February 2010

Obama’s take-no-prisoners approach

by Paul Woodward 02.14.2010

A year ago, when President Obama signed his executive order to close Guantanamo he said: “the message we are sending around the world is that the United States intends to prosecute the ongoing struggle against violence and terrorism, and we are going to do so vigilantly; we are going to do so effectively; and we [...]

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Keep chewing that qat Mr Friedman — but spare us the visions

by Paul Woodward 02.14.2010

Tom Friedman, refreshed and inspired by his recent jaunt to Yemen, writes: I believe the only way the forces of 1979 can be rolled back would be with another equally big bang — a new popular movement that is truly reformist, democratizing, open to the world, yet anchored in Muslim culture, not disconnected. Our best [...]

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The new McCarthyism sweeping Israel

by Paul Woodward 02.13.2010

The Independent reports: It’s hard, sitting on the other side of the office table from which Naomi Chazan is picking at her modest hummus and salad snack lunch, to believe that the amiable 63-year-old university professor with a self-deprecating sense of humour has suddenly become the most discussed, not to say demonised, woman in Israel. [...]

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Obama’s secret prisons in Afghanistan endanger us all

by Paul Woodward 02.12.2010

Johann Hari writes: Osama Bin Laden’s favourite son, Omar, recently abandoned his father’s cave in favor of spending his time dancing and drooling in the nightclubs of Damascus. The tang of freedom almost always trumps Islamist fanaticism in the end: three million people abandoned the Puritan hell of Taliban Afghanistan for freer countries, while only [...]

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New light cast on the recent murder of an Iranian physicist

by Paul Woodward 02.12.2010

The Economist reports: When a motorcycle was blown up by remote control in Tehran last month, killing Masoud Alimohammadi, a professor of physics, the regime blamed “the triangle of wickedness”—Israel, America and their “hired agents”. It is no secret that America, Israel and European countries are seeking to impede Iran’s nuclear plans, overtly and covertly. [...]

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Atomic agency views Iran’s stepped-up enrichment of uranium as a violation

by Paul Woodward 02.12.2010

The New York Times reported: Iran’s surprise move this week to begin enriching its uranium to a level closer to weapons-grade violated an agreement with atomic inspectors in Vienna, diplomats said, very likely providing the United States with another piece of evidence that Iran is not living up to its international commitments on its nuclear [...]

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How the Obama administration ended up where Franklin Roosevelt began

by Paul Woodward 02.12.2010

At TomDispatch, Steve Fraser writes: On March 4, 1933, the day he took office, Franklin Roosevelt excoriated the “money changers” who “have fled from their high seats in the temples of our civilization [because...] they know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision and where there is no vision, the [...]

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Former boy soldier, youngest Guantanamo detainee, heads toward military tribunal

by Paul Woodward 02.12.2010

The Washington Post reported: Omar Khadr, the youngest detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was 15 when he allegedly threw a grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces medic in Afghanistan. Now, more than seven years later, Khadr is drawing the Obama administration into a fierce debate over the propriety of putting a child soldier on [...]

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The 700 military bases of Afghanistan

by Paul Woodward 02.12.2010

Nick Turse writes: In the nineteenth century, it was a fort used by British forces. In the twentieth century, Soviet troops moved into the crumbling facilities. In December 2009, at this site in the Shinwar district of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province, U.S. troops joined members of the Afghan National Army in preparing the way for the [...]

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Pakistan is said to pursue role in U.S.-Afghan talks

by Paul Woodward 02.12.2010

The New York Times reported: Pakistan has told the United States it wants a central role in resolving the Afghan war and has offered to mediate with Taliban factions who use its territory and have long served as its allies, American and Pakistani officials said. The offer, aimed at preserving Pakistan’s influence in Afghanistan once [...]

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Iraq orders former Blackwater security guards out

by Paul Woodward 02.12.2010

The Associated Press reported: Iraq has ordered hundreds of private security guards linked to Blackwater Worldwide to leave the country within seven days or face possible arrest on visa violations, the interior minister said Wednesday. The order comes in the wake of a U.S. judge’s dismissal of criminal charges against five Blackwater guards who were [...]

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Maliki faulted on using army in Iraqi politics

by Paul Woodward 02.12.2010

The New York Times reports: The Iraqi Army’s Fourth Division cordoned off the provincial council building here overnight on Tuesday and showed no sign on Wednesday of leaving. It was the latest in a series of actions by the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki that have infuriated his political opponents, while raising doubts [...]

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Gaza: BBC takes Obama to the streets

by Paul Woodward 02.12.2010

Mariam Hamed writes: “[After] one year of Obama… What has changed?” The BBC has raised this question 430 times in banners featuring U.S. President Barack Obama in key locations across Gaza. The banners confront Gazans on morning and evening commutes, and as a result Obama has become the talk of the town. Gaza’s BBC correspondent [...]

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Iran hails nuclear advance on Revolution Day

by Paul Woodward 02.11.2010

Australia’s ABC News reported: Hundreds of thousands of people have rallied across Iran to make the anniversary of the country’s Islamic revolution. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used a massive pro-government rally in Tehran to boast that the Islamic republic is now a nuclear state and on the brink of having the means to produce weapons grade [...]

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In Iran ‘a big anticlimax’ for Green movement

by Paul Woodward 02.11.2010

From Tehran Bureau on protests that were anticipated to coincide with today’s anniversary of the revolution in Iran: Everyone we have spoken to so far this morning has said about the same thing — in a word or two: “A big anticlimax,” “defeat,” “An overwhelming presence from the other side. People were terrified.” In fact, [...]

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The transformation of ‘anti-Semitism’

by Paul Woodward 02.11.2010

In recent years, right-wing Israeli political leaders and their supporters have warned of the rise of a “new anti-Semitism”, rife across Europe and in left-wing political circles. The new anti-Semites are critics of Israel. They don’t target Jews; they target the Jewish state. (I say “they” but of course I should say “we” because I [...]

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White House ‘deeply disappointed’ after British court upholds the law. Judge says MI5 operates ‘culture of suppression’

by Paul Woodward 02.11.2010

The story of Binyam Mohamed is probably one of the most under-reported stories of the war on terrorism — it has still only partially been told. If, as the former Guantanamo prisoner alleges, he had his genitals sliced with a scalpel after being captured by the US, then the defenders of so-called “harsh interrogation techniques” [...]

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Iran plans to get one small step away from producing weapons-grade nuclear fuel

by Paul Woodward 02.10.2010

Iran’s formal notification on Monday to the IAEA that it is going to start producing 20 percent enriched uranium in order to supply its research reactor that produces medical isotopes, means that it will be taking a major stride towards producing weapons-grade fuel. The Washington Post reports: …enriching uranium under the guise of medical needs [...]

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Why the Rahm administration betrayed the Obama campaign

by Paul Woodward 02.10.2010

Zack Exley on why the Rahm administration betrayed the Obama campaign: Policy and political strategy in American politics have been completely divorced from one another. The political strategists who ran Obama’s campaign allowed him — or maybe it was just that kid Jon Favreau? — to run on a big, clear, inspiring mission: “A nation [...]

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The anti-Semitism card is turning worthless

by Paul Woodward 02.10.2010

Glenn Greenwald writes: What’s most striking about this attack [by literary editor of The New Republic, Leon Wieseltier, against Andrew Sullivan] is how inconsequential it is. It was once the case, not all that long ago, that an accusation of “anti-semitism” was the nuclear weapon of political debates, rendering most politicians and pundits (especially non-Jewish [...]

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Daylight robbery

by Paul Woodward 02.10.2010

Bloomberg: President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay. The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a [...]

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Real Zionists live in Israel

by Paul Woodward 02.10.2010

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to submit a bill in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, that would allow Israeli citizens to vote from outside the country. The Media Line reports: Currently only Israeli envoys and diplomats can vote from overseas. Israel’s Absorption Ministry estimates that around 750,000 Israeli citizens live outside the country, and in [...]

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Iran and the bomb — faster, please!

by Paul Woodward 02.09.2010

Considering the fact that the New York Times is in its Middle East outlook a predictably liberal Zionist newspaper, it’s often refreshing to see what kind of surprises occasionally pop up on the op-ed page. I dare say quite a few of the paper’s readers had heart palpitations on Monday morning after stumbling upon Adam [...]

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Jews can report on Palestinians, but the other way ’round?

by Paul Woodward 02.09.2010

Ali Abunimah reflects on the controversy surrounding Ethan Bronner, the New York Times‘ Jerusalem bureau chief whose son recently enrolled in the Israeli army: While Jews/Americans may report on Palestinians, the converse is not true. Why is this? It must be — I assume — because there is an inherent, perhaps unacknowledged assumption that an [...]

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