Monthly Archives: January 2010

An American world of war

An American world of war
By Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse, TomDispatch, January 3, 2010

… let’s pause a moment as the New Year begins and take stock of ourselves as what we truly are: the preeminent war-making machine on planet Earth. Let’s peer into the future, and consider just what the American way of war might have in store for us in 2010. Here are 10 questions, the answers to which might offer reasonable hints as to just how much U.S. war efforts are likely to intensify in the Greater Middle East, as well as Central and South Asia, in the year to come.

1. How busted will the largest defense budget in history be in 2010?

Strange, isn’t it, that the debate about hundreds of billions of dollars in health-care costs in Congress can last almost a year, filled with turmoil and daily headlines, while a $636 billion defense budget can pass in a few days, as it did in late December, essentially without discussion and with nary a headline in sight? And in case you think that $636 billion is an honest figure, think again — and not just because funding for the U.S. nuclear arsenal and actual “homeland defense,” among other things most countries would chalk up as military costs, wasn’t included.

If you want to put a finger to the winds of war in 2010, keep your eye on something else not included in that budget: the Obama administration’s upcoming supplemental funding request for the Afghan surge. In his West Point speech announcing his surge decision, the president spoke of sending 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan in 2010 at a cost of $30 billion. In news reports, that figure quickly morphed into “$30-$40 billion,” none of it in the just-passed Pentagon budget. To fund his widening war, sometime in the first months of the New Year, the president will have to submit a supplemental budget to Congress — something the Bush administration did repeatedly to pay for George W.’s wars, and something this president, while still a candidate, swore he wouldn’t do. Nonetheless, it will happen. So keep your eye on that $30 billion figure. Even that distinctly low-ball number is going to cause discomfort and opposition in the president’s party — and yet there’s no way it will fully fund this year’s striking escalation of the war. The question is: How high will it go or, if the president doesn’t dare ask this Congress for more all at once, how will the extra funds be found? Keep your eye out, then, for hints of future supplemental budgets, because fighting the Afghan War (forget Iraq) over the next decade could prove a near trillion-dollar prospect. [continued…]

Yemen dismisses Al Qaeda threat as ‘exaggerated’

Yemen dismisses Al Qaeda threat as ‘exaggerated’
By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, January 4, 2010

Yemeni officials on Sunday dismissed the threat posed by Al Qaeda in their country as “exaggerated” and downplayed the possibility of cooperating closely with the United States in fighting Islamic militants, even as the U.S. and Britain temporarily closed their diplomatic outposts in Yemen because of unspecified Al Qaeda threats.

The statements by Yemen’s foreign minister, chief of national security and Interior Ministry came a day after the region’s top American military commander vowed to step up U.S. military support for the beleaguered Arabian Peninsula nation.

Analysts said the Yemeni statements reflected domestic political concerns about President Ali Abdullah Saleh appearing weak and beholden to the West as he faces numerous political challenges. [continued…]

US warned against strike in Yemen
By Mohammed al Qadhi, The National, January 4, 2010

Any direct US strike against al Qa’eda militants in Yemen will further push the state towards failure and boost al Qa’eda’s presence, a tribal leader and political analysts say.

“It is very serious and unacceptable that the Americans get involved in striking al Qa’eda militants because this is against the sovereignty of the country, would cause resentment and increase sympathy with al Qa’eda as in such strikes a lot of innocent civilians are hit,” said Sheikh Arfaj bin Hadhban, a chief of the Dahm tribe in al Jawf province, north-east of the capital Sana’a.

Abdulbari Taher, an independent political analyst and highly-regarded Yemeni writer and commentator, said: “The US military involvement will do nothing but create another Pakistan or Afghanistan. It will speed up the failure of the state and the collapse of the system. It will bring another catastrophe to the region.” [continued…]

Free Barghouti now

Free Barghouti now
By Bradley Burston, Haaretz, January 4, 2010

Now, more than ever, Palestinians need Barghouti.

But Israel needs Barghouti as well. He is the key to the future of the two-state solution, and therefore, to an Israel which is democratic without qualification, peaceable without biennial war, demographically Jewish without apartheid, a true neighbor to its neighbors – for once, a full member of the community of nations, economically, diplomatically, and, on the level of one-on-one human interaction.

Israeli leaders who have worked with Barghouti – even some who had him arrested and nearly assassinated – know the potential value to a future peace of his political skills, his standing and charisma among Palestinians, his work on behalf of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the past.

The senior Israeli security and government officials who have lobbied for Barghouti’s release include former senior Shin Bet official and ex-public security minister Gideon Ezra, and cabinet minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who served as defense minister under Ariel Sharon during the second intifada. [continued…]

Palestinians end torture of Hamas prisoners
AP, January 4, 2010

Palestinian security forces in the West Bank have stopped torturing Hamas prisoners, ending two years of systematic abuse, Hamas inmates said in jailhouse interviews.

The change in practice, said to have taken effect in October, was confirmed by a West Bank Hamas leader, human rights activists and the Palestinian prime minister. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the decision to halt any abuse was part of an effort to make sure a future state is built on the right foundations.

Hamas legislators and human rights researchers said the worst behavior — prisoners beaten with clubs and cables; suspended from the ceiling while tied up in painful positions; and forced to stand for days — had ended.

But they said they still received sporadic reports of prisoners being slapped or forced to stand for several hours during interrogations. And security forces often arrest Hamas activists and hold them for lengthy periods without charge. [continued…]

Many Karzai Afghan cabinet choices are rejected

Many Karzai Afghan cabinet choices are rejected
By Alissa J Rubin, New York Times, January 3, 2010

In a clear signal to President Hamid Karzai that he cannot count on Parliament for support, lawmakers resoundingly rejected most of his nominees for cabinet posts and expressed discontent with the candidates’ competence.

Of Mr. Karzai’s 24 cabinet nominees, 17 were rejected and 7 approved. Of those who received votes of confidence, all but one are currently cabinet ministers.

The president’s office had no comment on Saturday’s vote; the deputy spokesman, Hamid Elmi, said a news conference would be held on Sunday.

After being declared the winner of an election tainted by fraud, Mr. Karzai has been under pressure from Western leaders and Afghan opposition figures to help make things right by choosing cabinet officials not linked to corruption or incompetence. Parliament’s action on Saturday made it clear that they felt he had not met those requirements.

In particular, they said that they were not consulted enough during the nomination process and that many cabinet nominees lacked the professional backgrounds necessary to do their jobs. However, ethnic politics were also in play, raising questions about whether lawmakers were primarily interested in being partisan defenders of their own ethnic constituencies, though many denied that that was a factor. [continued…]

Chinese evade U.S. sanctions on Iran

Chinese evade U.S. sanctions on Iran
By Peter Fritsch, Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2010

Chinese companies banned from doing business in the U.S. for allegedly selling missile technology to Iran continue to do a brisk trade with American companies, according to an analysis of shipping records.

A unit of state-owned China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corp., for example, has made nearly 300 illegal shipments to U.S. firms since a ban was imposed on CPMIEC and its affiliates in mid-2006, according to an analysis of shipping records by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a nonprofit proliferation watchdog.

A Wall Street Journal review of the records and interviews with officials at some of the American companies indicate that the U.S. firms likely were unaware they were doing business with banned entities, and in many cases were tripped up by altered company names. [continued…]

Over 700 killed in 44 drone strikes in 2009

Over 700 killed in 44 drone strikes in 2009
Dawn, January 2, 2010

Of the 44 predator strikes carried out by US drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan over the past 12 months, only five were able to hit their actual targets, killing five key Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, but at the cost of over 700 innocent civilians.

According to the statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities, the Afghanistan-based US drones killed 708 people in 44 predator attacks targeting the tribal areas between January 1 and December 31, 2009.

For each Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist killed by US drones, 140 innocent Pakistanis also had to die. Over 90 per cent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians, claim authorities. [continued…]

Taliban: CIA attack was retaliation for drone strikes
By Anand Gopal, Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2010

A senior commander connected to the Afghan Taliban and involved with the attack against the CIA that left eight people dead said Saturday that the bombing was retaliation for U.S. drone strikes in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.

“We attacked this base because the team there was organizing drone strikes in Loya Paktia and surrounding area,” the commander said, referring to the area around Khost, the city where the U.S. facility was attacked. The commander, a prominent member of the Afghan insurgency, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The suicide attack, which dealt the biggest loss to the agency in more than 25 years, killed a woman who was the station chief along with six other CIA officers and one private security contractor. [continued…]

CIA attacker driven in from Pakistan
By Aleem Agha and Nick Schifrin, ABC News, January 2, 2010

The suicide bomber who killed at least six Central Intelligence Agency officers in a base along the Afghan-Pakistan border on Wednesday was a regular CIA informant who had visited the same base multiple times in the past, according to someone close to the base’s security director.

The informant was a Pakistani and a member of the Wazir tribe from the Pakistani tribal area North Waziristan, according to the same source. The base security director, an Afghan named Arghawan, would pick up the informant at the Ghulam Khan border crossing and drive him about two hours into Forward Operating Base Chapman, from where the CIA operates. [continued…]

Wade Davis on endangered cultures

Wade Davis on endangered cultures
Wade Davis, TED Talks, February, 2003

You know, one of the intense pleasures of travel and one of the delights of ethnographic research is the opportunity to live amongst those who have not forgotten the old ways, who still feel their past in the wind, touch it in stones polished by rain, taste it in the bitter leaves of plants. Just to know that Jaguar shamans still journey beyond the Milky Way, or the myths of the Inuit elders still resonate with meaning, or that in the Himalaya, the Buddhists still pursue the breath of the Dharma, is to really remember the central revelation of anthropology, and that is the idea that the world in which we live in does not exist in some absolute sense, but is just one model of reality, the consequence of one particular set of adaptive choices that our lineage made, albeit successfully, many generations ago.

And of course, we all share the same adaptive imperatives. We’re all born. We all bring our children into the world. We go through initiation rites. We have to deal with the inexorable separation of death, so it shouldn’t surprise us that we all sing, we all dance, we all have art.

But what’s interesting is the unique cadence of the song, the rhythm of the dance in every culture. And whether it is the Penan in the forests of Borneo, or the Voodoo acolytes in Haiti, or the warriors in the Kaisut desert of Northern Kenya, the Curandero in the mountains of the Andes, or a caravanserai in the middle of the Sahara. This is incidentally the fellow that I travelled into the desert with a month ago, or indeed a yak herder in the slopes of Qomolangma, Everest, the goddess mother of the world.

All of these peoples teach us that there are other ways of being, other ways of thinking, other ways of orienting yourself in the Earth. And this is an idea, if you think about it, can only fill you with hope. Now, together the myriad cultures of the world make up a web of spiritual life and cultural life that envelops the planet, and is as important to the well-being of the planet as indeed is the biological web of life that you know as a biosphere. And you might think of this cultural web of life as being an ethnosphere and you might define the ethnosphere as being the sum total of all thoughts and dreams, myths, ideas, inspirations, intuitions brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness. The ethnosphere is humanity’s great legacy. It’s the symbol of all that we are and all that we can be as an astonishingly inquisitive species.

Iran’s younger, smarter revolution

Iran’s younger, smarter revolution
By Hamid Dabashi, The Daily Beast, January 2, 2010

The paramount question these days, six months into the making of the Green Movement, is will the Islamic republic fall? Is this yet another revolution in the making, like the one we saw in 1979? Or will the military apparatus of the Islamic republic crash through the streets of Tehran and other cities like a fully charged armadillo and turn Iran into a theocratic dictatorship, ruled by a military junta like Pakistan, clad in an ideological fanaticism borrowed and expanded from Mullah Omar and the Afghan Taliban?

For the last six months and since Day One of this uprising, lovingly code-named the Green Movement (Jonbesh-e Sabz), I have consistently called and continue to call it a civil-rights movement. This does not mean I am blind to its revolutionary potentials, violent dimensions, or destructive forces. It does not mean that the Islamic republic may not, or should not, fall. I keep calling it a civil-rights movement because I believe that the underlying social changes that have caused and continue to condition this movement are hidden behind a political smoke screen. As our attention is distracted by the politics of the moment, I have kept my ears to the ground listening to the subterranean sounds and tremors of an earth holding some 200 years of an anti-colonial modernity in it sinuous silences.

Beyond the pale and patience of politics, and the attention span of a Twitter phrase, I have called this a civil-rights movement because I see something in that polyclonal green that defies augury. That color green is a sign that signals and means many things to many people, and no one is entirely in charge to legislate or regulate or incarcerate exactly what. [continued…]

Turning point: Where is the Green Movement headed?
By Muhammad Sahimi, Tehran Bureau, January 2, 2010

The funeral of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri on Dec. 21, and the Ashura demonstrations on Dec. 27, marked a turning point for Iran’s democratic movement. The demonstrations showed that even after a violent six-month crackdown on peaceful protesters, political figures, journalists, and human right advocates, the Green Movement has not been weakened, but that it has strengthened and expanded to many cities and towns around the country. This is already a significant victory for the Green Movement. The question is: where is the Green Movement going to go from here?

First off, let’s be realistic. Many Iranians would like to believe that the hardline regime is in its death throes. But such optimism must be tempered. The hardliners’ ability to maintain power through force has not been diminished and is likely to outlast the Islamic Republic’s crisis of legitimacy. The struggle for democracy in Iran is a Marathon, not a sprint. There is still a long way to go. [continued…]

5 myths about keeping America safe from terrorism

5 myths about keeping America safe from terrorism
By Stephen Flynn, Washington Post, January 3, 2010

With President Obama declaring a “systemic failure” of our security system in the wake of the attempted Christmas bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner, familiar arguments about what can and should be done to reduce America’s vulnerabilities are again filling the airwaves, editorial pages and blogosphere. Several of these arguments are based on assumptions that guided the U.S. response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — and unfortunately, they are as unfounded now as they were then. The biggest whopper of all? The paternalistic assertion that the government can keep us all safe without our help. [continued…]

The Yemen dilemma: what would Mr Bush have done?

The Yemen dilemma: what would Mr Bush have done?
By Tony Karon, The National, January 2, 2010

The rhetoric is different, but there has been more continuity than change in US foreign policy from George Bush’s second term to Barack Obama’s first.

The US is leaving Iraq on the terms laid down by Mr Bush’s Status of Forces Agreement with the Baghdad government. Mr Obama has opted for a troop surge in Afghanistan, just as Mr Bush would surely have done. Having accepted “no, but” as Israel’s answer to his settlement-freeze demand, Mr Obama is pursuing his predecessor’s policy of propping up the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and a hypothetical peace process while condoning Israel’s chokehold on Gaza and trying to marginalise Hamas.

So while “What would George Bush have done?” may seem like an odd place to start in discussing Mr Obama’s options over al Qa’eda in Yemen, the truth is that his positions on the key strategic challenges after a year in office are remarkably similar to those adopted by the man before.

The question is whether he will respond to the attempted bombing of a US airliner over Detroit by a Nigerian trained by al Qa’eda in Yemen with a military campaign like that launched by Mr Bush in Afghanistan after 9/11. [continued…]

Don’t lose perspective on Yemen
By Marc Lynch, Foreign Policy, January 2, 2010

The rush to partner with the Yemeni government to “tackle extremism”, as Gordon Brown says, illustrates the need to think carefully about the political dimension. The government of Ali Abdullah Saleh is to a great extent the problem, not the solution. Ever since Saleh recanted on his vow to not seek re-election and cheated his way to victory over Faisal bin Shamlan (who symbolically died this week), Yemen’s political system has taken a sharp turn for the worse. Corruption, always bad, has skyrocketed. So have human rights abuses and political repression, including a wide range of attacks on media freedoms. Heavy-handed security services have a lot to do with the outbreak and perpetuation of the Houthi rebellion; as Joost Hilterman points out, “the Houthi leadership has portrayed its position as purely defensive against acts of state oppression and attacks by the Yemeni army.” In short, partnering with the Yemeni government to provide honest, legitimate government may seem like a good response, but it is not likely to succeed. If you like working with Hamid Karzai, you’re going to love Ali Abdullah Saleh. [continued…]

Profile: Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
BBC, January 3, 2010

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was formed in January 2009 by a merger between two regional offshoots of the international Islamist militant network in neighbouring Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Led by a former aide to Osama Bin Laden , the group has vowed to attack oil facilities, foreigners and security forces as it seeks to topple the Saudi monarchy and Yemeni government, and establish an Islamic caliphate. [continued…]

US shuts embassy as al-Qaeda ‘plans attack in Yemen’
BBC, January 3, 2010

The US has indications that al-Qaeda is planning an attack in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, President Barack Obama’s top counter-terrorism adviser has said.

John Brennan was speaking after the US shut its embassy in Yemen. “We’re not going to take any chances,” he told the Associated Press news agency.

Britain also closed its embassy, after threats from an al-Qaeda offshoot which claimed a failed bomb plot in the US. [continued…]

Yemen’s deteriorating security, economy could fuel terrorism
By Christopher Boucek, Washington Post, January 2, 2010

Yemen’s problems are many, and some are already spreading beyond its borders. Security and stability are deteriorating. The population is growing rapidly. The economy is collapsing. There are few good options today; things will look worse tomorrow. Immediate and sustained international attention is needed to at least lessen the impact of some problems.

Yemen is a weak state with little history of central government control. The government’s first priorities have been a civil war in the north and a growing secessionist movement in the south; lower on the list has been confronting al-Qaeda, which is now resurgent. The government does not fully control all territory, nor does it have the authority or capacity to adequately deliver social services in many rural areas. Organizations inspired or directed by al-Qaeda have sought refuge in undergoverned spaces.

Spending is not directed toward the root causes of instability but toward war costs, accelerating the economic collapse. [continued…]

The iron wall

The iron wall
By Uri Avnery, Gush Shalom, January 2, 2010

Egypt considers itself as the leader of the Arab world. It is the most populous Arab country, situated at the center of the Arab world. Fifty years ago the president of Egypt, Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, was the idol of all the Arabs, especially of the Palestinians. How can Egypt collaborate with the “Zionist enemy”, as Egyptians called Israel then, in bringing 1.5 million brother Arabs to their knees?

Until recently, the Egyptian government had been sticking to a solution that exemplifies the 6000-year old Egyptian political acumen. It participated in the blockade but closed its eyes to the hundreds of tunnels dug under the Egyptian-Gaza border, through which the daily supplies for the population were flowing (for exorbitant prices, and with high profits for Egyptian merchants), together with the stream of arms. People also passed through them – from Hamas activists to brides.

This is about to change. Egypt has started building an iron wall – literally – along the full length of the Gaza border, consisting of steel pillars thrust deep into the ground, in order to block all tunnels. That will finally choke the inhabitants.

When the most extreme Zionist, Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky, wrote 80 years ago about erecting an “Iron Wall” against the Palestinians, he did not dream of Arabs doing just that. [continued…]

Gaza steel wall

Hamas urges clerics to reverse Gaza wall edict
Ma’an, January 3, 2010

Hamas on Sunday urged leading Islamic clerics in Egypt to reverse a recent edict supporting the construction of a metal wall cutting off smuggling tunnels under the border with the Gaza Strip.

It emerged late last week that scholars at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning, issued a fatwa in favor of the wall.

“It is one of Egypt’s legitimate rights to place a barrier that prevents the harm from the tunnels under Rafah, which are used to smuggle drugs and other [contraband] that threaten Egypt’s stability,” the newspaper Al-Masri Al-Yom quoted the scholars as saying, according to AFP.

“Those who oppose building this wall are violating the commands of Islamic law,” they added, after a meeting attended by Egypt’s top cleric Sheikh Muhammad Said Tantawi, who is a government appointee. [continued…]

Galloway Gaza convoy leaves Syria
Ma’an, January 3, 2010

A British-led aid convoy bound for the Gaza Strip is on its way to the Egyptian port of Al-Arish after departing Syria by boat, organizers said on Sunday.

The Viva Palestina convoy, led in part by firebrand British MP George Galloway, loaded 210 truckloads of food and medical supplies onto a ferry in the Syrian port of Latakia.

The group, which set out from London nearly a month ago and drove through Turkey and Syria, spent five days stranded in Jordan after Egypt denied it permission to travel to the Red Sea port of Nuweiba, insisting that aid convoys should transit through the port of Al-Arish, on the Mediterranean. [continued…]

Settlers, tell us, what do you think will happen?

Settlers, tell us, what do you think will happen?
By Gideon Levy, Haaretz, January 3, 2010

What constitutes the life of a settler? A house on the cheap; a standard of living above the national average; a job usually subsidized by the government; a fierce religious, nationalist, uncompromising conviction on the justness of his cause; a supportive, heavy-handed social environment; a highway system; transportation arrangements; socially enriching activities; and, at times, a life that comes with the risk of danger.

The settler goes to and from his home without seeing anything. He does not see his neighbors, he does not see the danger he exposes his children to, he does not see the moral baggage he carries on his back. He does not want to see all this, and an entire system surrounds him that makes life easy for him despite his blindness.

Some of the highways on which he drives are cleansed of Palestinians; he has never visited the neighboring villages, not one of whose names he would know were it not for traffic signs pointing in their direction. His teachers, functionaries and rabbis sketch out the scenery that is his world, leaving him no shred of doubt: the Arabs are terrorists, all of them are suspicious packages, and the Jews are allowed to do as they wish, for they are the lords of the land, and there is no other but they. [continued…]

By Anne Davies, Sydney Morning Herald, January 2, 2010

Just before Christmas, the US President, Barack Obama, signed into law one of his country’s biggest aid pledges of the year. It was bound not for Africa or any of the many struggling countries on the World Bank’s list.

It was a deal for $US2.77 billion ($3 billion) to go to Israel in 2010 and a total of $US30 billion over the next decade.

Israel is bound by the agreement to use 75 per cent of the aid to buy military hardware made in the US: in the crisis-racked US economy, those military factories are critical to many towns. [continued…]

From the Cairo Speech to the Cairo Declaration

From the Cairo Speech to the Cairo Declaration
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, January 2, 2010

In early June last year, after Barack Obama gave his Cairo speech, the think tanks in Washington were abuzz as analysts could barely contain their excitement at witnessing the new Democratic president making history.

“The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop,” Obama boldly declared in front of a youthful Egyptian audience giddy with hope inspired by the lofty oratory of America’s visionary leader.

When the embodiment of hope, invested with the authority of the White House, spoke, the world listened.

Six months later Obama’s authority seems to mean nothing and his words of hope have been soured by their apparent lack of authenticity.

Now comes the Cairo Declaration.

A few hundred activists whose hope of breaking the siege of Gaza got squashed like a bug under the heals of Egypt’s security forces, have signed a declaration. Will the world pay much attention?

Maybe not. But what the Gaza Freedom March lacks in authority it makes up for with authenticity and this — not political office — is ultimately what gives language its power.

End Israeli Apartheid
Cairo Declaration
January 1, 2010

We, international delegates meeting in Cairo during the Gaza Freedom March 2009 in collective response to an initiative from the South African delegation, state:

In view of:

* Israel’s ongoing collective punishment of Palestinians through the illegal occupation and siege of Gaza;
* the illegal occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the continued construction of the illegal Apartheid Wall and settlements;
* the new Wall under construction by Egypt and the US which will tighten even further the siege of Gaza;
* the contempt for Palestinian democracy shown by Israel, the US, Canada, the EU and others after the Palestinian elections of 2006;
* the war crimes committed by Israel during the invasion of Gaza one year ago;
* the continuing discrimination and repression faced by Palestinians within Israel;
* and the continuing exile of millions of Palestinian refugees;
* all of which oppressive acts are based ultimately on the Zionist ideology which underpins Israel;
* in the knowledge that our own governments have given Israel direct economic, financial, military and diplomatic support and allowed it to behave with impunity;
* and mindful of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (2007)

We reaffirm our commitment to:

Palestinian Self-Determination
Ending the Occupation
Equal Rights for All within historic Palestine
The full Right of Return for Palestinian refugees

We therefore reaffirm our commitment to the United Palestinian call of July 2005 for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to compel Israel to comply with international law.

To that end, we call for and wish to help initiate a global mass, democratic anti-apartheid movement to work in full consultation with Palestinian civil society to implement the Palestinian call for BDS.

Mindful of the many strong similarities between apartheid Israel and the former apartheid regime in South Africa, we propose:

1) An international speaking tour in the first 6 months of 2010 by Palestinian and South African trade unionists and civil society activists, to be joined by trade unionists and activists committed to this programme within the countries toured, to take mass education on BDS directly to the trade union membership and wider public internationally;

2) Participation in the Israeli Apartheid Week in March 2010;

3) A systematic unified approach to the boycott of Israeli products, involving consumers, workers and their unions in the retail, warehousing, and transportation sectors;

4) Developing the Academic, Cultural and Sports boycott;

5) Campaigns to encourage divestment of trade union and other pension funds from companies directly implicated in the Occupation and/or the Israeli military industries;

6) Legal actions targeting the external recruitment of soldiers to serve in the Israeli military, and the prosecution of Israeli government war criminals; coordination of Citizen’s Arrest Bureaux to identify, campaign and seek to prosecute Israeli war criminals; support for the Goldstone Report and the implementation of its recommendations;

7) Campaigns against charitable status of the Jewish National Fund (JNF).

We appeal to organisations and individuals committed to this declaration to sign it and work with us to make it a reality. Continue reading →

Simultaneous solidarity marches held on northern and southern borders of Gaza Strip

Simultaneous solidarity marches held on northern and southern borders of Gaza Strip
By Saed Bannoura, IMEMC, January 1, 2010

A s a group of Israeli peace activists gathered near the Erez crossing on the northern border of the Gaza Strip, 1200 international activists with the ‘Gaza Freedom March’ held a rally in Cairo to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Israeli invasion of Gaza. The Cairo march was attacked by Egyptian police, injuring several demonstrators.

After over 1200 international delegates with the ‘Gaza Freedom March’ were denied entry into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday (100 members of the delegation were allowed to enter), the group organized a protest march and rally in Cairo Thursday, which was attacked by Egyptian riot police. [continued…]

the reluctant radical
By Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss, January 2, 2010

There was very little discussion of political ideas, and what Mick offered was pithy and inspiring: We were here because it was “an obscenity in the 21st century” that the people of Gaza did not have the freedom to come and go. The walls had come down in Berlin and South Africa, they must come down here.

A lot of the questions were about violence. The Egyptians had shown little appetite for hurting westerners, but you did not know. And what if you felt uncomfortable with the idea of being arrested or clubbed? “The demonstration is for everyone,” Mick said. “There’s always the option of walking away and saying, enough is enough.” Those who wanted to observe and support could do that. There would not be “a scintilla” of pressure on anyone to do what they did not want to do.

Sitting on the stairwell, I wondered what I was doing there. The jammed space had a romance, an air of the many freedom marches before this; and the word “provocateurs” was redolent of socialist activism. I’m not a radical, but a left/liberal; the doorways for my engagement here was not solidarity with suffering people but good old self interest: my concerns about American militarism in the Middle East and Zionism in Jewish life. And yet here I was; and it occurred to me that certain injustices become so disturbing to some people, to their understanding of history, that they must take a stand, and are willing to make great sacrifices to do so; and in that sense I was also a radical, if a reluctant one. [continued…]

The role of place in the world

The role of place in the world
By Harm de Blij, Los Angeles Times, October 26, 2009

In recent years, the notion that the world, if not flat, is rapidly flattening as a result of the forces of globalization has gained currency to the point of becoming a platitude. So mobile, so interconnected, so integrated is this new world that historic barriers are no more, interaction is global, ever-freer trade rules the globe, the flow of ideas (and money and jobs) accelerates by the day, and choice, not constraint, is the canon of the converted. Join the “forces of flattening” and you will reap the benefits, say Thomas Friedman and others who advance this point of view. Don’t, and you will fall off the edge. The option is yours.

But is it? In truth, though the world has changed dramatically in the last 50 years, we are still parachuted into places so different that the common ground of globalization has just the thinnest of topsoil. One of some 7,000 languages will become our “mother tongue”; only a small minority of us will have the good fortune of being raised in a version of English, the primary language of globalization. One of tens of thousands of religious denominations is likely to transmit the indoctrination most of us will carry for life. A combination of genetic and environmental conditions defines health prospects that still vary widely around the planet. [continued…]

Standoff in Iran deepens with new show of force

Standoff in Iran deepens with new show of force
By Michael Slackman, New York Times, January 2, 2010

Iranian authorities sent police officers into the streets to deter protests on Friday as Mir Hussein Moussavi, the principal opposition leader, said in a statement that he did not fear giving his life as “a martyr.”

The continuing show of force in the capital and Mr. Moussavi’s declaration, in which he said that even killing him would not end the unrest, were part of a day of charges, countercharges and warnings from both sides, illustrating the deep divisions that have emerged since Iran’s political crisis began six months ago.

The government and its hard-line supporters continued to rely on force, and the threat of force, to quell protests and demand loyalty, while the opposition refused to back down. There was no indication that compromise was on the agenda. [continued…]

Chinese-made armored anti-riot trucks, equipped with plows, may arrive in Tehran
Los Angeles Times, January 1, 2010

An opposition news website is reporting that Iran has imported high-tech armored anti-riot vehicles equipped with water cannons that can douse people with boiling water or teargas.

The U.S.-based Persian-language news website Rahesabz, or Green Path, posted a photograph of what it described as a photograph of two of the trucks arriving at the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas in the south.

Iran-trucks3 The website said the vehicles were a rush order from their manufacturers in China, Dalian Eagle-Sky, according to the blogger Sohrebestan. [continued…]

Neocons worried that sanctions might not kill enough innocent Iranians
By Daniel Luban, Antiwar.com, December 30, 2009

Wednesday’s Washington Post contains a rundown of the Obama administration’s current thinking on Iran sanctions. The bottom line: administration officials are increasingly open to sanctions, but want to find ways to target the Revolutionary Guard and other hardline elements within the regime without inflicting needless suffering on the civilian population. For that reason, the administration shows “little apparent interest in legislation racing through Congress that would punish companies that sell refined petroleum to Iran,” whose brunt would be borne by the most vulnerable segments of the populace. (”Look, we need to be honest about this,” neoconservative foreign policy guru Fred Kagan admitted this spring. “Iranians are going to die if we impose additional sanctions.”)

Even these more finely targeted sanctions appear to be more than the Iranian opposition desires. Spencer Ackerman, in his useful discussion of the Green Movement’s position on sanctions, notes that some elements of the opposition have come to view sanctions that specifically target the Revolutionary Guards in a more favorable light, but it appears that most continue to oppose sanctions in any form. (And of course, it appears that virtually no one in the Green Movement supports refined petroleum sanctions, which opposition leaders have repeatedly denounced.) [continued…]

Iran warns West it will make its own nuclear fuel
AP, January 2, 2010

Iran set a one-month deadline Saturday for the West to accept its counterproposal to a U.N.-drafted nuclear plan and warned that otherwise it will produce reactor fuel at a higher level of enrichment on its own.

The warning was a show of defiance and a hardening of Iran’s stance over its nuclear program, which the West fears masks an effort to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Tehran insists its program is only for peaceful purposes, such as electricity production, and says it has no intention of making a bomb.

”We have given them an ultimatum. There is one month left and that is by the end of January,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, speaking on state television. [continued…]

Different Taliban groups claim role in Afghanistan bombing

Different Taliban groups claim role in Afghanistan bombing
By Alissa J Rubin, New York Times, January 2, 2010

Both Afghan and Pakistani Taliban groups claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing this week that killed eight Americans — seven of them C.I.A. officers — suggesting that the attack was viewed as a success and could be used to gain recruits and financial support.

The competing claims, made Thursday and Friday, did little to clarify the circumstances of the attack, as each group offered a different account of how the C.I.A. base in Khost Province, in southeastern Afghanistan, had been infiltrated on Wednesday.

The Afghan Taliban said the suicide bomber was a disillusioned Afghan National Army soldier, supporting accounts from NATO officials that the attacker was wearing a uniform over his suicide vest.

The Pakistani Taliban said the attacker was someone the C.I.A. had recruited to work with them, who then offered the militants his services as a double agent. [continued…]

Intel officer: CIA officers’ deaths will be avenged
CNN, December 31, 2009

An American intelligence official vowed Thursday that the United States would avenge a suspected terrorist attack on a U.S. base in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of seven CIA officers.

Two of those killed were contractors with private security firm Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, a former intelligence official told CNN. The CIA considers contractors to be officers. [continued…]

CIA caught in dirty and secretive war against al-Qaeda on Afghan border
By Tom Coghlan, The Times, January 1, 2010

It was an operation by what are euphemistically called “other government agencies” that was alleged to have killed a number of students in Kunar province on Saturday, causing widespread anger in Afghanistan.

CIA-led night raids such as this have proved controversial before. A UN-commissioned report last year from Philip Alston, director of the New York Centre for Human Rights, claimed that such raids raised issues under humanitarian and international law.

The report criticised the “opaque” use of ultra-secretive CIA units operating alongside irregular Afghan militias such as the Pashai.

Professor Alston complained that many raids were “composed of Afghans but with a handful, at most, of international people directing it” and were “not accountable to any international military authority”.

Such units answer directly to the Pentagon rather than to the Nato command structure, and their operations are often so secretive that even other US forces operating nearby are sometimesmay be unaware of them. [continued…]

The Genesis 2.0 Project

The Genesis 2.0 Project
By Kurt Anderson, Vanity Fair, January, 2010

Among the defining attributes of now are ever tinier gadgets, ever shorter attention spans, and the privileging of marketplace values above all. Life is manically parceled into financial quarters, three-minute YouTube videos, 140-character tweets. In my pocket is a phone/computer/camera/video recorder/TV/stereo system half the size of a pack of Marlboros. And what about pursuing knowledge purely for its own sake, without any real thought of, um, monetizing it? Cute.

And so in our hyper-capitalist flibbertigibbet day and age, the new Large Hadron Collider, buried about 330 feet beneath the Swiss-French border, near Geneva, is a bizarre outlier.

The L.H.C., which operates under the auspices of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French acronym, cern, is an almost unimaginably long-term project. It was conceived a quarter-century ago, was given the green light in 1994, and has been under construction for the last 13 years, the product of tens of millions of man-hours. It’s also gargantuan: a circular tunnel 17 miles around, punctuated by shopping-mall-size subterranean caverns and fitted out with more than $9 billion worth of steel and pipe and cable more reminiscent of Jules Verne than Steve Jobs.

The believe-it-or-not superlatives are so extreme and Tom Swiftian they make you smile. The L.H.C. is not merely the world’s largest particle accelerator but the largest machine ever built. At the center of just one of the four main experimental stations installed around its circumference, and not even the biggest of the four, is a magnet that generates a magnetic field 100,000 times as strong as Earth’s. And because the super-conducting, super-colliding guts of the collider must be cooled by 120 tons of liquid helium, inside the machine it’s one degree colder than outer space, thus making the L.H.C. the coldest place in the universe. [continued…]