by Nat Hentoff, Cato.org, July 29, 2010
News of our pilotless killer drones hurling more Hellfire missiles abroad has largely vanished from our press, despite President Obama’s fixation on this questionable aspect of our war on terrorism.
An impressive exception to the media inattention is investigative reporter Adam Entous of Reuters.
He reports that, contrary to the administration’s claim that only high-level terrorists researched are targeted, “the CIA has killed around 12 times more low-level fighters than mid-to-high-level al-Qaida and Taliban leaders since the drone strikes intensified in the summer of 2008.”
Another of his sources, who was involved in our robotic warfare and has since left the service, told him that the CIA’s targeting of low-level foot soldiers worries him because “it degrades the notion we’re going after serious threats to the United States.”
The increasing reliance on pilotless drones operated from afar is a slippery slope that can do serious injury to our standing in the world, not only among our allies but also by becoming a boon to terrorism recruiters.
Continues >>
Monday, August 02, 2010
Neocons Still Angle for War with Iran
By Gareth Porter, Consortiumnews.com, July 31, 2010
Editor’s Note: Despite guiding the United States into the bloody quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq, Washington’s neoconservatives remain extremely influential, still dominating the op-ed pages, the key think tanks and the TV talk shows.
And, the neocons have not given up their dream of extending the reach of the U.S. war machine into Iran on behalf of Israel’s right-wing Likud government, as investigative historian Gareth Porter notes in this guest essay:
Reuel Marc Gerecht’s screed justifying a prospective Israeli bombing attack on Iran coincides with the opening of the new Israel lobby campaign marked by the introduction of House Resolution 1553 expressing full support for such an Israeli attack.
What is important to understand about this campaign is that the aim of Gerecht and of the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu is to support an attack by Israel so that the United States can be drawn into direct, full-scale war with Iran.
Continues >>
Editor’s Note: Despite guiding the United States into the bloody quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq, Washington’s neoconservatives remain extremely influential, still dominating the op-ed pages, the key think tanks and the TV talk shows.
And, the neocons have not given up their dream of extending the reach of the U.S. war machine into Iran on behalf of Israel’s right-wing Likud government, as investigative historian Gareth Porter notes in this guest essay:
Reuel Marc Gerecht’s screed justifying a prospective Israeli bombing attack on Iran coincides with the opening of the new Israel lobby campaign marked by the introduction of House Resolution 1553 expressing full support for such an Israeli attack.
What is important to understand about this campaign is that the aim of Gerecht and of the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu is to support an attack by Israel so that the United States can be drawn into direct, full-scale war with Iran.
Continues >>
UN experts fault Israel on human rights
Middle East Online, July 30, 2010
Israeli soldiers detain foreign peace activists
Israel urged to halt targeted killings, torture, army impunity, blockade of Gaza Strip.
GENEVA – A UN panel of experts called Friday on Israel to fall in line with international norms on civil rights and to take action against targeted killings, torture and impunity for security forces.
The UN Human Rights Committee also called for an end to the blockade of Gaza and questioned the independence of Israel’s own inquiry into a naval raid on a Gaza-bound relief supply ship in which nine Turkish nationals dead.
In conclusions on its review of Israel’s application of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the committee also urged a halt to restrictions on Palestinians and raised concerns about discrimination.
Continues >>
Israeli soldiers detain foreign peace activists
Israel urged to halt targeted killings, torture, army impunity, blockade of Gaza Strip.
GENEVA – A UN panel of experts called Friday on Israel to fall in line with international norms on civil rights and to take action against targeted killings, torture and impunity for security forces.
The UN Human Rights Committee also called for an end to the blockade of Gaza and questioned the independence of Israel’s own inquiry into a naval raid on a Gaza-bound relief supply ship in which nine Turkish nationals dead.
In conclusions on its review of Israel’s application of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the committee also urged a halt to restrictions on Palestinians and raised concerns about discrimination.
Continues >>
China convicts Uighur web managers on state security charges
Web manager Dilshat Perhat was sentenced to five years in jail by an Urumqi court
© Private
Amnesty International, 30 July 2010
Amnesty International has condemned the closed trial and conviction of three Uighur website managers on state security charges.
Dilshat Perhat, web manager and owner of the Diyarim website was sentenced to five years by an Urumqi court in a closed trial on 21 July; Nureli, web manager of Salkin was sentenced to three years; and Nijat Azat, web manager of Shabnam was sentenced to 10 years, according to Dilmurat Perhat, Dishat’s brother.
The three websites were among the most popular Uighur language news and community forums operating in Xinjiang prior to the 5 July 2009 riots.
”The Chinese governments’ attempts to control all online activity in Xinjiang is not going to silence those with genuine grievances,” said Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific Director for Amnesty International. “These three Uighur web managers must be released.”
Continues >>
Chomsky: Israel’s War Against Palestine — Now What?
By Noam Chomsky, ZNet, July 28, 2010
Source: Israeli Occupation Archive
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Noam Chomsky’s ZSpace Page
The past few years have proven to be particularly awful for the Palestinian people. The suffocating Israeli siege of Gaza, despite some slight loosening, continues to this day, with Egypt’s active support and Washington’s tacit approval; Israel’s 2008-2009 attack on Gaza, was the single most devastating event for the inhabitants of the Occupied Territories since 1967; Israel’s settlement program proceeds unabated; Israel’s attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla has raised the level of violent confrontation further; and Israel’s crackdown on domestic dissent, particularly among its Palestinian citizens, has reached unprecedented levels with the arrest of activists and threatened measures against Arab MPs.
The Israeli Occupation Archive asked Noam Chomsky for his assessment of the current situation and future prospects.
IOA: The Goldstone report, the Abu Dhabi Mossad assassination, the Gaza Flotilla attack: all these have severely weakened Israel’s international reputation — in Europe, in Turkey, in Egypt. How has the US-Israeli relationship fared through all this, and how has this affected the larger US strategic project in the Middle East and its efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Noam Chomsky: I would add the Gaza attack itself, quite apart from the Goldstone report. It was so savage that it led to a substantial change in attitudes among the general population, though not noticeably among the political class or the media. But governmental relations haven’t changed, and no change should have been expected. Washington strongly supported the Gaza attack, and participated directly in it. The attack was clearly timed so that Obama could keep to the hypocritical “there’s only one president so I cannot comment” stance. It ended, surely by plan, at the moment that he took office, so that he could adopt the posture of “let’s look forward and forget the past,” very convenient for partners in crime. The media and commentators — unanimously, to my knowledge — evaded the central fact about the war: the issue was not whether Israel had a right to defend itself from rockets, but whether it had the right to do so by force. It surely did not, because the US-Israel knew that peaceful means were available but refused to pursue them: accepting Hamas’s offer to renew the cease-fire, which Hamas had observed even though Israel did so only partially. That suffices to establish the criminality of the attack. Disproportionality in the use of force is a minor crime by comparison. The other events you mention had little impact in the US, with one exception: there is now some concern in the US military and intelligence that support for Israeli crimes and intransigence may harm military operations in the field. General David Petraeus quickly retracted his comments to this effect, but others are expressing the same concern, among them Bruce Riedel, an influential long-time senior intelligence official and presidential advisor. Israeli intelligence understands this problem very well. Mossad chief Meir Dagan warned the Israeli Knesset that they are treading on thin ice for this reason. That might prove significant.
Continues >>
Source: Israeli Occupation Archive
Change Text Size a- | A+
Noam Chomsky’s ZSpace Page
The past few years have proven to be particularly awful for the Palestinian people. The suffocating Israeli siege of Gaza, despite some slight loosening, continues to this day, with Egypt’s active support and Washington’s tacit approval; Israel’s 2008-2009 attack on Gaza, was the single most devastating event for the inhabitants of the Occupied Territories since 1967; Israel’s settlement program proceeds unabated; Israel’s attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla has raised the level of violent confrontation further; and Israel’s crackdown on domestic dissent, particularly among its Palestinian citizens, has reached unprecedented levels with the arrest of activists and threatened measures against Arab MPs.
The Israeli Occupation Archive asked Noam Chomsky for his assessment of the current situation and future prospects.
IOA: The Goldstone report, the Abu Dhabi Mossad assassination, the Gaza Flotilla attack: all these have severely weakened Israel’s international reputation — in Europe, in Turkey, in Egypt. How has the US-Israeli relationship fared through all this, and how has this affected the larger US strategic project in the Middle East and its efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Noam Chomsky: I would add the Gaza attack itself, quite apart from the Goldstone report. It was so savage that it led to a substantial change in attitudes among the general population, though not noticeably among the political class or the media. But governmental relations haven’t changed, and no change should have been expected. Washington strongly supported the Gaza attack, and participated directly in it. The attack was clearly timed so that Obama could keep to the hypocritical “there’s only one president so I cannot comment” stance. It ended, surely by plan, at the moment that he took office, so that he could adopt the posture of “let’s look forward and forget the past,” very convenient for partners in crime. The media and commentators — unanimously, to my knowledge — evaded the central fact about the war: the issue was not whether Israel had a right to defend itself from rockets, but whether it had the right to do so by force. It surely did not, because the US-Israel knew that peaceful means were available but refused to pursue them: accepting Hamas’s offer to renew the cease-fire, which Hamas had observed even though Israel did so only partially. That suffices to establish the criminality of the attack. Disproportionality in the use of force is a minor crime by comparison. The other events you mention had little impact in the US, with one exception: there is now some concern in the US military and intelligence that support for Israeli crimes and intransigence may harm military operations in the field. General David Petraeus quickly retracted his comments to this effect, but others are expressing the same concern, among them Bruce Riedel, an influential long-time senior intelligence official and presidential advisor. Israeli intelligence understands this problem very well. Mossad chief Meir Dagan warned the Israeli Knesset that they are treading on thin ice for this reason. That might prove significant.
Continues >>
The Nation at Stake
By Badri Raina, ZNet, August 01, 2010
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Badri Raina’s ZSpace Page
(Bhartiya Janata Party statement on the investigations into the Gujarat crimes).
I
As the skeletons tumble in droves out of the house of horrors in Gujarat, right-wing Hindutva forces which now openly include the “main opposition Party” in parliament, the BJP, is up in arms at what it suits them to call a Congress-inspired attack on “patriotic Indians.”
As per revelations thus far available from the investigations, ordered not by the Congress Party, or the government of the day, but by the Supreme Court of India, these “patriotic Indians” include business bigwigs, extortionists, extra-judicial killers among the highest echelons of the Gujarat police, and no less than the Minister of State for Home Affairs of Guajrat (read Interior Ministry), now arrested, and under questioning in custody.
Among the documents of the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) is a poser (Annexure C) as to the accountability, to use the most parliamentary of terms, of the Chief Minister and Home Minister, one Narendra Modi, since all transfer files of senior Indian Police Service and State Service officers go to him per protocol for decision.
The question: did he know why these officers were being either removed or relocated while the extra-judicial killings were underway? Who all might he have been in steady communication with during the days and hours when some 21 citizens were liquidated, all accused of having “provenly” connived, don’t you know, to kill Modi, the saviour of Hindutva from the “Islamist” onslaught, and the heroic emblem of the idea of “Natonalism”?
Continues >>
Change Text Size a- | A+
Badri Raina’s ZSpace Page
(Bhartiya Janata Party statement on the investigations into the Gujarat crimes).
I
As the skeletons tumble in droves out of the house of horrors in Gujarat, right-wing Hindutva forces which now openly include the “main opposition Party” in parliament, the BJP, is up in arms at what it suits them to call a Congress-inspired attack on “patriotic Indians.”
As per revelations thus far available from the investigations, ordered not by the Congress Party, or the government of the day, but by the Supreme Court of India, these “patriotic Indians” include business bigwigs, extortionists, extra-judicial killers among the highest echelons of the Gujarat police, and no less than the Minister of State for Home Affairs of Guajrat (read Interior Ministry), now arrested, and under questioning in custody.
Among the documents of the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) is a poser (Annexure C) as to the accountability, to use the most parliamentary of terms, of the Chief Minister and Home Minister, one Narendra Modi, since all transfer files of senior Indian Police Service and State Service officers go to him per protocol for decision.
The question: did he know why these officers were being either removed or relocated while the extra-judicial killings were underway? Who all might he have been in steady communication with during the days and hours when some 21 citizens were liquidated, all accused of having “provenly” connived, don’t you know, to kill Modi, the saviour of Hindutva from the “Islamist” onslaught, and the heroic emblem of the idea of “Natonalism”?
Continues >>
Petras: Trends to Barbarism and Prospects for Socialism
By James Petras, Information Clearing House, July 30, 2010
Western societies and states are moving inexorably toward conditions resembling barbarism; structural changes are reversing decades of social welfare and subjecting labor, natural resources and the wealth of nations to raw exploitation, pillage and plunder, driving living standards downward and provoking unprecedented levels of discontent.
We will proceed by outlining the economic political and military processes driving this process of decay and decomposition and follow with an account of the mass popular responses to their own deteriorating conditions. The deep structural changes accompanying the rise of barbarism become the basis for considering the prospects for socialism in the 21st century.
Continues >>
Western societies and states are moving inexorably toward conditions resembling barbarism; structural changes are reversing decades of social welfare and subjecting labor, natural resources and the wealth of nations to raw exploitation, pillage and plunder, driving living standards downward and provoking unprecedented levels of discontent.
We will proceed by outlining the economic political and military processes driving this process of decay and decomposition and follow with an account of the mass popular responses to their own deteriorating conditions. The deep structural changes accompanying the rise of barbarism become the basis for considering the prospects for socialism in the 21st century.
Continues >>
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