Thoughts out of Season: Critiquing the European Left
Hisham Bustani
… Whether advocating a ‘two-state’ solution or a ‘one democratic state’ solution (the only solutions currently “acceptable” by different forces on the European left), and completely disregarding objective realities and mechanisms of struggle, the European left wants to push and shove Arabs towards adopting its desired politics of retaining settler-colonialism fully intact in the Arab region, as the legitimate ‘return of the diasporic Jewish people to it s ancient homeland.’ The mythical character of Zionism and the very existence of a Jewish people are being forcefully questioned by revisionist historiography in the Israeli state… The same also applies in the case of the Iraqi resistance, the European left remaining non-responsive unless the resistance is tailored to their own standards, rather than the standards of evolution and objectivity. That left seems to say: “We want a resistance that is progressive, secular, non-Islamist, not related to the old regime, pro-gender equality, democratic and clear on its future plans. Oh, yes, and preferably pro-gay rights … otherwise we can’t say we support the Iraqi resistance.”..
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A Deadly Thriller in Baghdad…
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
While the whole world mourns the pop icon M.Jackson, whose Thriller was the turning point in his career, there is another series of thrillers taking place in Baghdad and which will mark another turning point in the recent bloody history of this doomed country. Over the past 4 days alone, over 350 Iraqis were killed. And scores of others injured…These strings of attacks/blasts/bombs are taking place 4 days before the pulling back, not withdrawal, but pullin g back of the American troops to their bases inside Iraq and handing over security matters to the Iraqi “police and army.” However it must be noted that the Americans will NOT be pulling back to their bases in the Nineveh province i.e Mosul. Mosul is a stronghold of the Iraqi Resistance, where a lot of Iraqi ex army officers are. Of course, they call it Al-Qaeda. The Americans will not be pulling back there since Mosul is not completely under Kurdish control yet. And Mosul after Kirkuk is needed to complete the full ” Independent” Kurdistan Map…
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New footage of deadly Afghan bombing
Jonathan Rugman
In the week that the US military pledged a new effort to avoid civilian casualties in Afghanistan, Channel 4 News has video evidence of an attack that may have killed up to 140 civilians. Airstrikes have long been a lethal coalition tactic, but the question of how targets are assessed refuses to go away. Late yesterday around 70 people were killed across the border in the south Waziristan region of Pakistan, when a US drone struck mourners attending the funeral of a mil itant. It is not known if civilians were among the dead…
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‘Armchair’ Killing: A US-Israeli Trade-mark
Stuart Littlewood
Reports of prisoner abuse at the US prison at Bagram air force base in Afghanistan come as no surprise. They are just the latest example of the world’s biggest bully behaving badly as usual. As if that weren’t enough, I’m reading how some 83 people, mostly civilians, were killed and over 50 injured in three drone attacks within 12 hours in Lataka, South Waziristan. The first strike killed several suspected Taliban. Later, a second drone fired three missiles int o a crowd of funeral mourners… Since August 2008, over 40 US drone strikes have killed at least 410 people. US troops in neighboring Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy unmanned drones in the region. The use of armed drones is a particularly cowardly form of warfare. These lethal “assets” are computer-controlled from the comfort and safety of an armchair a hundred miles away and guided by dodgy “intelligence”. Or, if the truth be known, no intelligence at all. The Israelis use them extensively in Gaza to unleash death and destruction on civilian targets by remote control…
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From America with Love…
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
The video below is a small tasty sample of American candies generously given to the Children of Iraq. The video below should be made into compulsory watching for ALL Americans – parents and kids… This video’s short footage will show you the extent of American love for Freedom, Liberty, Democracy and the all American values of the Founding Fathers – the pursuit of happiness… This video sums it all up. And for generations to come…
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Video: UN shoots at mourners during funeral for Father Gerard Jean-Juste in Haiti, June 18, 2009
Radio Telegine
This is footage from Radio Teleginen, Haiti’s largest and privately owned television station, that captured the UN shooting at crowd level from the back of a small pickup truck on June 18, 2009. Mourners had just left Haiti’s national cathedral to begin a procession when Brazilian troops with the UN attempted to arrest one of their numbers. During the arrest they are followed by the crowd and they begin firing i nto the air…
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PCDP: 98% of Palestinian prisoners in IOA jails subjected to torture
The Palestinian center for the defense of prisoners (PCDP) has charged that Israel was among the few countries in the world to exercise excruciating torture in its prisons in a bid to extract confessions from detainees. The PCDP report said that the Israeli occupation authority’s (IOA) practices were in blatant violation of heavenly and earthly laws that incriminate torturing human beings. The report, issued on the occasion of the international day agai nst torture on Thursday 26/6/2009, said that torture is practiced in IOA jails with official approval…
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The waste of Israel’s Gaza war
By Sherine Tadros, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Gaza
Exactly six months ago – minutes before Israel launched its war – I was sitting in a coffee shop in Gaza City’s main square. Six months later, here I am again. At the same table, ordering the same drink from the same waiter who is talking about the same thing – no fuel, no electricity, no goods. The untouched rubble of Israel’s onslaught is becoming part of Gaza’s landscape. Nothing here has changed, except the weather. In 23 days, Israel ‘s military managed to damage 47,000 homes in Gaza. Tens of thousands of people are still living in tents, just as I left them months ago, because Israel continues to block the entrance of building material. The winter has come and gone, and now the blistering heat is their new challenge…
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Video: Americans beat, torture, call nigger
ASSAHAB888
Youngest inmate from Guantanamo was released chadean Muhamed Gharran, he was taken from Pakistan he was around 15 years old, but that didnt stop Pakistani “muslim” state nor Afghani “muslim” state to hand him over to the American cross- and of course they beated him, electrocuted him, called him nigger, and asked him to spy on his prison inmates, AlQaeda are terrorists and Americans are democrats…
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Court Circular: Annals of Imperial Continuity
Chris Floyd
… Barack Obama is also reviving the Bush Regime’s strategy of direct intervention in Somalia — and the Washington Post is dutifully doing its bit with this headline: “U.S. Sends Weapons to Help Somali Government Repel Rebels Tied to Al-Qaeda.” It is of course superfluous in us to point out that the aforementioned rebels have consistently denied any ties to al Qaeda. Which is not to say they are a bunch of sweethearts. But the rise of this faction of militant reli gious extremists is the inevitable (deliberate?) result of the bipartisan Terror War that the United States has been conducting in Somalia for years…
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The jury is out on the Iranian model of religion and politics
Robert Fisk
The most nauseous photograph to come out of the Iran tragedy was not the bloodied demonstrators in Tehran, but a Reuters picture of former Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, “fighting back tears” in Washington as he declared that Neda Agha Sultan, the young woman shot dead by Ahmadinejad’s thugs a week ago, “was now for ever in my pocket”. I bet she is, by God! “I have added her to the list of my daughters,” the son of the brutal and merciless late Shah, told the world. Needless to say, the son of the Light of the Aryans did not add the many thousands of equally young and innocent women tortured to death by his father’s sadistic secret police to his “list of daughters”…
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Israel threatens church convents with self-demolition
Ma’an News
At least 500 homes leased by the church to Christian families in the Old City are under threat for self-demolition orders by the Israeli Jerusalem municipality, church officials said Saturday. According to a statement from the Jerusalem Inter-Church Centre there are currently four suits underway where Christian families leasing church land or buildings are being told to tear down alleged renovations on their homes…
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People power
Hamid Dabashi
…As made evident during the presidential election of 2009, Iranians are perfectly capable of organising themselves around competing views, campaigning for their preferred candidates, peacefully going to polling stations and casting their vote. It is high time that the Shia clerics pack their belongings and go back to their seminaries, and for regime change charlatans like Paul Wolfowitz to retire in ignominy, and for career opportunist comprador intellectuals of one think tank or another in Wa shington DC or Stanford University to go back to the half decent teaching position they had before….
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Obama contemplates Executive Order for detention without charges
Glenn Greenwald
When Obama first unveiled his “preventive detention” policy, many defenders praised him (and claimed he was different than Bush) because of his vow that — as he put it — “my Administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime.” But now, relying exclusively on three Obama officials speaking behind a veil of anonymity, Peter Finn and Dafner Linza of The Washington Post and ProPublica report that the White House is ” crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely.” TPM calls this “the latest installment in the Obama administration’s tendency to mimic the Bushies on war on terror tactics.” …
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Reformists reject Iran poll recount
Aljazeera.net
The two reformist candidates in Iran’s disputed presidential election have rejected a proposal for a recount of some ballots by the country’s highest legislative body. Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi said on Saturday that the Guardian Council was unable to deal with the issue fairly and called for an independent body to examine the vote. The Guardian Council had offered to recount 10 per cent of ballot boxes from the June 12 poll after Mousavi and Karroubi complaine d of irregularities in the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president…
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Bagram Detainees Treated “Worse Than Animals”
By William Fisher
An investigation by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has revealed that former detainees at the U.S. Bagram airbase in Afghanistan were beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with dogs. The BBC’s conclusions are based on interviews with 27 former detainees who were held at Bagram between 2002 and 2006. None of these men were ever charged with a crime. Hundreds of detainees are still being held in U.S. custody at the Afghan prison without charge or trial. Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, told IPS, “The BBC investigation provides further confirmation of the United States’ mistreatment of prisoners at Bagram.”..
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Call to execute ‘rioters’ in Iran
Aljazeera.net
A leading Iranian religious leader has called for the execution of “rioters” who have led a series of anti-government protests following the country’s disputed June 12 presidential election. Ahmad Khatami, a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, told worshippers during a sermon at Friday prayers that Iran’s judiciary should charge such rioters as “mohareb”, or one who wages war against God. “Anybody who fights against the Islamic system or the leader of Islamic society, figh t him until complete destruction,” Khatami said in the nationally broadcast sermon at Tehran University.”We ask that the judiciary confront the leaders of the protests, leaders of the violations, and those who are supported by the United States and Israel strongly, and without mercy to provide a lesson for all.” Under Iranian law, the punishment for people convicted as mohareb is execution.
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