Monthly Archives: August 2008

NYCLAW Antiwar Digest

New York City Labor Against the War (NYCLAW)

NYCLAW Antiwar Digest

 

Mon Aug 25, 2008 11:39 am (PDT)


AFGHANISTAN

US BOMBS KILL CIVILIANS DURING PRAYERS
“Last night, around 2 a.m. some people were attending a holy Koran recitation in Shindand district when Americans started bombing. Tens of civilians were killed.”
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-afghan-violence.html

OCCUPATION AIRSTRIKE KILLS 95 CIVILIANS
[I]ncluding 50 children — in a village in western Afghanistan. . . . one of the deadliest airstrikes on civilians in nearly seven years of war. . . . “[T]here were no Taliban.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/world/asia/24afghan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

IN WAKE OF US MASSACRES, AFGHANS ATTACK PUPPET FORCES
[F]ollowing the deaths of scores of civilians in an air attack by US-led coalition forces on Friday. . . . [h]undreds of angry villagers have reportedly attacked Afghan soldiers with stones who were bringing aid to the families of those killed in the attack.
http://www.euronews.net/en/article/24/08/2008/anti-us-demonstrations-in-afghanistan/

RESISTANCE ASSAULTS U.S. BASE
Taliban insurgents mounted their most serious attacks in six years of fighting in Afghanistan over the last two days, including a coordinated assault by at least 10 suicide bombers against one of the largest American military bases in the country, and another by about 100 insurgents who killed 10 elite French paratroopers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/world/asia/20afghan.html?ref=world

RESISTANCE TO EMPIRE IS A NATIONAL TRADITION
[T]his looks increasingly like a city under siege as the Taleban start to disrupt supply routes, mimicking tactics used against the British in 1841 and the Soviets two decades ago.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4592765.ece

SOLDIERS’ DEATHS GENERATES FRENCH ANTIWAR SENTIMENT
“There are families suffering who must be cursing Sarko for having sent young guys out there to act the big guy in front of his friend Bush.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/20/afghanistan.france

RESISTANCE KILLS 12 AT U.S. BASE ON AFGHAN INDEPENDENCE DAY
The first attacks came on Afghanistan’s Independence Day, commemorating liberty from the British Empire in 1919.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/world/asia/19afghan.html?ref=world

WAR ALREADY LOST
“The U.S. is now losing the war against the Taliban.”
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=312542

12,000+ ADDITIONAL US TROOPS TO AFGHANISTAN — WITH BOTH CANDIDATES’ SUPPORT
The Pentagon will be sending 12,000 to 15,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, possibly as soon as the end of this year, with planning underway for a further force buildup in 2009. . . . Both major U.S. presidential candidates have called for putting a greater military emphasis on Afghanistan, and it now appears that whoever wins the election will inherit a growing war already underway.
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/iraq/2008/08/19/pentagon-plans-to-send-more-than-12000-additional-troops-to-afghanistan.html

US PROPS UP WARLORDS
If the USA leaves, the warlords will loose power because they have no base among our people. The people of Afghanistan will deal with these warlords once US troops leave Afghanistan.
http://counterpunch.org/sulehria08182008.html

AFGHAN WOMEN JAILED FOR BEING VICTIMS OF RAPE
Two-thirds of the women in Lashkar Gah’s medieval-looking jail have been convicted of illegal sexual relations, but most are simply rape victims — mirroring the situation nationwide. . . . [V]iolent attacks against women, usually in a domestic setting, are at epidemic proportions.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-afghan-women-jailed-for-being-victims-of-rape-900658.html

IRAQ

US-BACKED RAIDS INFLAME DIYALA
Since late July, Diyala has been the focus of a major security operation, involving 30,000 members of the Iraqi security forces, backed by American troops, which has resulted in hundreds of arrests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/world/middleeast/20iraq.html?ref=world

ACCORD ISN’T REALLY ABOUT WITHDRAWAL
Even if the goal of withdrawing combat troops by 2011 is realized, the accord does leave open the possibility that American military trainers and support forces could remain in Iraq after that time. It is unclear whether the accord provides for semipermanent military bases in the country, and what role the United States would play in providing air and naval support for Iraq.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/world/middleeast/22baghdad.html?hp

SADRISTS DENOUNCE U.S.-IRAQ DEAL
They held up banners reading “The dubious agreement means a permanent colonization of Iraq” and “Iraq is not a U.S. colony.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2008-08-22-Iraq-deal_N.htm

IRAQIS CRITICIZE PHONY “WITHDRAWAL” PLAN — WANT US OUT NOW
“The government that came with this occupation does not represent us,” said a woman who gave her name as Um Mohammed, adding that her father was detained by U.S. forces for a year before being released without charge. “We don’t want any financial agreement, any political agreement, any security agreement with them. We don’t want anything to do with them.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq23-2008aug23,0,1996062.story

IRAQIS: AND TAKE YOUR OIL COMPANIES WITH YOU
After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, many Iraqi and U.S. officials, along with many Iraqi oilmen, pushed for opening the fields to competitive bidding. . . . Since the invasion, however, several attempts at inviting foreigners in have withered. After wresting control of its oil resources from Western powers decades ago, many Iraqis are still loath to see foreign companies back.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121859029778435427.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

BIDEN: IT’S NEVER TIME TO CUT WAR FUNDING
“The power of the purse is useless because it presents us with a Hobson’s choice,” Biden cautioned on Oct. 10, 2002. “We have our fighting men and women in place, and we are told, by the way, the president will not take them home, so let’s cut off the support for them so they have no guns, no bullets, no ability to fight a war. And no one is willing to do that.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/24/AR2008082402149.html

ON IRAQ, BIDEN IS WORSE THAN MCCAIN
More than the Blackwater killings, more than US efforts to forcibly privatize Iraq’s oil, it was the Biden idea of splitting Iraq into three pieces that galvanized Iraqi Arab nationalists. . . . Obama makes it impossible for himself to criticize McCain’s pre-2003 Iraq bloodlust by selecting a bloodthirsty Democrat as his running mate.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m46640&hd=&size=1&l=e

BIDEN: ANTIDOTE TO HOPE
[Obama has] invited one of the Democrats who jumped on the pro-war bandwagon to be vice president. . . . Joe Biden is Obama’s latest offering to show that he might talk a good game, but he won’t put a toe outside of the Democratic Party mainstream.
http://socialistworker.org/2008/08/25/the-antidote-to-hope

PALESTINE

WEEKLY REPORT ON ISRAELI HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/2008/21-08-2008.htm

RIGHTS ADVOCATES DEFY ISRAELI BLOCKADE OF GAZA
The human rights advocates, ranging in age from 22 to 81 and coming from about a dozen countries, set sail from Cyprus on Friday morning to make a symbolic stand against what they called Israel’s “illegal” and “immoral” siege of Gaza. . . . At the seaport, Naama Abu Hamda, 59, said she had come to thank the activists. “We are encouraged by their courage,” she said, “unlike the Arab governments,” who she said had cooperated with the Israeli embargo.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/world/middleeast/24mideast.html?ref=world

HUGE WELCOME FOR GAZA BLOCKADE RUNNERS
As the boats docked in Gaza City’s tiny port, children swarmed around the vessels and leaped into the water in joy, while thousands of cheering people looked on from the shore. Palestinian flags on one of the boats snapped in the wind, activists waved to the crowd, and the slogan “End Occupation” was written in large letters on its side. . . .  “They are very brave, they are very strong, I am proud of them,” said Samira Ayash, a 65-year-old retired school teacher who came to watch.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1219218618084&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

RELEASE LEAVES 11,000 POLITICAL PRISONERS BEHIND
About 11,000 Palestinians will remain in Israeli prisons. . . . Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas official in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that he welcomed the prisoner release but criticised Israel was using it as a political tool by only releasing Fatah supporters from the West Bank.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/08/200882565115301249.html

ETHIOPIANS FEEL BRUNT OF ISRAELI RACISM
The Israeli government’s decision to halt immigration from Ethiopia prompted angry scenes in Jerusalem. . . . “There’s racism everywhere [in Israel] — against Filipinos, and against Yemenis”. . . . [Ethiopians] complained of their lack of prospects in a country that simply “sees us as no better than the Arabs”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/19/judaism.middleeast

US MISSILES AND TROOPS WILL BE DEPLOYED IN ISRAEL
American military personnel are expected to man the new radar system which will be based in the Negev desert in southern Israel.
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.2419169923

BIDEN: I AM A ZIONIST
“Imagine our circumstance in the world were there no Israel. How many [US] battleships would there be? How many troops would be stationed?”. . . . He also called comments about Israel’s connection to the war in Iraq “insulting”.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3586542,00.html

TRUCE BARELY EASES GAZA EMBARGO
Since the ceasefire began, the fighting with Israel has died down, but the strict sanctions remain. Most of the one-and-a-half million people living in Gaza are now reliant on food aid, and are unable to enter or leave the strip.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7570605.stm

WORKERS PROTEST DAILY STRIP SEARCHES NEAR JENIN
Dozens of Palestinian workers, who go to work in Israel every morning and come back in the afternoon, rallied on Sunday near the checkpoint where they are strip-searched by Israeli border security each morning before work.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=31496

FATAH IS MAIN SOURCE OF INTRA-PALESTINIAN REPRESSION
Fatah’s efforts to eradicate Hamas’s political influence in the West Bank are more systematic than anything done by Hamas against Fatah in the Gaza Strip.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/911/re1.htm

US-EU-ISRAEL-PA COORDINATE JOIN REPRESSION
The continuous illegal raids by the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian Authority are coordinated by the US air force criminal Lt. Gen. William Fraser and Lt. General Keith Dayton, the US coordinator for the genocide against Palestinians. . . . The role of the Israeli military is to arrest the political opponents of the PA and to close their charities.
http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/08/20/kawther-salam-charity-raids-coordinated-by-the-us-and-financed-by-the-eu/

EGYPTIAN WORKING CLASS KEY FOR PALESTINE TOO
[Striking Egyptian workers] were confronting Mubarak’s police and Mubarak’s tanks and Mubarak’s troops, using rocks. And all throughout, people can always draw parallels between what’s going in Egypt and what’s going on in Palestine.  If Egypt falls, the entire Middle East is gonna fall. We have the biggest working class in the region with a long, militant history of industrial struggle.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/hamalawy180808.html

FROM A PALESTINIAN PERSPECTIVE
[F]rom where the Palestinians are sitting, under the yoke of occupation, the picture looks very different from the one Zionism’s supporters would have the world believe.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/21/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast

A POET FOR THE PEOPLE
During the 1948 war, the seven-year-old Darwish and his family had been driven from his birthplace, the village of al-Birwa. Birwa has long been forgotten by the rest of the world. Like more than 400 other Palestinian communities, it was destroyed by the Israeli army to prevent its inhabitants from returning to their homes inside the new Jewish state. Judeidi, one of a few dozen survivingPalestinian villages inside Israel, was as close as the Darwishes could get. Today Birwa lies beneath two Jewish farming communities, Yasur and Achihud.
http://www.jkcook.net/Articles2/0326.htm#Top

PALESTINE POPULAR CONFERENCE MEETS IN CHICAGO
Under the slogan “Reclaiming Our Voice, Reasserting Our Narrative,” hundreds of Palestinians living in the U.S. gathered in Chicago Aug. 8-10 for the first Palestine Popular Conference.
http://www.workers.org/2008/us/palestine_0828/

JEWISH YOUTH JAILED FOR REFUSING TO SERVE ON ‘MORAL GROUNDS’
Udi Nir, 18, of Herzliya, was arrested on Tuesday, the day after his draft date, in a quick response from the army to his refusal to enlist on “moral grounds.” Appearing before a military judge on Thursday, Nir was sentenced to 21 days in prison.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1219218613527&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

EASTERN EUROPE

RESISTANCE IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN BLOCKED US IN GEORGIA
The United States, bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, has little appetite for an armed confrontation with Russia either, as demonstrated by the swiftness with which the Bush administration ruled out a military response to the Georgia-Russia fighting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/world/europe/20diplo.html?ref=world

NATO IN GEORGIA WOULD HAVE MEANT BROADER WAR
It’s a sobering thought that, if George W Bush had had his way and Georgia had been a member of Nato, we would now be at war with Russia.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/featuresopinon/display.var.2427410.0.Why_the_west_has_got_it_so_wrong_over_Georgia.php

PUPPET MASTERS BEHIND GEORGIA PRESIDENT SAAKASHVILI
Saakashvili was brought to power in a US-engineered coup run on the ground by US-funded NGO’s, in an application of a new method of US destabilization of regimes it considered hostile to its foreign policy agenda.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m46586&hd=&size=1&l=e

CANDIDATES AGREE WITH U.S. POLICY IN GEORGIA
[T]he anti-Russian views of presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain hardly differ from those of Bush.
http://counterpunch.org/kagarlitsky08222008.html

DEAL FOR US MISSILES AND TROOPS IN POLAND
[A]n American Patriot missile battery is to move from Germany to Poland, and at least temporarily this would be operated by American military personnel. Under the agreement, Poland would host 10 missile interceptors, intended to shoot down a small number of ballistic missiles.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/world/europe/21missile.html?ref=world

NATO’S BRUTAL RECORD IN YUGOSLAVIA
The Nato attack had been fraudulent. . . . At a 1999 Kosovo “peace” conference in France, the Serbs were told to accept occupation by Nato forces and a market economy, or be bombed into submission. It was the perfect precursor to the bloodbaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.
http://www.newstatesman.com/europe/2008/08/pilger-kosovo-war-nato-serbs

BIDEN PUSHED US WAR IN YUGOSLAVIA
He has called his new adversary, presumed Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a “personal and close friend”. . . . In 1998, he worked with McCain on a resolution to push the Clinton administration to use all available force to confront Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, a move designed to force the president to use ground troops if necessary against Serb forces in the former Yugoslavia.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-foreignpol24-2008aug24,0,698094.story

WHY NOT SIMPLY ABOLISH NATO?
In the United States, both the Republicans and the Democrats see the old NATO transformed into this new offensive military alliance as a good (neocon) idea to promote American interests around the world, as well as those of its close allies, such as Israel.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20561.htm

SOMALIA

US-BACKED FORCES KILL CIVILIANS
Ethiopian forces in Somalia have killed at least 46 civilians after a roadside bomb ripped through their military convoy, residents said.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/08/16/somalia.shootings/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

US TERRORISM GENERATES RESISTANCE
[S]ome worry a more radical agenda in Somalia has been aided by U.S. counter-terrorism efforts during the last two years, including half a dozen airstrikes against suspected terrorist targets that often killed civilians. . . . “I’m telling you, the more Americans move against us, the more popular we become.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-shabab25-2008aug25,0,1932841.story

COLOMBIA

US-BACKED MILITARY ATROCITIES SOAR
The number of civilians killed by the Colombian armed forces has soared, activist groups allege, with many of the abuses committed by army units that had been vetted by the State Department. . . . [and] [b]acked by more than $4 billion in U.S. military aid since 2000.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-abuses21-2008aug21,0,2705496.story

WAR AT HOME

FBI PLANS BROADER POWERS

A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/washington/21fbi.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=login

NATIONAL GUARD SENT FROM IRAQ TO NOLA
“We’re not here to make friends”. . . . The sergeant, for example, constantly looks left and right. “I’ve been doing that ever since Iraq.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/us/25land.html

ONE PROTEST, 52 ARRESTS AND A $2 MILLION PAYOUT
The city has agreed to pay $2,007,000 to end a lawsuit brought by 52 people who were swept up in a mass arrest along a Midtown sidewalk during a protest against the invasion of Iraq.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/nyregion/20about.html?ref=nyregion

BLACKS DEBATE CIVIL RIGHTS RISK IN OBAMA’S RISE
“If Obama becomes the president, every remaining, powerfully felt black grievance and every still deeply etched injustice will be cast out of the realm of polite discourse.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/us/politics/25race.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

GI RESISTANCE

SOLDIER WHO DESERTED TO CANADA DRAWS 15-MONTH TERM
[A]about 200 American troops had fled to Canada because of moral objections to the war. About 40 troops who left their units after refusing to fight in Iraq have been sentenced to military prisons as a result.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/23/us/23resist.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

IRAQI WAR VETS’ GROUP IN OKLAHOMA CITY TO PUSH FOR WAR’S END
Several members of Iraq Veterans Against the War called Monday for the immediate withdrawal of American troops in Iraq, full benefits for returning veterans and reparation for Iraqis. Their national tour will take them to eight military installations and to next week’s Democratic National Convention being held in Denver.
http://newsok.com/iraqi-war-vets-group-in-oklahoma-city-to-push-for-wars-end/article/3285471/?tm=1219116745

INKED UP AT CAMP LEJEUNE, AND A NEW CHAPTER ON THE WAY
The night ended on a high note as we announced the formation of the new Camp Lejeune chapter of IVAW– the second chapter that’s been created during this tour.
http://ivaw.org/node/3963

SUPPORT IVAW’S 2008 BASE TOUR
The costs for IVAW’s State of the Union Base Tour are substantial. You can help out with donations to cover some of the expenses below.
http://ivaw.org/basetour/support

IVAW’S PROUD HERITAGE
The members of the IVAW house are the newest incarnation of a long tradition of anti-war activism by US military veterans. They are the tattooed, web-savvy descendents of the Spanish-American war veterans who decried US torture of Filipino rebels at the turn of the 20th century, and the shaggy-haired Vietnam vets who tossed away their medals in protest.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/20/iraq.usa


ANTIWAR MOVEMENT

LATINO PLATFORM CALLS TO END IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN WARS
A coalition of Hispanic groups offered its recommendations for both party’s platforms Thursday, including calls to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
http://www.kentucky.com/676/story/497888.html

THE ANTIWAR MOVEMENT AND THE “GOOD WAR”
Those forces in the antiwar movement that don’t include opposition to the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan are at risk of being made irrelevant by the dedication of increasing amounts of U.S. military firepower and personnel to the “good war”. . . . But during the last year, UFPJ has done very little to rectify this “silence”. . . . If IVAW doesn’t address the despair, anger and disillusionment of U.S. soldiers deployed to Afghanistan, vets and active-duty troops will go elsewhere for a way to express their antiwar views.
http://socialistworker.org/2008/08/22/antiwar-movement-and-afghanistan

REPORT FROM DAY 1 @ THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION
Today, thousands of activists from across the country rallied at the State Capitol and marched through the streets of Denver to kick off a week of protests during the Democratic National Convention.
http://dncrnc.wordpress.com/

IN DENVER, SOME PROTESTERS ALSO OPPOSE AFGHAN WAR
“The Democrats are an imperialist party, too.  The war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan are both the wrong wars. . . . If the US wants to stop terrorism, they should stop participating in it.”
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/08/25/in_denver_opposition_to_iraq_war_binds_demonstrators/

MASS PROTESTS SET FOR BOTH POLITICAL CONVENTIONS
Massive demonstrations on the most important issues affecting the people of this country and the world will coincide with, and in some cases directly challenge, these conventions.
http://www.workers.org/2008/us/conventions_0828/

NYCLAW Antiwar Digest

New York City Labor Against the War (NYCLAW)

NYCLAW Antiwar Digest

Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:21 am (PDT)


AFGHANISTAN

GREEN BERET SAYS LEADER SHOT, MUTILATED AFGHAN MAN
“Don’t worry, nothing will come of it. If it does, I’ll just say I was attacked.”
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080812/NEWS07/80812084/1009/NEWS07

NATO FORCE DENIES AFGHAN CIVILIAN CASUALTY REPORT
Twelve civilians were killed and 18 wounded when NATO-led forces carried out an airstrike on suspected Taliban militants in Kapisa province on Saturday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/12/AR2008081200252.html

U.S. COALITION KILL 8 AFGHAN HOSTAGES
A series of clashes and an airstrike in southern Afghanistan killed 25 militants and eight civilians held hostage by insurgents.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan12-2008aug12,0,5607454.story

BRITISH KILL 4 CIVILIANS IN AFGHANISTAN
The force “deeply regrets the tragedy.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/world/asia/18afghan.html?ref=world

INSURGENCY’S SCARS LINE AFGHANISTAN’S MAIN ROAD
“Dissatisfaction of the people is growing, anger is growing, people are joining the opposition groups”. . . . “The Americans are not looking at us like human beings, but we are also human beings.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/world/asia/14highway.html?ref=world

ROADSIDE BLAST KILLS 10 POLICE IN AFGHANISTAN
Afghan and NATO officials insist that the nearly seven-year effort to bring stability to Afghanistan is progressing.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Afghan-Violence.html?ref=world

RESISTANCE SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN
Once a population turns against an occupation (or just decides to stay neutral) there are few places in the world where an occupier is going to come out on the winning side. Afghanistan, with its enormous size and daunting geography, is certainly not one of them.
http://counterpunch.org/hallinan08142008.html

IRAN

A WAR OF SELF-DESTRUCTION
An attack on Iran, which Israeli and Bush administration officials appear set to carry out if Iranian uranium enrichment is not halted, would ignite a regional war in the Middle East and lead to economic collapse and political upheaval in the United States.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080804_a_war_of_self_destruction/

IRAQ

US SAILORS ‘ABUSED IRAQI PRISONERS’
The incidents allegedly took place in May at Camp Bucca, a vast desert camp where the US military houses 18,000 of its 21,000 prisoners in Iraq.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/08/20088150425646611.html

SURGE IN IRAQI FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBERS
One need only recall the famous scene of Algerian women altering their attire to plant bombs among French colons in the astonishingly prescient 1966 film The Battle of Algiers to understand the historical precedents.
http://counterpunch.org/niva08152008.html

SADRISTS ARE TOLD TO JOIN UNARMED WING
Thousands of supporters. . . . chanted “No, no to America” and “No, no to occupation.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/world/middleeast/09iraq.html?ref=worldspecial

U.S AND IRAQI TROOPS FAIL TO ‘SUBDUE’ DIYALA
Despite repeated offensives and presence of tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops, the Province of Diyala still remains a major rebel stronghold in Iraq.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m46416&hd=&size=1&l=e

WASH. HEIGHTS G.I. KILLED IN IRAQ BLAST
“We’re all so sad. . . . I don’t see any good coming from this war. We just lose more and more people.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/08/12/2008-08-12_wash_heights_gi_killed_in_iraq_blast.html

AS MANY U.S. CONTRACTORS AS TROOPS IN IRAQ
The U.S. has about the same number of private contractors in Iraq as uniformed service members.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/08/military_contractorstroops_iraq_081208w/

USE OF IRAQ CONTRACTORS COSTS BILLIONS, REPORT SAYS
“I don’t think there have been any credible cost numbers for the Iraq war. There was so much money spent at the beginning of the war, and nobody knows where it went.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/washington/12contractors.html?hp

WALLS DON’T STOP RESISTANCE
While U.S. forces say the recent battles have helped “decapitate” the Mehdi Army in Sadr City, they acknowledge that many fighters have simply fled to northern parts of the capital, which are controlled by Iraqi forces.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/U.S._and_Iraqi_forces_wall_off_0810.html

STOP LAUGHING AT YOURSELVES WITH YOUR CLAIMS OF ‘DEMOCRACY’ IN IRAQ
It is the democracy of bombardment, shelling, indiscriminate killing, massive prisoner abuses, turning millions of people into refugees, attacking with warplanes and heavy armor major cities, towns and villages and dividing a unified nation along ethnic and sectarian lines.
http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news%5C2008-08-14%5Ckurd.htm

OBAMA’S NON-PLAN FOR ENDING THE WAR IN IRAQ
His promise to “end this war now” amounts to little more than propaganda in light of claims that U.S. combat operations will continue for at least the next five years, perhaps indefinitely.  It is difficult to see how substantively different this is from Republican presidential front-runner John McCain.
http://counterpunch.org/dimaggio08122008.html

INDIANA SENATOR OFFERS OBAMA RISKS AND REWARDS
“The antiwar people cannot define the Democratic Party,” said Al From, a founder of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, of which Mr. Bayh was chairman for four years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/us/politics/12bayh.html?em

PALESTINE

OLMERT REJECTS RETURN OF ANY PALESTINIAN REFUGEES
Some 700,000 people, half the Arab population of Palestine in May 1948, fled or were driven from their homes when Israel was created. Letting them and their families live in Israel now would undermine its nature as a Jewish state, Israel argues.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-palestinians-israel-refugees.html?ref=world

STATE OF DENIAL: ISRAEL, 1948-2008
For many years, the term Nakba seemed a satisfactory term for assessing both the events of 1948 in Palestine and their impact on our lives today. I think, however, it is time to use a different term: the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
http://imeu.net/news/article008140.shtml

NO FORCE COULD ELIMINATE THE PALESTINIAN RIGHT OF RETURN
“The issue of the [Palestinian Right of Return] is the hard rock that no negotiator could displace simply because it is the issue of two-thirds of the Palestinian people, and no political force, despite its size, could overcome the will of the Palestinian people.”
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s73HtAkfehcrX8ORKso%2b6ABG9Ztl2gDqWYiPl3ulcRJ%2fATFoTsjyCw7X95EHytC2s205SiwdDUA%2fvIvwvwSnZnxARiRe3X388RbwJM%2biuBj64%3d

POET’S VILLAGE LIVES ONLY IN MEMORY
Darwish was only too aware that he would not be allowed by the Israeli authorities to return to his village — even in death. http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080812/FOREIGN/842627580/1011/NEWS&Profile=1011

TRAPPED — COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT IN GAZA
The blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip over a year ago has left the entire population of 1.5 million Palestinians trapped with dwindling resources and an economy in ruins.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/feature-stories/trapped-collective-punishment-gaza-20080812

ISRAELI VIOLENCE ENJOYS IMPUNITY
Only six percent of probes into offenses allegedly committed by Israeli soldiers and settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank yield indictments.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9750.shtml

THE WEST IS HELPING PA TORMENT PALESTINIANS
We all know that the Raison d’être behind the very existence of the PA security apparatus is to repress Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation. . . . [T]here is a reign of terror being fostered all over the West Bank under the pretext of “fighting Hamas.”
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m46420&hd=&size=1&l=e

CAMPAIGN TO SILENCE DISSENT IN WEST BANK, GAZA
The U.S. and Europe have said little about violations in the West Bank, even as they’re spending millions of dollars on police training to help lay the foundations of a democratic Palestine.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Palestinians-Suppressing-Dissent.html

PA CONTINUES ITS WEST BANK ARREST CAMPAIGN OF HAMAS SUPPORTERS
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns the attacks on private and civil society organizations and the continued arrests by Palestinian security forces of Hamas members in the West Bank.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9755.shtml

ISRAEL CRITICISM OF CHINA — BEYOND CHUTZPAH
[T]he more important question in this context is really whether Israel, a state that has been murdering, enslaving and tormenting another people for the past sixty years, is in a position to lecture or criticize China or any other country on the subject of human rights. http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m46323&hd=&size=1&l=e

DEREK SUMMERFIELD: APARTHEID REVISITED
[T]he Israeli army has killed “more unarmed Palestinian civilians [between September 2000 and 2004] than the number of people who died on 11 September 2001.”
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=797_0_1_0_C

‘ALL CITIZENS MUST BE EQUAL’
“All citizens must be equal,” agreed Ismail. “It doesn’t need to be a Jewish state; nor must preference be given to the Jewish people. It just needs to be our country; [a country belonging to both Jews and Arabs].”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/30/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast

ONE STATE WITH EQUAL RIGHTS
Either the Zionist project is defeated by the victory of one secular state for all, or the logic of Zionism slowly starves and kills Palestinians out of their land.
http://socialistworker.org/2008/08/08/one-state-with-equal-rights

GEORGIA

FOR SOUTH OSSETIANS, BITTERNESS FOLLOWS ATTACKS
“It was inhuman to bomb us”. . . . The scale of the destruction is undeniable; some streets summon iconic images of Stalingrad during World War II or Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, which was leveled in two wars between Russian and Chechen separatists.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/16/AR2008081602253.html

DECLARATION OF THE GEORGIAN PEACE COMMITTEE
The Georgian army, armed and trained by American instructors and using also American armaments, subjected the city of Tskhinvali to a barbaric destruction. . . . The entire responsibility for this fratricidal war, for thousands of children, women and elderly dead people, for the inhabitants of South Ossetia and of Georgia falls exclusively to the current President, to the Parliament and to the Government of Georgia.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/georgia120808.html

RATTLING THE CAGE: SYMPATHY FOR THE AGGRESSOR
So what we’ve got here is a bloody war started by Georgia against a small, pro-Russian province it wants to rule — against the will of the people who live there.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1218446195149&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFul

THIS IS A TALE OF US EXPANSION NOT RUSSIAN AGGRESSION
[U]nderlying the conflict of the past week has also been the Bush administration’s wider, explicit determination to enforce US global hegemony and prevent any regional challenge, particularly from a resurgent Russia.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/14/russia.georgia

CONFLICT NARROWS OIL OPTIONS FOR WEST
The latest struggle over Caspian oil started in earnest in the 1990s under Bill Clinton, after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/world/europe/14oil.html?ref=world

OIL LINE IN THE SAND

Already, the Pentagon had established its presence in Georgia and Azerbaijan. It posted its officers to these Caucasian republics to train Georgian and Azeri forces to guard the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/11/georgia.russia3

BI-PARTISAN US SUPPORT FOR GEORGIA
Since 1997, the U.S. military has spent approximately $277 million in military aid to Georgia. . . . Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama . . . supported the administration’s initiatives in Georgia.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-usrussia14-2008aug14,0,7890950.story

U.S. TROOPS STILL IN GEORGIA
There are still 127 U.S. trainers in Georgia, where the American forces had been preparing the Georgian army for operations in Iraq.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=56704

GEORGIA PRESIDENT MIKHEIL SAAKASHVILI’S ‘CALCULATED GAMBLE’
Saakashvili has been the Bush administration’s poster child for pro-Western movements.  . . . The United States supplied him with military aid to build his army and he, in turn, sent Georgian troops to Iraq to support the U.S. mission there.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-saakashvili12-2008aug12,0,6671058.story

AFTER MIXED U.S. MESSAGES, A WAR ERUPTED IN GEORGIA
The United States took a series of steps that emboldened Georgia. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/washington/13diplo.html?ref=world

ON SLOG TO SAFETY, SEETHING AT WEST
“The biggest problem here is [the U.S.], your country. You said that the Soviets were an evil empire, but it’s you that are the empire. Not you personally, of course. But your government.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/world/europe/11scene.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

HOW THE U.S. INVITED A WAR IN SOUTH OSSETIA
This is yet another made-in-the-USA war. . . . But it’s also yet another made-in-Israel war.
http://counterpunch.org/walberg08122008.html

GEORGIAN MP LAUDS ISRAELI MILITARY TRAINING
Georgian Integration Minister Temur Yakobashvili told The Jerusalem Post Monday he “felt proud as a Jew,” thanks to the training Israelis had provided to units in the Georgian military.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1218446175084&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

ISRAELI HAS $1 BILLION INVESTED IN GEORGIA
The Jewish state and private investors have provided military assistance and advisors to Georgia, where pipelines pump oil destined for Israel.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/151211

ARAB WORLD SEES BUSH’S RESPONSE TO GEORGIA-RUSSIA CRISIS AS HYPOCRITICAL
The Iraq war, the sense of drift over the Palestinian question, and Washington’s perceived failure to pay more than lip-service to promoting democracy and human rights have all undermined American standing. It is also widely noted here that Washington stood by uncritically during Israel’s military incursion into southern Lebanon in its 2006 war with Hezbollah.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-react17-2008aug17,0,2584755.story

PAKISTAN

US BEHIND PAKISTAN ATTACKS
There is increasing pressure from the West on Pakistan’s government to act against Taliban and al-Qaida strongholds in its frontier region with Afghanistan.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Pakistan.html

9 SUSPECTED INSURGENTS KILLED IN US MISSILE STRIKE
A spokesman for the American military denied that it was behind the four missiles. . . . However, past strikes are believed to have been conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency using Predator drones. . . . Separately on Wednesday, Pakistani forces backed by helicopter gunships pounded militant positions in the Bajur tribal region in an operation that has displaced thousands of people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/world/asia/14pstan.html?ref=world

REPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE
The air attack had turned him against the government, Mr. Shah said. “I am now one of them,” he said of the Taliban. “I have lost my nephew, I have no fare to get back. I hate the government very much.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/world/asia/13pstan.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

GI RESISTANCE

U.S. DESERTER TO APPEAL CANADA DEPORTATION ORDER
“It’s our government acting as an enforcement agent for the Pentagon.” http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-deserter.html

EMUULATING VIETNAM GI RESISTANCE
We see what helped end the Vietnam War was that all these soldiers said, “No. We’re not going to do this anymore. This is screwed up.” That’s what we want to do.
http://www.warresisters.org/node/410

‘WE’RE TRYING TO REACH OUT TO SOLDIERS’
“Ultimately, what’s going to stop it is the GIs standing up and saying, ‘We’re not going to fight anymore’.”
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/373649_gicoffee06.html

ANTIWAR GROUP BRINGS MESSAGE
Hurd said it was important that members of the military and veterans understand it’s OK to oppose the war. “Look, you’re not alone,” Hurd said. “We’re with you and we’re here to support you.”
http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=301245

VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR RAIL AGAINST GAME
“Hey, stop taking our money and using it for stupid sh**.”
http://play.tm/story/20207


CIVIL LIBERTIES, IMMIGRANT RIGHTS AND CRIMINAL INJUSTICE

WAR CRIMES SYSTEM IS STILL ON TRIAL
The verdict and the five-and-a-half-year sentence may not have been as severe as the government had hoped for, but it was a green light for a tribunal that the Pentagon plans to use to prosecute as many as 80 detainees, including five men charged as the plotters and coordinators of the Sept. 11 attack.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/washington/10gitmo.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

ATTORNEY: TERROR DEFENDANT WITH NY TARGET LIST TORTURED
The attorney for a Pakistani woman arrested on terror charges and accused of possessing a list of New York landmarks to attack said her client had been tortured soon after she was apprehended in Afghanistan on charges of trying to kill U.S. soldiers.
newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-literr0814,0,6818152.story

PSYCHOLOGISTS CLASH ON AIDING INTERROGATIONS
“American psychology really grew up with the military. It was barely considered a science before the collaboration began, and the entanglement goes very deep.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/16/washington/16psych.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

U.S. MAY EASE POLICE SPY RULES
“It turns police officers into spies on behalf of the federal government.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/15/AR2008081503497.html

ILL AND IN PAIN, DETAINEE DIES IN U.S. HANDS
[T]wo days after his 34th birthday, he died in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Rhode Island hospital, his spine fractured and his body riddled with cancer that had gone undiagnosed and untreated for months.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/nyregion/13detain.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

IMMIGRANTS’ SPEEDY TRIALS AFTER RAID BECOME ISSUE
“The entire process seemed to presume and be designed for fast-track guilty pleas.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/us/09immig.html?ref=us

LOUISIANA: CHARGES AGAINST OFFICERS THROWN OUT
Survivors of the Sept. 4, 2005, shootings have said the officers fired at unarmed people crossing the Danziger Bridge to get food at a grocery store.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/us/14brfs-CHARGESAGAIN_BRF.html?ref=us

WEALTH AND POWER

PELOSI CLASHES WITH PROTESTERS OVER IMPEACHMENT
The Speaker made it clear she would not support any effort to hold impeachment hearings against President Bush.
http://www.pubrecord.org/nationworld/1-nationworld/255-pelosi-clashes-with-protesters-over-impeachment.html

BOTH CANDIDATES FOR SALE
The truth is that the campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain are being inundated with cash from more or less exactly the same gorgons of the corporate scene.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/22210615/candidates_for_sale

MOST COMPANIES IN US AVOID FEDERAL INCOME TAXES
Collectively, the companies reported trillions of dollars in sales.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/12/AR2008081200390.html

OBAMA WATERS DOWN TAX CHANGES
[Obama] said he “certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton, which was 28 percent” and that “my guess would be it would be significantly lower than that.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/16/us/politics/16obama.html?ref=us

HOUSE TO RETHINK DRILLING, PELOSI SAYS
Dropping her opposition to a vote on coastal oil exploration, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Saturday that the House would consider expanded offshore drilling as part of broad energy legislation when Congress returns next month.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/washington/17pelosi.html?ref=us

ANTIWAR MOVEMENT

ACTIVISTS DEMAND: ‘HANDS OFF IRAN!’
Under the leadership of the Stop War on Iran Campaign, anti-war activists in 100 cities voiced their opposition boldly in the streets despite the short notice in which the initial call was made, the difficulty of organizing during the summer and the sometimes paralyzing effects on organizing during a presidential election.
http://www.workers.org/2008/us/iran_0814/

STOP WAR ON IRAN
Considering the rain and the lack of endorsement from the nation’s largest peace group, United for Peace and Justice, the demonstration was a success in bringing together a broad coalition of activists and calling attention to Iran.
http://socialistworker.org/2008/08/13/stop-war-iran

BUYERS REMORSE OVER OBAMA
[T]here is no way to change Obama by begging as the letter does. There is plenty of carrot, in fact downright ass kissing, in the letter — but no stick. Ambitious pols understand sticks.
http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh08142008.html

SHEEHAN QUALIFIES TO CHALLENGE PELOSI
She says Pelosi (D-Calif.) has failed the country by refusing to cut off funding for the war after Democrats reclaimed the majority in the 2006 elections.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081102729.html

MOVEON EXCUSES BAYH
Eli Pariser, the executive director of the antiwar group MoveOn.org, said that Mr. Obama had a variety of factors to weigh in making a choice and that he was not ready to say that Mr. Bayh should be ruled out because of his views at the start of the war.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/the-difference-between-mo_b_118494.html

THE DEMOCRATS’ ELECTION TO LOSE
If we want to win our demands, we have to organize independently of either of the pro-business and pro-war parties. We have to refuse to tailor our demands to what “hurts” or “helps” the Democrats in the election.
http://socialistworker.org/2008/08/13/democrats-election-to-lose

DENVER’S DNC: MOVEMENT SETS MARCHES, RALLIES TO RAISE KEY ISSUES
The protests are designed to show the Democratic Party’s complicity with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. . . . The real struggle is in the streets. Those who are able should go to both DNC and RNC protests and express the will of those who dream of a better world.
http://www.workers.org/2008/us/dnc_0831/

RAGE TO ROCK DURING DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
In conjunction with the Iraq Veterans Against the War and Tent State University, Rage Against The Machine will play a free show Aug. 27 at the Denver Coliseum during the Democratic National Convention. http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003839122

DNC PROTEST, SPLIT, AND THE PRINCIPLED STAND OF CYNTHIA MCKINNEY
[T]he Alliance for Real Democracy’s denunciations of the right to self-defense and denunciations of Recreate ’68 as “violent” creates a ready made excuse for the police and government that may actually cause police violence.
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/08/99234.html

ANTHONY J. RUSSO, 71, PENTAGON PAPERS FIGURE, DIES
From Mr. Russo’s perspective, the ordeal — even the beatings he claimed to have endured after being imprisoned for refusing to testify to a grand jury — was worth it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/us/politics/09russo.html?ref=obituaries

NYCLAW Antiwar Digest

New York City Labor Against the War (NYCLAW)

NYCLAW Antiwar Digest

 

Fri Aug 1, 2008 10:35 am (PDT)


AFGHANISTAN


CANADIAN SOLDIERS KILL 2 CHILDREN
Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan opened fire on a speeding car, which they feared was about to attack their convoy, and killed a 2-year-old boy and his 4-year-old sister, officials said Monday. . . . NATO commanders have said they take reasonable precautions to prevent civilian deaths and have blamed militants for endangering innocents.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/world/asia/29afghan.html?ref=world

BOMBS AND STARVATION GENERATE RESISTANCE
“My husband and son were killed by the American bombs in Helmand province and I brought my daughter in law and grandchildren to Kabul since radio programs were talking about humanitarian programs but we found none and are stranded begging to survive. My granddaughter age 7 starved to death last week. I hate these people.”
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m46002&hd=&size=1&l=e

CIA BLOWBACK KILLS US TROOPS

It was the ISI, backed by millions of covert dollars from the C.I.A., that ran arms to guerrillas fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It is now American troops who are dying in Afghanistan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/world/asia/30pstan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

OCCUPATION = PIPELINE PROTECTION TROOPS
As the perceptive writer Kevin Phillips notes, U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan — and Iraq — have become “pipeline protection troops”. . . . [W]e are not fighting “terrorists” but a medieval tribal people who just want to be left alone. This is an ugly little war about oil and gas, not freedom, democracy, or woman’s rights.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-margolis/lets-speak-the-truth-abou_b_115591.html

SHOALS AHEAD FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA
No one has ever gained long-term control over this crucial zone of transit. . . . U.S. policy also at the same time spawned both Al-Qaeda and the Taliban — a classic case of blowback for the United States.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wallerstein310708.html

IRAN

U.S. TALKS TO IRAN TO LEGITIMIZE ATTACK
“This way they will be able to say they tried everything,” one official speculated. “This increases America’s chances of gaining more public support domestically as well as the support of European nations which are today opposed to military action.”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215331116435&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

DEMOCRATS BACK ATTACK
[C]ongressional leaders authorized up to $400 million for increased efforts to destabilize Iran’s government. . . . [H]ow in the world does the representative of perhaps the most antiwar city in the country sign off on the United States doing this to another nation?
http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=6829&catid=4&volume_id=317&issue_id=389&volume_num=42&issue_num=44

DESPITE THE EVIDENCE, ISRAEL STILL WANTS TO ATTACK
Israeli officials were concerned in December when a key U.S. intelligence report concluded that Iran had abandoned an effort to build a nuclear bomb.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-usisrael30-2008jul30,0,625643.story

ISRAEL IS THE REAL DANGER
Thanks to unlimited US support, Israel is two full military generations ahead of its enemies, and even further advanced in electronic warfare and command and control. . . . Given these facts, we can see how false are claims trumpeted by the west that Iran is a dangerous military power that is about to eradicate Israel. The facts are quite the reverse.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20376.htm

LIES AND BLUSTER ABOUT NUKES
Israel possesses between 60 and 80 nuclear bombs. . . . Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s insistence that Iran enriches its own fissile material, and the guessing game he is playing with Israel, the atomic energy agency and the UN security council is irresponsible and staggeringly dangerous. But if I were in his position I might be tempted to do the same.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/29/nuclear.defence

IRAQ

MILITARY COVERED-UP ATTACK ON CIVILIANS
The American military admitted Sunday night that a platoon of soldiers raked a car of innocent Iraqi civilians with hundreds of rounds of gunfire and that the military then issued a news release larded with misstatements, asserting that the victims were criminals who had fired on the troops.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

AIR FORCE ESCALATES CIVILIAN CASUALTIES
For the first time in Iraq, the Air Force is flying missions this month with the new Reaper, a large remotely controlled vehicle that carries not only advanced surveillance sensors, but also bombs and missiles comparable to those on top-of-the-line piloted fighters. . . . Aerial bombardment increases the risk of accidental civilian casualties, however.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/world/middleeast/29military.html?ref=world

U.S. KILLING MORE CIVILIANS
The American military said Thursday that soldiers had killed three unarmed people during an operation northwest of Samarra on Wednesday, and injured a fourth. . . . The killing is part of a spate of American military shootings of Iraqi civilians in recent months.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/world/middleeast/01baghdad.html?ref=world

100 CITIZENS ARRESTED IN NEW OFFENSIVE
[M]any Iraqis believe that this campaign has no difference from others that targeted and harmed ordinary civilians.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m46101&hd=&size=1&l=e

U.S. HOLDS REUTERS CAMERAMAN WITHOUT CHARGES
No charge has ever been filed against the cameraman. . . . The military contends that under the U.N. mandate governing the presence of foreign forces in Iraq it can detain anyone considered a security risk indefinitely.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iraq-cameraman-reuters.html

DE-HYPING THE SURGE
No, sorry, AP. The US toll was at an “all-time low” before the invasion, when the number was zero. Unfortunately for the Iraqis, even then their toll wasn’t zero, since the decade-long embargo, not to mention the continued bombing in the “no-fly” zones, took lives by the tens of thousands every month.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m46107&hd=&size=1&l=e

DEMOCRATS SAY IRAQIS MUST PAY

Democratic leaders in Congress are pushing the administration to pressure the Iraqi government to fund its own infrastructure projects through rising oil revenue.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-usiraq30-2008jul30,0,1276409.story

BUSH-OBAMA CONVERGENCE
The sectarian civil war between Sunni and Shia, which was at its height between the end of 2005 and the first half of 2007, has ebbed. This is not so much because of the surge, but because there is nobody left to kill. . . . Obama’s foreign policy remains committed to the pursuit of U.S. interests in the Middle East and beyond, in collaboration with allies when possible and without their approval whenever it’s deemed necessary.
http://counterpunch.org/ruder07292008.html

BIPARTISAN WAR
There is only one way to achieve genuine “force protection” for the American soldiers in Iraq: withdraw them, all of them, and end the war crime they have been sent to perpetrate. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain will do this. The Democratic-controlled Congress will not do it. The bipartisan foreign policy establishment will not do it. All of them are happy to swallow — and repeat — the lies they are told about the war.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m46058&hd=&size=1&l=e

CONSPIRACY TO KILL IRAQIS?
These men and women in Washington knew that their war and occupation would kill Iraqis. In fact, they counted on this fact in the hope that they would achieve their goals of destroying the government of Saddam Hussein and replacing it with one willing to do Washington’s bidding.
http://counterpunch.org/jacobs07302008.html

CAMPAIGNS’ IRAQ STANCES ARE SIMILAR
In recent days, McCain has said he could support withdrawal over 16 months — the timetable proposed by Obama — provided “conditions” were right. Obama has said that he would “adapt” his withdrawal timeline should “things drastically worsen as we’re drawing down.” Both advocate leaving a residual U.S. force in Iraq, although neither has specified the size of such a force or where it would be based.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080102966.html

LET’S NOT GET OUT AND SAY WE DID
A “flexible timeline” is not a timetable. Redeployment of some or even all “combat troops” is not withdrawal. Limited Iraqi sovereignty is not sovereignty. Continuing the occupation is not ending it.
http://socialistworker.org/2008/08/01/lets-not-and-say-we-did

PAKISTAN

ARMY KILLS MORE CIVILIANS
As in the past, the army sought to subdue the militants by raking the area with fire from helicopter gunships and shelling suspected insurgent positions, a tactic that local officials say is putting civilians in grave danger. The seven-member family, including women and children, was killed before dawn Thursday in the village of Deolai, police said. Nearly three dozen other civilians were reported hurt, including a group of about 25 workers who were harvesting peaches in an orchard, according to residents.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan1-2008aug01,0,828008.story

PALESTINE

ISRAELIS KILL PALESTINIAN BOY AT PROTEST
Ahmad Hussam Musa, 12. . . . was resting under a tree after the demonstration when he was shot in the head. . . . Also on Tuesday, an Israeli battalion commander suspected of ordering a soldier to shoot a rubber bullet in the foot of a bound and blindfolded Palestinian in the Naalin area three weeks ago was placed on leave pending the outcome of an investigation by the military police. Israeli military officials said the episode, which was captured on video, indicated a command failure.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/world/middleeast/30mideast.html?ref=world 

SECOND PALESTINIAN TEENAGER SHOT BY ISRAELI ARMY WITHIN HOURS
It is the third incident this month in which Israel’s military appears to have deliberately targeted a resident of Ni’ilin, where protests against Israel’s West Bank barrier and violent clashes occur almost daily. . . . However, the border police will not investigate. “It’s not our responsibility to investigate things like that,” the spokesman said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/31/israel.palestinians

ISRAELI ATTACKS ON WALL PROTESTS HAVE KILLED BEFORE
At least 11 other Palestinians have died protesting against Israeli’s apartheid wall. Their names are:
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m46066&hd=&size=1&l=e

PALESTINIANS OCCUPATION’S VIOLENCE ON VIDEO
In a graphic and hard-hitting film Peter Beaumont speaks to Palestinians filming abuse from settlers and Israeli armed forces.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/30/israelandthepalestinians

TEAR DOWN THE WALL
Palestinians do not fight to re-route the Wall but to tear it down.
http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/1700.shtml

AT 45%, GAZA UNEMPLOYMENT IS HIGHEST IN THE WORLD
Nearly 95 percent of all factories operating in Gaza have been closed down in recent years, says the report. Israel’s year long economic blockade on the coastal territory and repeated closure of electricity and fuel sources have also contributed to the humanitarian crisis.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1006282.html

SAILING AUGUST 5 TO BREAK GAZA SIEGE
Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein is one of those who has courageously agreed to go aboard. . . . Naim Franjieh, survivor of the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe), will join Hedy on the boat : “My parents fled Palestine in 1948 when I was three years old,” he says  “I want to be there, on the boat, to tell the people of Gaza they are not forgotten by those of us who have left.”
http://www.palestinecampaign.org/index7b.asp?m_id=1&l1_id=4&l2_id=25&Content_ID=145

BREAKING THE GAZA SIEGE, BY BOAT
One way or another we intend to open Gaza to unrestricted international access. If we are unable, we will demonstrate that Israel still occupies Gaza despite its claim to the contrary. We will no longer be idle while those in power continue to blame the victim.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9719.shtml

P.A. ‘TSUNAMI’ HITS HAMAS AND ALLIES
With almost the entire West Bank leadership of Hamas in jail, the PA and Israel have now taken aim at what is widely seen as a crucial source of the group’s political strength: the tight network of schools, orphanages, clinics, charities and businesses run by the Islamists.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/42f0d16e-5cc4-11dd-8d38-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

P.A. ACTS ON BEHALF OF U.S./ISRAEL
European donor governments as well as Lieutenant-General Keith Dayton, the US officer overseeing security sector reform for the Palestinian Authority, is aware of what’s happening. . . . [M]any in Nablus see Fatah’s relationship with the Israelis as one of collusion more than competition. . . . “They’re trying to turn the PA into a security sub-agent like the Vichy government (in occupied France).”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/29/israelandthepalestinians.humanrights1

DOES P.A. STAND FOR JUDENRAT?
The Palestinian people. . . . never dreamt of a ‘Judenrat’ of quislings and collaborators that would arrest, torment, torture and even murder Palestinians in order to receive a certificate of good conduct from the occupiers of our country and their guardian-allies in Washington.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m46109&hd=&size=1&l=e

WHY A CULTURAL BOYCOTT IS NECESSARY
It is clear that even cultural dialogue with the Israeli establishment has only proven to normalize the occupation. Tutu once declared, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Now is not the time to be neutral, nor the time to be reticent; it is the time to act.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=751_0_1_0_C

LETTER TO MERCEDES SOSA
Don’t let your voice be sullied with collaboration with this oppression! Don’t sing in Israel! Don’t fail the struggle for freedom and equality in Palestine! Don’t betray the people whose struggle echoes so closely the struggles of the people of Latin America!
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=793_0_1_0_C

BOYCOTT THREAT PROMPTS ISRAELI ACADEMICS TO SPEAK UP
One prominent Hebrew University professor has warned that the regulations — which include barring Palestinian students from courses “that could be used against the State of Israel” — will help campaigners in Britain and elsewhere seeking to impose a boycott of Israeli academia.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/academics-protest-at-army-bar-on-palestinians-880323.html

WHAT DOES THE ISRAELI “PEACE CAMP” REALLY STAND FOR?
Members of the Israeli peace movement, including “Peace Now” and many scholars, have criticized Israel’s conduct in the occupied territory seized in 1967, but they do not accept the position that Israel was responsible for the refugees’ suffering, and they do not criticize the essence of Zionism. They support the government policy of denying the Palestinian refugees’ right of return.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m46112&hd=&size=1&l=e

THREE DIMENSIONS OF FREEDOM
At its core, Israel’s oppression of the people of Palestine encompasses three major dimensions: denial of Palestinian refugee rights, including their right to return to their homes; military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), with massive colonization of the latter; and a system of racial discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel, partially resembling South African apartheid. A just peace would have to ethically and practically redress all three injustices as a minimal requirement of relative justice.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9591.shtml

END OF THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION
Negation, denial and imprisonment have run their course. The future should be built on affirmation, cooperation, and the constitution of a democratic and secular state that guarantees the rights of Israelis and Palestinians, of Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/28/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast

 

MEXICO

US TEACHES TORTURE

Called the Merida initiative, or Plan Mexico, the move follows a similar blueprint to the widely criticised, and ultimately failed, Plan Colombia.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20390.htm

 

ZIMBABWE

MUGABE’S BIGGEST SIN
[F]or Washington there are always “good dictators” and “bad dictators.” The difference is whether the given dictator serves US national interests or not. Mugabe clearly is in the latter category.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m46093&hd=&size=1&l=e

 

MONEY FOR WAR

WHITE HOUSE PREDICTS $482 BILLION DEFICIT
The deficit . . . does not reflect the full cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the potential $50 billion cost of another economic stimulus package, or the possibility of steeper losses in tax revenues if individual income or corporate profits decline.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/washington/29budget.html?ref=business

 

WAR AT HOME

SUCKING UP TO THE BANKERS: A BIPARTISAN LOVEFEST
[B]oth of our leading presidential candidates are scrambling to enlist not only the big-dollar contributions but, more frighteningly, the “expertise” of the very folks who advocated the financial industry deregulations at the heart of this meltdown.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080729_sucking_up_to_the_bankers/

GUANTANAMO: IT ONLY LOOKS LIKE A TRIAL
“Where else in the world is someone being prosecuted for a crime who is already serving a life sentence and will continue to serve one if he’s acquitted?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/us/29gitmo.html?hp

IMMIGRANTS: COERCED INTO CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS
Advocates, immigration lawyers and translators question the deal offered to the Postville workers, who were told they could either plead guilty to aggravated identity theft, with a minimum two-year sentence, or accept a reduced charge and spend a year or less in jail. The lesser charge also would require the workers surrender more of their legal rights.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immig1-2008aug01,0,7416056.story

POLICE VIOLENCE: NYPD COP SHOWN CLUBBING CUFFED VET, TAKING CALL, THEN GOING ON THE ATTACK AGAIN
Harvin said he told the cop he served 3 1/2 years in the 101st Airborne Division, including six months in Iraq. . . . It didn’t matter to him. He said I was a disgrace.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/07/30/2008-07-30_cop_shown_clubbing_cuffed_vet_taking_cal-1.html

VETS: BANK WON’T PAY DEATH BENEFITS
Just days after their son was killed by a Taliban rocket while serving in Afghanistan, Steve and Joy Retmier went to Downey Savings and Loan in Hemet to deposit two government bereavement checks to help pay for his funeral. But once inside, they said, a teller put a hold on the checks for 10 days until they could be authenticated. The funeral was in five days.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-me-retmier1-2008aug01,0,3748409.story

 

GI RESISTANCE

HIS FATHER’S HERO
“I think my son is a hero,” Erich continued. “There are many Iraqis who were not killed because of what he did, and many GIs whose lives were saved because of it. He made a tremendous service to his country by standing up and bearing witness to the ‘bait-and-kill’ war crimes.”
http://www.workers.org/2008/us/military_resister_0731/

WHY HE RAN
“I’d be willing to go to prison because I know I did the right thing, and I can sleep at night and my conscience is still good.”
http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A315781

ACTIVISTS WANT PORTLAND TO BE A SANCTUARY FOR AWOL SOLDIERS
15,000 servicemen and -women are AWOL.
http://wweek.com/editorial/3437/11296/

ANTI-WAR VETERANS NOT DOWN WITH MCCAIN/OBAMA WAR PLANS
[IVAW] is pushing for a complete withdrawal, not the ones advocated by presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama, which would leave troops in or around Iraq to fight al-Qaida.
http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080731/NEWS/807310326

WHY THEY SPEAK OUT
[B]ecause of what they’ve experienced, they believe staying silent would make them complicit in a war that has killed some 4,100 U.S. soldiers and as many as 1.2 million Iraqis.
http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080731/NEWS/807310340



ANTIWAR MOVEMENT

STOP WAR ON IRAN: AUGUST 2 MASS MARCH IN NYC
Assemble 12 p.m. at Times Square
http://stopwaroniran.org/aug2.shtml

WHERE OBAMAISM SEEMS TO BE GOING
“Well, that’s what they all have to do to get elected,” reflect nothing better than denial of the grim reality that we can’t expect anything from them or make any demands of them. After all, how can we hold them accountable once they’re in office if we can’t do it when they’re running, when we technically have something we can withhold or deliver?
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=697&Itemid=1