Obama’s obscene remarks in Iraq
Christopher Dowd
…Obama also called the Iraq war an “extraordinary achievement”. The “extraordinary achievement” that Obama called the Iraq war is a nation that high ranking American officials can’t visit pre-announced. It is an “extraordinary achievement” with an “unknown” civilian casualty component- killed civilians by the way- the US military didn’t even deem worthy of counting. It is an “extraordinary achievement” with as many as four million people (or nearly 20 percent of the pop ulation) either displaced or refugees. It is an “extraordinary achievement” with a capital city being walled off- as if an ancient city under siege- from the rest of the country and only allowing four access points. It is an “extraordinary achievement” still, six years on,without the same levels of pre-war clean drinking water…
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The soils of war
The real agenda behind agricultural reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq
GRAIN
In this Briefing, we look at how the US’s agricultural reconstruction work in Afghanistan and Iraq not only gives easy entry to US agribusiness and pushes neoliberal policies, something that has always been a primary function of US development assistance, but is also an intrinsic part of the US military campaign in these countries and the surrounding regions. Seen together with the growing clout that the US and its corporate allies exercise over donor agencies and global bodies – such as the World Bank, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) centres, which influence the food and farm policies adopted by the recipient countries – this is an alarming development. These are not unique cases born from unusual circumstances, but constitute a likely template for US activities overseas, as it continues to expand its “war on terror” and pursue US corporate interests…
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A convoy of hundreds of medical and food trucks heading to Gaza soon
Sameh A. Habeeb
It’s now three years since Israel imposed this tight and deadly siege on Gaza. The brutal siege is devastating every aspect of life in Gaza. Thousands of families continue to suffer, while many others are dying due to the lack of basic treatment and medical equipment. The basic infrastructure supplying water, power and sanitation is in devastation making life unbearable for the 1.5 million inhabitants, which further compounds the misery o f the people. The war totally destroyed what was left from the siege. Thousands were killed and injured and thousands turned disabled. It’s the time we move; European Campaign to End the Siege of Gaza, (ECESG) is sending a big convoy of more than 100 trucks…
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On remembering Deir Yassin
Marcy Newman, Body on the line
Today is the anniversary of the massacre of Dier Yassin. It is not the only massacre that Jewish terrorists enacted upon Palestinians during an nakba in 1948. Not by far. Nor is it the only time since 1948 that they have committed a massacre. One need only to look at Gaza to know the answer to that question. But Deir Yassin is a touchstone for Palestinians because of the symbolic nature of this particular massacre. It was widely publicized, including in newspapers like the New York Times to spread terror among Palestinians so that they would flee their homes so Jews could steal them and occupy them. Here are the events according to the Deir Yassin remembered website that took place 61 years ago today..
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Hope Abandoned: Obama Protects and Promotes CIA Torture Mavens
Chris Floyd
It was obvious from the moment that Barack Obama appointed Leon Panetta to head the CIA that there was going to be no serious investigation — much less prosecution — of the high crimes of torture committed by the agency at the order of the Bush White House. Panetta, a Clinton retread (who actually began his career in the Nixon administration), has always been a bland, feckless, obedient servant of the Establishment; he has no outside power base, no pull, no heft, no popularity — nothing that would enable him to grab hold of the CIA with both hands and clean that fetid, blood-encrusted house. And of course, it was precisely this kind of powerless figure that Barack Obama wanted in the post…
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Red Cross report details CIA war crimes
Tom Eley
This week, the New York Review of Books released the full version of an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) report detailing US Central Intelligence Agency torture of 14 “high value” terrorist suspects at prison “black sites” from 2001 until 2006. Earlier, it had produced excerpts of the report and an analysis by author Mark Danner. The report makes explicit that the CIA violated the laws of war and basic human rights in its treatment of the prisoners, which inc luded beatings, humiliations, sleep deprivation, and suffocation by water (“waterboarding”), among dozens of specifically named acts of brutality…
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Israeli intelligence blackmails Gaza fishermen
IMEMC
The Palestinian Ministry of Detainees and Ex-detainees of the dissolved government in Gaza reported that Israeli security forces are blackmailing Palestinian fishermen and demanding them to work as collaborators in return for being allowed to fish. Riyadh Al Aqshqar, head of the Ministry’s media department, commented on initial intelligence information which revealed that the Israeli Navy is blackmailing the fishermen, attempting to link allowing them to fish in Palest inian territorial waters with their Israeli security services co-operation. Al Ashqar stated that the Occupation is using the fishermen’s need to fish and feed their families to try to force them to collaborate and provide information about the resistance. ..
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Gaza Fact-Finding Mission Report Published
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel
Independent fact-finding mission of medical experts commissioned by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) published today (April 6) its special report on the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, 27.12.2008 – 18.01.2009. In their report, the experts detail 44 testimonies by civilians who came under attack and by medical staff who were prevented from evacuating the wounded. The report provides first-h and evidence regarding the broader effects of the attacks on a civilian population that was already vulnerable on the eve of the offensive. The experts collected samples of human tissue earth, water, grass and mud suspected to be contaminated by unidentified chemicals. These were sent by the team to laboratories in the UK and South Africa for analysis….
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PFLP proposes transitional government without political platform’
Ma’an news
The leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) suggested on Thursday that a transitional Palestinian government be formed without a political agenda. The PFLP presented this proposal in a meeting with top Fatah officials who travelled to Gaza to meet with members of various factions. Fatah and its main rival, Hamas, are currently at an impasse over the platform of a proposed transitional government meant to end two years of poli tical infighting…Al-Ghoul said the PFLP is demanding that both Hamas and Fatah cease violations of civil liberties in Gaza and the West Bank, including politicized arrests….
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Terminator Planet
Launching the Drone Wars
Tom Engelhardt
In 1984, Skynet, the supercomputer that rules a future Earth, sent a cyborg assassin, a “terminator,” back to our time. His job was to liquidate the woman who would give birth to John Connor, the leader of the underground human resistance of Skynet’s time. You with me so far? That, of course, was the plot of the first Terminator movie and for the multi-millions who saw it, the images of future machine war — of hunter-killer drones flying above a wasted landscape — are unforgettable. Since then, as Hollywood’s special effects took off, there were two sequels during which the original terminator somehow morphed into a friendlier figure on screen, and even more miraculously, off-screen, into the humanoid governor of California. Now, the fourth film in the series, Terminator Salvation, is about to descend on us…
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Reconstructing Gaza: A Jail within a Jail
Amal A, Arab Woman Progressive Voice
The reconstruction of Gaza is going well. Hamas is building a new jail to replace the one damaged in the Isareli attack. But according to them, this will be a temporary one until they build a fancier jail that meets international humanitarian specifications. Does this mean this one doesn’t?…
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