February 2010

Two Dubai murder suspects entered the US

by Paul Woodward 02.28.2010

A murder suspect, traveling as an Irishman Evan Dennings, entered the US on January 21, a day after Mahmoud al Mabhouh’s body was discovered in Dubai. Roy Allan Cannon, entered the US on February 14. The Wall Street Journal reports: At least two of the 26 suspects sought by Dubai police for the alleged killing [...]

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Mossad returns to its ‘glory days’

by Paul Woodward 02.28.2010

The Times reports: Would you be prepared to cross-dress? And kill a guest in an adjacent hotel room? If the answer to these questions is a resounding “yes”, and you can also act, enjoy luxury international travel with a twist and can carry off a convincing Irish or Australian accent, then the job could be [...]

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Is Israel really prepared to go it alone?

by Paul Woodward 02.28.2010

Reuters reports: Israel’s perspective on Iran’s nuclear program differs from that of the United States, and the two may part ways on what action to take, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Friday. Washington’s clout over its Middle East ally is under scrutiny after Israel’s veiled threats to attack Iran preemptively if international diplomacy [...]

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Moussavi says Iran is ruled by a dictatorial ‘cult’

by Paul Woodward 02.28.2010

The New York Times reports: One of Iran’s opposition leaders, Mir Hussein Moussavi, said Saturday that a dictatorial “cult” was ruling Iran — one of his most critical statements against the country’s rulers since disputed elections last summer. “This is the rule of a cult that has hijacked the concept of Iranianism and nationalism,” Mr. [...]

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In Pakistan lack of opportunity fuels radicalism

by Paul Woodward 02.28.2010

The New York Times on how talent, stripped of opportunity, is feeding radicalism in Pakistan: Umar Kundi was his parents’ pride, an ambitious young man from a small town who made it to medical school in the big city. It seemed like a story of working-class success, living proof in this unequal society that a [...]

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Twenty-seven years of solitary confinement

by Paul Woodward 02.28.2010

In the United States it isn’t just suspected terrorists who are subject to cruel and unusual punishment. The case of Tommy Silverstein highlights the extremes that can be found inside the largest prison system in the world: Tommy Silverstein has been held in solitary confinement for the past 27 years, longer than anyone else in [...]

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Can the US afford not to help in the Dubai murder investigation?

by Paul Woodward 02.28.2010

On Thursday, the US State Department spokesmen P J Crowley was called on to break the US silence regarding the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh: QUESTION: …has there been any comment on the apparent assassination in Dubai? Is that something the U.S. has weighed in on? MR. CROWLEY: I don’t think we’ve weighed in on it. [...]

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The attrition of bravery

by Paul Woodward 02.27.2010

In Shakespeare’s Henry V, as the Battle of Agincourt is about to commence, the king addresses his men — “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers” — heavily outnumbered by the French and facing the risk of imminent slaughter. Henry — a king who fights with his men and doesn’t simply issue commands [...]

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The rise of militainment

by Paul Woodward 02.27.2010

At Foreign Policy, P W Singer writes: The country of Ghanzia is embroiled in a civil war. As a soldier in America’s Army, your job is to do everything from protect U.S. military convoys against AK-47-wielding attackers to sneak up on a mountain observatory where arms dealers are hiding out. It is a tough and [...]

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Marjah: Success for the military, hell for the residents

by Paul Woodward 02.27.2010

At GlobalPost, Jean MacKenzie and Mohammad Ilyas Dayee write: The dusty squares of Marjah are empty; there is no life, the soul of the place seems to have disappeared. Those residents who are left cower in their homes, afraid of bullets or mines if they venture out, even for food. “It is a small picture [...]

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US can’t get no satisfaction from Syria and Iran

by Paul Woodward 02.27.2010

At his blog, Syria Comment, Joshua Landis writes: President Bashar al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was in Damascus today, threw down the gauntlet. Only the day before Hilary Clinton warned Syria “to begin to move away from the relationship with Iran,” and stop supporting Hizbullah, Hamas, and ex-Baathists in Iraq. For several years, Syria has [...]

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The attack on climate-change science

by Paul Woodward 02.27.2010

At TomDispatch, Bill McKibben writes: Twenty-one years ago, in 1989, I wrote what many have called the first book for a general audience on global warming. One of the more interesting reviews came from the Wall Street Journal. It was a mixed and judicious appraisal. “The subject,” the reviewer said, “is important, the notion is [...]

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What the new London embassy says about America

by Paul Woodward 02.27.2010

At Foreign Policy, Stephen Walt writes: Back in the fall of 2003, I was in London for an conference and I took a stroll around the neighborhood near my hotel. At one point I turned a corner and saw a massive, looming building, surrounded with various barriers and fences and looking for all the world [...]

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Mossad tries to restore its images

by Paul Woodward 02.26.2010

Even among Israelis who welcomed news of the assassination of the Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, there must have been growing disquiet that the faces of so many Mossad operatives would have since become so widely known. So much exposure for a clandestine operation has to be bad, doesn’t it? It now appears that Mossad has [...]

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Do you have to be Jewish to report on Israel for the New York Times?

by Paul Woodward 02.26.2010

Jonathan Cook, writing at Mondoweiss, provides some fascinating insights into the reasons for the entrenched bias in Western reporting on Israel-Palestine conflict. He explains why the case of Eitan (“Ethan”) Bronner — the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief whose son’s enrollment in the Israeli army recently provoked a brief debate inside the newspaper about [...]

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The Dubai-Payoneer connection

by Paul Woodward 02.25.2010

As I noted below, the New York-based company Payoneer is linked to Israel in a number of ways, not least through it’s Israeli CEO, Yuval Tal, a former member of an elite combat unit of the Israel Defense Forces and former Vice President of Business Development for the Tel Aviv-based technology company, Radware. Tal describes [...]

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Dubai money trail leads back to Israel

by Paul Woodward 02.24.2010

Although the Israeli government has yet to confirm its role in the murder of Mahmoud al Mabhouh, the Dubai police have provided further evidence through financial records that connect the crime to Israel. The company Payoneer Inc., based in New York, has been named in the case – a company that helps facilitate Taglit-Birthright Israel [...]

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Dubai police name new suspects in Hamas murder

by Paul Woodward 02.24.2010

Gulf News reports: Police revealed 15 more suspects in the Al Mabhouh murder case on Wednesday. The extensive investigation has led to a total of 26 suspects so far involved in the murder of the Hamas official Mahmoud Al Mabhouh at a Dubai hotel. In addition to the previously released list of 11 suspects, Dubai [...]

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Turkey arrests the alleged ringleaders of the Sledgehammer coup plot

by Paul Woodward 02.24.2010

Today’s Zaman reports: The latest wave of detentions of nearly 50 retired and active duty military personnel as part of an investigation into the Sledgehammer coup plot, allegedly devised by the military to overthrow the government, has put those who strongly denied the authenticity of the plot when it was first made public in a [...]

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Peres shown bowing to Erdogan

by Paul Woodward 02.24.2010

In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais, published on Monday, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the Davos incident in which he clashed with Israel’s President Shimon Peres a year ago soon after Israel’s war on Gaza, led to a new Turkish approach to foreign policy. “That opened a new approach [...]

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Turkey reins in its renegade generals

by Paul Woodward 02.23.2010

The most determined challenge to military political power in Turkey in decades is being reported in much of the Western media as a struggle between an Islamist government and the forces of secularism. Bulent Kenes, a columnist for Turkey’s Today’s Zaman, frames the issue much more starkly: this is a struggle between civilian and military [...]

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Pakistani reports capture of a Taliban leader

by Paul Woodward 02.23.2010

The New York Times reports: In another blow to the Taliban senior leadership, Pakistani authorities have captured Mullah Abdul Kabir, a member of the group’s inner circle and a leading military commander against American forces in eastern Afghanistan, according to a Pakistani intelligence official. American officials in the region and in Washington said they had [...]

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Can speech constitute terrorism?

by Paul Woodward 02.23.2010

Shayana Kadidal, a senior managing attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, lays out the issues in fron of the Supreme Court today in a case that asks whether political speech – writing an op-ed for, or teaching nonviolent conflict resolution to a group on the government’s blacklists – can constitute a crime of terrorism [...]

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Netanyahu faces double intifada from Palestinians and settlers

by Paul Woodward 02.23.2010

In Haaretz, Aluf Benn writes: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is busy day and night, preparing Israel for a fateful confrontation with Iran. But his real problem may occur elsewhere. The territories are heating up, with the Palestinians escalating their protests against the settlements and the separation fence. The settlers, meanwhile, can smell Netanyahu’s weakness and [...]

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