Monthly Archives: September 2008

NYCLAW Antiwar Digest

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New York City Labor Against the War (NYCLAW)

NYCLAW Antiwar Digest

Wed Sep 10, 2008 4:10 pm (PDT)



Overview

Obama Needs to the Peace Vote: Can he get it? Does he deserve it? Can he win without it?
[A]bolition of slavery, voting rights for women, ending child labor, the forty hour work week, health care for the poor and elderly — all these issues were off the table until voters organized outside the two parties of the era.
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/73703

Afghanistan

Obama: Bush’s escalation still isn’t enough
Bush “is moving in the direction of the policy that I have advocated for years.” But he said the plan also “comes up short” because “it is not enough troops and not enough resources, with not enough urgency” . . . . The new deployments represent a 15 percent increase in U.S. military personnel for Afghanistan, and administration officials say the groundwork is being laid for more troops in the future. One senior official told reporters during a background briefing yesterday that the latest influx of troops is “a down payment on what will eventually be an even larger U.S. commitment to Afghanistan.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090900323.html

2 Afghan civilians killed, 10 wounded by NATO bomb

A NATO bomb missed its target by more than 1 1/2 miles and hit a house Tuesday, killing two Afghan civilians and wounding 10 at a time of rising tension between the Afghan government and international troops over the use of airstrikes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090900611.html

Fox News & Oliver North Involved with U.S. Afghanistan Massacre Cover-up
Looking at the video from the Times, which shows rows of dead bodies, including many children, we can only conclude that North has once again lied for the government.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m47090&hd=&size=1&l=e

Iraq

Troop “reduction” level still higher than before surge
There are 157,000 US troops in Iraq and Kuwait, of whom 146,000 are in Iraq. The withdrawal announced yesterday will reduce the total in Iraq to 138,000, more than when Bush ordered an extra 31,000 troops to Iraq in January last year, which he said would be a year-long deployment.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/10/iraq.usa

Victory in Iraq declared, not achieved
The Iraq troop withdrawals President Bush announced on Tuesday at the National Defence University were much ado about nothing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/10/iraq.usforeignpolicy

U.S. troops kill doctor on way to hospital
[A] doctor was mistakenly killed by American forces east of Baquba while he was driving to work at a general hospital. . . . The statement said “the driver ignored all signs to stop.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/world/middleeast/09iraq.html?ref=world

Suffering in “post-surge” Iraq
The antiwar movement still has a case to make against the occupation of Iraq — and in a presidential election where both candidates agree that “victory” in Iraq is the goal, it’s more important than ever for opponents of war and occupation to put forward the argument that the U.S. has only made the lives of Iraqis worse.
http://socialistworker.org/2008/09/10/post-surge-iraq

Palestine

Israel moves to Judaise East Jerusalem
The Israeli government is attempting to Judaise Palestinian East Jerusalem, and maintain a Jewish majority against the demographic threat of a higher Palestinianbirth rate.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43833

Israel cutting off Gaza from West Bank
“Through this new regime of permits, Israel is turning Palestinians from the territories into ‘illegal residents’ in their own home,’ in an unprecedented move which has no legal basis.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3594576,00.html

Histadrut is major enforcer for Israeli apartheid
Live among Israel’s Palestinian minority for even a short time and one is forced to abandon the widely accepted notion of Israel as a liberal democracy. . . . Enforcing this segregated employment structure are official public institutions, state monopolies, and the government itself. The most important is the Histadrut.
http://www.jkcook.net/Articles2/0331.htm#Top

Marking 5th anniversary of protests, Ni’lin marchers choke on tear gas
Dozens choke on tear gas and are hit with rubber-coated metal bullets as protesters mark fifth anniversary of the Ni’lin anit-wall campaign on Monday afternoon.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=31817

PA fires on Aida camp refugees demanding water
Palestinian Authority (PA) forces used teargas and bullets to disperse demonstrators from Aida Refugee Camp who were demanding water from local PA authorities. . . . Camp residents say that they have gone without water at times for up to two weeks.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=31847

Video cameras document systemic anti-Palestinian violence
The most obvious comparison to Shooting back is the infamous Rodney King video, which sent shockwaves through America, and proved conclusively that the black community’s complaints of police racism and harassment were by no means a figment of their imagination.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/10/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast

Sixteen anti-democratic laws submitted to Knesset
According to Haaretz columnist, Akiva Eldar, most of these laws have been supported by the Labor Party.
http://www.alternativenews.org/news/english/sixteen-anti-democratic-laws-submitted-to-the-israeli-knesset-20080904.html

African-American performer forced to dance at Tel Aviv airport
Dancer Abdur-Rahim Jackson, of New York, was detained by Israeli airport security officers because of his Muslim first name, and was forced to dance to prove he was no terrorist. . . . Security officials at Ben-Gurion airport refused to issue an apology.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/09/10/2008-09-10_untitled__a-3.html

Hamas has widespread popular support
The reality is if democratic elections were held in the Middle East tomorrow, Hamas would be swept to victory wherever candidates stood.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20713.htm

PA declares its intention to fire non-striking civil servants
This statement was issued despite that fact that the PA government denied coyly its intention to cut the salaries of civil servants who were not committed to the strikes after it was severely reprimanded by human rights and civil society institutions.

Five children dead so far in PA-Ordered Strike v. Hamas
Five children have so far lost their lives in Gaza’s hospitals due to the strike of nurses and doctors called for by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and heeded by Fatah loyalists.
http://www.arabmonitor.info/news/dettaglio.php?idnews=24586&lang=en

Fatah rank-and-file impatient with PA’s collaboration
[W]ithin Fatah grassroots there is growing impatience to rejoin the rest of thePalestinian people as part of the struggle, rather than allowing what is left of their movement to be turned into a tool of Israel.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9815.shtml

War at Home

Boeing strikers intent on winning
“We’ve made them record profits, and now they want to sell us out like we’re nothing?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/business/10boeing.html?hp

37th anniversary of Attica prison uprising
The rebellion began on Sept. 9 as a protest against jail conditions and ended on Sept. 13 as one of the bloodiest days in the 20th century in the U.S. The state of New York eventually paid the surviving prisoners $12 million in damages for killing, beating and torturing prisoners.
http://www.democracynow.org/2003/9/11/sept_9_13_1971_new_york

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