August 2009

Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor denounces Bush-era policies

by Paul Woodward 08.07.2009

Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor denounces Bush-era policies By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times, August 7, 2009 President Obama’s counter-terrorism chief on Thursday repeatedly rebuked the Bush administration in a speech designed to make the case for a broader approach to fighting Islamic extremism. In his first public appearance as the White House counter-terrorism advisor, John O. [...]

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Turkey is part of Europe. Fear keeps it out of the EU

by Paul Woodward 08.07.2009

Turkey is part of Europe. Fear keeps it out of the EU By Tariq Ramadan, The Guardian, August 6, 2009 When on his recent visit to Turkey President Obama called for Turkish entry into the European Union, he put his finger on a strategic and cultural sore spot. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking for [...]

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US asks Israel for settlement lull

by Paul Woodward 08.06.2009

U.S. asks Israel for one-year settlement freeze By Barak Ravid, Haaretz, August 6, 2009 American Middle East envoy George Mitchell has asked Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak for a “deposit,” an advance commitment of a one-year freeze on construction in West Bank settlements. Mitchell raised the idea in his talks with [...]

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Hiroshima Day: America has been asleep at the wheel for 64 years

by Paul Woodward 08.06.2009

Hiroshima Day: America has been asleep at the wheel for 64 years By Daniel Ellsberg, Truthdig, August 5, 2009 It was a hot August day in Detroit. I was standing on a street corner downtown, looking at the front page of The Detroit News in a news rack. I remember a streetcar rattling by on [...]

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Thoughts on Western Jihad

by Paul Woodward 08.06.2009

Our suicide bombers By John Feffer, TomDispatch, August 5, 2009 The actor Will Smith is no one’s image of a suicide bomber. With his boyish face, he has often played comic roles. Even as the last man on earth in I Am Legend, he retains a wise-cracking, ironic demeanor. And yet, surrounded by a horde [...]

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Power struggle hits Iran intelligence agency

by Paul Woodward 08.06.2009

Power struggle hits Iran intelligence agency By Iason Athanasiadis, Washington Times, August 6, 2009 Beyond the power struggle playing out on the streets of Tehran is a complex battle for control of Iran’s intelligence ministry — a pivotal institution in the regime’s repression of dissent. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who began a second term this week, [...]

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The ISI, Pakistan’s notorious and feared spy agency, comes in from the cold

by Paul Woodward 08.06.2009

The ISI, Pakistan’s notorious and feared spy agency, comes in from the cold By Declan Walsh, The Guardian, August 5, 2009 The entrance is suitably discreet: a single barrier near a small hospital off a busy Islamabad highway. Bougainvillea spills over long walls with barbed wire; a plain-clothes man packing a pistol questions visitors. Further [...]

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Obama’s fear of fighting

by Paul Woodward 08.05.2009

The character of Barack Obama By David Bromwich, Huffington Post, August 4, 2009 Obama cherishes the ideal of a frictionless transformation of society. It is a wish for aesthetic harmony, which he mistakes for a political goal. Its attainment would be a beautiful thing. But no matter how much he appeals for comity, Obama is [...]

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Time’s running out for Obama in Iran

by Paul Woodward 08.05.2009

Time’s running out for Obama in Iran By Simon Tisdall, The Guardian, August 3, 2009 Barack Obama’s policy of engagement with Iran – the “unclenched fist” of his January inaugural address – has about 60 days left to run. If Tehran does not respond positively and credibly to his offer of dialogue on nuclear and [...]

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Blackwater founder implicated in murder

by Paul Woodward 08.05.2009

Blackwater founder implicated in murder By Jeremy Scahill, The Nation, August 4, 2009 A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that [...]

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Forecasts of West Bank violence may well come true

by Paul Woodward 08.05.2009

Forecasts of West Bank violence may well come true By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz, August 5, 2009 Last weekend the State of Israel discovered the “other” West Bank. With suspicious timing, almost all the Israeli media devoted broad coverage to the improvement in the living conditions of the Palestinians in the West Bank, the increased freedom [...]

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Haaretz website and malicious advertising

by Paul Woodward 08.05.2009

As a service to readers of War in Context, I will no longer be linking to the Haaretz English website until its operators get their act together and figure out how to block malicious advertising. Until such a time I will post interesting Haaretz articles in their entirety and would encourage other website operators to [...]

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In release of journalists, both Clintons had key roles

by Paul Woodward 08.05.2009

In release of journalists, both Clintons had key roles By Mark Landler and Peter Baker, New York Times, August 5, 2009 Former President Bill Clinton left North Korea on Wednesday morning after a dramatic 20-hour visit, in which he won the freedom of two American journalists, opened a diplomatic channel to North Korea’s reclusive government [...]

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Iraq censorship laws move ahead

by Paul Woodward 08.04.2009

Iraq censorship laws move ahead By Timothy Williams, New York Times, August 4, 2009 The doors of the communications revolution were thrown open in Iraq after the American-led invasion in 2003: In rushed a wave of music videos featuring scantily clad Turkish singers, Web sites recruiting suicide bombers, racy Egyptian soap operas, pornography, romance novels, [...]

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Iran poll critics boycott ceremony

by Paul Woodward 08.04.2009

Iran poll critics boycott ceremony By Najmeh Bozorgmehr, Financial Times, August 4, 2009 Some of Iran’s most senior politicians yesterday publicly challenged supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by boycotting the ceremony in which he endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad as president. In an embarrassing snub, former presidents Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a conservative, and Mohammad Khatami, a reformist, refused [...]

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Fatah conference aims to boost its radical credentials

by Paul Woodward 08.04.2009

Fatah conference aims to boost its radical credentials By Tony Karon, Time, August 4, 2009 While much of the younger generation of Fatah — and many of its leaders who remain in exile — are contemptuous of the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, to which they attribute their movement’s political demise, they don’t plan to try [...]

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Reflections on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in our world

by Paul Woodward 08.04.2009

Reflections on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in our world By Frida Berrigan, TomDispatch, August 3, 2009 In Hiroshima, Little Boy’s huge fireball and explosion killed 70,000 to 80,000 people instantly. Another 70,000 were seriously injured. As Joseph Siracusa, author of Nuclear Weapons: A Very Short Introduction, writes: “In one terrible moment, 60% of Hiroshima… was destroyed. [...]

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The real tragedy in Nigeria’s violence

by Paul Woodward 08.04.2009

The real tragedy in Nigeria’s violence By Jean Herskovits, Foreign Policy, August 3, 2009 Nigeria’s latest spate of violence — which began with attacks on police stations in four northern states — is not what it seems. Superficially, the story looks similar to (though it was not connected with) outbreaks of Islamist fanaticism elsewhere in [...]

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Fears of fraud cast pall over Afghan election

by Paul Woodward 08.04.2009

Fears of fraud cast pall over Afghan election By Carlotta Gall, New York Times, August 4, 2009 Little more than three weeks before the presidential election, problems that include insecurity and fears of fraud are raising concerns about the credibility of the race, which President Obama has called the most important event in Afghanistan this [...]

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The Iranian regime’s biggest threat may come from the inside

by Paul Woodward 08.03.2009

Internal combustion By Abbas Milani, The New Republic, August 3, 2009 Immediately after the Mashai appointment [as first deputy president] was made public, a chorus of conservative voices demanded its repeal, claiming that Mashai’s apparent sins were unforgivable. A few months ago, he had been accused of saying Islam does not have the ability to [...]

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Iran is ready to build an N-bomb – it is just waiting for the Ayatollah’s order

by Paul Woodward 08.03.2009

Iran is ready to build an N-bomb – it is just waiting for the Ayatollah’s order By James Hider, Richard Beeston and Michael Evans, The Times, August 3, 2009 Iran has perfected the technology to create and detonate a nuclear warhead and is merely awaiting the word from its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to [...]

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There’s still a war in Iraq. It isn’t ours

by Paul Woodward 08.03.2009

There’s still a war in Iraq. It isn’t ours By Greg Jaffe, Washington Post, August 2, 2009 The Iraq war is over — for us. That doesn’t mean that the United States won or achieved all of its aims or that fighting among Iraqis will stop. It doesn’t mean that Iraq is stable, democratic and [...]

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Allegations that Britain colluded in torture of terror suspects reach European court

by Paul Woodward 08.03.2009

Allegations that Britain colluded in torture of terror suspects reach European court By Ian Cobain, The Guardian, August 2, 2009 Amin says that he was beaten, whipped, deprived of sleep and threatened with an electric drill while being asked questions that would subsequently be put to him again during non-violent interviews by two MI5 officers. [...]

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Where the mullahs are the upper crust

by Paul Woodward 08.03.2009

Where the mullahs are the upper crust By Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, August 2, 2009 Punjab, the fourth and most strategic province, is the country’s heart — home to the powerful military as well as much of Pakistan’s governing class; social upheaval here would drag the whole country with it. In my travels in [...]

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