The Jewish Suicide Bomber That You Never Heard Of

Martin Iqbal writes,

In 1983 American police foiled a significant terror attack that most Americans to this day are utterly oblivious to. On October 18, 1983, a suicide bomber strapped with explosives was caught in the spectators’ gallery of the US House of Representatives, attempting to blow up the US Capitol.⁽¹⁾ The reason most Americans know nothing of this plot, is that the terrorist was a Jewish Israeli named ‘Israel Rabinowits’. The astounding ignorance of Americans is owing to the supreme control that Zionist Jews wield over the American press. Michael Collins Piper reports⁽¹⁾ that this event was mentioned

just once in The Washington Post – the so-called newspaper of record in the American capital – and only once, in passing, in The New York Times.

A search of the New York Times online archive mirrors Piper’s findings, and it reveals the staggeringly trivial and obfuscatory nature of the NYT’s reportage. The November 2, 1983 article⁽²⁾titled “BOMB CARRIER IN U.S. HOME PROMPTS TIGHTENED SECURITY” is significant for a number of reasons.

First and foremost it must be acknowledged that the article appeared not on the first page (as would be expected for a suicide bomb attempt on the US Capitol), but on the paper’s Late City Final Edition, Section A, Page 22, Column 1. After searching the archive from 1981 to the present day, I can say confidently that there is no other mention of this event, even on the day of or following the attempted attack.

This is consistent with Michael Collins Piper’s findings with respect to the Washington Post:⁽¹⁾

And for the record, even though it was certainly qualified as “big” news, even The Washington Post buried the story in its local news section – across from the obituaries.

The title of the NYT article is purposefully misleading and deceptive. The terrorist suicide bomber is described as a ‘bomb carrier‘, (no mention of ethnicity or religion) and the U.S. House is referred to as ‘home‘ in what on the face of it seems to be a mistake, but what is likely intentional. This euphemistic description of the event (buried on page 22) is clearly meant to make the article less of a ‘grabber’ so that readers pass over the information. One can only imagine what the (front page) headline would have been if the Jewish terrorist had been Muslim: Islamist Suicide Bomb Attempt Prompts Tightened Security at U.S. House.

Reading further into the article we see that the name of the suicide bomber is eventually revealed in the fifth paragraph, and the fact that he is Jewish is completely omitted from the entire text. Conversely, reportage on terror attacks perpetrated (allegedly or otherwise) by Muslims consistently pivots on and emphasises the perpetrator’s ethnicity and religion (information which is always conveyed in the headline).

Despite publishing not a word on the terrorist’s potential motives, the NYT also actually tries to humanise the terrorist in indirectly suggesting that Rabinowits had moralistic ambitions. The article reveals that Rabinowits’s lawyer told a court that his client “wanted to address Congress about world hunger“.

The very fact that most Americans know nothing of this event is a telling indictment of the Zionist controlled nature of the ‘free’ media in the United States. This important event has been barely covered, and where it has been covered, it has been documented in a deceptive, misleading, and trivial manner. What is even more sickening and telling is how this Zionist media outlet in particular actually attempted to humanise the terrorist – no doubt purely because he was a member of the tribe.

Update: 24 February 2012

Hat tip to Irradiee for suggesting newspaperarchive.com, a search of which has uncovered the fact that Israel Rabinowits was not locked up by the American authorities for his attempted terror attack. Instead – just like his modern day Mossad cohorts who took part in the 9/11 attacks – he was sent back to Israel.

A January 9, 1986 issue of the Titusville Herald⁽³⁾ reveals that approximately two years after the attempted terrorist attack, Israel Rabinowits was sent back to Israel where he is “apparently” in prison:

Meanwhile, a House official said Wednesday that a man carrying a homemade bomb who was arrested in the House gallery after threatening to blow up the Capitol more than two years ago was deported to Israel, where he is apparently in prison.

Jack Russ, the House sergeant at arms, said Israel Rubinowits was ordered never to return to the United States after the October 18, 1983 episode.

What is interesting about this passage, buried on page 9 of the paper, is that it appears within an article that is placed on the front page of the newspaper. The title of this article is “US Says Khadafy Trains Terrorists“. Laughably, the newspaper attempts to contextualise this Jewish Israeli’s attempted terror attack within alleged terrorism committed by Muammar Gaddafi – revolutionary and longtime enemy of the terrorist states of Israel and the United States of America.

Notes

1) ‘The Confessions of an anti-Semite’ by Michael Collins Piper, Chapter 18
2) ‘BOMB CARRIER IN U.S. HOME PROMPTS TIGHTENED SECURITY’ – New York Times, November 2, 1983

Editor’s note: Only an abstract of the archived New York Times article can be viewed online (here), however I have gained access to the full version which is published here [rtf].

3) Titusville Herald, January 9, 1986, page 9, article titled: ‘US Says Khadafy Trains Terrorists’

Below is the New York Times coverage of the terrorist operation:

BOMB CARRIER IN U.S. HOME PROMPTS TIGHTENED SECURITY

AP (The New York Times); National Desk

November 2, 1983, Wednesday

Late City Final Edition, Section A, Page 22, Column 1, 478 words

The Capitol police re-adjusted metal detectors and installed sensitive bomb-detecting equipment last month after a tourist entered the House gallery with a homemade bomb under his shirt. Jack Russ, the sergeant-at-arms of the House, said today that the urgent steps following the Oct. 18 scare were the beginning of a tighter security system. In an interview, Mr. Russ said the bomb taken into the building ''was not a dud.'' It failed to explode because the man ''had not placed his wiring properly,'' he said.

Western Media Dictatorship

By Dr. Elias Akleh,

The Western wars against the Middle Eastern countries, especially the Islamic Republic of Iran, had been escalated, lately, to an unprecedented higher level. Besides being economical, political, intelligence and technological, the war had been escalated to include telecommunication.

On Monday, October 15th, a total of 19 Iranian satellite TV channels and radio stations broadcasting to Europe were cut off of its Hot Bird Frequencies. Among these channels are Press TV, Al-Alam, Jam-e-Jam 1 and 2, Sahar 1 and 2, Islamic Republic of Iran News Network, Quran TV, and the Arabic-language al-Kawthar.

Although the Iranian satellite companies have signed broadcasting contracts that are valid until 2021, and have not breached or violated these contracts in any way, the European satellite provider Eutelsat SA had ordered its media services company, Arqiva, to terminate the broadcast of the Iranian satellite channels.

Karen Badalov, the area manager of Eutelsat SA, claimed that they had terminated the contracts upon an order from the European Commission as part of Europe’s latest unilateral sanctions against Iran. In a separate statement emailed to Press TV, one of the banned channels, by the head of Public Relations Department of Arqiva, Gary Follows, stated that the decision was made by the EU Council and repeated requests by France’s broadcasting authority. Such order from EU came three days after the EU had controversially won the Noble Peace Award.

Yet these claims were contradicted by Maja Kociyancic, the EU Foreign Policy Chief Spokesperson, who denied giving such an order explaining that late sanctions against Iran are directed against finance, trade, energy, and transport and do not include telecommunications.

Such deniability from both parties comes to exonerate themselves from any guilt.

Gordon Duff, senior editor of Veterans Today, stated on Press TV that a strong background check on the source of the decision revealed that the decision came from Eutelsat; an Israeli-owned company that runs about 25% of the news programs in the world. The decision, he claimed, came down from a Michelle De Rozen, an Israeli citizen, who controls Eutelsat. Duff stated that Eutelsat in particular is a Mossad propaganda operation.

This telecommunication war is a part and parcel of a policy adopted by the pro-Zionist American administration and its EU poodle to cover theirs and the Israeli war crimes and flagrant violations of human rights in the Middle Eastern and in South East Asian regions.

It started in December 2004 when the US and EU banned the Lebanese pro-Hezbollah Al-Manar TV from broadcasting into the US and Europe after being designated as a supporter of terror and spreading hatred as stated by Richard Boucher, then, State Department Spokesman. In September 2012 the pro-Syrian government TV channels were banned from Arabsat and Nilesat. Now it is Iran’s turn, where not one or two but 19 satellite channels are banned. This seems to have become a dangerous interlude to other future such attacks on free speech. Recently there are attacks against Russian satellite TV channels especially those that are broadcasting alternative views of the Syrian crises contradicting the Western narratives.

The Western countries conceitedly designate themselves as the defenders and promoters of democracy and free speech to the point of waging devastating wars to guarantee it. While the EU raises the flag of democracy and free speech and claims to be a democratic organization it is completely violating the basic tenets of freedom of speech and the basic rights of its own citizens to receive news and to be exposed to alternative views.

It seems that this guaranteed freedom of speech is exclusive to Americans, Europeans and Israelis, who continuously attack Islam, insult its prophet, and burn its holy book imitating Nazi’s books burning. I wonder if Richard Boucher would ban such hate spreading activities! Would he condemn or praise the American judges who stated that the American First Amendment Right to Free Speech gives the pro-Israeli hate group calling itself American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) to sponsor the hate anti-Islamic ads in four Washington area Metro stations, yet labeling anyone who dares to condemn the Israeli terrorist attacks against Palestinians as hating anti-Semite.

Banning the Iranian satellite channels is a grave breach of Article 10 of the European Convention of the Human Rights stating that: “… it is the peoples’ basic right to receive news and information”.

The ban also violates Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stating that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.

Besides being an infringement on the rights of citizens to receive information, the decision to ban Iranian satellite channels, causing Utelsat to lose handsome revenue and suffer some legal ramification, is not a good business decision. This indicates that the decision was a purely political decision and had to come from higher sources. The main reason behind this political decision is the fear of the Western governments to lose control over their own citizens when their lies are exposed, and their inability to enter into a meaningful media dialogue to discredit Iranian news analyses broadcasts.

Iranian news channels stayed focused on the Middle Eastern core issue of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the heart of the Arab World, and the core Islamic issue of the Israeli threat to occupy, to alter, and possibly to destroy the second Islamic holiest place; Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Iranian channels have dedicated news analytical programs and documentaries exposing the terrorist realities of Zionist Israel, its genocidal policies towards Palestinians especially against Gaza Strip, such as the latest piracy crime of Israeli navy ships against the humanitarian Estelle ship bound to Gaza, and its Mossad’s political assassinations of Arab political figures to cause tension and to incite sectarian conflict, such as Mossad’s latest assassination of the Lebanese Security Chief, Wissam al-Hassan. They also expose the illegality of the Western unconditional financial and political support to all Israeli terrorist attacks in contradiction and violation of their own local laws and the international laws.

Iranian news channels have the courage to tackle European and American issues that no European or American news media want even to mention at all. They have dealt with the realities of US and EU involvement in the wars in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Palestine, in Syria, in Lebanon, and their support to terror organizations operating in these countries and especially in terrorist attacks against Iran. They have discussed the illegality of the American drone attacks against civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

Knowing other nations on the human level leads to understanding, empathy, cooperation, and peace, something Western political heads of states are afraid of because they could no longer control their own citizens through lies about, and fear from the unknown others. Banning Iranian broadcast is a form of media dictatorship intended to suppress their humanity and to promulgate fear and hostility towards them.

Via: "The People's Choice"

The Bias Of America's Mainstream Media

The Obvious and Fatal Bias Of American Mainstream Media Concerning US Foreign Policy

There are more than 1,400 daily newspapers in the United States. Can you name a single paper, or a single TV network, that was unequivocally opposed to the American wars carried out against Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Panama, Grenada, and Vietnam? Or even opposed to any two of these wars? How about one? (I've been asking this question for years and so far I've gotten only one answer — Someone told me that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer had unequivocally opposed the invasion of Iraq. Can anyone verify that or name another case?)

In 1968, six years into the Vietnam war, the Boston Globe surveyed the editorial positions of 39 leading US papers concerning the war and found that "none advocated a pull-out".⁷

Now, can you name an American daily newspaper or TV network that more or less gives any support to any US government ODE (Officially Designated Enemy)? Like Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Fidel or Raul Castro of Cuba, Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Rafael Correa of Ecuador (even before the current Assange matter), or Evo Morales of Bolivia? I mean that presents the ODE's point of view in a reasonably fair manner most of the time? Or any ODE of the recent past like Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, Moammar Gaddafi of Libya, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, or Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti?

Who in the mainstream media supports Hamas of Gaza? Or Hezbollah of Lebanon?

Who in the mainstream media is outspokenly critical of Israel's domestic or foreign policies? And keeps his/her job?

Who in the mainstream media treats Julian Assange or Bradley Manning as the heros they are?

And this same mainstream media tell us that Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, et al. do not have a real opposition media.

The ideology of the American mainstream media is the belief that they don't have any ideology; they are instead what they call "objective".

It's been said that the political spectrum concerning US foreign policy in the America mainstream media "runs the gamut from A to B."

Long before the Soviet Union broke up, a group of Russian writers touring the United States were astonished to find, after reading the newspapers and watching television, that almost all the opinions on all the vital issues were the same. "In our country," said one of them, "to get that result we have a dictatorship. We imprison people. We tear out their fingernails. Here you have none of that. How do you do it? What's the secret?"⁸

On October 8, 2001, the second day of the US bombing of Afghanistan, the transmitters for the Taliban government'sRadio Shari were bombed and shortly after this the US bombed some 20 regional radio sites. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended the targeting of these facilities, saying: "Naturally, they cannot be considered to be free media outlets. They are mouthpieces of the Taliban and those harboring terrorists."⁹

^{Via: "Information Clearing House"}

Collusion Between The New York Times and CIA

Mark Mazzetti's emails with the CIA expose the degradation of journalism that has lost the imperative to be a check to power

Glenn Greenwald reports in "The Guardian",

The rightwing transparency group, Judicial Watch, released Tuesday a new batch of documents showing how eagerly the Obama administrationshoveled information to Hollywood film-makers about the Bin Laden raid. Obama officials did so to enable the production of a politically beneficial pre-election film about that "heroic" killing, even as administration lawyers insisted to federal courts and media outlets that no disclosure was permissible because the raid was classified.

Thanks to prior disclosures from Judicial Watch of documents it obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, this is old news. That's what the Obama administration chronically does: it manipulates secrecy powers to prevent accountability in a court of law, while leaking at will about the same programs in order to glorify the president.

But what is news in this disclosure are the newly released emailsbetween Mark Mazzetti, the New York Times's national security and intelligence reporter, and CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf. The CIA had evidently heard that Maureen Dowd was planning to write a column on the CIA's role in pumping the film-makers with information about the Bin Laden raid in order to boost Obama's re-election chances, and was apparently worried about how Dowd's column would reflect on them. On 5 August 2011 (a Friday night), Harf wrote an email to Mazzetti with the subject line: "Any word??", suggesting, obviously, that she and Mazzetti had already discussed Dowd's impending column and she was expecting an update from the NYT reporter.

A mere two minutes after the CIA spokeswoman sent this Friday night inquiry, Mazzetti responded. He promised her that he was "going to see a version before it gets filed", and assured her that there was likely nothing to worry about:

"My sense is there a very brief mention at bottom of column about CIA ceremony, but that [screenwriter Mark] Boal also got high level access at Pentagon."

She then replied with this instruction to Mazzetti: "keep me posted", adding that she "really appreciate[d] it".

Moments later, Mazzetti forwarded the draft of Dowd's unpublished column to the CIA spokeswoman (it was published the following night online by the Times, and two days later in the print edition). At the top of that email, Mazzetti wrote: "this didn't come from me … and please delete after you read." He then proudly told her that his assurances turned out to be true:

"See, nothing to worry about."

This exchange, by itself, is remarkably revealing: of the standard role played by establishment journalists and the corruption that pervades it. Here we have a New York Times reporter who covers the CIA colluding with its spokesperson to plan for the fallout from the reporting by his own newspaper ("nothing to worry about"). Beyond this, that a New York Times journalist – ostensibly devoted to bringing transparency to government institutions – is pleading with the CIA spokesperson, of all people, to conceal his actions and to delete the evidence of collusion is so richly symbolic.

The relationship between the New York Times and the US government is, as usual, anything but adversarial. Indeed, these emails read like the interactions between a PR representative and his client as they plan in anticipation of a possible crisis.

Even more amazing is the reaction of the newspaper's managing editor, Dean Baquet, to these revelations, as reported by Politico's Dylan Byers:

"New York Times Managing Editor Dean Baquet called POLITICO to explain the situation, but provided little clarity, saying he could not go into detail on the issue because it was an intelligence matter.

"'I know the circumstances, and if you knew everything that's going on, you'd know it's much ado about nothing,' Baquet said. 'I can't go into in detail. But I'm confident after talking to Mark that it's much ado about nothing.'

"'The optics aren't what they look like,' he went on. 'I've talked to Mark, I know the circumstance, and given what I know, it's much ado about nothing.'"

There is so much to say about that passage.

First, try though I did, I'm unable to avoid noting that this statement from Baquet – "the optics aren't what they look like" – is one of the most hilariously incoherent utterances seen in some time. It's the type ofmeaningless, illiterate corporatese that comes spewing forth from bumbling executives defending the indefensible. I've read that sentence roughly a dozen times over the last 24 hours and each time, it provides me with greater amounts of dark amusement.

Second, look at how the New York Times mimics the CIA even in terms of how the newspaper's employees speak: Baquet "provided little clarity, saying he could not go into detail on the issue because it was an intelligence matter". In what conceivable way is Mazzetti's collusion with the CIA an "intelligence matter" that prevents the NYT's managing editor from explaining what happened here?

This is what the CIA reflexively does: insists that, even when it comes to allegations that they have engaged in serious wrongdoing, you (and even courts) cannot know what the agency is doing because it is an "intelligence matter". Now, here we have the managing editor of the Newspaper of Record reciting this same secrecy-loving phrase verbatim– as though the New York Times is some sort of an intelligence agency whose inner workings must be concealed for our own safety – all in order to avoid any sort of public disclosure about the wrongdoing in which it got caught engaging. One notices this frequently: media figures come to identify so closely with the government officials on whom they report that they start adopting not only their way of thinking, but even their lingo.

Third, note how Baquet proudly touts the fact that he knows facts to which you are not and will not be privvy:

"I know the circumstances, if you knew everything that's going on, you'd know it's much ado about nothing."

Isn't the function of a newspaper supposed to be to tell us "everything that's going on", not to boast that it knows the circumstances and you do not?

Baquet's claim that this was all "much ado about nothing" did not, apparently, sit well with at least some people at the New York Times, who seem not to appreciate it when their national security reporter secretly gives advanced copies of columns to the CIA spokesperson. Shortly after Baquet issued his ringing defense of Mazzetti's behavior, a spokesperson for the paper not only provided the details Baquet insisted could not be given, but also made clear that Mazzetti's conduct was inappropriate:

"Last August, Maureen Dowd asked Mark Mazzetti to help check a fact for her column. In the course of doing so, he sent the entire column to a CIA spokeswoman shortly before her deadline. He did this without the knowledge of Ms Dowd. This action was a mistake that is not consistent with New York Times standards."

It may be "inconsistent with the New York Times standards" for one of its reporters to secretly send advanced copy to the CIA and then ask that the agency delete all record that he did so: one certainly hopes it is. But it is not, unfortunately, inconsistent with the paper's behavior in general, when it comes to reporting on public officials. Serving as obedient lapdogs and message-carriers for political power, rather than adversarial watchdogs over power, is par for the course.

The most obvious example of this is the paper's complicity with propagating war-fueling falsehoods to justify the attack on Iraq – though, in that instance, it was hardly alone. Just last month, it was revealed that the NYT routinely gives veto power to Obama campaign officials over the quotes from those officials the paper is allowed to publish – a practicebarred by other outlets (but not the NYT) both prior to that revelation andsubsequent to it.

Worse, the paper frequently conceals vital information of public interest at the direction of the government, as it did when it learned of George Bush's illegal eavesdropping program in mid 2004 but concealed it for more than a year at the direction of the White House, until Bush was safely re-elected; as it did when it complied with government directives toconceal the CIA employment of Raymond Davis, captured by Pakistan, even as President Obama falsely described him as "our diplomat in Pakistan" and as the NYT reported the president's statement without noting that it was false; and as it did with its disclosure of numerous WikiLeaks releases, for which the paper, as former executive editor Bill Keller proudly boasted, took direction from the government regarding what should and should not be published.

And that's all independent of the chronic practice of the NYT to permit government officials to hide behind anonymity in order to disseminate government propaganda – or even to smear journalists as al-Qaida sympathizers for reporting critically on government actions – even when granting such anonymity violates its own publicly announced policies.

What all of this behavior from the NYT has in common is clear: it demonstrates the extent to which it institutionally collaborates with and serves the interests of the nation's most powerful factions, rather than act as an adversarial check on them. When he talks to the CIA spokesperson, Mazzetti sounds as if he's talking to a close colleague working together on a joint project.

It sounds that way because that's what it is.

One can, if one wishes, cynically justify Mazzetti's helpful co-operation with the CIA as nothing more than a common means which journalists use to curry favor with their sources. Leave aside the fact that the CIA spokesperson with whom Mazzetti is co-operating is hardly some valuable leaker deep within the bowels of the agency but, in theory, should be the supreme adversary of real journalists: her job is to shape public perception as favorably as possible to the CIA, even at the expense of the truth.

The more important objection is that the fact that a certain behavior is common does not negate its being corrupt. Indeed, as is true for government abuses generally, those in power rely on the willingness of citizens to be trained to view corrupt acts as so common that they become inured, numb, to its wrongfulness. Once a corrupt practice is sufficiently perceived as commonplace, then it is transformed in people's minds from something objectionable into something acceptable. Indeed, many people believe it demonstrates their worldly sophistication to express indifference toward bad behavior by powerful actors on the ground that it is so prevalent. This cynicism – oh, don't be naive: this is done all the time – is precisely what enables such destructive behavior to thrive unchallenged.

It is true that Mazzetti's emails with the CIA do not shock or surprise in the slightest. But that's the point. With some noble journalistic exceptions (at the NYT and elsewhere), these emails reflect the standard full-scale cooperation – a virtual merger – between our the government and the establishment media outlets that claim to act as "watchdogs" over them.

From "All the news that's fit to print" to "please delete after you read" and cannot "go into detail because it is an intelligence matter": that's the gap between the New York Times's marketed brand and its reality.

* * * * *

UPDATE: The Times' Public Editor weighed in on this matter today, noting his clear disapproval for what Mazzetti did: 

"Whatever Mr. Mazzetti's motivation, it is a clear boundary violation to disclose a potentially sensitive article pre-publication under such circumstances. This goes well beyond the normal give-and-take that characterizes the handling of sources and suggests the absence of an arm's-length relationship between a reporter and those he is dealing with."

While Mazzetti himself expresses regret for his behavior -- "It was definitely a mistake to do. I have never done it before and I will never do it again" -- both he and Executive Editor Jill Abramson insist that he had no bad intent, but was simply trying to help out a colleague (Dowd) by having her claims fact-checked. Like Baquet, Abramson invokes secrecy to conceal the key facts: "I can't provide further detail on why the entire column was sent."

The question raised by these excuses is obvious: if Mazzetti were acting with such pure and benign motives, why did he ask the CIA to delete the email he sent? This appears to be a classic case of expressing sorrow not over what one did, but over having been caught.

On a different note, Politico's Byers, in response to my inquiry, advises me that Baquet did indeed say what Byers attributed to him -- "he could not go into detail on the issue because it was an intelligence matter" -- and that his exact quote was: it "has to with intel."

The Pentagon Will "Monitor" National Media Reports

Defense reporters want the Pentagon’s assurance it’s not listening to their phone calls.

The request is in response to the Defense Department’s new policy of monitoring national media reports for unauthorized disclosures of classified information.

It’s the word “monitor” that set off alarm bells among journalists.

The word “could be interpreted by some as authorizing intrusive actions aimed at members of the news media who report on defense issues,” the Pentagon Press Association said in a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey.

The association, formed in 2010 to advocate for reporters who cover the Defense Department, has asked Pentagon leaders to clarify whether the department has the authority to tap their phone calls, intercept their emails or spy on their workspaces.

“Do you need probable cause before engaging in any of these activities and get a court’s authority to do so?” the letter asks.

The Pentagon’s new policy was announced on Thursday after Panetta and Dempsey met with the House Armed Services Committee in a closed-door hearing on how the recent spate of national-security leaks has affected military operations.

After the hearing, Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said he didn’t believe the leaks, including information on alleged cyberattacks against Iran, had come from the Pentagon.

“A lot of people have a lot of information, and when you think about how much has been leaked, based on how many people have information, actually we’re doing pretty good,” McKeon told reporters.

UPDATE: Pentagon spokesman George Little sent the following response on Friday evening:

The Department will, of course, review this letter. We have great respect for the Pentagon press corps and its vital role in informing the American people. The key goal of the steps we announced is to ensure that Department officials honor their obligation to protect classified information.

Via: "Politico"

Myanmar Muslims Suffering Amid Media Blackout

Kourosh Ziabari writes:

As the Muslims around the world cheerfully get prepared for the holy month of Ramadan, the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar are painfully subject to the barbaric and appalling atrocities of the extremist Buddhists, finding their life in a constant state of trepidation and suffering.

Branded by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities of the world, Rohingyas are a group of Muslims living in the Rakhine State, located in west of Myanmar. With a population of 3 million, Rakhine state is bordered by the Bay of Bengal to the west and the majority of its residents are Theravada Buddhists and Hindus.The suppression of the Rohingya Muslims in the Arakan region dates back to the World War II. On March 28, 1942, about 5,000 Rohingya Muslims were brutally massacred by the Rakhine nationalists in the Minbya and Mrohaung Townships. After that, the Muslims of the region were frequently subject to harassment by the Burmese government which has so far refused to grant them official citizenship. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, this lack of full citizenship rights means that the Rohingyas should tolerate other abuses, including restrictions on their freedom of movement, discriminatory limitations on access to education, and arbitrary confiscation of property.

It's said that as a result of dire living conditions and discriminatory treatment by the government, some 300,000 Rohingyas have so far immigrated to Bangladesh and 24,000 of them also escaped to Malaysia in search of a better life. Many of them have also fled to Thailand, but neither Bangladesh nor Thailand has received them warmly. Bangladesh is negotiating with the Burmese government to return the Rohingyas and Thailand has sporadically rejected the hopeless immigrants. There have been instances where boats of Rohingyas reaching Thailand have been towed out to sea and allowed to sink, sparking international anger among Muslims and non-Muslims.

Human Rights Watch says the government authorities continue to require Rohingya Muslims to perform forced labor. According to the HRW, those who refuse or complain are physically threatened, sometimes with death, and children as young as seven years old have been seen on forced labor teams.

Writing for The Egyptian Gazette, University of Waterloo professor Dr. Mohamed Elmasry has enumerated the different hardships the Rohingya Muslims have historically undergone. He writes that they are subjected to various forms of extortion and arbitrary taxation, land confiscation, forced eviction and house destruction and financial restrictions on marriage. Rohingyas continue to be used as forced laborers on roads and at military camps.

The Myanmar government's mistreatment of the Rohingyas, however, has long been contested and protested by international organizations. For several years, human rights activists have decried the arbitrary measures leveled against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar by the government and the extremist Buddhists. In May 2009, Elaine Pearson, the Human Rights Watch's deputy Asia director issued a statement in protest at the deteriorating conditions of the Rohingya Muslims, calling on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to press the Burmese government to end its brutal practices, "the treatment of the Rohingya in Burma is deplorable - the Burmese government doesn't just deny Rohingya their basic rights, it denies they are even Burmese citizens.”

Now, the conflict has escalated in the Rakhine State again and the Muslims are once more experiencing difficult days as the black shadow of violence and unrest has just cast over their already trembling lives. It was on the reports that 10 Rohingya Muslims were killed by a mob of 300 Rakhines while on their way back from the country's former capital Rangoon. According to a group of UK-based NGOs, 650 Rohingyas were massacred from June 10 to 28. The United Nations estimates that between 50,000 and 90,000 Rohingyas were displaced since the eruption of violence in the Asian nation. However, due to the absence of independent reporters and monitors in the country, it's impossible to verify the exact number of those who have been displaced. It's also reported that some 9,000 homes belonging to the Muslims in the western state of Rakhine were destroyed. On July 20, the Amnesty International called the recent attacks against minority Rohingyas and other Muslims in Myanmar a "step back" in the country's recent progress on human rights, citing increased violence and unlawful arrests following a state of emergency declared six weeks ago.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has voiced its concern over the recent violence in the state of Rakhine and the varying reports which have leaked out as to the number of the Muslims killed. As reported by the TimeTurk News Agency, over 1,000 Rohingya Muslims have been murdered thus far in the conflicts that broke out in the region.

The mainstream media in the West have been largely silent about the massacre of Muslims in Myanmar and the ordeal that has befallen them. They have found other interesting topics to give coverage to, and as always, bigotry against Muslims hardly moves them.

Along with the media, the Western governments have also blatantly turned a blind eye to the heartrending anguish and suffering of the Rohingya Muslims. Even renowned Burmese political activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi who has been released from house arrest and was just invited to Norway to deliver her Nobel acceptance speech 21 years after being awarded the prize preferred not to speak a single word about the unspeakable affliction of her fellow citizens.

Via: "Iran Review"