Friday, January 29, 2010

"Iraq inquiry hears defiant Tony Blair say: I'd do it again"

"Righteous, responsible but no regrets: Tony Blair's day in the dock"

-mm

Thursday, January 28, 2010

"A just cause, not a just war" An article by the late Howard Zinn

"How surrendering Palestinian rights became the language of "peace""

"Bilin grassroots leader Mohammed Khatib arrested in late-night raid"

"Iran executes two opposition supporters"

-mm

Friday, December 4, 2009

"Pakistan and the Global War on Terror"

"President Obama's Afghanistan Election Speech"

-mm

Friday, November 20, 2009

"Israel's two-tiered justice system"

"Biggest state party to Obama: Get out of Afghanistan"

"Karzai's last chance"

"Green movement spreading despite crackdown"

-mm

Friday, November 13, 2009

"Huge rise in birth defects in Falluja"

"Israeli Jews and the one-state solution"

"The disastrous presidency of Mahmoud Abbas"


-mm

Friday, November 6, 2009

Afghanistan:
- "Women of Influence: Malalai Joya"
- "Stop US meddling; Support Afghan women at the table"
- "Cabinet of warlords"

Iran:
- "Iranian student dares to criticise Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to his face"
- Articles and videos from the 13th of Aban (Nov. 4)

Palestine:
- "Israeli soldiers, settlers violate Palestinian women's rights"
- "Gazans not allowed to rebuild their lives"
- "Israeli settlements could cause one-state solution"

Other:
- "Noam Chomsky: 'US foreign policy is straight out of the mafia'"
- "Why and to what end in Afghanistan"

On a side note, Malalai Joya will be in Seattle on November 11th and I highly encourage anyone and everyone to go if possible! For more information CLICK HERE

-mm

Friday, October 30, 2009

My favorite story of this week is about Matthew Hoh and so this post will be dedicated to him. Matthew Hoh has become "the first U.S. official known to resign in protest against American policies" in Afghanistan.

- "U.S. official resigns over Afghan war"

- Watch him, or read the transcript, on NewsHour

- "Matthew Hoh speaks truth to power"

-mm

Friday, October 23, 2009

Afghanistan:
-Three myths driving the Afghan war
-from Aljazeera, Inside Story: Afghan Election Runoff

Iran:
-Tehran says it favors deal on uranium but asks for more time
-Iran will emerge victorious

Iraq:
-from Aljazeera, Riz Khan: Iraqi Asylum Seekers, part 1 & 2


Pakistan:
-Taliban bombs in Pakistan strike air base, restaurant, and wedding party
-Obama's Pakistan problem
-Terrified whispers in Pakistan

Palestine:
-Israeli intelligence pose as Arabs to spy on citizens
-from Aljazeera, Locked in: Life in Gaza part 1 & 2

-mm

Friday, October 16, 2009

"Israel rejects UN council backing for Gaza war crimes report" - is anybody surprised by this??? didn't think so.

"Iran court seeks to try Mehdi Karroubi over alleging detainees were raped"

"Palestinian faith in Obama 'evaporates'"

"Eight years later, we still don't get it in Afghanistan"

-mm

Friday, October 9, 2009

Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize is undoubtably the dominating headline of today and think some of these articles give some perspective about this current confusion.

Does Obama deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? What are your opinions?

IN OTHER NEWS:
"Israeli high schoolers choose jail over occupation army service"

"Why we must stay in Afghanistan"

"Iran activist sentenced to death for election protests"

"Iran's women are not afraid"

-mm

Friday, October 2, 2009

Interesting articles from today...

"Abbas helps Israel bury its crimes in Gaza"

"Why Israel hates Obama"

"Naive Obama gets Iran results"

"Obama's Afghanistan problem - It's in our hands"

This last article reminded me about the rally and demonstration that will be happening on October 7th to protest against the occupation in Afghanistan. So if you're in the Olympia area, come join us! More info on the rally: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=131615607457&index=1

-mm

Saturday, July 18, 2009

IDF uses undercover cops in recent Ni'lin protests, 2 arrested

The IDF has begun using undercover agents at protests against the apartheid wall being constructed in Ni'lin, the same location where International Solidarity Activist Tristan Anderson was shot in the head by a high velocity tear gas round fired by IDF solders. In the video, you can see what happened during a protest on July 10th. ISM describes the scene in this way:

"The demonstration ended abruptly when approximately 10 members of Israeli special forces, disguised as participants with masked faces pulled out pistols and telescopic batons. Soldiers armed with guns and riot shields then entered through the fence and shot large amounts of tear gas, smoke grenades, percussion grenades and live ammunition from their handguns.

Two Palestinian young men were arrested and led away in handcuffs with their heads forced downwards and arms pulled upwards."

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Iran: Inside the Protests

A look inside the protests within Iran a few days after June 12, 2009 (election day). This was shown on Al Jazeera's "People & Power."

-mm

Who is Mousavi?

Al Jazeera examines who Mir Hussein Mousavi is and his history with Iran past and present.
PART ONE

PART TWO


-mm

Monday, May 11, 2009

Prof. Juan Cole on Palestinian Statelessness:

King Abdullah II of Jordan revealed to the Times of London that the Obama administration may attempt a comprehensive peace treaty between Israel and the entire Muslim world. The latter would recognize Israel and grant El Al overflight rights. Israel in return would have to freeze settlement activity and move smartly toward a two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state, with Israeli settlers removed from the West Bank. The status of Jerusalem would be left for later negotiations.

Abdullah warned that if rapid progress is not made, another war will probably break out in the region within 18 months to two years.

In my view, the central problems in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are the statelessness of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and in their diaspora, the continued military occupation or blockade by the Israelis, and the rapid expansion of Israeli colonies, which are usurping Palestinian land and rights.

Until the statelessness of the Palestinians is understood and seen as the central problem that it is, there can be no real progress on the issues. Statelessness was an attribute of slaves in premodern times. The Jews of Europe in the 1930s and 1940s were the primary victims of the crime of stripping people of their citizenship in a state. It is monstrous that Palestinians should be stateless all these decades after 1948. Make no mistake; it is Israel that deprived them of statehood, which the 1939 British White Paper pledged to them, and which other League of Nations Mandates, such as French Syria and Lebanon and British Iraq, achieved.

A stateless person ultimately has no rights, since it is states that guarantee rights. A stateless person may be robbed, raped, and sometimes even killed with impunity. Stateless children are often deprived of schooling. Since the property of the stateless is ambiguous with regard to its legal status, the stateless are at risk for extreme poverty. The contemporary world is a world of states, and falling between the cracks because you lack citizenship in any state is a guarantee of marginality and oppression.

Apologists try to shift the blame for Palestinian statelessness from Israel to someone else. But it won't work. The original tort of derailing Palestinian independence was Israel's, and Israel has been the main force preventing the declaration of a Palestinian state, so it is Israel that must step up here. Other countries cannot be expected to solve a problem created by the Israelis, nor do most of the countries in the region havethe economic efflorescence or governmental stability to do so.

It seems obvious what needs to be done to end Palestinian statelessness. If a Palestinian state isn't created in short order, the world is in for decades of Apartheid and political decay and consequent trouble, including terrorism and further wars. At the end of this process likely Israel will be forced to absorb the Palestinians as its own citizens, i.e. you end up with a one-state solution. The reason that there is more talk about the latter now is that it does at least resolve the central problem, of Palestinian statelessness, a problem that cannot be solved in any other way once a Palestinian state is forestalled by the massive Israeli colonization of the West Bank. (Actually I should say "Israeli and American," since a third of the Israeli squatters in the West Bank are Americans).

If Obama really is making this push for a comprehensive settlement, it is an enormous undertaking and its success is by no means assured (to say the least). He will have to be tough with Netanyahu and Lieberman, who will try to sabotage any such move. At least, the Obama administration is demonstrating some independence, and is no longer doing extensive advance briefings for Israeli officials on US diplomacy in the region.



For "cont'd" postings, click here.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Baghdad Blues

In Baghdad, Iraqis fear return of sectarian bloodshed

Friday, May 1, 2009

War Crime, Hate Crime, Sex Crime.

Former US soldiers describe rape of Iraqi girl, killings:

Cortez said he attempted to rape Abeer al-Janabi but could not get an erection. He said he then held her down while Barker raped her.

When he heard gunshots in the room next door, Cortez said he ran to the door and found the rest of the family had been killed.

He said Green told them "he killed them all and that all of them were dead."

Cortez said that Green then raped the girl, put a pillow over her face and fired three shots into her head with an AK-47. Her body was then burned.

-mr

Little Shams found face down in burning asphalt


Video:
UK treatment for Iraqi toddler

Iraq's quiet healthcare crisis:
The boy looked like an old man. His lips moved slowly, trying to stretch against his inflexible, badly scarred skin, and bandages covered his eyes.

But the voice that came out of his disfigured face was loud and cheerful and it filled the hospital room.

"I want to go back to Iraq, I miss my dad," Hussein said. Read More

-mr

Israeli Lobby Wins Again

  • The heft that dares not speak its name.
-mr