January 2010

America’s contract killers

by Paul Woodward 01.31.2010

Twelve years ago, after Benjamin Netanyahu personally directed Mossad assassins to try and murder Khalid Meshaal in Amman, Jordan, President Clinton expressed his frustration with the Israeli leader, saying: “I cannot deal with this man. He is impossible.” In accordance of the diplomatic norms of the era, it was seen as preposterous that Israel would [...]

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How Israelis learned to brutalize Palestinian children

by Paul Woodward 01.31.2010

Women in the Israeli Defense Forces break their silence: A female soldier in Sachlav Military Police unit, stationed in Hebron, recalled a Palestinian child that would systematically provoke the soldiers by hurling stones at them and other such actions. One time he even managed to scare a soldier who fell from his post and broke [...]

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Israel is very pleased with the cage in which it has trapped Obama

by Paul Woodward 01.31.2010

Zvi Bar’el in Haaretz: Speeches, so it turns out, are an excellent substitute for policy. There’s no solution to the problem of radical Islam? Talk about reaching out in friendship to moderate Islam. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is stuck? Talk about the legitimate rights of the Palestinians. The war on Al-Qaida is not progressing? Speak of [...]

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Fear of flying

by Paul Woodward 01.31.2010

So now we have what surely sounds like the worst imaginable terrorist threat: the bomber whose weapon is concealed inside their body. Are we going to need MRIs before boarding a plane? Maybe it’s time to make the inevitable psychological shift from prevention to risk management. Flying has always entailed risks – just as their [...]

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Why the Taliban won’t be bought off

by Paul Woodward 01.31.2010

Sun Tzu wrote: It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled [...]

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How the US sustains corruption in Afghanistan

by Paul Woodward 01.31.2010

How the US sustains corruption in Afghanistan in order combat the insecurity caused by people enraged by the corruption. The meeting in a muggy tent at Kandahar Airfield was dragging on when a lieutenant colonel with the Army Corps of Engineers broke in with an uncomfortable question. “I’m not sure how to put this,” he [...]

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Why the defense and oil industries must be in love with Iran and al Qaeda

by Paul Woodward 01.31.2010

The Obama administration is quietly working with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies to speed up arms sales and rapidly upgrade defenses for oil terminals and other key infrastructure in a bid to thwart future military attacks by Iran, according to former and current U.S. and Middle Eastern government officials. The initiatives, including a [...]

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Hamas to Israel: ‘You may kill us… but we’re going to kill your claimed legitimacy.’

by Paul Woodward 01.30.2010

Hamas to Israel: ‘You may kill us… but we’re going to kill your claimed legitimacy.’ By Paul Woodward, War in Context, January 30, 2010 The murder of Mahmoud al Mabhouh, a leading member of Hamas’ military wing, the Ezzedine al Qassam Brigades, in Dubai ten days ago, is widely assumed to have been carried out [...]

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Obama’s secret prisons

by Paul Woodward 01.29.2010

Obama’s secret prisons By Anand Gopal, TomDispatch, January 28, 2010 One quiet, wintry night last year in the eastern Afghan town of Khost, a young government employee named Ismatullah simply vanished. He had last been seen in the town’s bazaar with a group of friends. Family members scoured Khost’s dust-doused streets for days. Village elders [...]

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Segregation blues

by Paul Woodward 01.29.2010

Segregation blues By Larry Derfner, Jerusalem Post, January 27, 2010 I spent the day in Nazareth recently, doing a story about Israeli Arabs in hi-tech, and when I got in the car with the (Jewish) photographer to leave, I said to him, “Isn’t it a relief to talk to Arabs as regular people?” He smiled [...]

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Haiti’s children adrift in world of chaos

by Paul Woodward 01.29.2010

Haiti’s children adrift in world of chaos By Deborah Sontag, New York Times, January 27, 2010 Haiti’s children, 45 percent of the population, are among the most disoriented and vulnerable of the survivors of the earthquake. By the many tens of thousands, they have lost their parents, their homes, their schools and their bearings. They [...]

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Remember the illegal destruction of Iraq?

by Paul Woodward 01.29.2010

Remember the illegal destruction of Iraq? By Glenn Greenwald, Salon, January 29, 2010 British political news has been consumed for the last several weeks by a formal inquiry into the illegality and deceit behind Tony Blair’s decision to join the U.S. in invading Iraq. Today, Blair himself is publicly testifying before the investigative commission and [...]

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Goodbye Howard Zinn

by Paul Woodward 01.29.2010

Goodbye Howard Zinn By Peter Rothberg, The Nation, January 27, 2010 Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and the author of the seminal A People’s History of the United States, died today at the age of 87 of a heart attack in [...]

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If I were Jewish…

by Paul Woodward 01.28.2010

If I were Jewish… By Paul Woodward, The War in Context, January 28, 2010 We live with the feeling that death is always with us. Whether that feeling is good or not, I don’t know. It is always hanging over us, and here in Auschwitz you see how it became an industry, an industry of [...]

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Did The American Conservative just get hacked by Zionists?

by Paul Woodward 01.27.2010

Did The American Conservative just get hacked by Zionists? By Paul Woodward, War in Context, January 27, 2010 Philip Weiss drew my attention to an article that caught Andrew Sullivan‘s eye: Jihadism, anti-Jihadism and Palestine by Daniel Larison. It appears at Pat Buchanan’s The American Conservative. But if you follow the link at this time [...]

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Jihadism, anti-Jihadism and Palestine

by Paul Woodward 01.27.2010

Jihadism, anti-Jihadism and Palestine By Daniel Larison, The American Conservative, January 25, 2010 A lot of ink has been spilled since 9/11 trying to argue that bin Laden doesn’t really care about Palestine. But that’s always been silly — nobody knows what he “really” cares about, and it doesn’t especially matter since he talks about [...]

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The sanctity of military spending

by Paul Woodward 01.26.2010

The sanctity of military spending By Glenn Greenwald, Salon, January 26, 2010 In sum, as we cite our debtor status to freeze funding for things such as “air traffic control, farm subsidies, education, nutrition and national parks” — all programs included in Obama’s spending freeze — our military and other “security-related” spending habits become more [...]

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U.S. mulls legality of killing American al Qaeda “turncoat”

by Paul Woodward 01.26.2010

U.S. mulls legality of killing American al Qaeda “turncoat” By Matthew Cole, Richard Esposito and Brian Ross, ABC News, January 25, 2010 White House lawyers are mulling the legality of proposed attempts to kill an American citizen, Anwar al Awlaki, who is believed to be part of the leadership of the al Qaeda group in [...]

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The meaning of the Eikenberry cables

by Paul Woodward 01.26.2010

The meaning of the Eikenberry cables By David Bromwich, Huffington Post, January 26, 2010 It was apparent as early as the summer of 2009 that Obama had no political choice but to throw in his lot with Petraeus and McChrystal and the “full-up” commitment of troops. Only a more far-sighted regard for prudence could have [...]

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Haiti: Obama’s Katrina — and Israel’s mission accomplished

by Paul Woodward 01.26.2010

Haiti: Obama’s Katrina By Soumitra R Eachempati, Dean Lorich and David Helfet, Wall Street Journal, January 25, 2010 Four years ago the initial medical response to Hurricane Katrina was ill equipped, understaffed, poorly coordinated and delayed. Criticism of the paltry federal efforts was immediate and fierce. Unfortunately, the response to the latest international disaster in [...]

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International Holocaust Day becomes Attack Goldstone Day

by Paul Woodward 01.26.2010

Israel: Goldstone Report anti-Semitic By Roni Sofer, Ynet, January 25, 2010 The world will mark International Holocaust Day on Wednesday. Monday will see President Shimon Peres fly to Berlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leave for a visit to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. They will be joined by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in [...]

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Iran opposition leaders drop demand for new election

by Paul Woodward 01.26.2010

Iran opposition leaders drop demand for new election By Michael Slackman, New York Times, January 26, 2010 Two of Iran’s opposition leaders, Mohammed Khatami and Mehdi Karroubi, appear to have dropped their demand for a new presidential election, saying that while they still believe the vote in June was fraudulent, they accept Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as [...]

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Baghdad blasts shatter sense of security in capital

by Paul Woodward 01.26.2010

Baghdad blasts shatter sense of security in capital By Anthony Shadid and John Leland, New York Times, January 26, 2010 In a coordinated attack as devastating as it was ruthlessly efficient, three bombs unleashed minutes apart on Monday wrecked landmark Baghdad hotels catering to foreigners, wilting a tattered sense of security and underscoring the uncertainty [...]

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Does Gilbert Bigio make Israel look good?

by Paul Woodward 01.25.2010

Does Gilbert Bigio make Israel look good? By Paul Woodward, War in Context, January 25, 2010 When Amos Radian, Israel’s Dominican Republic-based ambassador to the nations of the eastern Caribbean, spoke to the Jerusalem Post last week, he was unequivocal in expressing appreciation towards the Bigio family. Gilbert Bigio, a Syrian Jew and honorary consul [...]

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