowing the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea to visit the country, would be a good start.”

http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/12/19/north-korea-kim-jong-il-s-legacy-mass-atrocity-0

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Steny Hoyer wants Democrats to support Bill no one has read

It's Not Corruption because It's Our Dam Money

By: Pete Kasperowicz 

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Friday afternoon called on his colleagues to support the $1 trillion omnibus spending bill, even though no one — or almost no one — has read it.

“I rise in strong support of this bill, and I urge my colleagues to support this piece of legislation,” he said. “None of them have read it.”

He quickly acknowledged that House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) read the bill, and that ranking member Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) probably read it as well. But he said that despite his support for the bill, he is not a fan of the process that Republicans used to bring the bill forward so quickly, and at the last minute, for passage.

“Had I as majority leader brought that bill that sits on that floor, 1,207 pages, within the last 24 hours to the floor, I think the response from that side of the aisle would have been harsh, accusatory and not helpful,” Hoyer said.

Hoyer said the process should be a “lesson in humility” for all members. The House is expected to approve the bill later this afternoon and send it to the Senate.

Democrats have spoken favorably about the bill in early afternoon debate, and even those who are upset with the process have said they would vote for the bill to avoid a government shutdown.

 http://www.marklevinshow.com/goout.asp?u=http://thehill.com/video/house/199973-hoyer-not-one-of-us-has-read-entire-omnibus

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US Exits Iraq, Is this Political

 

US President Barack Obama’s half-hour tête-a- tête with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Washington Friday, Dec. 16, was vitally concerned with the coming steps in the Syrian showdown and the latest developments in the controversy over Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Their conference was urgent because key events in the Middle East this week made early decisions necessary on both these issues. Termination of theUS military mission inIraq has powerful ramifications for Israel, Iran and Syria as well as Iraq itself.
FromTehran’s standpoint, the US military departure has removed a formidable obstacle from Israel’s path to an attack on its nuclear installations: the US Air Force’s control of Iraqi skies. Cleared of this shield, Iraqi air space offers Israel an open corridor for its air force to reach Iran without hindrance. Overflights through any other country, such as Saudi Arabia, would have been contingent on their governments’ cooperation in the anti-Iran offensive.

Tehran delayed releasing word of the capture of the US stealth RQ-170 drone until Dec. 4, timing it for the final month of the US troop drawdown from Iraq, in order to demonstrate to Israel – and not just America – that the sophisticated electronic resources which downed the RQ-170 over the Afghanistan-Iranian border were still available to Tehran for downing Israeli flights entering Iraqi air space. Therefore,Israel’s air force could no longer be sure of safely breaching Iraqi air space for its attack.

To put another spoke in Israel’s plans for striking Iran, Tehran used Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s visit to Washington (Dec. 12-13 ) for sending the US President a conciliatory message: The Islamic rulers were willing to clear the air with the Obama administration and broach areas of discord – notwithstanding the ill will generated by the allegations of an al-Qods Brigades plot to murder the Saudi ambassador to Washington and the captured American stealth drone’s intrusion into their airspace.

Iranreinforced the message of good will posted through al Maliki by four additional steps:

1. Monday, Dec. 12, its intelligence minister Heider Moslehi traveled to Riyadh and held talks with Saudi Crown Prince Nayef and intelligence chief Prince Muqrin. This was Tehran’s way of informing Washington, say  sources, that Saudi Arabia was acceptable for a role in helping to reset the relationship, while Turkey, Obama’s choice, was not.
The US preference forTurkey as its main Middle East facilitator was underlined in the two days US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta spent inAnkara Thursday and Friday.

2.  Wednesday, Dec. 14, a Revolutionary Guards officer Gholamreza Jalali announced that most of ran’s nuclear facilities had been relocated underground. Therefore, “Our vulnerability in the nuclear area has reached the minimum level,” he said.

This information was intended to strengthen the Obama administration’s argument that the odds on an Israeli attack on Iran having useful results had plummeted again.

3.  Friday, Dec. 16,Iran’s foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi stated: “Within the next two months, the first fuel plate which is produced with the 20 percent enriched uranium will be placed inTehran’s research reactor.”

Translation: Iranis complying with President Obama’s requirement that Iran’s highly-enriched uranium be set aside for research – not a nuclear bomb.
4.  Saturday, Dec. 17,North Korea was reported to have agreed to suspend its enriched-uranium nuclear weapons program andWashington agreed to provide Pyongyang with up to 240,000 tonnes of food aid.

SinceIranandNorth Korea habitually walk in step on their nuclear strategy, Pyongyang’s compliance with Washington’s key demand may be taken as a pointer to the Islamic Republic’s willingness to slow uranium enrichment in stages that match the lifting of sanctions.

The Syrian question loomed large in the Obama-Maliki talks this week because the US military’s exit fromIraqopens another corridor, this one for Iran to exploit for the convenience of a direct military route to Syria for its warplanes and military vehicles.

The US president insisted emphatically that the Iraqi prime minister must not let this happen. Maliki refused to give any promises, excepting only that Baghdad would line up behind Arab League policy on the Assad regime and not violate the sanctions the League has imposed on Damascus.

In his briefing toTehran, Maliki was able to report that while Obama was willing to look atIran’s proposals for slowing uranium enrichment, he would not hear of easing the pressure on President Bashar Assad.

What this means is that the door has been opened for Tehranto try and mend its fences with Washington- provided the ayatollahs are willing to throw Assad to the wolves. Before moving ahead on this, the Iranians will no doubt demand guarantees against an American or an Israeli attack on their nuclear program.
Israel’s strategic state of health has taken a serious beating from these developments, its options againstIran shrinking substantially and the opening for military action narrowing.

The removal of most ofIran’s nuclear facilities below ground, President Obama’s willingness to heed conciliatory feelers fromTehran, and Baghdad’s assumption of the role of go-between for Washington and Tehranare all bad news for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his defense minister.

Iran has again contrived to buy time and leeway for bringing its nuclear weapons program to completion.
Even the option of a clear run throughIraq for Israeli warplanes to strike Iran is likely to be short-lived:Tehran, which controls the Iraqi prime minister, will lose no time in placing its electronic warfare and intelligence systems in position for shutting that corridor toIsrael.

Israel’s vanishing options onIrantopped Ehud Barak’s conversation with Barack Obama inWashingtonon Friday.

http://debka.com/article/21579/