Bob Marley Brings Common Cause At Americas Summit


By AFP News
06/10/22 AT 3:48 PM

Bob Marley famously sang "Africa Unite" but on Friday he was bringing unity to an Americas summit that was marked by disputes.

Taking the podium at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados quoted the late reggae legend as she said, "There is so much trouble in the world."

Mottley explained that she was not "an apostle of Bob" but shared his message of action.

"He reminds us of the day-to-day reality of our people and of our citizens," she said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was chairing the session and is known for his love of music, replied with an impromptu medley of Marley lyrics.

"In the words of Bob, no woman, no cry," Blinken said with a smile.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley quotes Bob Marley as she 

addresses the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles Photo: AFP / Patrick T. FALLON

"Don't shed no tears. Let's act. We can sing a redemption song together."

Marley sang frequently of political unity and is credited by some with helping quell a low-level civil war in his native Jamaica through his 1978 "One Love Peace" concert.

The Summit of the Americas was led by US President Joe Biden who has sought greater economic ties and cooperation on migration.

But he also faced open criticism and a boycott from Mexico's president over his refusal to invite the leftist leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela on the grounds that they are authoritarian.

Target And Walmart's Real Problem: Work Paychecks Cannot Replace Stimulus Checks Amid Inflation


By Panos Mourdoukoutas Ph.D.
06/08/22 

In recent months, Americans have returned to work in droves.

Unemployment is near record lows. Paychecks are rising. Americans are living a job market dream.

American retailers that cater to middle and low-income Americans, like Target and Walmart, thrived during the pandemic and should be seeing their sales boom these days. But they aren't. Instead, they say they have a hard time moving merchandise off the shelves, even at discounted prices, surprising Wall Street, which has been selling the shares of the two retailers.

What's the problem?

The quick answer is that the two retailers ordered too much merchandise, perhaps worried about supply chain bottlenecks due to the reopening of the economy.

But there's another theory: middle and low-income American consumers are worse off today than they were during the pandemic for a couple of reasons.

First, income earned from work isn't sufficient to replace income received during the pandemic from stimulus checks. Personal income has been growing slower than it grew while the stimulus checks were in effect, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Second, the soaring food, energy and rent inflation is crushing family budgets. It's forcing consumers to change spending patterns, steering away from discretionary items like those Walmart and Target have a hard time moving off shelves.

"Target's warning so close after its May 18 earning release was a surprise and a sign of just how quickly the consumer is changing their spending habits," said Jay Woods, chief market strategist at DriveWealth. "Clearly, the biggest shift is due to the huge rise in gas and food prices. Gas prices just hit a new record of $4.92 on average [on Tuesday] at the U.S. pumps. There's no bigger tax on the consumer than gas other than food."

Woods sees the problem of rising food prices persisting, putting further pressure on consumer spending habits and the retail sector.

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Walmart Pulls Chaokoh Coconut Milk Over Forced Monkey Labor Claims

The dire situation American consumers are in is captured by Gallup's Economic Confidence Index, which measures Americans' current and future economic situation. It dipped to minus-45 in May, down from minus-39 in the previous two months. That's the lowest reading since the Great Recession in early 2009. The index ranges between plus-100 (if all respondents say the economy is excellent or good and is getting better) and minus-100 (if all say it is poor and getting worse).

Gallup's findings are consistent with the results of other surveys, which confirm a similar trend.

The Consumer Confidence Survey, published by the Conference Board, decreased to 106.4 in May from 108.6 in April, with the Expectations Index dropping from 79.0 in April to 77.5 in May.

Then the University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey came in at 58.4 in May, the lowest reading since August 2011.

Will things get better or worse from here?

It depends on whether food and energy inflation that began with supply chain bottlenecks and accommodative monetary policy and was made worse by the Russia-Ukraine war will ease or get worse without the U.S. economy sliding into a recession.

VIDEO

How Is Inflation Impacting Americans? Report Shows Who Is Being Hit Hardest

UK judge rejects bid to block deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda

A British judge on Friday rejected an emergency bid to block deportation flights of asylum seekers to Rwanda set to start next week under an agreement with the east African country, ruling politicians must manage immigration policy.

 Toby Melville, Reuters

The UK government intends to fly the first planeload of claimants to Rwanda on June 14, after agreeing the plan with Kigali in a bid to deter illegal migrants from undertaking perilous crossings of the Channel by boat.

Refugee rights groups and a trade union representing UK Border Force personnel challenged the plan in London's High Court, seeking an injunction against Tuesday's inaugural flight and any beyond then.

They argue that the plan violates asylum seekers' human rights, and say the government cannot justify its claim that Rwanda is a safe destination.

But delivering his decision after a one-day hearing, judge Jonathan Swift said it was in the "public interest" for Interior Minister Priti Patel "to be able to implement immigration control decisions".

However, Swift gave permission for his ruling to be appealed, suggesting Court of Appeal judges would hear the case on Monday, whilst also setting the date for a fuller two-day High Court hearing next month.

'Ashamed'

Patel welcomed the move, saying the government "will not be deterred in breaking the deadly people smuggling trade and ultimately saving lives".

"Rwanda is a safe country and has previously been recognised for providing a safe haven for refugees," she added.

But rights groups bidding to block the policy said they were "disappointed", while one faith leader said it left her feeling "deeply ashamed to be British"

"It feels inhumane," the Bishop of Dover Rose Hudson-Wilkin told Times Radio of the planned deportations.

Enver Soloman, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said it was "extremely worrying that despite these legal challenges and widespread concern, the government remain determined to press ahead".

Noting the numbers of migrants crossing the Channel had risen since the policy was unveiled earlier this year, he urged ministers to "reflect on the initial failures of this plan, and rethink".

Earlier, the UN refugee agency had accused the British government of dishonesty over its plan, after lawyers for the claimants said Patel's interior ministry had claimed the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) endorsed it.

The UN agency's lawyer Laura Dubinsky said it "in no way endorses the UK-Rwandan arrangement".

"UNHCR is not involved in the UK-Rwanda arrangement, despite assertions to the contrary made by the secretary of state," she told the court.

Dubinsky said the would-be refugees were at risk of "serious, irreparable harm" if sent to Rwanda, and that the UN had "serious concerns about Rwandan capacity".

The UNHCR's concerns include a lack of legal redress in Rwanda and potential discrimination against gay claimants.

"These are concerns that have been communicated to the UK authorities and yet the secretary of state's position... is that the UNHCR has given this plan a green light," the claimants' lawyer Raza Husain said.

"That is a false claim."

'Right approach'

Lawyers for the ministry later addressed the court, which heard there were 31 people expected to be on Tuesday's scheduled flight.

"The Home Office does intend to make arrangements for a further flight or flights to Rwanda this year," its lawyer Mathew Gullick said.

He urged the judge to consider the impact of blocking the flights, noting "even a pause of six weeks creates a period of time in which people may rush to cross (the Channel)".

"There are potentially hundreds of people who can cross in a single day," he added.

The government remains committed to the policy, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's spokesman had told reporters.

The plan remained "the right approach, not least to tackle the criminal gangs who exploit migrants on the coast of France and quite often force them into unseaworthy vessels to make what is an incredibly dangerous crossing to the UK", he said.

More than 10,000 migrants have made the journey so far this year, a huge increase on prior years. The one-way flights are intended to deter others from entering Britain by illegal routes, and offer those who do try a new life in Rwanda instead.

Indefinite suspension of fights in Mexican bullring


PUBLISHED : 11 JUN 2022
WRITER: AFP

French bullfighter Sebastian Castella is seen here in 2016 at the Plaza de Toros -- a Mexican judge has ordered an indefinite suspension of bullfighting in the arena, the world's largest bullring

MEXICO CITY - A judge on Friday ordered an indefinite suspension of bullfighting in the world's largest bullring in Mexico City, pending the finalization of a lawsuit against the controversial, centuries-old practice.

Mexico is a bastion of bullfighting, but the tradition -- and the 50,000-capacity Plaza Mexico -- face an uncertain future.

In December, an animal welfare commission in Mexico City's legislature approved a proposal to prohibit the custom in the capital.

Lawmakers have yet to vote on the plan, which dismayed supporters of bullfighting as well as the multimillion-dollar industry surrounding it.

So far, only a handful of Mexico's 32 states have banned the practice, which was brought by the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century.

Friday's ruling, which can still be appealed, follows another last month to temporarily ban bullfights on Plaza Mexico -- the first such suspension amid years of legal action by civil organizations seeking a ban.

In reply to Friday's court decision to extend the suspension, the city council said it would defer scheduled bullfights, the next of which was scheduled for July 2.

But it vowed to "continue the legal defense" of what it said was "Mexican customs and traditions."

McCarthy says ‘everybody in the country’ 

bore ‘some responsibility’ for Jan. 6

 insurrection

Thu, June 9, 2022

During a press conference on Thursday, when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was asked if he still felt that former President Donald Trump bore some responsibility for the Jan. 6 Capitol at tack, he said that “everybody in the country” bore "some responsibility" for it.

Video Transcript

- Leader McCarthy, you said both publicly and privately after January 6 that you thought Trump bore some responsibility for the attack. Do you still feel like he was in any way responsible?

KEVIN MCCARTHY: Look, I've answered that many times. I thought everybody in the country bared some responsibility, based upon what has been going on-- the riots on the streets, the others. Having spent time and seeing what's going forward, what happened in January 2 when the National Guard was offered to protect this Capitol? Prior to January 6, we had a problem at this Capitol where they broke through the police in the Kavanaugh hearings. What change took there? There's a legislative purpose for Congress to look at. You have a separation of powers. Pelosi continues to play politics.

BIO POLITICS, BIO POWER AND BODY MEMORY
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says watching the January 6 hearings made all the trauma from the Capitol riot come 'rushing back into the body'

Cheryl Teh
Thu, June 9, 2022,

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York at a press conference on Capitol Hill on April 7, 2022.

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recalled the trauma of having experienced the Capitol riot.


She said watching the January 6 hearings was like being there on that day "all over again."


"When I spoke of my fear of being raped again while locked in my office bathroom, @TuckerCarlson mocked it," she tweeted.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said watching the first televised hearing on the Capitol riot took her back to the traumatic experience of being there on the day.

Ocasio-Cortez posted a video of the hearing, where scenes of violence and sights of Trump supporters flooding the Capitol were being played.


"Good Lord. The way it all comes rushing back into the body. It's like it's that day all over again," she wrote.

On Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted another video of what looked to be Trump supporters charging into the crypt at the Capitol building.

"Look at this footage. @laurenboebert was tweeting the Speaker's location as this was all happening," Ocasio-Cortez wrote.

"When I spoke of my fear of being raped again while locked in my office bathroom, @TuckerCarlson mocked it. So did Boebert. @NancyMace insinuated to her supporters it was a lie," she added.

Ocasio-Cortez has been vocal about her experiences during the riot and said in August 2021 that she feared she would be raped during the attack. Rep. Katie Porter later revealed that Ocasio-Cortez had hidden with her at some point during the Capitol siege, during which the congresswoman revealed that she thought she was going to be killed if the rioters found her.

"White supremacy and patriarchy are very linked in a lot of ways," the New York congresswoman said in an interview with CNN. "There's a lot of sexualizing of that violence, and I didn't think that I was just going to be killed. I thought other things were going to happen to me as well."

In response, Fox News host Tucker Carlson mocked Ocasio-Cortez's fears of being raped, telling her to "get a therapist, honey." The congresswoman then hit back at Carlson, calling him a "talking inferiority complex."

Ocasio-Cortez has continued to speak up about the January 6 riot. In January 2021, she warned that the GOP leaders who dismissed consequences for those involved in the riots were "opening the door for it to happen again." And in April 2022, she said that the Capitol riot was "just a trial run" for those who hope to not legitimize the next presidential election.

The January 6 committee is holding a series of hearings this month to reveal its findings and show how Trump oversaw an effort to overturn the 2020 election and stay in power.

January 6 Primetime Hearing Proves A Slow Start At Unraveling A Dreadful Day In American History – Commentary

Dominic Patten
Thu, June 9, 2022


Editor’s Note: This post on the Jan 6 committee hearings by our TV critic Dominic Patten has been reclassified from a review to a commentary, and has been edited to better reflect the author’s point of view. In trying to opine that the presentation of evidence about a horrific day in American history did not rise to the occasion, the author did not mean to denigrate or belittle the loss of life and shocking violence that happened that day.

If tonight’s primetime debut of the House January 6 committee investigating the MAGA-fueled murderous attack on the U.S. Capitol last year was any indication of how the democracy-protecting politicians plan on making their pitch to the American public, they fell short.

The fact is Thursday’s hearings led by chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss) and vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) was not effective.

The first of six televised hearings, tonight was not just another public Congressional panel in anyone’s mind. This was television intended by the Committee to reach the widest audience possible to alert them to the fragile state of American democracy, especially as we head to the midterms and the 2024 election. The lives of the police officers injured and those tragically taken that January day, and in the aftermath should have been front and center to show the very real human toll of the vile attack. Perhaps current Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Justice Department are coming soon with criminal charges after depicting former President Donald Trump using social media and a speech preceding the incident to incite right wing extremist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, but tonight’s curtain raiser sadly played out more as another somber stumble for America.

Intended to arouse our deeply-divided nation to the clear-and-present danger that the Democrat-dominated panel believes it has uncovered in “the actions of the insurrectionists on January 6, 2021,” as Rep. Thompson said in his stern opening remarks, the committee’s efforts tonight wasn’t as stirring as was needed. As an often split-screened Tucker Carlson pontificated against the “pure lie” of the January 6 assault, the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election 2020 win, his cable news rivals and the very notion of white supremacy on Fox News Channel, the committee hearings turned to a video of Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr calling “bullsh*t” on his old boss.

Maybe Barr plays well within the Beltway, but the nearly two-hour hearing simply failed to read the national room. Aware of the power of the potential public attention, the committee brought former ABC News president James Goldston on board to assist in the presentation.

Did it help?

It took nearly an hour into the cluttered hearing to show a clip of Trump son-in-law and close aide Jared Kushner’s testimony. A video of favorite offspring Ivanka Trump saying that she “accepted what he (Barr) was saying” about the lack of validity of the former President’s election fraud claims was a ripple in the fact and data packed hearing when it could have been a tsunami. Describing the “carnage,” “chaos,” and “war zone” of that day in early 2021 as the mob tried to stop the certification of the 2020 election, documentary filmmaker Nick Quested, who was close by the influential Proud Boys on January 6, and Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards offered live testimony this evening later on.

What should have been John Dean moments revealing a cancer on the Presidency and the ravages of Trump’s desires right at the top of today’s presentation was instead too little, too late and, perhaps worse, likely inconsequential.

Even with an appearance by Wyoming congresswoman Cheney and vivid previously unseen footage (see above) of the violent mob besieging Congress and pummeling police on January 6 last year, the battle for hearts and minds was pretty much lost tonight before it began.

In tones and setting that sought to be reminiscent of the scathing Watergate and Iran Contra hearings, the drama of the attempted coup d’état was primarily undermined by its own circumspect process in the media saturated realm of 2022 America. At least so far, the mixture of video segments and witness testimony unveiled no smoking gun.

Leaning into history and not the immediacy, what the hearing did mainly show in its first vital hour was a stream of talking points and underwhelming clips. With Fox News keeping to its usual line-up and merely weaving in and out of the hearings to take swipes at the “dynamic duo” of Cheney and retiring Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), the first televised hearing by the Jan 6 committee preached to the already converted.

“Ultimately, Donald Trump, the president of the United States spurred a mob of domestic enemies of the Constitution to march down to the Capitol and subvert American Democracy,” Rep Thompson said on Thursday, unsurprisingly pinning the threat to the impulses and authoritarianism of the former president. “There are those in this audience who thirst for power, but have no love or respect for what makes America great,” he added in front of a giant video screen.

Live and unfiltered across the nation and the world on ABC, NBC, CBS, BBC World, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN Fox Business, among others and online, Rep. Thompson, and VP offspring Rep. Cheney uttered strong and sometimes stirring words in their statements. However, the audio rarely matched the video for impact, and TV is a mainly a visual medium, as any rookie reporter can tell you.

Over on the Rupert Murdoch -owned Fox Business, former MTV VJ Kennedy threw from her show to Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, who anchored the live telecast of the hearing with characteristic levity saying, “It is going to be a very spicy night.” Starting at 8 PM ET/5 PM PT, vets Baier and MacCallum for the most part offered a standard-issue intro to the Capitol Hill proceedings, with a few notable exceptions. In the first 90 seconds on the air, both anchors repeatedly referred to the events of January 6 as a “riot,” rather than as an “insurrection” or “assault,” which is how many other outlets have characterized it.

“This has all been produced down to the minute,” the FNC anchors also told their Fox Business viewers. Over on Fox News proper, a lower third on the screen tonight read: “Today’s Hearing Is Political Theater.”

The Fox hosts were right in their assessment. What they failed to state is that the hearing wasn’t produced that well and may actually only harden the MAGA/GOP opposition in this year of midterm elections.

For over a year, Trump’s allies have dismissed the committee itself as a partisan exercise, even though it contains two Republicans, Cheney and Kinzinger, who have broken with their party orthodoxy.

From the GOP grassroots to its upper leadership, the party has doubled down on denying the importance of January 6, or embrace conspiracy theories over its cause. The Art of the Deal author has certainly been helped out by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who blasted the hearing earlier on Thursday.

Then there is the even more important media echo chamber filling the ears of conservatives. Along with Fox News’ top draw Carlson, fellow hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham’s shows pre-empted the major news event. Having the hearing on near silent split-screen tonight, Hannity, like Ingraham, has found himself part of the panel’s investigation. Dipping into Hannity’s correspondence with then White House Press Secretary and now Fox contributor Kayleigh McEnany on Thursday, Cheney last year read texts that both Fox personalities sent to then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows as the attack unfolded on January 6. In both instances, the communication urged the aides to try to get Trump to try to put a stop to the violence.

Fox News’ decision to forgo coverage on its main network has drawn harsh criticism from lawmakers and media critics. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took to the Senate floor earlier on Thursday and called Fox News’ decision “cowardly” and one that should “end any debate that they are not a real news organization.”

“Fox News is a propaganda machine of the hard right and it is plain as day that they are scared of their viewers learning the truth about January 6th,” the New York Senator said, arguing that they have “isolated their viewers in an alternate reality of conspiracy theories.”

Out of primetime for the near future, the next televised January 6 committee hearing will be broadcast on June 13 at 10:00 a.m. ET, with most outlets airing the event live. Another hearing is scheduled for June 15 at 10:00 a.m. ET with three more to follow.

How many will be watching after tonight will tell us just how hardened the divisions are in this country. It will also tell us if this first of six committee hearings changed a significant number of votes going forward – because that is the next battlefield.

Tom Tapp contributed to this report.

As America watched Capitol attack testimony, Fox News gave an alternate reality


Adam Gabbatt

THE GUARDIAN
Thu, June 9, 2022

Photograph: Richard Drew/AP

The millions of people who tuned into America’s main television channels on Thursday heard how the January 6 insurrection was “the culmination of an attempted coup”, a “siege” where violent Trump supporters mercilessly attacked police, causing politicians and staffers to run for their lives.

On the Fox News channel, however, there was a different take on the historic congressional hearings exploring the attack on the Capitol in Washington DC.

The deadly riot was, according to the channel’s primetime host Tucker Carlson, “an outbreak of mob violence, a forgettably minor outbreak by recent standards, that took place more than a year and a half ago”.

Related: January 6 hearing: Trump was at heart of plot that led to ‘attempted coup’

This was the alternate reality that Carlson, Fox News’ most-watched host, presented as he opened his hour-long show. He followed it up with a boast: the rightwing network would not be covering one of the most consequential political hearings in recent American history.

“The whole thing is insulting,” Carlson said of the primetime House subcommittee hearing on the insurrection, which revealed devastating new details on how Donald Trump appeared to support the assassination of his vice-president and how Trump’s supporters created a “war zone” outside the Capitol.

“In fact, it’s deranged. And we’re not playing along. This is the only hour on an American news channel that will not be carrying their propaganda live.

“They are lying and we are not going to help them do it.”

What followed instead was an hour of obfuscation, misdirection and what-about-ism, as Carlson, aided by a selection of guests that included one man who was fired from the Trump administration after he spoke at a conference attended by white nationalists.

Carlson’s first guest was Jason Whitlock, host of Fearless. Whitlock immediately parroted what was to become the line of the night.

“There was no insurrection,” Whitlock said. “There was a riot, a small one, that got a little bit out of hand.”

The scenes broadcast on other TV channels made this claim laughable. Non-Fox News viewers were watching previously unseen footage which showed police officers being kicked and beaten, and people carrying Trump 2020 flags breaking into the Capitol building.

Fox News viewers weren’t seeing those.

“If something noteworthy happens we will bring it to you immediately,” Carlson had said during his opening monologue.

It turned out that Carlson has an unusual definition of noteworthy, given that as the committee was detailing how Trump, on hearing that his supporters were chanting that Mike Pence should be hung, said: “Maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence deserves it,” Carlson was merrily chatting with Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic representative who was railing against Congress passing a $40bn aid bill for Ukraine.

Gabbard – who has kept a relatively low profile since she gave a spirited defense of Vladimir Putin days before the Russian leader ordered the invasion of Ukraine – seemed happy to join Carlson in downplaying what was taking place, insisting that Congress should be focussing on other matters.

Carlson happily took up that theme. Several times he opined on why Congress was holding this two-hour hearing when gas prices have gone up, there are drug deaths, and, most memorably: “this country has never in its history been closer to a nuclear war”.

Through the first half of Carlson’s show, two tactics emerged: downplay the insurrection, and complain that the House wanted to investigate it. As he entered the home stretch, Carlson came up with a new, conspiracy-minded, trope.

“The point is not to get to the truth,” he said of the hearing. “It’s to hide the truth.”

According to the Fox News host, the purpose of the commission is to provide a pretext “for the Democratic party to declare war against millions of American citizens who oppose their agenda”.

To support his point, such as it was, Carlson – finally – showed some of the hearing.

“Liz Cheney is helping them,” he said. “Here she is just moments ago screeching about disinformation.”

Fox News cut to a clip of Cheney speaking in an extremely measured tone about how Trump attempted to overturn the result of the 2020 election through a misinformation campaign – a campaign that Cheney said “provoked the violence on January 6”.

“She is off on another planet,” Carlson said. “Why is Liz Cheney abetting the destruction of America’s civil liberties, and our sacred norms?”

Fox News typically has more than 3m viewers in the 8pm hour, but announced earlier this week that it would not air the hearing, instead relegating coverage to the Fox Business channel, which averages fewer than 100,000 viewers.

The channel stuck true to its boycott promise. Occasionally while Carlson talked a video stream of the committee would appear in a little soundless box, floating off to the right of the host’s head, but that was largely it.

While the hearing rolled on, Carlson rattled through his guests. A man running as a Republican for Congress said people at the Capitol had legitimate grievances over election fraud, before conceding that things became “a little bit dicey”. Another guest made vague claims about the entire insurrection being cooked up by the FBI.

Carlson’s final interviewee was Darren Beattie, a rightwing activist who was fired as a Trump speechwriter after it emerged he had attended a conference in 2016 alongside a prominent white nationalist.

Beattie’s take – nodded along to by Carlson – was that “the feds” were responsible for the riot on January 6.

“It’s a clear hoax, we know it happened.”

Carlson might well have nodded. Last year he hosted a documentary, Patriot Purge, about the January 6 attack which floated the conspiracy theory that violence that day was instigated by leftwing activists. Carlson has also suggested FBI operatives organized the attack on the Capitol.

As Carlson praised Beattie’s reporting, courage and general standing as a person, it brought to mind something Carlson had said earlier, after he had spent several minutes criticizing the hearing with Charlie Hurt, a writer for the right-wing Washington Times newspaper.

“You and I entered journalism about the same time, about 30 years ago,” Carlson told Hurt.

“It seemed honorable then. It seems really shameful now.”

Case not closed for survivors of 1967 Israeli attack on spy ship USS Liberty


USS Liberty (AGTR-5) At Valletta, Malta, after arriving there for repair of damages received when she was attacked by Israeli forces off the Sinai Peninsula on 8 June 1967. (PH1 J.J. Kelly, Naval History and Heritage Command)

Updated 09 June 2022
RAY HANANIA

Incident of June 8 amid Arab-Israeli war caused the loss of 34 American lives and injuries to 173 more

Vessel was sent by the Johnson administration to the Mediterranean Sea to monitor the conflict

CHICAGO: Early in the morning of the fourth day of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Israeli fighter jets flew a half-dozen reconnaissance flights over the USS Liberty, an American “intelligence ship” that was monitoring the conflict 15 miles north of the Sinai Peninsula. They did it several times.

The Liberty was originally a “victory” ship that supplied cargo to the Allies during World War II. It was later converted into an auxiliary technical research ship (AGTR-5) first deployed in 1965 to provide intelligence-gathering information for the National Security Agency, the chief US electronic intelligence gatherer and codebreaker.

When Israel launched a “pre-emptive” war against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan on June 5, 1967, then US President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared that America would remain “neutral.” The Liberty, which was not an assault vessel by any stretch of the imagination, was sent to the Mediterranean Sea to monitor the conflict.

Liberty Commander Capt. William L. McGonagle had asked Vice Admiral William Martin to provide an armed escort for his ship as it sailed to the coast of Egypt. But Martin said that the Liberty was, “a clearly marked American ship in international waters, not a participant in the conflict and not a reasonable subject for attack by any nation. Request denied,” according to documents published in the exhaustive 1979 book “Assault on the Liberty: The True Story of the Israeli Attack on an American Intelligence Ship” by Liberty survivor and officer James Ennes, who was on the ship’s bridge during the attack.

Flying a standard American flag, five feet tall and eight feet wide, the Liberty was clearly marked on all sides and was identifiable as an American ship to any naval force in the world.

Surviving crew members from the Liberty said they were threatened with jail if they criticized Israel in the inquiry into the attack. (Supplied)

After the attack was ordered, an Israeli fighter pilot reported that the Liberty might be an American ship, prompting the commander to repeat the order. The attack began at 1:57 p.m. on June 8.

For the Liberty’s 294 crew members, the attack was no ordinary “friendly fire” incident: It led to the tragic loss of the lives of 34 Americans and injuries to 173 more.

The tragedy was compounded, according to some, by the US government’s insistence during several inquiries on suppressing facts, defending Israel, and threatening to imprison survivors if the incident embarrassed Israel.

A US naval court of inquiry conducted a quick probe but only heard testimony from 14 crew members. Survivors say they were threatened with jail if they blamed Israel and that all testimony critical of Israel was redacted.

Several survivors said they believe Israel attacked the spy ship in an effort to sink it and kill all of its crew and then blame the sinking on Egypt to force the US to enter the war.

“The most important thing about this whole coverup is the coverup. It’s worse than what they did to us, and it has been going on for 55 years,” Phil Tourney, a Liberty attack survivor, said.

“They (the US government) owe survivors, their families, and most of all America. America was betrayed. Treason on the high seas by our own president, LBJ (Johnson), his flunkies, the Congress of the United States, and every president since LBJ to President Joe Biden hasn’t brought this up because it is something of a hot potato. If our ship goes down, they (the Israelis) are going to blame it on the Arab states.”

The damaged USS Liberty docked at Valetta, Malta, on June 14, 1967, for repairs with a torpedo hole in her hull side. (US Navy)

Israeli Mirage jets strafed the Liberty from bow to stern, killing seven Americans. The largest group died when an Israeli torpedo struck the ship, killing more than 25 sailors.

Electrician second mate, Mickey LeMay, said he saw a plane approach the Liberty just before 2 p.m.

“I looked to my right and a fighter jet was flying the same way we were. He wasn’t too high. We could have waved to each other he was so low. The plane was totally black and had no markings on it at all.

“As I turned to point to the plane that I saw, another plane, and this was the first strafing, came from bow to stern diagonally across us and strafed us. I looked down and there was blood coming out of me everywhere. I looked at (the lieutenant) and he looked just like me and he had blood coming out of everywhere,” LeMay added.

The lieutenant later died.

Don Pageler, who was helping the wounded, said the first airstrike killed more than seven shipmates and that around 25 were killed when one of several torpedoes struck the boat.

“Yes, we were flying our steaming colors, which I believe was a five-by-eight flag. And during the attack, that flag got so tattered that in the middle of the attack our signal man ran up our holiday colors, which was a seven-by-13 flag, which is a huge flag. Through all that they later said they did not see a flag,” said survivor Pageler, noting that the ship only had .50-caliber machine guns.

Pageler added that he later learned that Israel had claimed the Liberty had shelled its positions.

Another survivor, Larry Bowen, told Arab News: “The story hasn’t been told properly.

FASTFACTS

* Liberty was an auxiliary technical research ship sent to the Mediterranean to monitor the Arab-Israeli war.

* The Israeli air attack, which began at 1:57 p.m. on June 8, 1967, left 34 Americans dead and 173 injured.

“There wasn’t a full and impartial investigation by Congress; (as per) my understanding, by law they should have done that. The navy conducted a quick court of inquiry, (but) they interviewed only 14 crew members. But any one of the crew members who said anything disparaging about Israel got excised out of the final court of inquiry document. A lot of inputs got redacted.”

Bowen said the Israelis were firing at the wounded as they were being placed in lifeboats. That detail was redacted from the US Navy report.

“In our opinion, the attack was absolutely intentional. They knew well in advance that we were the USS Liberty. They actually had us on their war board in their war room early in the morning. They were overflying us in the morning. There was at least a half-dozen overflights before the attack.

“The crew would definitely say it was a deliberate attack. They knew who we were. We were flying the American flag. And when one got blown apart, the holiday colors (American flag) were raised,” Bowen added.

Israeli officials later said they did not know the Liberty was an American ship.

Assault on the Liberty: The True Story of the Israeli Attack on an American Intelligence Ship by Liberty survivor and officer James Ennes, who was on the ship's bridge during the attack. (Supplied)

“But we actually had intercepts from the (Israeli) pilots to the ground control and one of the pilots radioed back, ‘it’s an American ship. I can see the flag.’ The person on ground control told him (the Israeli pilot), ‘hit the target,’” Bowen said.

There was no way that the Liberty could not be identified as an American ship, LeMay said.

“When you are circling the ship and shooting into the hull, you have the letters GTR 5 on the bow, port, and starboard, and on the stern port and starboard, and then, Liberty. As you are circling the ship, you have got all the identity telling you it is a US ship,” he added.

LeMay was injured during the first air attack and still has 52 pieces of shrapnel in his body.

He said: “And also, on top of that, there were only two ships in the world that looked like us, the Liberty and the Belmont, our sister ship. Other than that, no other ship in the world looked like us. And Israel is too good of a military to know if it was a US ship or an Egyptian ship. No way in the world could they think it was anything but a US ship.”

The survivors pointed out that a nearby American aircraft carrier, the USS Saratoga, had offered to send planes to help defend the Liberty, but the help was rejected by Johnson.

“The American Saratoga sent planes to our aid two times, but President Johnson called them back. And he would not let them come to defend us,” LeMay added. He said it was all about “not embarrassing Israel,” an ally.

“When you have the president of the United States ordering the admiral to call the planes (from the US Saratoga) back and not come to our aid. If the planes on the first group had come out, we would have only lost seven men. A lot of us, me included, would have been seriously injured. But that’s all we would have lost. But him calling the planes back allowed for another 25 great Americans to die.”

According to USS Liberty survivor Larry Bowen, the attack was “absolutely intentional.” (Supplied)

Israel convened an official inquiry on June 18 and reiterated the US inquiry conclusion exonerating Israel and calling the two-hour attack “an accident.”

On June 8, 2007, the 40th anniversary of the attack, the NSA acknowledged that the Liberty incident had “become the center of considerable controversy and debate.” It was not the agency’s intention, it said, “to prove or disprove any one set of conclusions, many of which can be drawn from a thorough review of this material.”

On the same occasion, Mark Regev, the then Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, called the attack “a tragic and terrible accident, a case of mistaken identity, for which Israel has officially apologized.”

Israel also paid reparations of $6.7 million to the injured survivors and the families of those killed in the attack, and another $6 million for the loss of the Liberty itself.

The Congressional Medal of Honor, normally presented at the White House by the president to America’s military heroes, was given to McGonagle a year after the attack by the secretary of the navy during a closed ceremony at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. President Johnson did not attend.

-------

For more information on the USS Liberty and the survivors, visit www.USSLibertyVeterans.org.

VIDEOS AND ARTICLE

Israel has never been held to account for its attack on USS Liberty 55 years ago, US vets say (arabnews.com)

A veteran diplomat explains what is at risk for India with the crisis in its relations with the Muslim world


An angry activist stomps on a poster of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) official in Mumbai, India, on June 6, 2022, during a protest against her blasphemous comments on Prophet Mohammed. (REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas)


Indians demand the arrest of Nupur Sharma during a demonstration in the city of Ahmedabad on June 8, 2022. (AFP)


Indian activists raise the national flag in Kolkata city on June 7, 2022, as they protest to demand the arrest of BJP party official Nupur Sharma for her blasphemous comments on Prophet Mohammed. (REUTERS)

Pakistanis demonstrate in Karachi on June 7, 2022, against Nupur Sharma over her remarks about Prophet Mohammed. (Arif AlI / AFP)

Indians demand the arrest of Nupur Sharma during a demonstration in the city of Ahmedabad on June 8, 2022. 9AFP)

VIDEO https://arab.news/w56ff

Updated 09 June 2022
NADIA AL-FAOUR

Talmiz Ahmad says India cannot do what it wishes to its religious minority and still enjoy good relations with Islamic countries

Ex-ambassador says the crisis has to be defused given India’s extensive economic interests in GCC countries


DUBAI: The Indian government led by Narendra Modi is facing arguably its toughest diplomatic test in the nine years it has been power, as the Islamic world boils with anger and Muslim countries voice outrage over disparaging remarks made by a ruling BJP party official about the Prophet Muhammad during a recent TV debate.

With at least 16 Islamic-majority countries expressing their objections via tweets, official statements and summons to Indian diplomats, the BJP was forced to suspend Nupur Sharma, the party’s national spokesperson, and expel another official for screenshot of her offensive comment in a tweet.

Earlier, protests in the northern Indian city of Kanpur against her comments left more than 40 people injured when the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state, a Hindu nationalist hard-liner, came down heavily on the demonstrators.

Nupur Sharma, the BJP national spokesperson whose hate speech has caused clashes in India and protests by Muslim nations worldwide.

Sharma’s remarks, made on May 27 during a TV debate on a dispute being heard in court, gained currency when a clip of her outburst was shared on Twitter by a journalist and fact-checker.

After her sacking, she wrote that she was withdrawing her remarks “unconditionally” and that it was “never my intention to hurt anyone’s religious feelings.” But many saw her apology as too little too late.

A number of retired Indian diplomats have since spoken out on the incident, warning that the crisis in India’s relations with the Islamic world is serious, and urging introspection by the Modi government instead of resorting to cosmetic measures.

The former diplomats say that the Modi government ought to realize that it cannot continue to do what it wishes at home with impunity and still enjoy good relations with Islamic or Western countries.

“On numerous occasions we have seen abuse of India’s Muslim community and attempts to erase the country’s Islamic heritage. There is a long tradition of other countries not interfering in the domestic affairs of another country, but when you get into abuse of the holy prophet, it is a no-go area,” Talmiz Ahmad, a retired Indian diplomat, author and political commentator, told Arab News.

“At some point, people abroad will say: Enough is enough. I believe this time has come. You cannot persecute a certain community at home and also pretend you have a high moral stature abroad. It doesn’t work like that.”

India’s foreign ministry has issued a statement saying that the offensive tweets and comments “did not, in any way, reflect the views of the government. These are the views of fringe elements.”

The first task for the governing BJP is to defuse what the Indian opposition sees as a diplomatic crisis of its own making.

Calling for “respect for beliefs and religions,” the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it “reaffirms its permanent rejection of prejudice against the symbols of the Islamic religion, and refuses to prejudice all religious figures and symbols.”

The ministry welcomed the action taken by the BJP to suspend Sharma from her job.

Qatar demanded that India apologize for the “Islamophobic” comments and summoned the Indian ambassador to the foreign ministry on the second day of an official visit by India’s Vice president Venkaiah Naidu and a business delegation aimed at boosting trade.

Kuwait also summoned the Indian ambassador, while a supermarket in the Gulf state pulled Indian products from its shelves in protest at the comments. The UAE, Bahrain and Iran were among other Middle East countries traditionally friendly to India that made their objections known in various ways.

Egypt’s Al-Azhar Mosque condemned Sharma’s remarks as “a real terrorist action that helps to push the entire world to devastating crises and bloody wars,” and urged the UN to take action to protect minority rights in India amid what it described as “intensifying hatred and abuse toward Islam in India and against Muslims.”

Putting the official condemnations into context, Javed Ansari, a senior Indian political reporter and commentator, told Arab News: “Prophet Muhammad is Islam’s most revered and most sacred figure. The religion owes its existence to him, spreading the word of Allah.

“Hence Muslims worldwide, including in India, refuse to tolerate any disparaging remarks about him.

“While they accept in principle the right to free speech, they believe that free speech does not give anybody the right to insult or make disparaging remarks about the prophet. They believe that their sentiments and beliefs must be respected.”

For the Indian government, the danger of allowing the anger in the Muslim world to fester cannot be overstated. Annual trade between India and six Gulf Cooperation Council countries stands at $87 billion. Saudi Arabia is the second-largest exporter of oil to India, after Iraq, while Qatar supplies 40 percent of India’s natural gas requirements.

At a macro level, according to Ahmad, remittances from the Indian community in the GCC countries bring in revenues that cover over a third of the Indian government’s annual oil import bills. He describes India’s ties with the bloc encompassing trade, logistics, energy and investment as substantial, adding that for New Delhi the real danger lies not in a boycott of Indian goods but a possible adverse impact on the recruitment of Indian workers.

An estimated 8.5 million Indians work in the GCC bloc, constituting the largest expatriate community in each member country. Every year they send roughly $35 billion in remittances that support 40 million family members in India. It is said that each employed Indian in the Gulf has at least four or five individuals relying on their earnings abroad.

Noting that the relationship between the Gulf and India go back 5,000 years, Ahmad said it is unlikely that the diplomatic backlash will inflict long-term damage to the ties that bind India with Arab Gulf and other Muslim-majority countries.

“Indians are the number one community in the GCC and the majority community in certain countries, and that is because we have adopted accommodation and moderation, and completely rejected any involvement in local politics. This is the community’s strength,” Ahmad said.

“I personally feel there will be a degree of course correction. Certain advice and warnings have been given. I believe course correction is well on the way and likely to work on both sides for mutual advantage.”

Having said that, Ahmad, who served as India’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE during 2000-11, added: “In the Gulf, we have some of the most cherished friends of India. I wish that their senior leaders and diplomats had quietly counseled certain officials in India that there will be negative consequences for bilateral relations if continued abuse is directed at a certain community in the country.”

For its part, he said, “India’s ruling party should take a deep review of its domestic policies and convince India’s friends (in the Muslim world) that corrective action is being taken. We need to go back to the scenario of India as a pluralistic, multi-cultural and moderate nation that is democratic and accommodative."

On the upside, Ahmad says, India is fortunate to have “a towering intellectual and a very well experienced diplomat who is highly respected globally and at home” like Dr. S Jaishankar as the foreign affairs minister.

“I am confident that he will be advising the powers that be that you cannot separate domestic from foreign policy. One impinges on the other,” he said.

Looking to the future, Ahmad said: “Our foreign and domestic policies must be in sync. We must go back to the core principles of this nation, which are pluralism, multiculturalism, moderation and accommodativeness.”