How U.S. Torture Came To Iraq
Moon of Alabama
According to the Taguba report torture by military units in Iraq was implemented after the Gitmo commander General Miller visited Iraq in August/September 2003 and recommended that the military police should be used in setting the conditions for intelligence exploitation of the prisoners. The pictures from Abu Ghraib were the result of that visit. But that was certainly not the first implementation of torture by U.S. military in Iraq. Indeed the chain of torture use by the mil itary was not Gitmo->Afghanistan and Gitmo->Iraq but Gitmo->Afghanistan->Iraq..
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Gaza again on brink of disaster, says Scots aid chief
By SHÂN ROSS AND BEN LYNFIELD IN JERUSALEM
TENS of thousands of people struggling to rebuild their lives in the Gaza Strip after Israel’s 22-day military offensive this year will face a second humanitarian disaster within weeks, because aid is not getting through, the Scot heading the British Red Cross international relief effort has warned.
Moira Reddick, the charity’s head of disaster management, said blockages at the Israeli border meant civilians were facing spending the summer with its soaring temperatures sheltering under rotting plastic and tents with little or no sanitation, increasing the threat of disease and risk of infection…
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Was the Gaza school bombed by IAF a ‘legitimate target’?
By Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondent
The Israel Defense Forces knows very well why, on January 3, at somewhere between 3:30 and 3:45 A.M., an Israel Air Force pilot bombed and destroyed the American International School, in the northern Gaza Strip. “The American college in the area of Beit Lahiya was being used as a rocket-launching site, as well as a munitions storage dump,” the IDF Spokesman told Haaretz in a written statement. “Therefore, it was a legitimate terr orist target.” Beyond the fact that the “college” is a school for children in grades 1-12, it’s already far too late to try and prove a negative. Suffice to say that Ribhi Salem, a mathematician by training who has been the administrative director of the school since it began operating in 1999, was flabbergasted when he heard the charges of the IDF…
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Collective Punishment: Iraq to Afghanistan
Alive in Baghdad
…In Afghanistan and Pakistan, or “AfPak” as its commonly referred to in the Western press, the US continues its practice of collective punishment against the population. It does so seemingly unaware of the damages suffered during counterinsurgency operations in Iraq. In fact, it appears that the US military may actually be getting worse at it, rather than improving. A study recently released by academics at King’s College and Royal Holloway, University of Londo n reveals that in Iraq, 39 per cent of deaths from US air strikes were children, while 46 per cent were women. Even if its assumed that all of the men killed were legitimate military targets, that still only leaves a bombing success rate of just 15 percent. In Pakistan, the statistics are much worse. Figures released by the Pakistani government show that of 701 people killed in US air strikes, only 14 could be verified as legitimate al-Qa’eda operatives. That’s a staggeringly low success rate of just 2 percent…
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Sour visit
Khaled Amayreh
In his latest visit to Palestine-Israel last week, US Middle East Envoy George Mitchell repeatedly urged the right- wing Israeli government to endorse the two-state solution with the Palestinians, but apparently to no avail. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Mitchell that Israel didn’t wish to “rule over another people”, and that Israel was still interested in reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians. However, the obvious prevarication didn’t impress the former US senator who told his hosts resolutely that the Obama administration was committed to the creation of a Palestinian state on territories occupied by Israel in 1967….
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Terror and Torture
Jim Miles
…From readings of international law, Obama himself becomes guilty of torture as anyone who is complicit with aiding and abetting torture becomes guilty of the crime. If he refuses to act, then under international standards, Obama becomes guilty of the crime. Unfortunately the U.S. is one of the most contradictory countries when it comes to upholding laws, always telling others that they need to be transparent, open, democratic, but when it suits its own purposes it relies on ignoring, abroga ting, or denying international law….
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The Problem Isn’t Avigdor Lieberman
By Ellen Cantarow
No one doubts that Avigdor Lieberman is a thug. His ultimata (“Those who think that through concessions they will gain respect and peace are wrong,” etc, New York Times Thursday, April 2, 2009) were designed to shock. On this site Neve Gordon’s revelations of Lieberman’s many corruptions, his beating of a 12-year-old child, his exhortation to bomb Gaza as the US bombed Hiroshima, supply further ugly evidence against the man, and fuel the flash-fires burning through the Internet in the wake of his appointment as Israel’s foreign minister. So he should be denounced by all means, but it is certain that the problems attaching to his name are not going away. On the contrary — particularly given President Obama’s repudiation of Lieberman during the President’s speech in Ankara, Turkey, and his avowed loyalty to a ‘two-state solution’ – these problems will appear in a different form, specifically in regard to the nature of the “two states” under the guidance of Obama, Netanyahu & Co…
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Obama Wants Law Change on Hamas
IslamOnline.net
US President Barack Obama’s administration is seeking to change US law to allow aid to any future Palestinian unity government that might include Hamas. “That’s gutsy,” Nathan Brown, a specialist in Palestinian politics at George Washington University, told the Los Angeles Times on Monday, April 27. The administration has asked Congress to make changes to US law to allow federal aid to flow to the Palestinians government, if Hamas is included. The request came as part of an $83.4-billion emergency spending bill to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars…
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Arabs remain marginalised in Israel
Reuters
Umm Al Fahm: When Israel marks its 61st anniversary this week, most of the Arab citizens who make up 20 per cent of the population will not celebrate. To many in the Arab minority, the birth of a state that describes itself as a Jewish homeland is no cause for rejoicing. “Of course I will not celebrate [Independence Day]. Why would I when I feel discriminated against? I don’t feel Israeli,” said Mahmoud Agbaria, 23, a student. Israeli leaders have acknowledged institutionalised discrimination against Israel’s 1.5 million Arab citizens. Arabs say little has been done…
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