US opposes Iraqi popular vote on troop withdrawal
By Tom Eley
An Iraqi national referendum on last year’s security pact with the US is currently scheduled to take place on July 30. According to Iraqi law, if voters reject the pact, which calls for the US to remove all troops by December 31, 2011, Washington would have to remove its military 17 months sooner—by July 30 of 2010. Should the vote be held as scheduled, it is a virtual certainty that the Iraqi masses will repudiate the pact. Washington, of course, has no intent ion of obeying any popular referendum. Yet it wishes to avoid the political embarrassment of a broad repudiation of its occupation of the oil-rich country…
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British troops at mercy of Taliban surge
Average of 12 attacks a day by insurgents in Helmand, new figures show
Kim Sengupta, Indpendent
British troops fighting the Taliban are facing three times as many attacks as any other Nato force in Afghanistan amid spiralling violence across the country which has seen insurgent bombings and shootings rise by 73 per cent. Official Nato figures reveal that fatalities among the international force, including British, have risen by 78 per cent while the targeting of official s serving the beleaguered Afghan government has increased by 64 per cent…
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Why the hell should I feel sorry, says girl soldier who abused Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison
David Jones
In this deeply disturbing interview, the trailer trash torturer who appalled the world by appearing in shocking ‘souvenir’ photographs remains utterly unrepentant and says she has 800 MORE torture photos that could rock the White House…
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Obama Administration Seeks To Keep Torture Victims From Having Day In Court
Justice Department Asks Court For Rehearing In Extraordinary Rendition Lawsuit Against Boeing Subsidiary
ACLU
The Justice Department today argued that the victims of the “extraordinary rendition” program should not have their day in court, asking a federal appeals court to block a landmark case the court had earlier ruled could go forward. In April, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit a gainst Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen DataPlan Inc., for its role in the Bush administration’s unlawful “extraordinary rendition” program could proceed, but today the government asked the appeals court’s full panel of judges to rehear that decision. “The Obama administration has now fully embraced the Bush administration’s shameful effort to immunize torturers and their enablers from any legal consequences for their actions,” said Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, who argued the case for the plaintiffs…
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Gazans feel effects of humanitarian crisis
AljaeeraEnglish
On the second anniversary of Hamas taking control of the Palestinian Gaza Strip the territory remains the scene of a humanitarian crisis precipitated by a fall in aid and an Israeli economic blockade. Two individuals speak of the physical and psychological effects of living in the devastated region. Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin reports from Gaza…
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Israel Tightens Stranglehold in East Jerusalem
By Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler
“What are you doing here?” The motorist in the battered white Volvo stops to ask us alongside an overflowing rubbish cart. Residents of this poor Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem have been burning garbage in a bid to clear the uncollected mounds. “Reporting on the dire conditions here,” we tell him. “About time somebody took notice – I’ve written so many complaints to the municipality about the neglect from which we suffer. After all, don’t we pay all our taxes just like the Israelis in Jerusalem. Yet, they do nothing for us,” he says, switching his engine on again…
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USA Today report: Workers face worst conditions since the Great Depression
By Barry Grey
Even as US unemployment rolls soar to their highest levels in post-war history, employed workers face the worst conditions since the Great Depression, according to a front-page article in Friday’s USA Today. Based on its analysis of employment data, the newspaper reports that pay cuts, reduced hours, furloughs and involuntary part-time work have driven the working class back to conditions not seen since the 1930s…
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Should the U.S. also suppress evidence of civilian deaths in Afghanistan?
Glenn Greenwald
…Using the standard that is now so accepted across the political spectrum in Washington — information that will inflame anti-American sentiment should be suppressed rather than disclosed so at to not endanger our troops — isn’t it better if we just cover-up, rather than learn the truth about, the civilian deaths we caused in Afghanistan? After all, news reports of dead Afghan women and children at the hands of American bombs obv iously inflame anti-American sentiment and Endanger Our Troops at least as much as the disclosure of some additional torture photos would. By the prevailing reasoning of Washington, shouldn’t we want our government to hide the truth about what we did — lest anti-American anger and the risk of attack on Our Troops increase? Isn’t that the noble anti-transparency principle we’re now endorsing?…
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Top Iraqi Sunni Lawmaker Assassinated as He Condemns Maliki
Jason Ditz
Harith al-Obaidi, leader of the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF) in parliament, was assassinated today in a Baghdad mosque after delivering a sermon condemning the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for abuses of human rights.
Slain IAF leader Harith al-Obaidi. After the sermon at the upscale Sunni mosque, a gunmen entered and opened fire on Obaidi, then threw a grenade into a crowd of worshippers…
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Israel obstructs UN Gaza probe
Amira Howeidy
Israel is defying the United Nations again. A UN fact-finding mission on the war on Gaza was denied access to Israel and the occupied West Bank leaving investigators with no option but to limit their work to within the coastal Strip. The mission was formed in April by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) with a mandate to investigate “all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law” that might have been committed “during, before or after” Isra el’s war on Gaza from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009. The 22-day war on besieged Gaza killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, destroyed much of the Strip’s infrastructure, and was marked by the use of white phosphorous in densely populated areas…
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“A Perfect Storm for Disaster” Brewing With Washington’s “Unprecedented” Shadow Army
Jeremy Scahill
I’ve been reading through the hot-off-the-presses, exciting 100+ page report from the Commission on Wartime Contracting: “At What Cost? Contingency Contracting In Iraq and Afghanistan.” There have been several good pieces that covered the Congressional hearings related to this report, so I thought I would just post some of the more important excerpts from the report. One general note: The Commission, which was created due t o the diligent efforts of Senators Jim Webb and Claire McCaskill, has been doing some incredibly important work digging deep into the corruption, waste, abuse, fraud, etc of the US war contracting system. The statute that created the commission “requires the Commission to assess a number of factors relate to wartime contracting, including the extent of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement of wartime contracts. The Commission has the authority to hold hearings and to refer to the Attorney General any violation or potential violation of law it identifies in carrying out its duties.”..
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The Latest Torture Cover-Up Scam
by James Bovard
The Obama administration appears increasingly devoted to covering up the worst crimes of the Bush era. On Monday, CIA chief Leon Panetta formally objected to federal judge Alvin Hellerstein, who was considering releasing detailed information on 92 videotaped CIA torture sessions of detainees. Panetta asserted that releasing the written information “could be expected to result in exceptionally grave damage to the national security by informing our enemies of what we knew abo ut them, and when, and in some instances, how we obtained the intelligence we possessed.”…
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