31 January 2009

I want to thank each and everyone of you for your efforts in my urgent time of need, you cannot imagine how much my spirit has been lifted from the cards and letters, the phone calls and how everyone kept up the pressure. My gratitude is really more than I can express.

My return to Lewisburg was met like a hero’€™s welcome, and many people came to assure me of my safety there. It is so ironic that the prisoners in a federal maximum-security prison can guarantee my safety, but the Bureau of Prisons will not. I did not say, “€œcannot”€, but “€œwill not”€ do so. You have to remember the BOP is a little brother to the FBI and they came from an illegitimate mother called the JUST-US (Justice) Department.

Do I sound a little angry? Well, I am angry that many of my friends have died in assuring my survival while I’€™ve been in prison. All the men who were involved in my escape at Lompoc, all died mysteriously soon after: Dallas Thundershield at Lompoc, Bobby Garcia at Terre Haute, and Rocky Duenas, whose body was never recovered. And Standing Deer, he gave away his life when he revealed the assassination plot against me. He lived under the shadow of death for years, waiting to be killed for defying the government, until he was eventually paroled to Texas. He was murdered soon after the same person who contracted him to have me assassinated warned him about his involvement with my campaign. Surviving this attack brought back memories of those losses, and it is with tears of more gratitude in my eyes and in my heart that no one died this time. I don’€™t ever want to lose another brother in protecting me; a human life is precious and important.

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By Sam Gardiner, Asia Times Online, 30 January 2009

While many analysts predicted a rosier picture for United States-Iranian relations with the President Barack Obama administration, the situation is rapidly becoming profoundly more difficult and more complicated. The new dimension is Russia.

On February 20, the Russian Federation Security Council and the State Council will approve a new national security strategy to go through 2020. Without saying the “United States”, the draft document clearly identifies the United States as Russia’s primary rival for the next decade. It goes on to say that the primary focus of the struggle will be for hydrocarbons in some very specific areas. The Middle East and Central Asia are mentioned specifically. In these areas, according to the document, the struggle could develop into a military confrontation.

Russia’s last general security document was adopted in 2000 and was much more general than this one about the security objectives of the Russian Federation. The new draft is much more focused and gives indications of future policy directions.

Looking at the developments of the past 90 days through the filter of the new Russian security framework, a clearer picture emerges. It’s no longer a question for the United States of whether or not Russia will support additional sanctions on Iran. That won’t happen. Russia is on the path to make Iran a strategic partner, a counter to the United States in the regions of rivalry.

[Read the analysis]

Press TV
30 January 2009

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan receives a hero’s welcome on his return to home after his spat with Israel over its war on Gaza.

Erdogan stormed off stage at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos on Thursday during a heated discussion over Israel’s 23-day assault on the Gaza Strip.

He told Israeli President Shimon Peres, who had launched a fiery defense of Tel Aviv’s attack on the coastal enclave over the past month, that Israel “knows very well how to kill”.

[Read the report]

By Susanne Koelbl, Spiegel Online, 28 January 2009

The approach to combatting the drug mafia in Afghanistan has spurred an open rift inside NATO. According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, top NATO commander John Craddock wants the alliance to kill opium dealers, without proof of connection to the insurgency. NATO commanders, however, do not want to follow the order.

A dispute has emerged among NATO High Command in Afghanistan regarding the conditions under which alliance troops can use deadly violence against those identified as insurgents. In a classified document, which SPIEGEL has obtained, NATO’s top commander, US General John Craddock, has issued a “guidance” providing NATO troops with the authority “to attack directly drug producers and facilities throughout Afghanistan.”

According to the document, deadly force is to be used even in those cases where there is no proof that suspects are actively engaged in the armed resistance against the Afghanistan government or against Western troops. It is “no longer necessary to produce intelligence or other evidence that each particular drug trafficker or narcotics facility in Afghanistan meets the criteria of being a military objective,” Craddock writes.

[Read the report]

The Popular Education Project to Free the Cuban 5
www.freethecuban5.com

The Popular Education Project to Free the Cuban 5 has drafted a petition asking President Obama to grant Visas to the families of the Cuban 5.

With his recent decision to close Guantanamo Prison and his public statements in support of changing travel restrictions on Cuban Americans, we feel now is a good time to bring up the US government’s continual denial of visas for the Cuban 5 families; which has kept both Rene Gonzalez and Gerardo Hernandez from seeing their wives for the past ten years.

If President Obama is really pro-family and wants to improve the reputation of the United States, as a “beacon of justice and democracy”, then we need to demand he end this horrible separation of families and this psychological torture.

Please sign this petition and forward this link to all your friend and families. We will be emailing this petition and mailing it in hard copies to President Obama every time we reach a 100th milestone.

SIGN IT AND FORWARD IT OUT FOR THE CUBAN 5:
http://www.petitiononline.com/ObamaC5V/petition.html