July 2010

The terrorist delisting program

by Paul Woodward 07.12.2010

How to reduce the terrorist threat: use the label “terrorist” less often. A week ago Newsweek reported: Even as they denounce reports of covert talks from news sources such as the New York Times and Al-Jazeera, high-ranking insurgents have begun very cautiously admitting for the first time that peace negotiations are not totally out of [...]

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Why kill World Cup fans?

by Paul Woodward 07.12.2010

Bombings in Uganda that killed 74 football fans watching the World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands have been attributed to Somalia’s al-Shabab militia. Earlier, the Washington Post described the way the sport and its fans were being targeted inside Somalia: Al-Shabab, a hard-line Islamic militia that is waging a campaign of terror across [...]

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Opaque Obama

by Paul Woodward 07.11.2010

During the most violent summer of a war soon to enter its tenth year, Andrew Bacevich writes: Much as Iraq was Bush’s war, Afghanistan has become Obama’s war. Yet the president clearly wants nothing more than to rid himself of his war. Obama has prolonged and escalated a conflict in which he himself manifestly does [...]

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As Petraeus takes over in Afghanistan, could success be worse than failure?

by Paul Woodward 07.11.2010

While reflecting on the dangers of “success” in Afghanistan, Tom Engelhardt writes: On the basis of our stated war objective — “[W]e cannot allow Al Qaeda or other transnational extremists to once again establish sanctuaries from which they can launch attacks on our homeland or on our allies,” as General Petraeus put it in his [...]

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Dignity — the mark of cultural integrity

by Paul Woodward 07.11.2010

It’s possible to catch glimpses of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and see a social reality whose nature is transparent without any need for historical context — a social reality that contrasts dignity and its absence. The following videos from B’Tselem, an Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, show Palestinian families in [...]

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A source of emulation

by Paul Woodward 07.10.2010

Consider this: When Jimmy Carter visited Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah in Beirut just over a year ago, protection for the former US president was provided not only by the Secret Service but also Hezbollah’s own security personnel, both of whom feared that Carter might be assassinated by Israel’s Mossad! Fourteen years earlier Fadlallah escaped [...]

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When honesty gets dangerous, liars succeed

by Paul Woodward 07.09.2010

No, Ariel Sharon has not just died. But when he does, will Wolf Blitzer lose his job if he writes a tweet like the one above (a fake of course, created by yours truly)? Certainly not, because as Glenn Greenwald correctly noted yesterday: “The speech prohibitions and thought crimes on the Middle East all run [...]

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UAE ambassador confirms: Palestine is the core issue

by Paul Woodward 07.08.2010

During a stage interview with Yousel al Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United States, Jeffrey Goldberg made it clear that even when acting as a representative of The Atlantic and helping facilitate a forum in Aspen, Colorado, he still sees himself first and foremost as an Israeli. When the ambassador pointed out that Iran’s [...]

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Who’s pushing to strike Iran?

by Paul Woodward 07.07.2010

[Update: See this post which confirms that Goldberg twisted the narrative here.] After an exchange between the UAE ambassador to the US Yousef al-Otaiba and Jeffrey Goldberg on Tuesday we learn that “the UAE would sooner see military action against Iran’s nuclear program than see the program succeed” — at least that’s what Goldberg says. [...]

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Integrity — now you see it, now you don’t

by Paul Woodward 07.07.2010

Anyone who believes a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict hinges on the actions of Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, might as well turn their attention elsewhere — The moral bankruptcy of both men was on full display at the White House yesterday. If before engaging in their vacuous performance, they had cared to study what [...]

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The war Israel can’t win

by Paul Woodward 07.06.2010

At The Daily Beast, historian Thaddeus Russell writes: When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the White House Tuesday, President Obama will have the chance to be the first American president since the founding of Israel to ask The Question. The Question is never addressed by Israel’s supporters and rarely raised by Israel’s detractors. But [...]

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Israel bans parachutes from Gaza

by Paul Woodward 07.05.2010

If Hamas had plans to form a paratroopers brigade, these will now need to be put on hold. Israel’s long-awaited release of its blacklist of items banned from importation into the strip include parachutes. How exactly parachutes might be used in Gaza, if the ban gets lifted, is hard to envisage. What’s the use of [...]

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Petraeus: mission will be accomplished

by Paul Woodward 07.05.2010

Predicting what will happen in Afghanistan is about as wise as declaring “mission accomplished.” As he arrived to take over command of US forces in what has become America’s longest war, Gen David Petraeus might not have actually predicted the outcome of the war but he certainly narrowed what can be deemed an acceptable conclusion: [...]

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A free republic and its limits

by Paul Woodward 07.04.2010

David Bromwich writes: “Things are in the saddle,/ And ride mankind.” The words were written by Emerson in a poem about the Mexican war — the first crisis that took America out of itself. The second such crisis was the Spanish-American war, and we are now in the middle of the third. The extent of [...]

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‘The world has divided into rich and poor as at no time in history’

by Paul Woodward 07.04.2010

Speaking ahead of the G20 summit held in Toronto last week, Maude Barlow, head of the Council of Canadian — Canada’s largest public advocacy organization — said: On the eve of this G-20 gathering, let’s look at a few facts. Fact, the world has divided into rich and poor as at no time in our [...]

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It’s obvious, go talk to the Islamists

by Paul Woodward 07.04.2010

Rami G Khouri writes: This nagging issue just will not go away: How do local or foreign governments best deal with leading Islamist groups in the Middle East and South Asia? Do you engage, negotiate with, ignore, or actively fight politically and militarily against Hizbullah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban and other such groups [...]

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‘The Gaza flotilla has done more for Gaza than 10,000 rockets’

by Paul Woodward 07.03.2010

The power that the emerging tactically adaptive resistance movement is acquiring draws largely from the fact that Israel is incapable of expressing itself in any other way than through the language of force. The Wall Street Journal reports: Hamas and Hezbollah, groups that have long battled Israel with violent tactics, have begun to embrace civil [...]

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Petraeus schemed with neocon columnist to push pro-Israel pap

by Paul Woodward 07.02.2010

Philip Weiss reveals: Last March General David Petraeus, then head of Central Command, sought to undercut his own testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that was critical of Israel by intriguing with a rightwing writer to put out a different story, in emails obtained by Mondoweiss. The emails show Petraeus encouraging Max Boot of [...]

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Mainstreaming realism

by Paul Woodward 07.01.2010

It was widely assumed that George Bush’s departure from Washington would coincide with a revival of strength for the reality-based community — the people the neocons swept aside for the sake of empire. But though the neocon dream was quick to perish, the reality-based community is still struggling to assert itself — at least inside [...]

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The limits of American power are like the borders of Israel

by Paul Woodward 07.01.2010

For much of the last decade, Rory Stewart has provided one of the wisest voices on Afghanistan. A theme he pounds away at relentlessly is the necessity to differentiate between what is desirable and what is possible. Stewart, now a newly minted member of Britain’s parliament, writes in Der Spiegel: The only way in which [...]

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The grim, relentless task of crushing of the Taliban and al Qaeda

by Paul Woodward 07.01.2010

John Bolton writes: “America’s Afghanistan policy is in chaos. Fear of another Vietnam is palpable, and our friends and adversaries worldwide sense it.” Another Vietnam? If only the US might be so lucky! Vietnam was an exercise in nation building, interrupted by an American occupation, and then fairly swiftly brought to a peaceful conclusion after [...]

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Israel: the writing on the wall

by Paul Woodward 07.01.2010

Professor Gilbert Achcar, author of the recently published Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives, writes at Open Democracy: The truth is that it is Israel – not the Arabs – that never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity to conclude a real peace with its neighbors. And this has been true [...]

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