New 'Prisoner Abuse' Photographs
Emerge Despite US Bid to Block Publication
Graphic photographs of
alleged prisoner abuse, thought to be among up to 2,000 images Barack Obama
is trying to prevent from being released, emerged yesterday.
by Alex Spillius in Washington
The shocking images of inmates in Iraq and Afghanistan were published just a
day after the US president announced plans for a legal battle stop them ever
being seen......more
House Backs Obama's Afghan Surge,
Amid Calls for Exit Strategy
by John Nichols
"Sometimes great presidents make mistakes," declared Massachusetts
Congressman
Jim
McGovern as he announced his intention to vote against $97 billion in
"emergency" supplemental funding for the continued U.S. occupation of Iraq
and President Obama's dangerously misguided plan to surge 21,000 more U.S.
troops and trainers into Afghanistan.
McGovern is a Democrat who supported Barack Obama for president last
year.
But McGovern is not willing to write Obama a blank check for endless
warmaking.
LAST WEEK I had the opportunity to promote my recently
published memoirs at a series of speaking events across Nova Scotia.
What made this experience so rewarding was the fact that it gave me
a first-hand opportunity to hear the concerns and viewpoints of
Canadian citizens. Although my book, Unembedded:
Two Decades of Maverick War Reporting,
covers a multitude of conflicts from all corners of the globe, not
surprisingly the vast majority of the questions posed to me were about
Canada’s continued involvement in Afghanistan.......more
Time to wake up to the
threat of a Taliban takeover
Mon. Apr 27 -
6:36 AM
WHAT we have here is a failure to connect the dots.
Many Canadians still wonder what we are doing in Afghanistan, except
placating our American allies. Many Canadians scoff at the idea that the
Taliban represent a direct threat to our national security. And many
Canadians are naïve enough to think that when we leave Afghanistan, we
won’t be back.
The truth is the Canadian Forces do need a hiatus to replenish materiel
and personnel after holding down the fort in Kandahar for several years.
But the worrisome developments in Central Asia will continue to command
our attention – and NATO’s military resources – for years to come......more
A Brave Man Who Stood Alone. If Only the World Had Listened
to Him
by Robert Fisk
I don't know if I met Tom Hurndall. He was one of a bunch of "human
shields" who turned up in Baghdad just before the Anglo-American
invasion in 2003, the kind of folk we professional reporters make
fun of. Tree huggers, that kind of thing. Now I wish I had met him
because - looking back over the history of that terrible war -
Hurndall's journals (soon to be published) show a remarkable man of
remarkable principle. "I may not be a human shield," he wrote at
10.26 on 17 March from his Amman hotel. "And I may not adhere to the
beliefs of those I have travelled with, but the way Britain and
America plan to take Iraq is unnecessary and puts soldiers' lives
above those of civilians. For that I hope that Bush and Blair stand
trial for war crimes."............more
IDF Ends Gaza Probe, Says Misconduct
Claims Are 'Rumors'
by Anshel Pfeffer and Amos Harel
Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit on Monday
instructed the Military Police Investigation unit to close the investigation
into soldiers' accounts of alleged misconduct and serious violations of the
army's rules of engagement during Operation Cast Lead.
In a press release issued Monday the army said that the preliminary Military
Police investigation into the testimonies revealed that they "were based on
rumors and not first-hand experience."
However, the Military Advocate General's announcement does not address
testimonies published by the Associated Press on Friday that corroborate
soldiers' accounts with testimonies given by Palestinians.......more
Do the Secret Bush Memos Amount
to Treason? Top Constitutional Scholar Says Yes
The memos lay the legal groundwork for the president to send the military
to wage war against U.S. citizens; take them from their homes to Navy brigs
without trial and keep them forever; close down the First Amendment; and
invade whatever country he chooses without regard to any treaty or objection
by Congress.
It was as if Milton's Satan had a law degree and was establishing within
the borders of the United States the architecture of hell........more.
If history gets this recent era right, future textbooks will have to show
that the US narrowly averted a carefully planned but thorough and unmistakable
conspiracy to subvert the rule of law and the process of democracy from
2001-2008. For three years, since writing
End of America, I have been arguing that the Bush team sought
irretrievably to subvert our liberty. Fortunately, this appalling and
conceivably irrevocable subversion of the tenets of freedom was narrowly
averted by citizens at every level -- from the grassroots to the courts --
resisting in time. But the release this week by the Justice Department of the
"secret
memos" sought valiantly by the ACLU confirms that Bush's legal architects
were building up the framework for something even scarier than our most
anguished projections.....more
Lessons Learned:
Iran-Contra, the CIA, the CRS, and Cheney's Assassination Squads
Posted by Emptywheel,
Firedoglake at 4:04 AM on March
24, 2009.
A look at how Cheney gamed the restrictions put
into place after Iran-Contra.
Sy Hersh's
recent discussion at University of Minnesota included a number of tidbits,
two of which are pertinent to this post. Hersh explained that the Joint
Special Operations Command was doing operations that directly reported to
Cheney, up to and including assassination. And Hersh revealed that Cheney had
convened a meeting not long after 9/11 where he and other alumni of
Iran-Contra brainstormed how to avoid the legal problems they had with
Iran-Contra. A recent
Congressional Research Service article on covert ops and presidential
findings helps to show how these two revelations relate to each other.
The Assassination Squads Were Revealed Because CIA Demanded a
Finding
While the assassination revelation got all the press, much of what Hersh
said was not new. Hersh had described much of what was going on in a
July 2008 article describing operational tensions between JSOC and CIA
surrounding a presidential finding authorizing covert ops in connection with
Iran's alleged nukes program. The Gang of Eight had reviewed (to the extent
they do) the finding, but the JSOC went beyond the scope of that
finding........more
The Taliban and
Opium Industry Are Getting U.S. Billions -- Not So Much for the Rest of
Afghanistan
Parts of Afghanistan that have neither
violent Taliban resistance nor much opium trade are virtually ignored by
the U.S.
Want a billion dollars in development aid? If you happen to live in
Afghanistan, the two quickest ways to attract attention and so aid from the
U.S. authorities are: Taliban attacks or a flourishing opium trade. For those
with neither, the future could be bleak........more
US Will Appoint Afghan 'Prime
Minister' to Bypass Hamid Karzai
White House plans new executive role to challenge
corrupt government in Kabul
by Julian Borger in Brussels and Ewen MacAskill in
Washington
The US and its European allies are preparing to plant a
high-profile figure in the heart of the Kabul government in a direct
challenge to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, the Guardian has
learned.
The creation of a new chief executive or prime ministerial role is aimed at
bypassing Karzai. In a further dilution of his power, it is proposed that
money be diverted from the Kabul government to the provinces. Many US and
European officials have become disillusioned with the extent of the corruption
and incompetence in the Karzai government, but most now believe there are no
credible alternatives, and predict the Afghan president will win re-election
in August..........more
Guardian Investigation Uncovers Evidence of Alleged Israeli
War Crimes in Gaza
Palestinians claim children were used as human
shields and hospitals targeted during 23-day conflict
by Clancy Chassay and Julian Borger
•
Watch all three documentaries
The Guardian has compiled detailed evidence of alleged war crimes
committed by Israel during the 23-day offensive against Gaza earlier
this year, involving the use of Palestinian children as human
shields, the targeting of medics and hospitals, and drone aircraft
firing on civilians.........more
Gaza war crimes investigation
Civilians, medics and investigators talk to the Guardian
about allegations of war crimes during Israel's 23-day campaign in
Gaza
Israeli Soldiers Admit to Deliberate
Killing of Gaza Civilians
by James Hider
JERUSALEM - The Israeli army has been forced to open an investigation into the
conduct of its troops in Gaza after damning testimony from its own front line
soldiers revealed the killing of civilians and rules of engagement so lax that
one combatant said that they amounted on occasion to "cold-blooded
murder"................more
Can Humans Cause
Earthquakes and Use Them As Weapons? We'll Probably Find Out Soon Enough
Once the topic of arcane science,
defense research and conspiracy theories, wider questions emerge on the
role humans played in recent earthquakes.
Last year, one of the most deadly earthquakes on record devastated China,
killing over 80,000 people and rendering millions homeless. Yet last month,
reports surfaced stating that the 8.0 magnitude
Great Sichuan
Earthquake could have possibly been induced not by Earth but its people.
Particularly, the ones that decided to build the 4-year-old Zipingpu
reservoir, which held 320 million tons of water, near a major fault
line........more
Seymour Hersh: "Executive Assassination Ring"
Answered to Cheney, Had No Congressional Oversight
Investigative journalist Sy Hersh dropped a
bombshell revelation on Monday about international killings ordered under
Bush.
At a “Great Conversations” event at the University of Minnesota [Monday]
legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh may have made a little more
news than he intended by talking about new alleged instances of domestic
spying by the CIA, and about an ongoing covert military operation that he
called an “executive assassination ring..........more
American Vice-President Joseph Biden at the Munich Security Conference in
early February pledged to "press the reset button" with Russia.
Since then prominent Washington officials have repeated their intention to
reset, reboot and so forth relations with Russia but have, starting with Biden
at Munich, not relented in any substantive manner on any of the behaviors and
projects that have antagonized Moscow............more
Afghan Civilians Could Bear Brunt of Increased War
by Rahim Faiez
KABUL - Afghan civilians will bear the brunt of an escalation in the
Afghan war this year as thousands more U.S. troops deploy unless
more is done by NATO forces and Taliban militants to protect them, a
top Red Cross official said Monday.
Civilian casualties in Afghanistan are "significantly higher" today than a
year ago, and an intensification of the conflict this year could mean that
consequences for many more Afghans will be "dire in the extreme," said Pierre
Krahenbuhl, the director of operations for the International Committee of the
Red Cross.
"The daily lives of people living in areas where the fighting is taking
place are being disrupted, be it because of airstrikes, night raids, suicide
attacks, the use of IEDs, or because of intimidation and the population being
pressurized or co-opted by the different parties to this conflict," he said.
The U.N. last month said 2,118 civilians died in the Afghan conflict in
2008, a 40 percent jump over 2007. The world body said insurgent attacks
caused 55 percent of those deaths, while U.S., NATO or government forces
caused 39 percent of the deaths. The remaining 6 percent were caused in
crossfire...................more
Why is the
Canadian Government
So Intent on Deporting War Resisters?
Canadians overwhelmingly support
allowing U.S. war resisters asylum. So why doesn't their government?
America's neighbor to the north is erecting barriers to Iraq War resisters
seeking asylum.
In the past weeks, the Harper Administration has moved swiftly to push U.S.
Iraq War resisters out of Canada, issuing removal orders to five more
resisters who had resettled up north. Two have recently been forced out of the
country, and the rest continue their appeals through the Canadian Courts. This
adds to the growing number of U.S. war resisters in Canada who are being
threatened with deportation and eventually U.S. military court martials and
imprisonment.
"According to the Nuremberg principles, people have the right to a free
conscience," said Ryan Johnson, a former soldier who refused deployment to
Iraq and resettled in Canada in June 2005. "We should be allowed to stay based
on that.".....more
"Those who make a conscientious judgment
that they must not participate in this war... have my complete sympathy,
and indeed our political approach has been to give them access to
Canada. Canada should be a refuge from militarism." Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau
Veteran Middle East reporter Paul McGeough shares insights about covering
conflict in Gaza.
Few stories are as complex and cumbersome as the
continuing friction in the Middle East. Modern history mixes with ancient
history; boundaries are drawn and redrawn. There is no shortage of opinion or
misinformation. Accusations of media bias abound. Yesterday’s elections in
Israel
promise yet another dose of upheaval in the region, and additional
uncertainty for Israel’s neighbors..........more
US, EU, Security Council Should Demand Greater
Access for Food and Fuel
JERUSALEM/GAZA - February 18 - Israel should urgently end its unlawful
restrictions on desperately needed humanitarian aid and basic goods entering
Gaza, Human Rights Watch said today. Security concerns do not justify overly
broad limitations on the delivery of food, fuel, and other essential
supplies...... more
Eastern Partnership: The West's Final
Assault On the Former Soviet Union
At a meeting of the European Union's General Affairs and External Relations
Council in Brussels on May 26 of last year, Poland, seconded by Sweden, first
proposed what has come to be known as the Eastern Partnership, a program to
'integrate' all the European and South Caucasus former Soviet nations - except
for Russia - not already in the EU and NATO; that is, Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.............more
Published on Wednesday, February 11, 2009 by
Reuters
America’s Predators: Fighting the
Afghan War From Las Vegas
by Sanjeev Miglani
In a camouflaged trailer truck in the Nevada desert, a bank of
computer screens shows live images of a mud-walled compound in
Afghanistan, 8,000 miles away. Those pictures are coming from a
Predator unmanned aircraft that you, hunched over the computer
in the darkened room not far from Vegas, are flying remotely........more
Ban Ki-moon today called for those responsible for bombing UN-run buildings
and schools in Gaza to be held accountable following Israel's 22-day war on
Hamas.
Clearly angry, the United Nations Secretary-General was speaking outside
the still-smouldering main UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) compound in Gaza
City that was hit during shelling by Israeli artillery last Thursday, setting
fire to the building and to the food aid stored inside.
Other UN buildings were hit during the fighting, and a number of
Palestinian refugees allowed by the UN to take shelter inside its schools were
killed..........more
Canada
Complicit with Israeli War Crimes
By Jim Miles – Canada
Canada lives in the unfortunate position of being under the thrall of U.S.
media for most its information and cultural relevance. At the same time, its
own media, apart from the national broadcast company CBC, is highly
centralized under the influence of two media empires (Canwest Global and CTV
GlobeMedia) who support the same kind of biased coverage that is provided by
the U.S. In sum, Canadians who wish to receive a balanced view of events in
the Middle East, Gaza in particular, have to rely on alternate or external
media. Canwest Global (Israel Aspers’ media empire) provides nightly updates
with little context and “balanced” reporting of showing deaths in Israel from
the Qassam rockets as being equally as devastating as the IDF attacks in
Gaza.........more
Olmert, Bush and
Red-faced Rice
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has boasted that he forced US Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice to abstain from a UN Security Council resolution on
Gaza, which she supported and even helped draft.
"In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state
wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not
want her to vote in favor," Olmert said in a speech cited by Agence France-Presse
(AFP).
Pouring on political bravado, Olmert said he demanded to talk to Bush with
only 10 minutes to spare before a UN Security Council vote on Thursday on a
resolution opposed by Israel calling for an immediate ceasefire............ more.
Red Cross Reports
Grisly Find in Gaza
January 8, 2009 - Washington Post
By Craig Whitlock and Griff Witte
JERUSALEM, Jan. 8 -- The International Committee of the Red Cross said
Thursday that it had found at least 15 bodies and several children --
emaciated but alive -- in a row of shattered houses in the Gaza Strip and
accused the Israeli military of preventing ambulances from reaching the site
for four days.............more.
And so does
international criticism of Israel's utter disregard for
civilian lives.
Criticism by international watchdog groups over the
increasing death toll in Gaza mounted this week as the first
legal actions inside Israel were launched accusing the army of
intentionally harming the enclave's civilian population.
The petitions -- over attacks on medical personnel and the shelling of
United Nations schools in Gaza -- follow statements by senior Israeli
commanders that they have been using heavy firepower to protect soldiers
during their advance on built-up areas. "We are very violent," one told
Israeli media............more
Gazans Warned of Escalation While Israel Faces War Crime
Accusations
by Rory McCarthy
The
United Nations' most senior
human rights official said last night that the Israeli military
may have committed
war crimes in
Gaza. The warning came as Israeli troops pressed on with the
deadly offensive in defiance of a UN security council resolution
calling for a ceasefire..........more
From The Times
December 5, 2008
Israel rains fire on Gaza with phosphorus shells
Israel is believed to be using controversial white phosphorus shells to
screen its assault on the heavily populated Gaza Strip yesterday. The weapon,
used by British and US forces in Iraq, can cause horrific burns but is not
illegal if used as a smokescreen.
As the Israeli army stormed to the edges of Gaza City and the Palestinian
death toll topped 500, the tell-tale shells could be seen spreading tentacles
of thick white smoke to cover the troops’ advance. “These explosions are
fantastic looking, and produce a great deal of smoke that blinds the enemy so
that our forces can move in,” said one Israeli security expert. Burning blobs
of phosphorus would cause severe injuries to anyone caught beneath them and
force would-be snipers or operators of remote-controlled booby traps to take
cover. Israel admitted using white phosphorus during its 2006 war with
Lebanon.
The use of the weapon in the Gaza Strip, one of the world’s mostly densely
population areas, is likely to ignite yet more controversy over Israel’s
offensive, in which more than 2,300 Palestinians have been wounded............more
Israel / Palestine
Top 5 Lies About Israel’s Assault on Gaza
January 3, 2009
by Jeremy R. Hammond
Lie #1) Israel is only targeting legitimate military
sites and is seeking to protect innocent lives. Israel never targets
civilians.
The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely
populated pieces of property in the world. The presence of militants within a
civilian population does not, under international law, deprive that population
of their protected status, and hence any assault upon that population under
the guise of targeting militants is, in fact, a war crime........ more
Published on Saturday, January 10, 2009 by
Haaretz
The Time of The Righteous
by Gideon Levy
This war, perhaps more than its predecessors, is exposing the true
deep veins of Israeli society. Racism and hatred are rearing their
heads, as is the impulse for revenge and the thirst for blood. The
"inclination of the commander" in the Israel Defense Forces is now
"to kill as many as possible," as the military correspondents on
television describe it. And even if the reference is to Hamas
fighters, this inclination is still chilling. ........more
To end the bloody occupation, Israel should become
the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to South Africa's
apartheid.
It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody
occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement
that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.
In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do
just that. They called on "people of conscience all over the world to impose
broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to
those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era." The campaign Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions -- BDS for short -- was born......more
What You'd Know About
Israel If You Watched Al
Jazeera TV
Live coverage of the war hasn't made it into most
American living rooms.
DAMASCUS, Syria -- Throughout the 11 days of Israel's pummeling of Gaza,
live coverage of the war hasn't made it into most American living rooms.
That's because Israel, America's staunch ally, isn't allowing journalists
to enter Gaza while Al Jazeera, called anti-American and pro-terrorist by many
in Washington, is the only network broadcasting live images from Gaza to the
world....more
Israeli Militants Poised to Resettle
Gaza After Assault
As Israeli troops fight their way
into Gaza, scores of determined settlers are prepared to enter in their wake.
Israel's "Operation Cast Lead" is reported to have overwhelming support
among the Israeli public, but few are as enthusiastic as the former residents
of the Israeli settlements in Gaza. As tens of thousands of Israeli troops
descend on Gaza in an apocalyptic frenzy, scores of determined settlers are
prepared to enter in their wake.
The Gaza settlements were dismantled in August 2005 as part of former
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan. In a single stroke,
the Israeli army removed 8,000 people from the Gush Katif settlement bloc in
the southwest corner of the Gaza Strip near the Egyptian border and from four
smaller settlements in northern and central Gaza..........more
Multiple sources report medics and
ambulances have come under attack in Gaza by Israeli forces.
Multiple sources are reporting that medics and ambulances have come under
repeated attack in Gaza by Israeli forces. Aid workers are also reporting that
even when Red Crescent ambulance teams contact the Red Cross and the Red Cross
contacts the IDF to coordinate the ambulance mission, they are often prevented
from reaching the injured.
Midmorning on Sunday, Israeli warplanes bombed a house in the town of Beit
Hanoun, where Palestinians were mourning the death of a paramedic who was
killed on Saturday. Some 40 others were wounded in this most recent
attack.............more
RAMALLAH - Israel has committed war crimes and should be prosecuted in an
international court, says Raji Sourani, head of the Palestinian Centre for
Human Rights (PCHR) in Gaza.
Swiss
Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of operations of the International Committee
of the Red Cross, ICRC, gestures as he talks about the humanitarian problems
in Gaza after Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip, during a press
conference at the ICRC headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Tuesday, Jan. 6,
2009. (AP Photo/Keystone, Salvatore Di Nolfi)
"The repeated bombing of clearly marked civilian buildings, where civilians
were sheltering, crosses several red lines in regard to international law,"
Sourani told IPS.
Palestinian Authority (PA) delegate to Britain Professor Manuel Hassassian
has said the PA will launch legal proceedings against Israeli leaders it says
are responsible for war crimes in Gaza, according to a Palestinian news
report.
Another 22 Palestinians were killed Wednesday morning in bombing and
shelling as Israel's Operation Cast Lead entered day 11. The dead included
four people killed in the shelling of a children's playground near a mosque in
the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza city.
Six Israelis were treated for shock as several rockets from Gaza hit
Israel.
Hassassian's comment came in the wake of Israeli shelling of a UN school in
Jabaliya refugee camp Tuesday afternoon which killed over 40 Palestinians.
Several other UN schools in the Gaza Strip were also hit in the last few days,
resulting in a number of casualties......... ..........more
Unprecedented Numbers
of Americans Question Israel's Actions in Gaza
Could it be the rise of online
progressive media telling the truth about Israel, or that the public rejects
the same pundits who sold us Iraq?
Almost as soon as the first Israeli missile struck the Gaza Strip, a
veteran cheering squad suited up to support the home team. "Israel is so
scrupulous about civilian life," Charles Krauthammer
claimed in the Washington Post. Echoing Krauthammer, Alan
Dershowitz called the Israeli attack on Gaza,
"Perfectly 'Proportionate.'" And in the New York Times, Israeli
historian Benny Morris
described his country's airstrikes as "highly efficient."
While the cheerleaders testified to the superior moral fiber of their team,
the Palestinian civilian death toll mounted. Israeli missiles
tore at least fifteen Palestinian police cadets to shreds at a graduation
ceremony,
blew twelve worshipers to pieces (including six children) while they left
evening prayers at a mosque,
flattened the elite American International School,
killed five sisters while they slept in their beds, and
liquidated 9 women and children in order to kill a single Hamas leader. So
far, Israeli forces have
killed at
least 500 Gazans and wounded some two thousand, including hundreds of
children. Yesterday, the IDF
blanketed parts of Gaza with white phosphorus, a chemical weapon Saddam
Hussein once
deployed against Kurdish rebels................more
This report confirms that these attacks are quite deliberately directed
against civilians, using new unconventional weapons.
This is a carefully planned humanitarian catastrophe. How can anybody in their
right mind support the actions of the Israeli government.
Read this interview with a distinguished and courageous Norwegian doctor.
Here are some of the highlights.
"The Israelis are using a new type
of very high explosive weapons which are called Dense Inert Metal
Explosive (DIME) and are made out of a tungsten alloy. These weapons have
an enormous power to explode."
"these weapons will have a cancer effect on those who survive. They will
develop cancer we suspect."
"All that is happening in Gaza here now is against international law, it
is against humanity"
"Almost all of the patients we have received have these sever amputations.
They seem to have been affected by this kind of weapon. Of course, we have
many fragment injuries and burns but those who have got their limbs cut
off, constitutes quite a large proportion.
You know we have a lot to do. Palestinian doctors, nurses and paramedics
do an incredibly heroic job to save their people. Doctor Eric and I are
just a small drip in the ocean, but we learn from them."
And then decide where do you stand.
We stand with the people of Palestine whose lives are being destroyed.
We stand in solidarity with their struggle.
We stand for humanity against the US-Israeli war
criminals..................more Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, January 5, 2009
Whatever those goals are, exactly, they are clearly incomplete; Barak told
Israel's Army Radio, the strikes would intensify "as much as needed to meet
the goals we set for ourselves, to bring quiet to the south."
Over a week after the start of this blood-soaked chapter in the
Israel/Palestine saga, there is no quiet but the silence of the dead -- over
530, and counting. On Sunday, Israeli ground troops entered Gaza, escalating
the violence. "At least 75 Palestinians have been killed since Saturday," the
AFP
reported on Monday, "when Israel upped a weeklong bombardment of Hamas
targets in Gaza by pouring in ground troops into the densely populated
territory.".......more..
Israel's blonde
bombshells and real bombs in Gaza
Yosefa Loshitzky, The Electronic Intifada, 5
January 2009
I am not sure that most people
understand the meaning of the name "Operation Cast Lead" chosen by Israel for
its murderous and criminal attack on Gaza. The name is borrowed from a Hebrew
nursery rhyme which was (and may still be) very popular among Israeli children
in the 1950s. In this song, a father promises to his child a special Hannukah
gift: "a cast lead sevivon." Sevivon, in Hebrew (A dreidel
in Yiddish) is a four-sided spinning top, played with during the Jewish
holiday of Hanukkah. Somebody, in the Israeli army, who apparently feels
nostalgic about his childhood, decided that if Israeli kids would enjoy a
sevivon cast from lead there is no reason why Palestinian children would
not appreciate it too. After all Operation Cast Lead is not the first (and
unfortunately, will not be the last) of Israel's cruel war games.
The cynicism embedded in the name, selected for what Ari Shavit, one of
Israel's most celebrated commentators, called "an intelligent, impressive
operation," is symptomatic to the cold, meticulous and calculated cruelty with
which this attack was "designed," "executed" and "marketed" to the world. As
the perpetrators themselves proudly boast, Operation Cast Lead is not only a
great military victory but also a success story of Israeli hasbara
(meaning in Hebrew, explanation, but practically referring to misinformation,
spin and lies).....................more.
JERUSALEM - Israel is believed to be using controversial white phosphorus
shells to screen its assault on the heavily populated Gaza Strip yesterday.
The weapon, used by British and US forces in Iraq, can cause horrific burns
but is not illegal if used as a smokescreen.
As the Israeli army stormed to the edges of Gaza City and the Palestinian
death toll topped 500, the tell-tale shells could be seen spreading tentacles
of thick white smoke to cover the troops' advance. "These explosions are
fantastic looking, and produce a great deal of smoke that blinds the enemy so
that our forces can move in," said one Israeli security expert. Burning blobs
of phosphorus would cause severe injuries to anyone caught beneath them and
force would-be snipers or operators of remote-controlled booby traps to take
cover. Israel admitted using white phosphorus during its 2006 war with
Lebanon..............more
The use of cluster
bombs - which have a large footprint when initially dropped and then
remain a threat for decades - in a location like the Gaza Strip which is so
packed with people is horrifying.
Conditions in Gaza continue to
worsen:
......more.
Sunday, January 4 2009 - Other Important
News
Understanding the Gaza Catastrophe
by Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in
the Palestinian Territories
Huffingtonpost.com
January 2, 2009
For eighteen months the entire 1.5 million people of Gaza experienced
a punishing blockade imposed by Israel, and a variety of traumatizing
challenges to the normalcy of daily life. A flicker of hope emerged some
six months ago when an Egyptian arranged truce produced an effective
ceasefire that cut Israeli casualties to zero despite the cross-border
periodic firing of homemade rockets that fell harmlessly on nearby
Israeli territory, and undoubtedly caused anxiety in the border town of
Sderot. During the ceasefire the Hamas leadership in Gaza repeatedly
offered to extend the truce, even proposing a ten-year period and
claimed a receptivity to a political solution based on acceptance of
Israel's 1967 borders. Israel ignored these diplomatic initiatives, and
failed to carry out its side of the ceasefire agreement that involved
some easing of the blockade that had been restricting the entry to Gaza
of food, medicine, and fuel to a trickle...........more.
Did You Know 200,000
Vets Are Sleeping on the Streets?
America's promise to "Support the
Troops" ends the moment they take off the uniform and try to make the
transition to civilian life.
SAN FRANCISCO - Roy Lee Brantley shivers in the cold December morning as he
waits in line for food outside the Ark of Refuge mission, which sits amid
warehouses and artists lofts a stone's throw from the skyscrapers of downtown
San Francisco.
Brantley's beard is long, white and unkempt. The African-American man's
skin wrinkled beyond his 62 years. He lives in squalor in a dingy residential
hotel room with the bathroom down the hall. In some ways, his current
situation marks an improvement. "I've slept in parks," he says, "and on the
sidewalk. Now at least I have a room."........more
An Israeli War Crimes Tribunal (ICTI) May
be the Only Deterrent to a Global War
The United Nations General Assembly must immediately
establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) as a
"subsidiary organ" under U.N. Charter Article 22. The ICTI would be organized
along the lines of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY),
which was established by the Security Council.
The purpose of the ICTI would be to investigate and
prosecute Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the
Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine.
The establishment of ICTI would provide some small degree
of justice to the victims of Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and
genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine--just as the ICTY has
done in the Balkans. Furthermore, the establishment of ICTI by the U.N.
General Assembly would serve as a deterrent effect upon Israeli leaders such
as Prime Minister Olmert, Foreign Minister Livni, Defense Minister Barak,
Chief of Staff Ashkenazi and Israel's other top generals that they will be
prosecuted for their further infliction of international crimes upon the
Lebanese and the Palestinians.
Without such a deterrent, Israel might be emboldened to
attack Syria with the full support of the Likhudnik Bush Jr. Neoconservatives,
who have always viewed Syria as "low-hanging fruit" ready to be taken out by
means of their joint aggression. If Israel attacks Syria as it did when it
invaded Lebanon in 1982, Iran has vowed to come to Syria's
defense..............more
In a dramatic speech, Chris Hedges
warns that the nation is on the verge of becoming a full-blown corporate
state.
When it was announced in May that Bush would deliver
the commencement address, 222 students and faculty signed and posted on the
school's Web site a statement titled "We Object." The statement cites the war
in Iraq and the administration's "obstructing progress on reducing greenhouse
gases while favoring billions in tax breaks and subsidies to oil companies
that are earning record profits."
"We are ashamed of the actions of this administration.
The war in Iraq has cost the lives of over 4,000 brave and honorable U.S.
military personnel," the statement read. "Because we love this country and the
ideals it stands for, we accept our civic responsibility to speak out against
these actions that violate American values."..........more.
NEW YORK - In an extraordinary outburst, the
president of the United Nations General Assembly has branded Israel's
ground offensive in Gaza a "monstrosity" and a marked failure for the UN.
Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, of Nicaragua, blasted the Israeli action on
Saturday as the UN Security Council convened its third Gaza emergency
session.
"I think it's a monstrosity; there's no other way to name it," Mr
Brockmann said. "Once again, the world is watching in dismay the
dysfunctionality of the Security Council."
His remarks were seen as putting a slight upon the United States, which
again prevented the council from issuing an agreed statement on the
crisis.
The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, lamented Israel's incursion
after a week-long bombardment of Gaza that had already killed at least 460
people and injured thousands more.
Israel has said it is targeting Hamas militants and resources, but
according to early estimates about one quarter of those killed were
civilians...........more.
It is becoming increasingly clear
that Israel’s latest attack on Gaza was a pre-meditated attempt to destabilize
the Hamas regime.
It was about midnight last Sunday when my phone rang. “I’m not sure I will
survive tonight, the Israelis are bombing us everywhere.” It was Mahmoud, a
young resident of Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt. We
first met when I visited the troubled coastal territory after Israel
dismantled its settlements there in September 2005. On December 27, just
before midday, Israel’s powerful air force, the fourth largest in the world,
commenced a deadly air assault on over 40 separate locations in the Gaza
Strip. The strikes were as calculated as they were cold – the targets were
almost entirely people and facilities vital to the Hamas government. In one of
the areas hit, where police officers had gathered for a parade, body parts
were strewn along a courtyard.................more.
A Better World Must Start from Gaza
By
Abdul Basit – Kuwait
New Year Greetings and resolutions have become a meaningless custom of lip
service while with every passing year the condition of humanity deteriorates
from bad to worse. The international community has become insensitive to the
sufferings of the downtrodden and have taken for granted the repetitive
brutality and oppression conducted by certain regimes year after year on the
innocent populace around the world.
2008 has been one of the worst years in the recent history. Compared to the
previous years, it saw many new issues coming to the forefront. 2008 saw the
collapse of the global financial system and food crises after many decades of
superficial stability, which has resulted in globalization of hunger and
poverty that was earlier limited to some regions of Africa, Asia and South
America. The growing unemployment, corruption, bankruptcy, conflicts and
terrorist attacks created great deal of instability and uncertainty about the
future. According to some financial and economic pundits the worst of the
financial crises is not yet over and when that happens, it might result in
social and economic breakdown thus forecasting a nightmarish scenario for
2009............ more.
Attacks Condemned as Supplies Dwindle
and Deaths Rise
by Michael Jansen
Deposed Palestinian prime minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh
yesterday called for an immediate halt to the Israeli attack on Gaza, lifting
of the siege and opening of all crossings.
This war does not target just Hamas and the government, it is targeting
Palestinians and their cause," he stated in a televised address as Gaza's
death toll rose to 417.
Some 2,070 Gazans have been wounded since Israel's offensive began on
Saturday. Among the latest targets were the Palestinian legislative council
building and a complex housing the ministries of health, education and
transport, all facilities belonging to the Palestinian National Authority and
built with donations from Europe and elsewhere.
Dr Ziad Abu Amr, an independent legislator from Gaza, said he and
colleagues had made fruit- less protests against the "total destruction" of
Gaza but there is international "complicity" with Israel. He said these
institutions will have to be rebuilt before governance can be restored."
A doctor who lives in Gaza city asserted, "We have never, never, never
heard such explosions."........ more
Gaza - Israel's Butchering Block
By
Dr. Elias Akleh
As usual, Israel, once again, demonstrated its blatant contempt to humanity
and to all religions when its fourth most powerful army desecrated on Saturday
December 27 the most Christian, Muslim and Jewish holiest religious holidays,
and even their own supposed-to-be holy Sabbath, by spelling the blood of the
weak, the hungry, the thirsty, the poor, the desolate, and the two-years
besieged Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. So it’s merry Christmas, happy New
Year, happy Hanukkha, and Shabat shalom
Israel started what it called “operation cast lead” on Saturday by sending 60
F-16 fighter jets to drop 100 tons of explosives on Gazans, whose children,
under the age of 18, comprise 50% of the population. The targets were,
initially, police stations and academy and government buildings. Many of them
were hit multiple times to inflict casualties among medical teams, civil
service personnel, and regular citizens, who gathered to save the victims.
Later the Israeli war planes targeted charity institutions, civilian homes,
apartment tower buildings, educational institutions and Islamic mosques, seven
of which were totally leveled to the ground. Up till today, Tuesday 30th, 400
Palestinians were murdered and 1057 others were wounded many with
life-threatening wounds that may raise the death toll.................more.
A boat carrying international activists, including former Georgia
congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, and medical supplies to the embattled Gaza
Strip sailed back into a Lebanese port on Tuesday after being turned back and
damaged by the Israeli navy, organizers of the trip said.
The crowds on the docks in the Lebanese port city of Tyre were jubilant and
cheering as they welcomed the vessel.
The boat, which set off from Cyprus Monday wanted to make a statement and
deliver medical supplies to embattled Gaza. The trip's organizers said the
boat was clearly in international waters, 90 miles off the coast of Gaza, at
the time of its close encounter with the Israeli navy.
"Our boat was rammed three times, twice in the front and one on the side,"
McKinney told CNN Tuesday morning. "Our mission was a peaceful mission. Our
mission was thwarted by the aggressiveness of the Israeli military."
Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, denied there had
been any shooting although the two ships had made "physical
contact."...............more
Israel's Onslaught: One of Its Bloodiest Attacks on
Palestinians in 60 Years
Reports indicate that 350 people
have been killed and 1,400 injured in the aerial strikes across the Gaza Strip
since Saturday morning.
Update: The Gaza death toll has passed 350.
Amid worldwide protests, Israel is continuing its bombing campaign against
Gaza for the third consecutive day and preparing to launch a possible ground
invasion. Following months of a crippling blockade, this has been described as
one of Israel's bloodiest attacks on Palestinians since 1948. Latest reports
indicate that 310 people have been killed and 1,400 injured in the aerial
strikes across the Gaza Strip since Saturday morning. The latest targets of
the air strikes include the Hamas Interior Ministry building and the Islamic
University. Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced today that Israel
is in an "all-out war with Hamas and its proxies" in Gaza. Fears of a ground
invasion are growing after Israel declared a military buffer zone around Gaza,
closing off the strip and its 1.5 million residents to journalists and
civilians..............more
From The Sunday Times
December 28, 2008
Britain and US refuse to demand end
to Israeli airstrikes on Gaza
Nicola Smith
Britain and the United States were on a collision course with their
European allies last night after refusing to call for an end to Israeli
airstrikes on Hamas targets in Gaza.
The wave of attacks marked a violent end to President George W Bush’s
sporadic Middle East peace efforts. The White House put the blame squarely on
Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organisation, for provoking the Israeli
blitz.
Britain echoed the call for “militants” to stop firing rockets into Israel
while calling for “maximum restraint” to avoid casualties.
The response was in sharp contrast to demands by the European Union for an
“immediate ceasefire” and criticism by France of the use of “disproportionate
force”......more.
The Gaza Bombshell
After
failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian
election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and
self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With
confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S.
officials, the author reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and
Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under
Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and
leaving Hamas stronger than ever.............more
At 3:19 P.M. Sunday, the sound of an incoming missile
could be heard over the telephone. And then another, along with the
children's cries of fear. In Gaza City's Tel al-Hawa neighborhood,
high-rise apartment buildings are crowded close together, with dozens of
children in every building, hundreds in every block.
Their father, B., informs me that smoke is rising from his neighbor's
house and ends the call. An hour later, he tells me that two apartments
were hit. One was empty; he does not know who lives there. The other,
which suffered casualties, belongs to a member of a rocket-launching cell,
but no one senior or important.............more.
Defense
officials said that Israel would not hesitate to target the homes of civilians
who protected Hamas terrorists throughout the operation.
Overnight, the BBC is reporting that Israel has declared the region around
Gaza "a closed military zone," which is seen as sign that a ground invasion is
about to begin (no link available yet). The
Gaza death toll (at 1:25 p.m. PST) is 307, there are
unconfirmed reports that captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was among
those wounded by the Israeli attack on Gaza, and the
Israeli
navy has now joined the attack.
The
Israeli air force is apparently very happy with the performance of a "new
bunker-buster missile that it received recently from the United States"
(Israel ordered 1,000 GBU-39 in September) and while "Col. Moshe Levy was
interviewed by several Arab news outlets during which he stressed that Israel
was not against the Palestinian public in Gaza but was operating against
Hamas":...................more
Gaza truce broken as Israeli raid kills six
Hamas gunmen
A four-month ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza was
in jeopardy today after Israeli troops killed six Hamas gunmen in a raid into
the territory.
Hamas responded by firing a wave of rockets into southern Israel, although
no one was injured. The violence represented the most serious break in a
ceasefire agreed in mid-June, yet both sides suggested they wanted to return
to atmosphere of calm.
Israeli troops crossed into the Gaza Strip late last night near the town of
Deir al-Balah. The Israeli military said the target of the raid was a tunnel
that they said Hamas was planning to use to capture Israeli soldiers
positioned on the border fence 250m away. Four Israeli soldiers were injured
in the operation, two moderately and two lightly, the military said.........more
This war is inhuman, unnecessary and harmful. Nothing good for Israel will
come out of it!
The killing of hundreds of Palestinians and the destruction of the
infrastructure of life in the Gaza Strip are abominable acts. Those who hope
to reap electoral profits from them are.....................more
It's not the first time and won't be the last. On December 27, AP reported
that:
"Israeli aircraft struck Hamas security compounds across Gaza on Saturday in
unprecedented waves of simultaneous attacks, and Hamas and medics reported
dozens of people were killed."
Haaretz headlined:
"Israel launched (Operation Case Lead) Saturday morning (at around 11:30AM
with no warning) the start of a massive offensive against Qassam rocket and
mortar fire on its southern communities, targeting dozens of buildings
belonging to the ruling Hamas militant group."...........more
Gaza / PNN – Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip are
unrelenting since the first bomb of this major operation was dropped on
Saturday at 11:30 am. The death toll has reached 345 Palestinians with 1,450
injured at 6:00 pm Monday.
Palestinian medical sources report that among the injured are
850 still in overflowing Gaza hospitals. As the sun set another
seven passersby were killed in the northern Strip's Beit Lahia when Israeli
forces shelled the home of Al Qassam leader Maher Zakout...........more
The Paradox of Israel:
Regional Super Power and the Largest Jewish Ghetto Ever Created
Israelis keep saying they only
want security, while they go on electing leaders whose policies make them less
secure.
Trying to understand the psychology of a people at war is a lot like trying
to find the bodies buried under a bombed-out building.
For more than 40 years, I've been watching my own Jewish people in wartime,
repeating the same self-defeating pattern over and over. Most Jews say that
they want Israel to be more secure, and they really mean it. Yet they support
and vote for leaders who perpetuate the conflicts that make Israel less
secure..........more
Civilian Death Toll Rises After Second
Day of Air Strikes
Death toll moves above 300.
Calls for investigation after seven students at UN college die in
missile attacks
by Hazem Balousha in Gaza City, Rory McCarthy in
Jerusalem
To the
doctors at the Shifa hospital in Gaza City it was another body on a
chaotically busy day. By early Saturday afternoon the morgue was already
overflowing so they laid out the corpse of 20-year-old Ali Abu Rabia on the
floor outside. One of the hospital staff pulled out a mobile phone from his
pocket, scrolled through the numbers, and called the young man's father..........more
Peter Prontzos: How many Canadians will die for
nothing in Afghanistan?
By Peter G. Prontzos
It is hard to write when one is upset, and I was very distressed to hear
on December 5 that three more young Canadians were killed in Afghanistan.
The terrible news also made me angry.
The 101 Canadians who have been killed in Afghanistan believed they were
serving our country, and for that they deserve our respect and gratitude. We
must not forget or trivialize their ultimate sacrifice.
But there is an awful truth that we tend to avoid, a truth that must be
proclaimed if we are to end the killing on all sides of this bloody
conflict. The truth is that those 101 brave Canadians died for nothing.
Their lives were stolen from them, and from their loving families and
friends, because of a lie. Too many young children will never see their
fathers again, because of a lie. More accurately, they died for a series of
lies. .....more
WASHINGTON - Pundits these days warn of a Middle East arms race if Iran
brings its alleged nuclear weapons programme to fruition, while others fear
that missile defence in Eastern Europe could spark escalation involving
Russia.
But despite all the fear in Washington, it turns out that the U.S. need
look no farther than its own shores to find the greatest single source of
weapons proliferation around the globe.
It's the U.S, according to a new report from the New America Foundation,
which "is the world's largest arms supplier". And with 23 billion dollars in
receipts in 2007 and 32 billion dollars in 2008, including only foreign sales,
the U.S. is also cashing in.
From escalating hostilities to encouraging human rights abuses, these arms
deals have a plethora of potential negative effects.............more.
As Possible Afghan War-Crimes Evidence Removed, US
Silent
by Tom Lasseter
DASHT-E LEILI, Afghanistan - Seven years
ago, a convoy of container trucks rumbled across northern
Afghanistan loaded with a human cargo of suspected Taliban and
al Qaida members who'd surrendered to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum,
an Afghan warlord and a key U.S. ally in ousting the Taliban
regime.
When the trucks arrived at a prison in
the town of Sheberghan, near Dostum's headquarters, they were
filled with corpses. Most of the prisoners had suffocated, and
others had been killed by bullets that Dostum's militiamen had
fired into the metal containers.
Dostum's men hauled the bodies into the nearby desert and
buried them in mass graves, according to Afghan human rights officials. By
some estimates, 2,000 men were buried there..........more.
“We are in the worst crisis since 1929 and we
have no government. How can this be good?” Stephen Jarislowsky,
chairman of Montreal money manager Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper suspended Canada's parliament to
avoid a challenge from opposition parties that were planning to oust him
from power. The 3-party coalition--the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc
Quebecois---decided to remove Harper because of his strong opposition to a
stimulus package that was designed to minimize the effects of the financial
crisis. They also opposed his "proposed elimination of subsidies for
political parties, a three-year ban on the right of civil servants to
strike, and limits on the ability of women to sue for pay equity." Governor
General Michaelle Jean helped Harper to hang on by using her constitutional
authority to close the legislature for seven weeks. Now the country is in a
furor.
Harper is a far right conservative ideologue who served as president of the
National Citizens Coalition (NCC), a conservative think-tank and advocacy
group. The organization opposes national healthcare but supports
privitization and tax cuts. It has 40,000 members but the names are kept
confidential. It's motto is "more freedom with less government."...................more
The Great Land Giveaway: Neo-Colonialism by
Invitation
Colonial style empire-building is making a
huge comeback
"The deal South Korea’s Daewoo Logistics is negotiating
with the Madagascar Government looks rapacious…The Madagascan case looks
neo-colonial…The Madagascan people stand to lose half of their arable land."
Financial Times Editorial, November 20, 2008
"Cambodia is in talks with several Asian and Middle Eastern
governments to receive as much as $3 billions US dollars in agricultural
investments in return for millions of hectares of land concessions…"
Financial Times, November 21, 2008
"We are starving in the midst of bountiful harvests and
booming exports!: Unemployed Rural Landless Workers, Para State, Brazil
(2003)
Introduction
Colonial style empire-building is making a huge comeback, and most of the
colonialists are late-comers, elbowing their way past the established European
and US predators.
Backed by their governments and bankrolled with huge trade
and investment profits and budget surpluses, the newly emerging neo-colonial
economic powers (ENEP) are seizing control of vast tracts of fertile lands
from poor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, through the
intermediation of local corrupt, free-market regimes. Millions of acres of
land have been granted – in most cases free of charge – to the ENEP who, at
most, promise to invest millions in infrastructure to facilitate the transfer
of their plundered agricultural products to their own home markets and to pay
the ongoing wage of less than $1 dollar a day to the destitute local
peasants......................more
America's Child Soldiers: US Military
Recruiting Children to Serve in the Armed Forces
In violation of its pledge to the United Nations not to
recruit children into the military, the Pentagon “regularly target(s) children
under 17,” the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) says.
The Pentagon “heavily recruits on high school campuses,
targeting students for recruitment as early as possible and generally without
limits on the age of students they contact,” the ACLU states in a 46-page
report titled “Soldiers of Misfortune.”
This is in violation of the U.S. Senate's 2002 ratification
of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Pentagon recruiters are enrolling children as young as 14
in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps(JROTC) in 3,000 middle-, junior-,
and high schools nationwide, causing about 45 percent of the quarter of
million students so enrolled to enlist, a rate much higher than in the general
student population. Clearly, this is the outcome of underage
exposure.........................more
If Obama Doesn't
Prosecute Bush's Torture Team, We'll Pay a Big Price Down the Road
Obama isn't likely to pursue torture atrocities
during the Bush era, but this is one problem you simply can't wish away.
"How did it come about that American military personnel stripped
detainees naked, put them in stress positions, used dogs to scare them, put
leashes around their necks to humiliate them, hooded them, deprived them of
sleep and blasted music at them? Were these actions the result of 'a few bad
apples' acting on their own? It would be a lot easier to accept if it were.
But that's not the case."
-- Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., Chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, June 17, 2008..............more
'Nobody Supports The Taliban, but People Hate The
Government'
As he leaves Afghanistan, The Independent's Middle
East correspondent reflects on a failed state cursed by brutal
fundamentalism and rampant corruption
by Robert Fisk
The collapse of Afghanistan is closer than the world
believes. Kandahar is in Taliban hands - all but a square mile at the centre
of the city - and the first Taliban checkpoints are scarcely 15 miles from
Kabul. Hamid Karzai's deeply corrupted government is almost as powerless as
the Iraqi cabinet in Baghdad's "Green Zone"; lorry drivers in the country now
carry business permits issued by the Taliban which operate their own courts in
remote areas of the country.................more
Massive 'Homeland Defense' Joint Exercise Is
Under Way
Joint military exercise ‘Vigilant Shield,’ involving maritime, aerospace,
ballistic missile defense is under way.
This week and into next, NorthCom and NORAD are conducting a joint exercise
called “Vigilant Shield ’09.”
The focus will be on “homeland defense and civil support,” a NorthCom press
release states.
From November 12-18, it will be testing a “synchronized response of federal,
state, local and international partners in preparation for homeland defense,
homeland security, and civil support missions in the United States and
abroad.”
NorthCom is short for the Pentagon’s Northern Command. President Bush created
it in October 2002. (The Southern Command, or SouthCom, covers Latin America.
Central Command, or CentCom, covers Iraq and Afghanistan. And the new AfriCom
covers, well, you get the picture.)....more
.Miscarriage of Justice: Who was behind the
October 2002 Bali bombings?
Three Islamic militants were executed on November 9th for
their alleged role in the 2002 Bali bombings that resulted in the death of 202
people.
The official version of events was that the bombings were sponsored by Al
Qaeda and carried out by members of an affiliate Islamic organization Jemaah
Islamiyah (JI).
Most of those killed in the bomb attacks were Western,
mainly Australian tourists.
Obama Has to Pay for Eight Years of Bush's Delusions
He will have to get out of Iraq, and he will
have to tell Israel a few home truths
by Robert Fisk
Clip - - - But how is Barack Obama going
to repair the titanic damage which his vicious, lying predecessor has
perpetrated around the globe and within the US itself? John F Kennedy once
said that "the United States, as the world knows, will never start a war".
After Bush's fear-mongering and Rumsfeld's "shock and awe" and Abu Ghraib and
Bagram and Guantanamo and secret renditions, how does Obama pedal his country
all the way back to Camelot? Our own dear Gordon Brown's enthusiasm to Hoover
up the emails of the British people is another example of how Lord Blair's
sick relationship with Bush still infects our own body politic. Only days
before the wretched president finally departs from us, new US legislation will
ensure that citizens of his lickspittle British ally will no longer be able to
visit America without special security clearance. Does Bush have any more
surprises for us before 20 January? Indeed, could anything surprise us any
more?................more
The Criminal
Justice Reform Battle in California: Cynical Politicians and Powerful
Interests Attacking the Public Good
We can't allow a sensible solution to be drowned out
by people know the "tough on crime" approach is worthless public policy.
Here is picture that sums up much that is wrong with American politics.
Five governors of California, Democrats and Republicans, joining forces to
oppose something that is indisputably in the public interest.
This is an image that could be repeated, with different faces, in region
after region of our country, involving issue after issue. Public officials
standing against the public good, with the disastrous results on display from
Detroit to Wall Street. All suffering from the same destructive force: the
power of entrenched special interests to cloud the vision of our leaders,
causing them to thwart good sense, good legislation, and the will of the
people............more
Who's Getting Rich
Off Prohibition? Just Look Who Opposes CA's Prop. 5
Posted by
Paul Armentano, NORML at 1:12 AM on November 1, 2008.
You can learn a lot about the merits of a proposal by
taking a good, hard look at who's lobbying against it.
You can learn a lot about the merits of a proposal by taking a good, hard
look at who's lobbying against it.
If you guessed: the folks who make their living arresting non-violent drug
offenders, you'd be right! According to the 'No on 5'
website, the
California State Sheriff's Association, the California Narcotics Officers
Association, the California Peace Officers Association, the Police Chiefs of
California, and the California District Attorneys Association all oppose Prop.
5...............more
"A Second 9/11": An Integral Part of US
Military Doctrine
For several years now, senior officials of the Bush
administration including the President and the Vice President have intimated,
in no certain terms, that there will be "a Second 9/11".
Quotations from presidential speeches and official
documents abound. America is threatened:
"The near-term attacks ... will either rival or exceed the 9/11 attacks...
And it's pretty clear that the nation's capital and New York city would be
on any list..." (Former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge, December 2003).....more
It's Time for a
Trillion-Dollar Tag Sale at the Pentagon
When we want to get serious about a long-term bailout strategy, we'll start
dismantling the American empire and Pentagon programs.
Wars, bases, and money. The three are inextricably tied together.
In the 1980s, for example, American support for jihadis like Osama
bin Laden waging war on (Soviet) infidels who invaded and constructed
bases in Afghanistan, a Muslim land, led to rage by many of the same
jihadis at the bases (U.S.) infidels built in the Muslim holy land
of Saudi Arabia in the 1990s. That, in turn, led to jihadis like bin
Laden declaring war on those infidels, which, after September 11, 2001,
led the Bush administration to launch, and then prosecute, a Global War on
Terror, often from newly built bases in Muslim lands. Over the last seven
years, the results of that war have been particularly disastrous for Iraqis
and Afghans. Sizable numbers of Americans, however, are now beginning to
suffer as well. After all, their hard-earned taxpayer dollars have been poured
into wars without end, leaving the country deeply in debt and in a state of
economic turmoil............ more
Unscrupulous Manipulation of the US Financial Architecture:
The Failed Presidency of George W. Bush
"Greed is good. Greed is right. Greed Works."Gordon
Gekko, corporate raider (played by Michael Douglas) in the movie Wall
St.
“President
[George W.] Bush will be remembered as
the most fiscally irresponsible president in our nation’s history.”Sen.
Kent Conrad,
Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee
[The government's
decision to buy shares in the nation's leading banks] “is not intended
to take over the free market, but to preserve it.”President George W.
Bush, October 14, 2008
"Our country for the first time in my life time has
abandoned the basic principle of human rights. ...We've said that the
Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and
Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an
accusation of a crime to which they are accused." Jimmy Carter,
former American president.......more
Despite the Threat of
Harsh Punishment, Soldier Says "No" to Deployment in Afghanistan
How 21-year-old soldier Blake Ivey came to
see war as "flat-out murder."
"I believe war is the crime of our times," Blake Ivey, a specialist in the
U.S. Army, said over the phone in a slow, deliberate voice.
Ivey, currently stationed in Fort Gordon, Ga., is publicly refusing to
deploy to Afghanistan. The 21-year-old soldier filed for conscientious
objector status in July but was ordered to deploy while his application was
being processed. He is determined not to go, and as of our last phone call,
was still actively serving on his base, weighing his options for
refusal............more
I Survived the
Georgian War. Here's What I Saw.
I blame Georgia's leaders.
By Lira Tskhovrebova
08/10/08 "CSM"
-- -Tskhinvali, South Ossetia - In a speech before the United Nations last
month, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili implored world leaders to set up
an international investigation to find out the truth about the war in South
Ossetia.
I couldn't agree more. But I think the results of an honest investigation
would reveal a very different "truth" than what President Saakashvili claims.
I know this because I was in Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, on Aug.
7 when Georgian troops marched into the city and killed my friends and
neighbors. I huddled with my family in terror for three nights while
Saakashvili's tanks and rockets destroyed hundreds of our homes, desecrated
cemeteries, gutted schools and hospitals............more
http://www.helpossetianow.org/
Massachusetts law school Dean Lawrence Velvel will chair a
Steering Committee to pursue the prosecution for war crimes of President Bush
and culpable high-ranking aides after they leave office Jan. 20th.
The Steering Committee was organized following a conference
of leading legal authorities and scholars from the U.S. and abroad convened by
Velvel on Sept. 13-14 in Andover, Mass., titled “The Justice Robert Jackson
Conference On Planning For The Prosecution of High Level American War
Criminals.”
“If Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and others are not
prosecuted,” Velvel said, “the future could be threatened by additional
examples of Executive lawlessness by leaders who need fear no personal
consequences for their actions, including more illegal wars such as Iraq.”
.........more
Curbing Social Protest in America:
Microwave "Non-lethal" Weapons to be used for "Crowd Control"
Just in Time for the Capitalist Meltdown: Army, Justice Department to
Field 'Pain Ray'.
Back in July I
reported that
Raytheon (No. 4 on
Washington Technology's
"Top 100 List of Prime Defense Contractors," with $5,170,829,645 in revenue)
was developing a microwave "non-lethal" weapons (NLW) system for the U.S.
Army.
At a cost of $25 million, five truck-mounted
NLWs will soon be shipped off to Iraq for heavy-lifting in Iraqi cities for
use against militant oil workers and citizens should U.S. energy
multinationals finally get their greedy little hands on that nation's
oil wealth. A
slimmed-down version of the Active Denial System (ADS) is sought for
deployment in the "homeland. According to
Aviation Week,
Raytheon is kicking off a U.S. Army program
to mount Joint Silent Guardian non-lethal, directed energy weapons--with a
range of more than 250 meters--on Ford 550 commercial trucks for crowd
control............Continue
Coalition Forces On The Wrong Track
in Afghanistan
Anand Gopal: Afghanistan does not need more guns, it needs
reconstruction and reconciliation
KABUL - October 17 - Earlier this week, US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates
spoke about the need for a greater commitment of troops and money from NATO
countries involved in Afghanistan. He described NATO's operations in
Afghanistan as being 'hamstrung' by national differences over troop numbers
and budgets. Gates' statements favour a troop surge in Afghanistan, similar
to the one in Iraq.
The Realnews spoke with Anand Gopal, a journalist for
Inter Press Services (IPS) who is stationed in Kabul. Gopal states that the
recent rise in violence is not impacted by the number of NATO troops.
Increasing levels of insurgency are due to a weak central government,
perceived by the public as being corrupt, and the high numbers of civilian
casualities. Gopal argues the number of NATO troops would contribute less to
the stabilization of the situation. Instead, reconstruction and
reconciliation should be NATO's priority.
After seven years, the US is 'realizing the war is not going their way,'
Gopal notes. He concludes the Afghanistan needs less boots on the ground and
an increased emphasis on reconstruction..........Continue
The looming election - the process itself, not merely the feints and jabs
of the candidates - is actually getting some mainstream media attention, as
in, ahem, voting public, excuse me, but maybe you should be aware that
irresponsible self-interest has been detected in the vicinity of our polling
places and some bad choices have been made lately (electronic voting is
unreliable) and, well, how badly did you want your vote counted?
In September, for instance, the Washington Post sounded this subdued,
hapless warning: "Faced with a surge in voter registrations leading up to Nov.
4, election officials across the country are bracing for long lines, equipment
failures and confusion over polling procedures that could cost thousands the
chance to cast a ballot.".........Continue
WASHINGTON - The beginning of political talks between the Afghan government
and the Taliban revealed by press accounts this week is likely to deepen the
rift that has just erupted in public between the United States and its British
ally over the U.S. commitment to an escalation of the war in Afghanistan.
According to a French diplomatic cable that leaked to a French magazine
last week, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government is looking for an exit
strategy from Afghanistan rather than an endless war, and it sees a U.S.
escalation of the war as an alternative to a political settlement rather than
as supporting such an outcome.
The first meetings between the two sides were held in Saudi Arabia in the
presence of Saudi King Abdullah Sep. 24 to 27, as reported by CNN's Nic
Robertson from London Tuesday. Eleven Taliban delegates, two Afghan government
officials and a representative of independent former mujahideen commander
Gulfadin Hekmatyar participated in the meetings, according to
Robertson........Continue
War victim advocates say Afghan families deserve
assistance following losses
WASHINGTON - September 16 - Following the release of civilian casualty
figures by the United Nations today, Campaign for Innocent Victims in
Conflict (CIVIC) expressed sympathy for the families with loved ones killed
and called on all warring parties to provide swift, consistent, coordinated
amends for that harm.........Continue
MOSCOW - Russia could point missiles at strategic US targets in
central Europe, including planned American missile shield sites in
Poland and the Czech Republic, a senior Russian general said
Wednesday............Continue
One day before the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Rep. Dennis
Kucinich is presenting a petition to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
with 50,000 signatures urging the impeachment of President Bush --
adding to the 100,000 he has already filed.
Calling the Bush
administration's military response to 9/11 "errant retributive
justice," the Ohio Democrat called for a Commission on Truth and
Reconciliation to "compel testimony and gather official documents"
on why the Bush administration went to war in Iraq. In advance of
a news conference today with grass-roots organizations lobbying
Congress on the issue, Kucinich said:
Impeachment has been the first step in our efforts toward
truth. The American people were lied to. We went to war based on
lies. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. ...Continue
America's Iraq adventure led it into a moral vacuum. Will the error be
repeated in the renewed US Afghan campaign?
The Iraq war has been replaced by the declining economy as the most
important issue in
America's presidential election campaign, in part because Americans
have come to believe that the tide has turned in Iraq: the troop "surge"
has supposedly cowed the insurgents, bringing a decline in violence. The
implications are clear: a show of power wins the day.
It is precisely this kind of macho reasoning that led America to
war in Iraq in the first place. The war was meant to demonstrate the
strategic power of military might. Instead, the war showed its
limitations. Moreover, the war undermined America's real source of power
-- its moral authority................Continue
A secret order issued by George Bush giving US special forces
carte blanche to mount counter-terrorist operations inside
Pakistani territory raised fears last night that escalating
conflict was spreading from Afghanistan to Pakistan and could
ignite a region-wide war.........Continue
Venezuela Throws Out US Ambassador As Tensions Soar
by Hannah Strange
CARACAS - President Hugo Chavez has thrown out the US ambassador
to Venezuela and threatened to cut off oil supplies, further
escalating tensions with Washington just two days after Russia
sent two strategic bombers to Caracas in a move unseen since the
Cold War....... Continue
In a little noted passage in her bestselling book,
The Dark Side, Jane Mayer offers us a vision, just post-9/11,
of the value of one. In October 2001, shaken by a nerve-gas false
alarm at the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney, reports
Mayer, went underground. He literally embunkered himself in "a
secure, undisclosed location," which she describes as "one of
several Cold War-era nuclear-hardened subterranean bunkers built
during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, the nearest of
which were located hundreds of feet below bedrock..." That bunker
would be dubbed, perhaps only half-sardonically, "the Commander in
Chief's Suite." Continue
MacKay vows Canada to lead in protecting the Americas
Jason Fekete, Calgary Herald
Published: Thursday, September 04, 2008
Defence Minister Peter MacKay promised his counterparts from across the
Western Hemisphere on Wednesday that Canada will play a leading role in
protecting the Americas with beefed-up funding and modernized equipment....Continue
U.S. Military Is
Keeping Secrets About Female Soldiers' 'Suicides'
Our soldiers' families deserve better than that. Continue
Afghanistan: Civilian Deaths From Airstrikes on the Rise
Airstrikes Cause Public Backlash, Undermine Protection
Efforts
NEW YORK - September 8 - Civilian deaths in Afghanistan from US and NATO
airstrikes nearly tripled from 2006 to 2007, with recent deadly airstrikes
exacerbating the problem and fuelling a public backlash, Human Rights Watch
said in a new report released today. The report also condemns the Taliban's
use of "human shields" in violation of the laws of war. .....Continue
The US Has 761
Military Bases Across the Planet, and We Simply Never Talk About It
America garrison the globe in ways that really are unprecedented, and yet,
if you live in the United States, you basically wouldn't know it. ..... Continue
The recent fighting in the Caucasus is part of a bigger struggle between
Moscow and Washington over the energy riches of the Caspian Sea basin.
.....Continue
Michael Moore
Dares to Ask: What's So Heroic About Being Shot Down While Bombing Innocent
Civilians?
ANORI, Colombia - A team of forensic anthropologists painstakingly
dug up the bodies - two from the town's decaying mausoleum, others
from the moist earth in the cemetery, a couple from a field
nearby. The preferred method of death: a single gunshot to the
head. One young man had been beheaded, his skull now nowhere to be
found.... Continue
The traditional media is incapable of reporting what's going on in
Southern Iraq.
Heavy fighting has spread across Shia-dominated enclaves in Iraq over
the past two days. The U.S.-backed regime of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
has ordered 50,000 Iraqi troops to "crack down" -- with coalition air
support -- on Shiite militias in the oil-rich and strategically important
city of Basra, U.S. forces have surrounded Baghdad's Sadr City and
fighting has been reported in the southern cities of Kut, Diwaniya,
Karbala and Hilla. Basra's main bridge and an oil pipeline connecting it
to Amara were destroyed Wednesday. Six cities are under curfew, and acts
of civil disobedience have shut down dozens of neighborhoods across the
country. Civilian casualties have reportedly overwhelmed poorly equipped
medical centers in Baghdad and Basra.
Continue
The US plotted to overthrow the
democratically elected Hamas government in the Palestinian territories,
according to leaked documents obtained by Al Jazeera.
Continue
After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian
election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and
self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With
confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S.
officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy
National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah
strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving
Hamas stronger than ever.Continue
Pro Torture, Zionist Professor
Demonizing Islam and Arabic Culture?
Kidnap and Torture American Style follows the stories of terror suspects. Some
of them are British residents, who have been snatched from streets and
airports throughout the world before being flown to the Middle-East and
Africa. In countries such as Syria and Egypt, they undergo agonising ordeals
before being incarcerated, without ever facing an open trial.
Continue
After the IDF already had killed about 50 Palestinians, at
least half of them unarmed, and including quite a number of women and
children, Jerusalem continued to claim, "At present there will be no major
ground operation." It's incredible: The IDF penetrates the heart of a crowded
refugee camp, kills in a terrifyingly wholesale manner, with horrible
bloodshed, and Israel continues to disseminate the lie of restraint.Continue
TRUE Government
The ten
steps or stages to the evolution of a true democracy.
Liberty can be enjoyed only when the
will and whims of human rulers are replaced by legislative enactments in
accordance with accepted fundamental law.
No government can long endure if it
fails to provide for the right to enjoy personal property in some form. Man
craves the right to use, control, bestow, sell, lease, and bequeath his
personal property.
Representative government presupposes
an intelligent, efficient, and universal electorate. The character of such a
government will ever be determined by the character and caliber of those who
compose it. As civilization progresses, suffrage, while remaining universal
for both sexes, will be effectively modified, regrouped, and otherwise
differentiated.
No civil government will be
serviceable and effective unless the citizenry possess and use wise techniques
of guiding and controlling officeholders and public servants.
The survival of democracy is dependent
on successful representative government; and that is conditioned upon the
practice of electing to public offices only those individuals who are
technically trained, intellectually competent, socially loyal, and morally
fit. Only by such provisions can government of the people, by the people, and
for the people be preserved.
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![[Swiss Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of operations of the International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, gestures as he talks about the humanitarian problems in Gaza after Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip, during a press conference at the ICRC headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009. (AP Photo/Keystone, Salvatore Di Nolfi)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/redcross-0107.jpg "redcross-0107.jpg")
Swiss
Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of operations of the International Committee
of the Red Cross, ICRC, gestures as he talks about the humanitarian problems
in Gaza after Israel's military operation in the Gaza Strip, during a press
conference at the ICRC headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Tuesday, Jan. 6,
2009. (AP Photo/Keystone, Salvatore Di Nolfi)
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