Military Admits “Errors” in Civilian Bombing in Afghanistan, But Still Defends the Attacks
Jeremy Scahill
The May 4 US bombing in Farah Province in Afghanistan was reportedly the single worst aerial attack by US forces since the 2001 invasion began. Afghan sources said as many as 130-140 civilians were killed. At the time, The New York Times reported the attack “could be the largest case of civilian casualties since an attack on the village of Azizabad in western Afghanistan last year, in which United Nations officials sa id there was convincing evidence that 90 civilians were killed.” Among the dead, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross were 13 members of the one family, including a worker for the Red Crescent. In the immediate aftermath, the Pentagon tried to spin a story that Taliban fighters used grenades to kill three families to “stage” a massacre and then blame it on the US. The ICRC passionately rejected this claim, saying, “We know that those killed included an Afghan Red Crescent volunteer and 13 members of his family who had been sheltering from fighting in a house that was bombed in an air strike.” Over the past month, the US military has been conducting an internal investigation. It bears remembering that the US track record of thoroughly “investigating” US massacres is pathetic…
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Meanwhile in the “New Iraq”…
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
Some of you may have read or heard, even though I doubt it very much, because most of you out there don’t give a fuck about Iraq, that Great Iraq that you killed, raped, tortured and destroyed like the fucking animals that you are… turning it into the MOST corrupt country in the world. I repeat, the most corrupt country in the world. It actually ranked No.2. worldwide in corruption. A corruption that is only one reflection, one reflection among the many othe rs of your own, of who you are. Because you are oh so, fucking corrupt yourselves. Right down to your bones, right deep in your “souls”… Anyways, I was saying that some of you may have heard about the Minister of Trade who goes by the name of Al-Sudani. He was asked to resign for corruption charges.
Actually the REAL reason for his forced resignation was NOT corruption charges, as the puppet government of Al-Maliki liked to pretend, but something else, that you will discover as you read along…
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Rather: Former detainee says torture still going on at Gitmo
By David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Dan Rather, the former CBS anchor who now hosts a news magazine on cable channel HDNet, has done a documentary on a former Guantanamo prisoner who says he was tortured for years before being released two weeks ago. Lakhdar Boumediene has charged that he was interrogated for sixteen straight nights in 2003 and that he was force-fed through a nasal tube for over two years after he went on a hunger strike. He also described to Rathe r’s interviewer how he was made to run with shackles on his legs until they were bloody in order to soften him up…
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Hawks Push “Jordanian Option” for Palestine
By Daniel Luban
As U.S. President Barack Obama prepares to deliver a major foreign policy speech in Cairo and his administration pushes aggressively for a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine, neoconservatives and other foreign policy hawks back home are calling on him to scrap the two-state solution altogether and consider alternatives to Palestinian statehood. The most prominent alternative they are pushing is the so-called “three-state solution” or “Jordanian option”, in wh ich the West Bank would be returned to Jordanian control and the Gaza Strip to Egyptian control…
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Cleansing Halliburton
Tom Engelhardt & Pratap Chatterjee
It might be terrible times for so many companies suffering through a global economic meltdown, but in the war zone, there seems to be no recession in sight. In fact, with “Obama’s war” in the expanding Afghanistan/Pakistan theater of operations revving up, there’s likely to be money to the horizon, bases to build, and ever more troops to supply. As it happens, the management of KBR, formerly a part of Halliburton and the main builder and supplier of American bases i n Iraq and Afghanistan, is feeling in the pink…
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Bagram: Is it Obama’s new Guantanamo?
Judge’s ruling is forcing president to confront issue of Afghan prison
Tom Curry
Should detainees the United States has shipped to the Bagram air base in Afghanistan have the same constitutional right to challenge their detention in court that prisoners at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba have been given? President Barack Obama didn’t answer that question in a May 21 speech outlining his policy for dealing with alleged terrorists. In fact, Obama didn’t mention Bagram at all. Yet human rights lawyers say Bagram will play a critical role in shaping the Obama administration’s detainee policy…
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US objects to UN report on military killings
FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press
The Obama administration charged Wednesday that a U.N. investigator violated his mandate by accusing the U.S. of failing to properly investigate allegations of unlawful killings by American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Philip Alston, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s investigator on extrajudicial executions, claimed that while some killings are investigated and lead to prosecutions, others aren’t or result in lenient sentences…
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Obama offers nothing to states, cities devastated by GM plant closures
Tom Eley
Plant closings resulting from Monday’s forced bankruptcy of General Motors will cause spiraling unemployment and deep cuts in social services in many cities and states across the country. The Obama administration, whose Auto Task Force dictated the terms of the bankruptcy, has offered no serious aid to the affected workers and their communities. GM is carrying out at least 21,000 job cuts and the closure of 14 plants and warehouses in eight st ates. In addition, the company has announced its intention to dump franchise agreements with 2,300 dealerships by the end of next year. Many of these will be forced to close, eliminating as many as 100,000 jobs in all 50 states…
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Administrative detention
Marcy Newman, body on the line
Addameer is one of the essential organizations in Palestine fighting for the rights of Palestinian political prisoners. One of their many and tireless campaigns is for the rights of those Palestinian political prisoners who are in what the Zionist entity calls “administrative detention.” Here is a summary from addameer’s website on just what that entails…
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Palestinian leftists call for an end to Hamas-Fatah violence
Ma’an News
Left-wing Palestinian factions held a meeting in Gaza on Wednesday to discuss a response to a recent flare up in internecine violence. A member at the central committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Kayed Al-Ghoul, said that his party also met with officials from the Palestinian People’s Party (PPP) on Tuesday evening. Al-Ghoul said that the left “totally rejects” the use of violence among Palestinian factions, after a H amas-Fatah shootout in the West Bank city of Qalqiliya left six people dead on Sunday…
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PCHR Condemns Arrests of Hamas’ Members and Supporters in the West Bank; Director of the Office of PLC Members from the Change and Reform Bloc Continues to be Detained
PCHR – Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns the continued detention of journalist Murad Abu al-Baha, director of the office of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) from the Change and Reform Bloc. Abu Al-Baha has now been detained by the Preventive Security Service (PSS) for nearly 45 days, during which time he has been subjected to torture and denied access to legal counsel. His family has only been permitted one 10 minute visit. PCHR expresses its concern regarding Abu al-Baha’s health, which has deteriorated as a consequence of his detention. PCHR further condemns the current campaign of arrests and illegal detention waged by Palestinian security services against members and supporters of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the West Bank…
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In Iraq, Rape Without Recourse
Ria Misra
In Iraq’s Red Zone, there is an apartment with no listed address. The two small bedrooms house six women and their children, who comprise a temporary, but closely bound, family. Of the six women, four have been raped. The curtains are drawn tightly against the outside world, but that is not their only defense. One of the women raises her handbag to show that, in case of the worst, she carries a gun. “FRONTLINE/World” on PBS has produced a piece on the rapid rise in rapes in Iraq, w hich takes us inside this women’s shelter in the middle of the Red Zone. It is one of very few in existence and forced to operate covertly in the face of threats and danger. Before the war began in Iraq, rape was not a frequently reported crime and when it did occur the legal recourse was clear. Today, though the exact figures are unknown, estimates of rape are in the thousands. On the question of who takes responsibility to prevent and punish rape in Iraq, the short answer seems to be no one…
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Settlers Rampage in WB, Savage Palestinians
IslamOnline.net
Jewish settlers rampaged in the occupied West Bank on Monday, June 1, blocking roads, burning farming fields, cutting down olive trees and shooting Palestinian civilians. “They attacked when the minibus (carrying 17 Palestinian workers on their way to work in Israel) stopped,” Zakaria Sada, an activist with the Rabbis for Human Rights organization, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Masked settlers blocked a road in western Nablus, hurling rocks at Palestinian driv ers, who stopped their vehicles to move the obstructions…
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Remembering Father Gerry
Stephen Lendman
The Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti’s (IJDH) Brian Concannon knew him well, and posted this on IJDH’s web site on his passing: “Reverend Gerard Jean-Juste (1947 – 2009), a tireless advocate for justice for Haitians in Haiti and the US, passed away today, May 27, 2009. Fr. Gerry’s passing is a great loss to all of us at IJDH and BAI (Bureau des Avocats Internationaux in Haiti).” In an on-air interview, Concannon added: “So every time there’s been a dictatorship in Haiti i n the last 20 years he was one of the top people out there resisting it…
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