Afghanistan’s Operation Phoenix Stephen Lendman On June 15, AP reported that “Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a four-star American general with a long history in special operations, took charge of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan (today), a change in command the Pentagon hopes will turn the tide in an increasingly violent eight-year war.” McChrystal is a hired gun, an assassin, a man known for committing war crime atrocities as head of the Pentagon’s infamous Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) – established in 1980 and comprised of the Army’s Delta Force and Navy Seals, de facto death squads writer Seymour Hersh described post-9/11 as an “executive assassination wing” operating out of Dick Cheney’s office. A 2006 Newsweek profile called JSOC “part of what Vice President Dick Cheney was referring to when he said America would have to ‘work on the dark side’ after 9/11.” It called McChrystal then “an affable but tough Army Ranger” with no elaboration of his “dark side” mission… Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55227 Netanyahu’s “brilliant” peace plan Hasan Abu Nimah and Ali Abunimah Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a peace plan so ingenious it is a wonder that for six decades of bloodshed no one thought of it. Some people might have missed the true brilliance of his ideas presented in a speech at Bar Ilan University on 14 June, so we are pleased to offer this analysis. First, Netanyahu wants Palestinians to become committed Zionists. They can prove this by declaring, “We recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own in this land.” As he pointed out, it is only the failure of Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular to commit themselves to the Zionist dream that has caused conflict, but once “they say those words to our people and to their people, then a path will be opened to resolving all the problems between our peoples.” It is of course perfectly natural that Netanyahu would be “yearning for that moment.”… Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55230 All in a Day’s Work for the IDF Beating and Torturing Children JONATHAN COOK The rights of Palestinian children are routinely violated by Israel’s security forces, according to a new report that says beatings and torture are common. In addition, hundreds of Palestinian minors are prosecuted by Israel each year without a proper trial and are denied family visits. The findings by Defence for Children International (DCI) come in the wake of revelations from Israeli soldiers and senior commanders that it is “normal procedure” in the West Bank to terrorise Palestinian civilians, including children. Col Itai Virob, commander of the Kfir Brigade, disclosed last month that to accomplish a mission, “aggressiveness towards every one of the residents in the village is common”. Questioning included slaps, beatings and kickings, he said… Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55229 Even in death, no mercy is shown Video: Recovering dead body under Israeli fire (version with effects) ISM A Bedouin teenager – Ahmed Salama Eid Abu Hashish, 18 – from the border area east of Beit Hanoun has been missing since 21st April, 2009. His family believe that he may have been killed in the “buffer zone” – an area of Gaza next to the border that Israeli soldiers attempt to prohibit access to by shooting at people. On Sunday 14th June his family, along with members of The Local Initiative from Beit Hanoun, and volunteers from the International Solidarity Movement – Gaza Strip attempt to search for his body in this area. Soon they become under fire by the Israeli occupation forces, along the Green Line. Despite that, the group manages to find the body and take it to Beit Hanoun hospital… Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55219 Extending the Tradition: Proudly Taking American Torture Into the Future Chris Floyd …As we have noted many times before, Obama has not “abolished torture,” any more than he has abolished the worldwide American gulag — or indeed, renounced any of the autocratic powers claimed by Bush, including the “right” of the Unitary Executive to seize anyone on earth and hold them in captivity indefinitely, without charges — or to have them murdered in “extrajudicial assassinations.” This latter power — which Bush also delegated to covert agents in the field, who could murder selected targets on their own volition, without awaiting approval from higher up — was openly trumpeted by Bush, on national television, before a joint session of Congress — and was routinely noted by the mainstream press. To my knowledge, no leading figure in the national political establishment has ever publicly objected to this practice of state murder — nor has Obama repudiated or overturned Bush’s directives on this point. In fact, Obama has made one facet of Bush’s “Murder, Inc.” program a very public linchpin of his strategy in the “Af-Pak” War: the use of drone-fired missiles to assassinate alleged terrorists, alleged insurgent leaders — and everyone else in the missile’s general vicinity… Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55224 IOF soldiers kidnap director of charitable society, steal jewels Palestinian Information Center Israeli occupation forces on Tuesday stormed the home of Walid Allo, the director of a charitable society in Deir Al-Ghussoon village, Tulkarem, district, stole his wife’s jewelry and took him away. Local sources said that big numbers of IOF soldiers broke into the village in a pre-dawn raid on Tuesday and kidnapped the 27-year-old director, who is also the Imam of a mosque and who is known for his affiliation with Islamic Jihad Movement. They added that the soldiers withdrew from the village three hours later after wreaking havoc in his home, stealing around 5,700 dollars worth of gems and confiscating two computers and many papers and documents… Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55225 Iran accuses US of meddling after disputed vote By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Iran accused the United States on Wednesday of “intolerable” meddling in its internal affairs, alleging for the first time that Washington has fueled a bitter postelection dispute. Opposition supporters marched in Tehran’s streets for a third straight day to protest the outcome of the balloting. The Iranian government summoned the Swiss ambassador, who represents U.S. interests in Iran, to complain about American interference, state-run Press TV reported. The English-language channel quoted the government as calling Western interference “intolerable.” President Barack Obama has reacted cautiously to developments in Iran, saying he shared the world’s “deep concerns about the election” but adding that it was “not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling”… Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55228 Mossad head: Riots in Iran will die down Yossi Melman and Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Mossad chief Meir Dagan on Tuesday told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the riots in Iran over the election results will die out in a few days rather than escalate into a revolution. “The reality in Iran is not going to change because of the elections. The world and we already know [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. If the reformist candidate [Mir Hossein] Mousavi had won, Israel would have had a more serious problem because it would need to explain to the world the danger of the Iranian threat, since Mousavi is perceived internationally arena as a moderate element…It is important to remember that he is the one who began Iran’s nuclear program when he was prime minister.” According to Dagan, “Election fraud in Iran is no different than what happens in liberal states during elections. The struggle over the election results in Iran is internal and is unconnected to its strategic aspirations, including its nuclear program.”.. Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55213 Shame: The ‘Anti-War’ Democrats Who Sold Out and Gave Billions More for War Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet In a vote that should go down in recent histories as a day of shame for the Democrats, on Tuesday the House voted to approve another $106 billion dollars for the bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and increasingly Pakistan). To put a fine point on the interconnection of the iron fist of U.S. militarism and the hidden hand of free market neoliberal economics, the bill included a massive initiative to give the International Monetary Fund billions more in U.S. taxpayer funds… Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55226 Israel’s Public security minister calls a policeman “dirty Arab” Saed Bannoura – IMEMC Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported that Israel’s Public Security Minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, member of the extremist ring-wing Yisrael Beiteinu Party of foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, called an undercover Israeli police officer a “dirty Arab”, at the old Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv. Haaretz added that the minister requested that he meets undercover agents operating in the station area, known for its criminal activities… Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55221 Who’s Fighting Who in Iran’s Struggle? Trita Parsi We’re told that a young and restless Facebook generation has arisen in Iran, text-messaging and Twittering away at the fabric of a conservative clerical rule that it is no longer willing to accept. Ranged against it are the dogged defenders of a decrepit regime that has outlived its purpose, surviving only through brute force and its ability to convince the unsophisticated, mostly rural poor folk in their ragged suits and black chadors that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is their champion against corrupt politicians and the treacherous intellectuals and amoral rich kids who support them. Obviously these are stereotypes — and highly misleading ones at that. The schism in Iran is not reducible to social class, ethnicity, region or generation. A simple glance at the crowds over the past week reveals women in black chadors on both sides of the divide, and women in makeup too.. Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55220 Israeli court rules to demolish Palestinian home/peace center for the 4th time Saed Bannoura – IMEMC The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that the home of Salim and Arabiya Shawamreh in Anata, which has already been demolished by the Israeli authorities four times and has become a center for the peaceful struggle against home demolitions, can be demolished yet again. The Shawamreh home has become a symbol of resistance to Israel’s house demolition policies, and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions has launched a campaign to try to save the home from its fourth demolition. Since 1967, the Israeli authorities have demolished more than 24,000 Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories, some as “collateral damage” in military operations (4000 homes were demolished in the recent invasion of Gaza), some as collective punishment (the obliteration of the Jenin refugee camp in 2002 being just one example), many others for lack of a building permit, though Israel intentionally withholds building permits from Palestinians… Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55218 Torture, the painful truth It may be a blow to our self-image, but torture has been part of the American way for decades. Ben Ehrenreich Perhaps we protest too much. Torture, after all, is a venerable American tradition. If not quite as homespun as apple pie or lynching, it is at least as old as our imperial aspirations. We were waterboarding captives in one of our earliest wars of occupation, the Philippine-American War, which cost as many as 1 million civilian lives. In 1902, Teddy Roosevelt himself wrote with laconic praise of “the old Filipino method.” Other techniques, crude or sophisticated, have filled the war bag since. CIA interrogation manuals from the 1960s, which lay out the basic stress-position and sleep- and sensory-deprivation techniques later applied at Bagram and Guantanamo, have been public since 1997.. Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55214 Gaza: how do they keep living? Eva Bartlett, In Gaza …Maybe the visitor to Gaza thinks the siege is overplayed. ‘No one is starving in Gaza,’ some say. And yes, people here are somehow scraping by. But they are being starved. Of a real life, free from the oppression of poverty, of joblessness, of worry how to get by each day. They’re being starved of education, of dreams, of contact with friends, family, and perfect strangers outside. And Hamsa, whose donkey was killed in the massacre and whose extended family all live in great poverty, many with sicknesses needing treatment outside, is caught between the daily survival worries and the worries of any would-be parent, for his child’s health, his wife’s health, their lives. I don’t know how they keep living… Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55222 Seeking a Proud and Peaceful Future Transcript of former US President Jimmy Carter’s Address to the United Nations Relief Works Agency’s Human Rights Graduation in Gaza, June 16, 2009. By Jimmy Carter Director of UNRWA operations John Ging, thank you for inviting me to Gaza. Distinguished guests, children of Gaza, I am grateful for your warm reception. I first visited Gaza 36 years ago and returned during the 1980s and later for the very successful Palestinian elections. Although under occupation, this community was relatively peaceful and prosperous. Now, the aftermath of bombs, missiles, tanks, bulldozers and the continuing economic siege have brought death, destruction, pain, and suffering to the people here. Tragically, the international community largely ignores the cries for help, while the citizens of Gaza are being treated more like animals than human beings… Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55215