Half Life of a Toxic War
Iraq’s Wrecked Environment
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and JOSHUA FRANK
The ecological effects of war, like its horrific toll on human life, are exponential. When the Bush administration (parts one and two) and its congressional allies sent troops to Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime, they not only ordered these men and women to commit crimes against humanity, they also commanded them to perpetrate crimes against nature. Former Chief United Nations Weapons Inspector Hans Blix, prior to th e 2003 invasion of Iraq, said the environmental consequences of the Iraq war could be more ominous than the issue of war and peace itself. Blix was right. Months of bombing during the first Gulf War by the United States and Great Britain left a deadly and insidious legacy: tons of shell casings, bullets and bomb fragments laced with depleted uranium. In all, the United States hit Iraqi targets with more than 970 radioactive bombs and missiles… More than 15 years later, the dire health consequences of our first radioactive bombing campaign in this region are coming into focus. Since 1990, the incidence rate of leukemia in Iraq has increased over 600 percent. Detection and treatment of cancers was made unnecessarily difficult by Iraq’s forced isolation under a regime of sanctions, producing what was described by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as “a humanitarian crisis.”…
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Status QuObama: A Hundred Days of Fake-Progressive BS and Liberal-Left Surrender
Paul Street
The nation’s first Black president proceeds unmolested by the Left as he moves mountains of money in a crusade to save the investment banking class. Anti-war forces dissolve into nothingness as Barack Obama extends the U.S. occupation of Iraq indefinitely. A new theater of war called Af-Pak coagulates in South Asia, yet benumbed “progressives” praise their president as the consummate man of peace. “By demanding nothing of Obama an d the Democrats except that they not technically be Republicans, our so-called “progressive” organizations effectively grant advance approval to whatever corporate and imperial policies the new president and the Democrats execute.”…
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Ethnic Cleansing in East Jerusalem
Palestine Video
…The planning policy in East Jerusalem since its annexation in 1967 is affected by political considerations and infected by systematic discrimination against the Palestinians living there. While extensive building and enormous budget allocations have been the rule in Jewish neighborhoods, the Israeli government has choked development and building for the Palestinian population. In June 1967, Israel annexed 70,500 dunams [4 dunams = 1 acre] of East Jerusalem and the West Bank and incorporated them within Jerusalem’s borders. From this annexed territory, Israel has expropriated about one-third of the annexed territory – 24,000 dunams – most of it privately-owned Arab property. Israel used this expropriated land for residential construction. By the end of 2001, 46,978 housing units had been built for Jews on this land, but not one unit for Palestinians who constitute one-third of the city’s population…
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UN report: 60,000 Jerusalemites at risk of their homes being demolished
Palestinian Information Center
Sixty Thousand Palestinians living in occupied Jerusalem are at risk of their homes being demolished by Israeli occupation authorities according to a report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The report notes that since the occupation of east Jerusalem by Israel in 1967 it has illegally annexed it, restricted Palestinian development and confiscated over one third of its area in fav our of building Israeli settlements in violation of international humanitarian law…
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Not nearly back to normal
Three months after Israel’s war ended, life for Gazans is still dismal
The Economist
MUHAMMAD KHADER places some rugs and blankets amid the ruins of his house. Sometimes he goes there to rest when the tent he shares with his wife and six of their daughters gets too crowded. They ran away from their home earlier this year when it was hit by a missile during Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, and fled to their only married daughter’s house in Jabaliya, a Palestinian refugee camp originally built for villagers fleeing in 1948 from what is now Israel. The daughter did not have enough blankets or mattresses for everyone but the neighbours helped out. As soon as the Israeli troops pulled out of Gaza in mid-to-late January the Khader family went home—to find a pile of rubble. Even their chicken pen had been bulldozed…
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One Voice: manufacturing consent for Israeli apartheid
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada
How do Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation and siege see their world, especially after Israel’s massacre of more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, in the occupied Gaza Strip three months ago? Two recent surveys shed light on this question, although one — published on 22 April by the pro-Israel organization One Voice — appears intended to influence international opinion in a direction more amenable to Israel, rather than to record faithfully the views of Palestinians or Israelis (“OV Poll: Popular Mandate for Negotiated Two State Solution,” accessed 30 April 2009). The other — a more credible survey — was published in March by the Oslo-based Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies and funded by the Norwegian government (“Surveying Palestinian opinions March 2009,” accessed 30 April 2009)…
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The Israel Boycott is Biting
Nadia Hijab
On May 4, protesters will greet Motorola shareholders, already disgruntled by the company’s losses, as they arrive for their annual meeting at the Rosemont Theater in Chicago, Illinois. The protest, organized by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, is part of a drive to “Hang Up On Motorola” until it ends sales of communications and other products that support Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian land…
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Gaza’s Gas – destined for Israeli nightclubs or Palestinian refugee camps?
Carbon Web
The Palestinian Authority’s economic plan announced in Sharm El-Sheikh in early March hoped for accelerated development of the Gaza Marine Gas Field, 30 kms off the coast of the Gaza Strip in Occupied Palestine. However, the issue of who receives the revenues, consumes the gas and controls the supply remains highly problematic.
The field is estimated to contain over 1 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas, and coul d be worth anywhere between $4-8 billion. Although not of enormous consequence at the international level, they are highly significant in a context where Palestinians and Israelis are all heavily reliant on imported fuel.
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Culture of Unpunished Sexual Assault in U.S. Military
Dahr Jamail
Sexual assault of women serving in the U.S. military, while brought to light in recent reports, has a long tradition in that institution. Women in America were first allowed into the military during the Revolutionary War in 1775, and their travails are as old. Maricela Guzman served in the Navy from 1998 to 2002 as a computer technician on the island of Diego Garcia, and later in Naples, Italy. She was raped while in boot camp, but was too scared to talk ab out the assault for the rest of her time in the military…
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For Immediate Release: You cannot sink our boats
Free Gaza Movement
In most of the world, May 1st is a day of international labor solidarity. It is a day of joy as workers picnic together with their families and celebrate the achievements of one of the most phenomenal movements of the 20th century. It is fitting, then, that the Free Gaza Movement chooses May 1 to announce the launching of the HOPE FLEET TO GAZA. We are leaving on June 1 as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians, a people who have been massacred, terro rized and suffocated by the Israeli military. We sail again to break Israel’s blockade of 1.5 million civilians, 80% unemployed because of Israel’s draconian siege…
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Unemployment rate in Gaza 65%, poverty 80%
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
The Palestinian Chamber of Commerce in Gaza reported on Wednesday that unemployment rates in the Gaza Strip reached 65%, and that poverty rates are now 80%, due to the ongoing Israeli-led siege and repeated assaults. The Chamber added that the rates will most likely increase as the siege is still ongoing. It added that, according to official statistics, the number of unemployed Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is about 200.000…
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Nicer days 2
Eva Bartlett, In Gaza
…Life in Gaza is tangled with politics within and outside. There are expectations that Israel will soon wage another murderous campaign on Gaza, to ‘prove’ its new government (old policies) and to ‘finish off’ the business of going after Hamas that Israel claimed was the reason for the last war. In the sea, its lights visible at night, the Israeli platform where natural gas is taken from beneath the sea. There are speculations that the drilling is not straight down into Israeli water s but possibly angled into the Gazan Marine Field, harvesting from the reported 1.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Worth repeating from my earlier post, David K. Schermerhorn’s April 2009 very detailed Timeline of Gaza Marine Zone, Fishermen and Natural Gas Deposits outlines not only the history of Israel’s policy of piracy and preventing of Palestinian fishermen from accessing their own territorial waters, but also brings to light the connection between Israel’s trawling for Gazan natural gas deposits and the aggressing of Palestinian fishermen…
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Israel enforces new punishments against Palestinian workers
IMEMC
As the World marks Mayday, the International Workers Day, Palestinian workers are facing further restrictions imposed on them by the Israeli occupation authorities and are subjected to further restrictions and abuse. Not by coincidence, starting on Friday May 1, the International Workers Day, Israel will start implementing a new law enforcing punishment on the workers who stay in Israel more than they are allowed to. ..
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Israeli warplanes bomb Gaza tunnels
The News International
Israeli warplanes on Friday launched strikes against two smuggling tunnels along Gaza’s border with Egypt after Palestinians allegedly fired a rocket at Israel, a military spokesman said. Witnesses in Gaza’s border city of Rafah confirmed the air raid and said there were no immediate reports of casualties. “We attacked two tunnels,” the military spokesman said. “This attack comes after a rocket attack last night,” he said. The military initially said another rocke t was fired at southern Israel on Friday, but later said it had been a false alert. The Palestinians have used hundreds of tunnels to ferry much needed food and other essential supplies into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, which has been under a crippling blockade since June 2007, when the Islamists assumed power in the territory. The network of tunnels was extensively bombed by Israel during its 22-day genocidal war against Hamas in December and January, when more than 1,400 Palestinians were mercilessly killed by Israeli troops…
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Free Gaza Movement to launch new fleet of ships
Ma’an News
The Free Gaza Movement announced on Friday it plans to launch a new fleet of ships for the besieged Gaza Strip. “We sail again to break Israel’s blockade of 1.5 million civilians, 80% unemployed because of Israel’s draconian siege,” the group said in a statement to Ma’an. “I believe the Israeli government policies are against international law, against human rights, against the dignity of the Palestinian people,” said Mairead Maguire whose efforts for a peaceful s olution to the violence in Northern Ireland earned her the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize. “And I feel grateful to be able to go again on one of these boats to visit the people of Gaza.”..
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