New York City Labor Against the War (NYCLAW)

Antiwar Digest

 

 

July 27, 2008

 

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AFGHANISTAN

OBAMA, THE PRINCE OF BAIT-AND-SWITCH
That [Obama] is a smooth operator and a black man is irrelevant. He is of an enduring, rampant system whose drum majors and cheer squads never see, or want to see, the consequences of 500lb bombs dropped unerringly on mud, stone and straw houses.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m45954&hd=&size=1&l=e

 

MAKE WAY FOR FIELD MARSHALL OBAMA
[I]t is up to Obama to point out why it’s more acceptable to kill a man who is fighting for his country in Afghanistan than it is in Iraq. If he can’t answer that question, then he deserves to lose.
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney07062008.html

 

NEW US AIRSTRIKES KILL DOZENS
More than half of those killed in the three recent U.S.-led airstrikes  .  .  .  were women and children, according to Afghan and Western officials. In one case, about 47 women and children in a wedding party were killed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/24/AR2008072403465.html

 

IS AFGHANISTAN A NARCO-STATE?
Sure, Karzai had Taliban enemies who profited from drugs, but he had even more supporters who did.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/magazine/27AFGHAN-t.html?hp

 

 

IRAN

OBAMA PUTS FRESH PRESSURE ON IRAN
Obama said that. . . . the world must send “a clear message to Iran to end its illicit nuclear program”. . . . [T]here’s a wonderful tradition in the United States, that’s not always observed, but I think is a good one. Which is that you don’t spend time criticizing a sitting president when you’re overseas.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-puts-new-presure-on-iraq-877714.html

 

IRAQ

 

FORCED TRANSFER OF BASRA UNION ACTIVISTS
“Those activists, through their hard work, are well known for fighting corruption and corrupt-ministry gangs in the oil sector”. . . . [T]he transfer amounted to a “human rights crime”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/25/iraq.oilandgascompanies

 

HOW MANY US TROOPS WILL REMAIN IN IRAQ?
[I]f the end of the surge left 16,000 troops behind, how many troops would a so-called complete U.S. withdrawal leave behind?. . . . “Once we redeploy our combat brigades, we’re still going to retain a capability to protect our personnel, to target terrorists and to train Iraqi security forces, if there is political progress,” Obama said.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-07-24-voa10.cfm

 

SUICIDE ATTACKS ON COLLABORATORS SEEK REVENGE
The bomber targeted a Sahwa or Awakening patrol of Iraqi forces — former insurgents recruited to fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq and paid by the US military. . . . “One of the reasons for women to kill like this is a desire for vengeance,” said Captain Kevin Ryan, commander of a US base in Baquba. “Often, they have lost parents, brothers or children in the fighting.”
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hb0G8vokARTUIFw0A2QwSeAh45tA

 

MILITARY AND MEDIA SUPPRESS IMAGES OF US COMBAT DEATHS
[A]fter five years and more than 4,000 American combat deaths, searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic photographs of dead American soldiers. . . . Most newspapers refuse to publish such pictures as a matter of policy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/world/middleeast/26censor.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

 

PAKISTAN

$10 BILLION U.S. MILITARY AID SINCE 9/11
The United States has given more than $10 billion in military aid to Pakistan since the Sept. 11 attacks, when President Pervez Musharraf agreed to become an ally in the campaign against terrorism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/world/asia/24pstan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

 

OBAMA: ESCALATE WAR
[I]ntelligence and military officials described a counter-terrorism campaign in Pakistan that has lost momentum and is beset by frustration. . . . Democratic Sen. Barack Obama has said that U.S. forces should “take out” top militants if Pakistan did not act on firm intelligence.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-uspakistan27-2008jul27,0,7917426.story

 

PALESTINE

ISRAELI MILITARY CHIEF RECEIVES DECORATION FROM US ARMY
[T]he award was given to the IDF chief for his year long contribution to the war on terror, his work for Israel’s security and his contribution to improving the security dialogue between the two armies. . . . the IDF chief’s talks with the Americans focused on the Iranian threat and possible military solutions. . . . We have no disagreements. The cooperation is very good.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3573024,00.html

 

OBAMA: WRONG IN EVERY WAY
[Obama] has rejected the Palestinians’ demand for the right of those who left Israel to return. He has said the U.S. shouldn’t negotiate with Hamas, the Islamic Palestinian group that the U.S. and the European Union consider a terrorist organization, unless it recognizes Israel’s right to exist.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080722_obama_on_the_brink/

 

OBAMA: JERUSALEM WILL NOT BE CAPITAL OF PALESTINIAN STATE
The press conference was held with Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, who said, “Israel and the USA have a common understanding of what must happen in the region.”
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30771

OBAMA (AND BIG MEDIA) TURN BLIND EYE TO ISRAELI APARTHEID
How can Barack Obama, himself the son of an American mixed marriage remain an apparently uncritical supporter of Israeli apartheid. . . . Why should the US support a heavily militarized, nuclear armed, white-dominated apartheid Jewish state in the Middle East rather than a non-racial and secular democratic one-person one-vote government for all that state’s inhabitants?
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=714&Itemid=1

 

PALESTINIAN FAMILY IN JERUSALEM DENIED EVEN HALF A HOUSE
[T]he Sheikh Jarrah evictions are part of a much bigger goal being pursued by shadowy settler groups, backed by the Israeli government, to establish wedges of Jewish settlement around the Old City.
http://counterpunch.org/cook07262008.html

 

ISRAEL TO BUILD NEW WEST BANK SETTLEMENT
Israel’s Defense Ministry has revived a plan it had shelved under U.S. pressure to build a new Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-palestinians-israel-settlement.html

 

POVERTY WORSENING IN GAZA
Aid granted to Gaza has failed to stop more than half of the population in the territory from sliding below the poverty line.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/07/2008724105341256363.html

 

ISRAEL HAS KILLED 801 PALESTINIANS THIS YEAR
Of the 801 Palestinians killed by Israelis, 107 were children and 33 were women. . . . More than 11,000 Palestinians are currently being held in Israeli jails.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3240&Itemid=1

 

IDF VETS TRAIN NY JEWISH PARAMILITARIES
Kitat Konenut New York is modeled on the rapid response teams in the West Bank settlements. . . . The group claims to be “well-connected with the New York police and fire departments.”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215331093729&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFul

 

REFUGEES HAUNT ISRAELI SOCIETY
Consciously or not, Israeli society is haunted by the ghosts of the Naqba, and the brutality—domestic violence as well as the violence directed toward its Arab surroundings—of Israeli behavior, is the result of a permanent fear. Not the fear of the Arab armies, nor the fear of the alleged Iranian nuclear armament, but the fear of the ghosts of 1948, the refugees.
http://www.alternativenews.org/blogs/michael-warschawski/the-Palestinian-return-and-right-of-returnno-deal-20080702.html

THE PALESTINIAN RETURN AND RIGHT OF RETURN—NO DEAL
 [T]he core of our discussions should not be about solutions and models, but values and rights. In that perspective, one has to unequivocally reject the very idea (and existence) of a Jewish state, whatever will be its borders. For a Jewish state (in the demographic sense of the concept) necessarily implies the drive for exclusion and expulsion.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m45381&hd=&size=1&l=e

 

“OCCUPIERS CANNOT ALSO BE LIBERAL”: AN INTERVIEW WITH ILAN PAPPE
Israel has to be de-Zionized before peace is possible, and peace has to include the return of thePalestinian refugees, otherwise it would be a futile exercise.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9634.shtml

 

PALESTINE IN THE MIDDLE EAST: OPPOSING NEOLIBERALISM AND US POWER
[I]t is impossible for any progressive movement to develop in the region that is not centrally concerned and linked with the Palestinian struggle. All popular struggles across the region are soon intertwined with the question of Palestine.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m45778&hd=&size=1&l=e

 

 

ANTIWAR MOVEMENT

 

IS OBAMA’S CAMPAIGN STIMULATING OR UNDERMINING THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT?
Is [Obama’s] candidacy encouraging the social power of the antiwar movement, for example? Or is it just siphoning off the movement’s independent energy and activism for the sake of a candidate’s future promises to end one war and now, start another?
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18271