February 2010

U.S.: Easing Gaza siege would help counter Goldstone

by Paul Woodward 02.09.2010

Think of Gaza as a hospital patient whose lips have been stitched closed. Israeli doctors point to an IV drip and say: “Look. We are taking great care to make sure the patient stays alive.” American consultants suggest that it would really be better to remove a couple of stitches so that a tube can [...]

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Israel’s campaign against pro-Palestinian foreigners

by Paul Woodward 02.09.2010

How long will it be before Israeli immigration officers start asking every visitor whether they support Zionism? Australia’s ABC News reports on the latest arrests in an expanding campaign against foreign activists: The lawyer for an Australian woman arrested in the West Bank says her detention is part of a campaign by the Israeli government [...]

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Globalization is killing the globe: return to local economies

by Paul Woodward 02.09.2010

Thom Hartmann on how globalization has resulted in a new form of feudalism: Globalization is killing Europe, just as it’s already wiped out much of the American middle class. Spain and Greece are facing immediate crises that many other European nations see on the near horizon: aging boomer workers are retiring with healthy benefit packages, [...]

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The world capital of killing

by Paul Woodward 02.09.2010

Nicholas Kristof writes from Congo: It’s easy to wonder how world leaders, journalists, religious figures and ordinary citizens looked the other way while six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. And it’s even easier to assume that we’d do better. But so far the brutal war here in eastern Congo has not only lasted [...]

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What would Erik Prince advise?

by Paul Woodward 02.08.2010

The New York Times reports: An Iraqi militant group said it had abducted an American contractor, a day after the United States military reported that a contractor had been missing since Jan. 23. It would be the first reported kidnapping of an American in a year in Iraq. The militant group posted a video to [...]

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How the CIA became dumb and dangerous

by Paul Woodward 02.08.2010

Melvin A Goodman and Philip Giraldi — former CIA officers with decades of experience — both agree that the agency’s focus on paramilitary operations has undermined its core intelligence mission. Giraldi writes: It has been observed that no countries on the earth but the United States and Israel claim extraterritoriality, i.e. the right to seize [...]

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Can Obama take charge?

by Paul Woodward 02.08.2010

Paul Krugman describes the current crisis in Washington and its parallels with the collapse of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century: …given the state of American politics, the way the Senate works is no longer consistent with a functioning government. Senators themselves should recognize this fact and push through changes in those rules, [...]

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‘When Guantanamo walked in the door, Rahm walked out’

by Paul Woodward 02.08.2010

In her New Yorker piece on Attorney General Eric Holder and the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial, Jane Mayer describes White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel’s role in blocking the investigation of torture by the CIA: Emanuel viewed many of the legal problems that [Greg] Craig [Obama’s first White House counsel] and Holder were immersed [...]

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The apartheid will end when Israelis have to face its cost

by Paul Woodward 02.08.2010

At The National, Tony Karon wrote: The former US president Jimmy Carter set off a firestorm in 2006 when he said that Israel would have to choose between maintaining an apartheid occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and a two-state peace agreement with the Palestinians. That Mr Carter brokered Israel’s most important peace treaty [...]

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Iran ratchets up atom work despite sanctions threat

by Paul Woodward 02.08.2010

Reuters reports: Iran’s president gave instructions on Sunday for the production of higher-grade nuclear reactor fuel, prompting the United States and Germany to threaten carefully targeted new sanctions against Tehran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announcement raised the stakes in Iran’s dispute with the West, but he said talks were still possible on a nuclear swap offer [...]

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School bombing exposes Obama’s secret war inside Pakistan

by Paul Woodward 02.08.2010

The Times: The discovery of three American soldiers among the dead in a suicide bombing at the opening of a girls’ school in the northwestern Pakistan town of Dir last week reignited the fears of many Pakistanis that Washington was set on invading their country. Barack Obama has banned the Bush-era term “war on terror” [...]

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Why the U.S. is back on the road to Damascus

by Paul Woodward 02.08.2010

Time magazine on the new phase in US-Syrian relations: Unlike many U.S. embassies in the Arab world that have been forced by security concerns to move from the center of capital cities to fortress-like suburban compounds, the Damascus embassy still occupies prime real estate — just a stone’s throw from the residence of Syrian President [...]

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Questioning the New York Times

by Paul Woodward 02.07.2010

When Electronic Intifada contacted the New York Times‘ Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner to ask him if it was true his son had just joined the Israeli army and if so whether he thought this would create a conflict of interest, the newspaper avoided giving a straight answer. It gave what has become so familiar [...]

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The inner circle that is destroying the Obama presidency

by Paul Woodward 02.07.2010

From the Financial Times: At a crucial stage in the Democratic primaries in late 2007, Barack Obama rejuvenated his campaign with a barnstorming speech, in which he ended on a promise of what his victory would produce: “A nation healed. A world repaired. An America that believes again.” Just over a year into his tenure, [...]

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Gates scoffs at Iran nuclear claim

by Paul Woodward 02.06.2010

The New York Times reports: As Iran’s foreign minister met with the chief of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency here, the United States and Germany rejected Iran’s assertion that it was close to accepting an international compromise on its nuclear program. Western officials expressed deep skepticism toward Tehran’s contention that a deal was close [...]

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U.S. deaths in Pakistan fuel suspicion

by Paul Woodward 02.06.2010

Time magazine reports: By killing three U.S. soldiers in a bomb attack in a remote corner of northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, Feb. 3, the Taliban scored a political jackpot. With anti-American sentiment cresting in Pakistani public opinion, the presence of the three American trainers in a convoy passing through Koto village when it was struck [...]

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There’s real hope from Haiti and it’s not what you expect

by Paul Woodward 02.06.2010

Johann Hari: In the weeks after a disaster like the Haiti earthquake, journalists always search for an upbeat twist to the tale. You know it by now – the baby found alive after a week under wreckage. But this time, a shaft of light has parted the rubble and the corpses and the unshakeable grief [...]

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The Siddiqui conviction: A verdict ‘based on fear, not on fact’

by Paul Woodward 02.05.2010

It should go without saying but yet again needs to be repeated: in an effective justice system, justice not only must be done but it must be seen to be done. In this respect the trial of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, which ended in New York on Wednesday was a miserable failure. Although most Americans haven’t [...]

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Deal with the Taliban pragmatists — not the elusive ‘moderates’

by Paul Woodward 02.05.2010

Michael Semple, a fellow at the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, says that an attempt to cut a deal with the Taliban should not be conceived as an effort to peel away moderates: The people with whom any deal would have to be done, those Taliban prepared to contemplate accommodation, [...]

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Netanyahu faces arrest in Hamas hotel murder if Mossad link proved

by Paul Woodward 02.05.2010

From The National: The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will be at the top of Dubai’s wanted list if the Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad is proven to be behind the killing of a senior Hamas official, the Dubai Police chief said yesterday. Lt Gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim told The National that “Benjamin Netanyahu, the [...]

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The war of terror

by Paul Woodward 02.05.2010

At Slate, Dahlia Lithwick writes: …what was once tough on terror is now soft on terror. And each time the Republicans move their own crazy-place goal posts, the Obama administration moves right along with them. It’s hard to explain why this keeps happening. There hasn’t been a successful terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. [...]

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Off with his head!

by Paul Woodward 02.05.2010

Matthew Yglesias writes: If the President wants to do something like implement a domestic policy proposal he campaigned on—charge polluters for global warming emissions, for example—he faces a lot of hurdles. He needs majority support on a House committee or three. He also needs majority support on a Senate committee or three. Then he needs [...]

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Murder with impunity

by Paul Woodward 02.04.2010

Glenn Greenwald writes: … even if you’re someone who does want the President to have the power to order American citizens killed without a trial by decreeing that they are Terrorists (and it’s worth remembering that if you advocate that power, it’s going to be vested in all Presidents, not just the ones who are [...]

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The world according to Bronner is a Jewish one

by Paul Woodward 02.04.2010

Philip Weiss writes: Toward the end of Ethan Bronner’s appearance at Vassar last night, a woman in the aisle melted down yelling at him. “What I’m hearing from you is only one side. Your son is in the IDF. You are Jewish… The way you talk is totally pro-Israel.” Then Fanny Prizant of Woodstock demanded, [...]

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