Will the Senate Ask McChrystal About Torture Under His Command?
Rethink Afghanistan
On Tuesday, the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing on the confirmation of Lt. General Stanley McChrystal to take over command of Afghanistan – but as Spencer has reported, the hearings are being stage managed to generate a swift confirmation by combining it with the hearings for two others. While the media focuses on McChrystal’s involvement with the Tillman case (in which he was cleared of wrongdoing), there are other que stions that need to be answered. All too conveniently, the recent decision by President Obama to block the publication of the torture photos may also be a way to smooth his appointment. At the least, an uproar caused by the release of those photos would likely lead the Senators to ask some pointed questions about actions under McChrystal’s earlier command – at most, those very photos might contain direct documentation of the abuses uncovered by Human Rights Watch and others at Camp Nama, the detention center he commanded in Iraq. But even without that photographic evidence, there are serious grounds to question this appointment….
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Oslo Redux: Fool’s Gold in Israel/Palestine
By Remi Kanazi
Who doesn’t want to blame all the problems Israel/Palestine is currently facing on newly appointed Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu? He refuses to endorse the internationally recognized two-state solution, he is far more combative on settlements than his predecessors, and he has formed a coalition with right wing racist and advocate of forced transfer, Avigdor Lieberman. Listening to the chatter in “liberal” circles, it seems that the stagnation of the pea ce process is reinforced, not only by Palestinian extremists in Gaza, but by Israeli extremists as well. This current stagnation plays perfectly into the argument that if so-called moderates were in power (i.e. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Kadima leader Tzipi Livni), newly elected US President Barack Obama could make the desert bloom with new handshakes and peace processes. Once Israelis and Palestinians see how serious Obama is, they will trade in their current devils for the angels of old. This supposed “liberal” framework dangerously dismisses significant realities…
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More reasons to boycott the zionist entity
Marcy Newman, body on the line
Last week Palestinian university students in Gaza showed extraordinary solidarity by coming together and authoring a boycott statement. If only Palestinian students in the West Bank could show the same moral courage to come together for such a document:The Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI) calls upon freedom-loving students all over the world to stand in solidarity with us by boycotting Israeli academic i nstitutions for their complicity in perpetuating Israel’s illegal military occupation and apartheid system. …
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Cheney personally oversaw ’secret’ congressional briefings on torture: report
Diana Sweet
Former Vice President Dick Cheney “personally” oversaw at least four briefings with members of Congress about the Bush administration’s interrogation program in an effort to maintain support for the torture of detainees in U.S. custody. The briefings, part of a “secret” defense of the program Cheney began in 2005, were held as congressional oversight committees were threatening to investigate, or end the use of the interrogation meth ods, lawmakers and officials told The Washington Post…
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Exclusive: Hamas invites Obama to Gaza in letter
Ma’an News
An American group returning from Gaza says it will deliver a letter from Hamas to US President Barack Obama who is to give a landmark address to the Muslim world in the Egyptian capital on Thursday. Hamas official Ahmad Yousef confirmed that he wrote the letter, which the US women’s antiwar group CODEPINK plans to deliver on Thursday. Yousef sent a copy of the letter, in Arabic, to Ma’an. The following is a translation…
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Caterpillar under Fire for Human Rights Abuses for Sixth Year in a Row
by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
For the sixth year in a row, members of Jewish, Christian, and human rights organizations will be present at Caterpillar, Inc.’s annual shareholder meeting to demand that Caterpillar end its complicity with violations of human rights and international law in the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Concerned shareholders will urge Caterpillar shareholders to vote yes on proposition #5. Th is shareholder resolution calls for a review of Caterpillar sales to militaries with poor human rights records, including Israel…
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A Reponse to Open Letter from Gaza to the Government and People of Spain
Agustín Velloso
It is both with shame and much concern that we, Spanish people who stand by the Palestinians and wholeheartedly support their cause, learnt about the change in the Spanish legislation dealing with universal jurisdiction. The Spanish parliament voted on May 19 about reforming the law with a wide majority of legislators in favor (339) and a small minority (8) against it. Spain is not the first country to change –or bypass- its national legislation regarding breaches of international humanitarian law. Althoguh I admit that this is of little comfort, Palestinians have no reason to be surprised by acts contrary to their cause by goverments that have a consistent record of supporting international justice in general and the Palestinian cause in particular only in words but not in actions…
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Your request is being processed… Blackwater Sued For War Crimes, Again
Cara Parks
The families of three men killed in Iraq sued Blackwater yesterday, alleging that company employees wrongfully killed the men and then destroyed documents to hide the evidence. The private military company, now known as Xe, faces civil action in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District in Virginia. The case was originally filed in a California federal court in April. The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, alleges that on Feb. 7, 20 07, heavily armed Xe-Blackwater employees shot the three men, who worked as security guards for the Iraqi Media Network. Sabah Salman Hassoon, Azhar Abdullah Ali, and Nibrass Mohammed Dawood were killed in front of approximately 20 other Xe-Blackwater employees and although company supervisors were alerted, the shootings were not reported, according to the complaint…
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Iraqi Resistance Constitutes Dhari as Speaker
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI/HEYET)
The Jihad and Change Front, one of the major jihad fronts in Iraq in addition to the other factions like Asaib al Iraq al Jihadiyah, the Mujahideen Army and the army of Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal in a joint statement declared confidence on Secretary General of the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (HEYET) Sheikh Dr. Hareth Sulaiman al Dhari and choosing him as their spokesperson and representative at international arena. The statement of the resistance factions confirmed that they empowered Sheikh Dhari to speak and negotiate on their behalf in matters related to politics and at all the forums to defend the blood of the beautiful martyrs that flowed on the soil of Iraq where the rights and honors have been violated…
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Governor Bush told Houston Journalist: If Elected. “I’m Going to Invade Iraq”
by Sherwood Ross
Two years before the 9/11 attacks on America, George W. Bush told a Houston journalist if elected president, “I’m going to invade Iraq.” Bush made the comments about starting an aggressive war to veteran Houston Chronicle reporter Mickey Herskowitz, then working with Bush on his book “A Charge To Keep,” later brought out by publisher William Morrow. This disclosure was uncovered by Russ Baker, an award-winning investigative repo rter when he interviewed Herskowitz for his own book, “Family of Secrets” (Bloomsbury Press) about the Bush dynasty…
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Most Americans against closing Guantanamo: poll
AFP
Two of every three Americans are opposed to closing Guantanamo, with an even higher percentage against moving some of the detainees from the “war on terror” prison to their own US states, poll results showed Tuesday. When asked if the United States should shutter the notorious facility and move some of the accused terrorists to US prisons, 65 percent of Americans polled said no, with just 32 percent saying yes, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll published in the newspa per. The ratio jumped to three to one against when respondents were asked whether they would support moving the detainees to the respondents’ home states, the poll said…
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Where are the Missing Settlers?
How the Media Annexed East Jerusalem
Jonathan Cook
Talks between Barack Obama and the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships over the past fortnight have unleashed a flood of media interest in the settlements Israel has been constructing on Palestinian territory for more than four decades. The US president’s message is unambiguous: the continuing growth of the settlements makes impossible the establishment of a Palestinian state, and therefore peace between Israelis and Palestinians . It is one he is expected to repeat when he addresses the Muslim world from Cairo tomorrow. The implication of Mr. Obama’s policy is that, once Israel has frozen the settlements, it will have to begin dismantling a significant number of them to restore territory needed for a Palestinian state…
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Chabad rabbi: ‘Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle)’
Ami Eden ·
The current issue of Moment magazine dedicates its “Ask the Rabbis” section to the question “How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbors?” Rabbis from various denominations offered responses, but it’s the final one — from a Chabad rabbi, Manis Friedman of the St. Paul-based Bais Chana Institute of Jewish Studies — that is likely to spark the most reaction: I don’t believe in western morality, i.e. don’t kill civilians or chi ldren, don’t destroy holy sites, don’t fight during holiday seasons, don’t bomb cemeteries, don’t shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral. The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle). The first Israeli prime minister who declares that he will follow the Old Testament will finally bring peace to the Middle East…
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A Sample of the “Brave and Free”.
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
This is the West, this is America, this is Great Britain, this is Democracy…this is really what it’s all about, in diminutive…a small sample of the kind of animals the Iraqis and Afghans are experiencing on a daily basis….
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Netanyahu cites secret deal with Bush to justify more settlements
Relation puts more strain on relations with US as Obama heads for Middle East
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
The Israeli government of Benjmain Netanyahu is seeking to deflect Washington’s demand for a total settlement freeze by complaining that it ignores secret agreements between his predecessors and the Bush administration that construction in existing Jewish settlements could continue. The rift between Mr Netanyahu’s government and the US a ppeared to deepen yesterday, with a clear declaration by President Barack Obama that a freeze – including on “natural growth” of West Bank settlements – was among Israeli “obligations”…
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US Embassies may invite Iranians for July 4; only small talk allowed
Reza Fiyouzat, Revolutionary Flowerpot Society
This piece of news is everywhere now. This particular one (see below) is from the Boston Globe. A few years ago, while working in Beijing, an unfortunate colleague who didn’t know much about my political persuasions, included me among the recipients of a group email invitation to the July 4 celebrations held at the American embassy in Beijing. In the unkind reply I send back, it was stated that on July 4, 1776, a nation was born that was ruled by a minority of rich white male slave-owners dedicated to the complete annihilation, meaning genocide, of the entire population of the Original Peoples and Nations on the sub-continent…
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Palestinian Authority Going the Israeli Way
By Mel Frykberg
A surge in confidence, following unprecedented U.S. political support, led to the Palestinian Authority’s bloody crackdown on a Hamas cell in the northern West Bank on Sunday which left six Palestinians dead. However, reports of questionable Palestinian Authority (PA) tactics, including the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields, has brought the operation into question and left many Palestinians angry….
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H.R. groups: Ban Ki-Moon ignores Palestinian blood in Gaza
Palestinian Information Center
Five Palestinian human rights groups have accused Tuesday the secretary-general of the UN Ban Ki-Moon of violating the charter of his organization after he advanced political considerations over the lives of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed and wounded with IOF troops’ bullets during the war on Gaza last January. In an open letter they addressed to Ki-Moon, the five Palestinian organizations warned that the way the UN secret ary-general deals with the UN fact-finding committee was inappropriate despite the huge destruction inflicted on the infrastructure of the tiny Gaza Strip as a result of the Israeli invasion, and could undermine the legitimacy of the entire institution…
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Israel says does not plan to bomb Iran
Conor Sweeney, Reuters
Israel is not planning to bomb Iran, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Wednesday, addressing speculation it might launch a military operation to destroy the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Israel, widely believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear power, has repeatedly described Iran’s uranium enrichment as a threat to its existence and has said all options were on the table in preventing Tehran from building atomic weapons….
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AFTER ALMOST A YEAR, ISRAELI GOVERNMENT MAINTAINS ITS SILENCE ON THE BRUTAL BEATING OF A PALESTINIAN JOURNALIST
Desertpeace
It is almost a year since Mohammed Omer was brutally beaten, almost to death, by Israeli forces upon reentering Israel on his way back to Gaza. Mohammed was returning from a trip to Europe where he was the recipient of the Martha Gelhorn Prize for Journalism. The Israelis made it quite obvious by their actions that his honest reporting of the situation in Gaza was not appreciated by them. They did th eir darnedest to silence the Voice for The Voiceless in Gaza…
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