Monthly Archives: December 2010

US silent on plight of Iraq’s Christians

Reza Aslan writes:

Iraq’s 2,000-year-old Christian community is on the brink of extinction, its members targeted by al Qaeda attacks and fleeing abroad. But Hillary Clinton, the one person who could force the Iraq government to act, is keeping her mouth shut.

A full-scale genocide is under way in Iraq: a well-planned, well-financed, deliberate plot to cleanse the country of its Christian citizens. And thus far, neither the Iraqi government nor the United States is doing anything to stop it.

On Wednesday, al Qaeda militants launch a synchronized bombing attack on 11 Christian communities throughout Iraq, killing six and wounding more than 30. That attack followed on the heels of the ghastly assault last month on Christian worshippers attending a service at Our Lady of Salvation church in Baghdad, in which 58 people were brutally murdered and another 60 wounded.

After that attack, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a statement condemning the violence: “Those with deviant thoughts from al Qaeda and their allies belonging to the followers of the ousted regime targeted our Christian brothers in a terrorist crime that aims at undermining security and stability, inciting strife and chaos and sending Iraqis away from their home.”

Yet beyond these empty words, the Iraqi government has done absolutely nothing to protect the besieged Christian community from further attack, despite a promise from al Qaeda in Iraq that “all Christian centers, organizations and institutions, leaders and followers, are legitimate targets for Mujahedeen wherever they can reach them.” Indeed, just a couple of days after Maliki’s speech, three more bombs aimed at Christians went off in western Baghdad.

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The women accusing Julian Assange of sexual assault deserve to be taken seriously

Amanda Marcotte writes:

When Julian Assange, the editor of WikiLeaks, was targeted for arrest by Interpol in late November, the right-wing British tabloid the Daily Mail was first on the scene with a widely linked but error-ridden article about the charges. The Daily Mail characterized Sweden’s rape laws as those of a radical feminist dystopia, where men can be thrown in jail for consensual sex that doesn’t involve a condom, and the police file rape charges on behalf of women upset that a phone call didn’t follow a one-night stand.

The falsehoods quickly spread in part because many liberals invested in protecting WikiLeaks were eager to find ways to discredit the allegations, even if that meant characterizing the female accusers as hysterics and liars. Michael Moore went on Keith Olbermann’s show and claimed, falsely, that Sweden would charge a man for sexual assault for consensual sex involving an accidentally broken condom. Feminist writer Naomi Wolf mocked the accusers, claiming that Assange’s “crime” was merely dating multiple women at once.

In the initial days after Assange’s arrest, when there was little solid information beyond the tabloids about what exactly the Swedish government may charge him with, some of the reaction was perhaps understandable. To a degree, even Slate’s DoubleX podcast repeated the Daily Mail’s misinformation. But as of Dec. 17, there has been no excuse. At that point, the Guardian obtained the depositions taken by Swedish police from the alleged victims. In these documents, one of the women alleges that Assange behaved threateningly with her and held her down to prevent her from reaching for a condom. He did end up wearing one, but she thinks he ripped it and deliberately ejaculated inside her. He also later rubbed up against her with his pants off, she says, against her will. The other alleged victim claims that she struggled with Assange over the condom all night, had consensual sex with him when he finally put it on, and then woke up later in the night to find Assange having sex with her, without her consent and without a condom. In my personal and professional experience with rape, these kinds of allegations are both credible and common. It’s a bad idea to forget that, even when the alleged bad guy is a leftist hero.

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Congress blocks closure of Guantanamo

The New York Times reports:

Congress voted Wednesday to impose strict new limits on transferring detainees out of the Guantánamo Bay prison, dealing a major blow to President Obama’s vows to shut down the center and give federal court trials to many of the prisoners.

The Guantánamo provisions were contained in a major defense authorization bill, which both chambers passed on the last day of Congress’s lame-duck session. It is considered highly unlikely that Mr. Obama will veto the bill because it also authorizes billions in spending for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Robert M. Chesney, a University of Texas law professor who specializes in national security matters, said the legislation would make it even harder to close the prison, at the American military base in Cuba. He said the next Congress, in which Republicans will have more power, was likely to keep or even intensify the restrictions.

“A Democratic Congress has done its level best to prevent prosecutions in civilian court,” Professor Chesney said.

“It strengthens the relative position of military commissions, and it separately strengthens the likelihood of continuing to rely on military detention” without trial, he said.

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Time to be afraid of everyone and everything

The 1982 Chicago Tylenol murders resulted in seven deaths and spawned an industry: the production of tamper-resistant packaging. Four years earlier mercury-injected Jaffa oranges from Israel caused short-lived panic across Europe. But 32 years later tamper-resistant oranges have yet to make it to the produce shelves.

The same populations that needed at all costs to be protected from the risk of contaminated pharmaceutical products were apparently willing to live with the risk presented by unpackaged food. The difference between the two cases seemed to have had less to do with risk assessment than with the conjunction (or lack of one) between fear and commercial opportunity.

The Government of Fear in Washington is now raising two new alarms — each with security and commercial implications that have yet to become apparent, though right now this looks like good news for McDonalds and bad news for Sizzler.

CBS News has an exclusive report on the latest terrorist plot about which the Department of Homeland Security wants to generate some fear.

The plot uncovered earlier this year is said to involve the use of two poisons – ricin and cyanide – slipped into salad bars and buffets.

Of particular concern: The plotters are believed to be tied to the same terror group that attempted to blow up cargo planes over the east coast in October, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

In online propaganda al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has praised the cargo attack, part of what it called “Operation Hemorrhage.”

The propaganda says in part, “…attacking the enemy with smaller but more frequent operations” to “add a heavy economic burden to an already faltering economy.”

Meanwhile, here comes another alarm:

Attorney General Eric Holder says that the growing number of American citizens joining terrorist groups including Al Qaeda is “one of the things that keeps me up at night.”

“You didn’t worry about this even two years ago — about individuals, about Americans, to the extent that we now do,” Holder said in an interview with ABC News airing Tuesday. “And that is of … of great concern.”

Be afraid of what you eat. Be afraid of your fellow Americans.

Happy Holidays from the US Government!

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Will Obama’s war in Pakistan soon escalate to a ground war?

The New York Times reports:

Senior American military commanders in Afghanistan are pushing for an expanded campaign of Special Operations ground raids across the border into Pakistan’s tribal areas, a risky strategy reflecting the growing frustration with Pakistan’s efforts to root out militants there.

The proposal, described by American officials in Washington and Afghanistan, would escalate military activities inside Pakistan, where the movement of American forces has been largely prohibited because of fears of provoking a backlash.

The plan has not yet been approved, but military and political leaders say a renewed sense of urgency has taken hold, as the deadline approaches for the Obama administration to begin withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan. Even with the risks, military commanders say that using American Special Operations troops could bring an intelligence windfall, if militants were captured, brought back across the border into Afghanistan and interrogated.

The Americans are known to have made no more than a handful of forays across the border into Pakistan, in operations that have infuriated Pakistani officials. Now, American military officers appear confident that a shift in policy could allow for more routine incursions.

America’s clandestine war in Pakistan has for the most part been carried out by armed drones operated by the C.I.A.

Additionally, in recent years, Afghan militias backed by the C.I.A. have carried out a number of secret missions into Pakistan’s tribal areas. These operations in Pakistan by Afghan operatives, known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams, have been previously reported as solely intelligence-gathering operations. But interviews in recent weeks revealed that on at least one occasion, the Afghans went on the offensive and destroyed a militant weapons cache.

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The other side of the militarization of Iran’s regime

Elliot Hen-Tov and Nathan Gonzalez write:

This week, Iran implemented an overhaul of its national subsidy system, in effect cutting billions of dollars worth of subsidies for daily consumer use, especially fuel and electricity. Though cushioned by transfer payments to low-income households, it is akin to a major austerity move. While the economic impact is clear, many outsiders remain baffled how a regime ridden with internal factionalism (and widespread unpopularity) can manage such radical reforms. The past few weeks have seen rumors of a looming impeachment trial of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, followed by his humiliating dismissal of Foreign Minister Mottaki. These are hardly the signs of calm leadership steering through an economic crisis.

But narratives grabbed from the headlines can be misleading, and longer-term developments in Tehran point in a surprising direction. Today, the Islamic Republic is set to become more politically stable, and may even offer the chance for improved US-Iranian relations under what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called an emerging “military dictatorship.”

Although this development was well under way at from at least the mid-1990s, the 2009 post-election fiasco was the ultimate coming-out party of the security apparatus, notably the Revolutionary Guards. Observers have termed it a ‘praetorian takeover,’ borrowing the name from ancient Rome’s Praetorian Guard, the feared imperial bodyguard of the Caesar who used their proximity to power to eventually become kingmakers themselves.

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WikiLeaks reveals Bangladeshi ‘death squad’ trained by UK government

The Guardian reports:

The British government has been training a Bangladeshi paramilitary force condemned by human rights organisations as a “government death squad”, leaked US embassy cables have revealed.

Members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which has been held responsible for hundreds of extra-judicial killings in recent years and is said to routinely use torture, have received British training in “investigative interviewing techniques” and “rules of engagement”.

Details of the training were revealed in a number of cables, released by WikiLeaks, which address the counter-terrorism objectives of the US and UK governments in Bangladesh. One cable makes clear that the US would not offer any assistance other than human rights training to the RAB – and that it would be illegal under US law to do so – because its members commit gross human rights violations with impunity.

Since the RAB was established six years ago, it is estimated by some human rights activists to have been responsible for more than 1,000 extra-judicial killings, described euphemistically as “crossfire” deaths. In September last year the director general of the RAB said his men had killed 577 people in “crossfire”. In March this year he updated the figure, saying they had killed 622 people.

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WikiLeaks: US ambassador planned “retaliation” against France over ban on Monsanto corn

Truth Out reports:

The former United States ambassador to France suggested “moving to retaliation” against France and the European Union (EU) in late 2007 to fight a French ban on Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) corn and changes in European policy toward biotech crops, according to a cable released by WikiLeaks on Sunday.

Former Ambassador Craig Stapleton was concerned about France’s decision to suspend cultivation of Monsanto’s MON-810 corn and warned that a new French environmental review standard could spread anti-biotech policy across the EU.

“Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits,” Stapleton wrote to diplomatic colleagues.

President George W. Bush appointed Stapleton as ambassador to France in 2005, and in 2009, Stapleton left the office and became an owner of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. Bush and Stapleton co-owned the Texas Rangers during the 1990s.

Monsanto is based in St. Louis.

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CIA launches a WTF task force to assess impact of U.S. cables’ exposure by WikiLeaks

The Washington Post reports:

The CIA has launched a task force to assess the impact of the exposure of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables and military files by WikiLeaks.

Officially, the panel is called the WikiLeaks Task Force. But at CIA headquarters, it’s mainly known by its all-too-apt acronym: W.T.F.

The irreverence is perhaps understandable for an agency that has been relatively unscathed by WikiLeaks. Only a handful of CIA files have surfaced on the WikiLeaks Web site, and records from other agencies posted online reveal remarkably little about CIA employees or operations.

Even so, CIA officials said the agency is conducting an extensive inventory of the classified information, which is routinely distributed on a dozen or more networks that connect agency employees around the world.

And the task force is focused on the immediate impact of the most recently released files. One issue is whether the agency’s ability to recruit informants could be damaged by declining confidence in the U.S. government’s ability to keep secrets.

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What if the Palestinians turn to the U.N.?

Tony Karon writes:

Israel is worried, according to press reports in the country, that the United States will not “rush to veto” a planned U.N. Security Council resolution condemning ongoing Israeli settlement construction. The resolution is being drafted by Arab countries exasperated by the failure of the U.S. to pressure the Israelis to halt construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the U.N. deems illegal. The draft may be introduced as early as this week, according to Israeli media, and the Israeli foreign ministry is reportedly mustering a diplomatic full court press to counter the move. While the U.S. has a longstanding tradition of running interference for Israel at the U.N., the Obama Administration may find itself hard-pressed to veto a resolution condemning the same Israeli behavior that Washington itself has publicly deemed illegitimate — and which the Administration has spent months trying in vain to cajole the Israelis into halting.

The Palestinians have insisted, along with the Obama Administration, that Israel refrain from building settlements in occupied territory as a precondition for peace talks. Though the U.S. dropped that effort two weeks ago, the Palestinians continue to press the matter. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had late last year instituted a 10-month partial moratorium on construction, and talks between the two sides finally got under way in August. But the Palestinians called a halt a month later as Israel’s moratorium expired and construction resumed. And the best efforts of the Obama Administration to secure even a temporary reinstatement of the moratorium proved fruitless.

While Washington hopes to make progress by conducting parallel negotiations on substantive issues with both sides, the Palestinians and their Arab allies no longer seem willing to stay on that path and leave the matter in U.S. hands.

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FBI delivers subpoenas to four more anti-war, solidarity activists as U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald expands witch hunt

A press release from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression says:

The FBI came unannounced to knock on doors at two apartments in Chicago this morning. FBI agent Robert Parker, under orders from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office, delivered a subpoena to Maureen Murphy. Murphy, like several other individuals served subpoenas, is an organizer with the Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago.

This continues the repression unleashed by Fitzgerald on the anti-war movement since September 24th, when fourteen subpoenas were delivered to anti-war, labor, and solidarity activists in coordinated raids involving more than 70 federal agents. Armed FBI agents raided homes, taking computers, phones, passports, documents, notebooks, and even children’s artwork. A total of 23 subpoenas have been served to activists around the country.

Maureen Murphy said, “Along with several others, I am being summoned to appear before the Grand Jury on Tuesday, January 25th, in the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago. We are being targeted for the work we do to end U.S. funding of the Israeli occupation, ending the war in Afghanistan and ending the occupation of Iraq. What is at stake for all of us is our right to dissent and organize to change harmful US foreign policy.” Ms. Murphy is also the Managing Editor of the widely-read website, The Electronic Intifada.

In addition, three women in Minneapolis – Tracy Molm, Anh Pham, and Sara Martin – are threatened with reactivated subpoenas by Fitzgerald’s office and new Grand Jury dates. Tom Burke of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression explained, “It is likely the three individuals, like all the others so far, will continue to refuse to take part in Fitzgerald’s witch hunt. Fitzgerald can then call for putting them in jail as long as he wants.”

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Cables reveal Israel welcomed Hamas takeover of Gaza

If mainstream media reports and government statements could be relied upon, the Bush administration and the Israeli governments led by Ariel Sharon and then Ehud Olmert were perpetually of one mind — Washington simply mirrored Jerusalem. But newly-released cables indicate that when it came to views about Hamas’ control of Gaza, there was in 2007 a significant divergence of opinion. While a plan hatched by Elliot Abrams for a US-supported Fatah coup to unseat the democratically-elected Hamas government, was rapidly unraveling, the Israelis said they would be pleased to see Hamas assume complete control of Gaza.

A cable describing a June 12, 2007 meeting between US Ambassador Richard Jones and Israeli Military Intelligence Director Amos Yadlin indicated that Israel regarded Gaza as less of a threat than Iran, Syria or Hezbollah. At the height of the eight-day battle between Hamas and Fatah for the control of Gaza, the cable said:

The Ambassador commented that if Fatah decided it has lost Gaza, there would be calls for Abbas to set up a separate regime in the West Bank. While not necessarily reflecting a consensus GOI [Government of Israel] view, Yadlin commented that such a development would please Israel since it would enable the IDF to treat Gaza as a hostile country rather than having to deal with Hamas as a non-state actor. He added that Israel could work with a Fatah regime in the West Bank. The Ambassador asked Yadlin if he worried about a Hamas-controlled Gaza giving Iran a new opening. Yadlin replied that Iran was already present in Gaza, but Israel could handle the situation “as long as Gaza does not have a port (sea or air).” [Emphasis mine.]

Implicit in Yadlin’s remarks was the view that Hamas’ control of Gaza would make it easier for Israel to control the territory from the air with more frequent missile attacks.

As the US ambassador questioned the Israeli intelligence chief, one has to wonder whether either of them had been briefed on the Abrams plan.

In a report published by Vanity Fair in April 2008, David Rose wrote:

Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by [Palestinian Authority National Security Advisor Muhammad] Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)

But the secret plan backfired, resulting in a further setback for American foreign policy under Bush. Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza.

Some sources call the scheme “Iran-contra 2.0,” recalling that Abrams was convicted (and later pardoned) for withholding information from Congress during the original Iran-contra scandal under President Reagan. There are echoes of other past misadventures as well: the C.I.A.’s 1953 ouster of an elected prime minister in Iran, which set the stage for the 1979 Islamic revolution there; the aborted 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, which gave Fidel Castro an excuse to solidify his hold on Cuba; and the contemporary tragedy in Iraq.

Within the Bush administration, the Palestinian policy set off a furious debate. One of its critics is David Wurmser, the avowed neoconservative, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief Middle East adviser in July 2007, a month after the Gaza coup.

Wurmser accuses the Bush administration of “engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Abbas] with victory.” He believes that Hamas had no intention of taking Gaza until Fatah forced its hand. “It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen,” Wurmser says.

The botched plan has rendered the dream of Middle East peace more remote than ever, but what really galls neocons such as Wurmser is the hypocrisy it exposed. “There is a stunning disconnect between the president’s call for Middle East democracy and this policy,” he says. “It directly contradicts it.”

While media reports at that time described the fight between Hamas and Fatah as being a “Hamas coup”, the Israeli intelligence chief did not see Hamas’ attacks as “part of a premeditated effort to wipe out Fatah in Gaza.”

What is transparent in both the Abrams plan and also now revealed in several cables, is that when it comes to the partnerships Israel and the US have backed with the Palestinians, whether Palestinian leaders had political legitimacy or popular support was of little concern — the sole requirement was that Israel/US work with Palestinians willing to place Israel’s interests first. In other words, Israel wanted to back a Palestinian leadership which would be incapable of surviving without Israeli support.

In a June 11, 2007 meeting between the US ambassador and Yuval Diskin, the head of Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, the Israeli described a “very good working relationship” with a Palestinian intelligence chief, Tawfik Tirawi, who he described as “psychopathic, cruel, dangerous and prone to extreme mood swings.”

In the West Bank, Diskin said that ISA [Shin Bet] has established a very good working relationship with the Preventive Security Organization (PSO) and the General Intelligence Organization (GIO). Diskin said that the PSO shares with ISA almost all the intelligence that it collects. They understand that Israel’s security is central to their survival in the struggle with Hamas in the West Bank. [Emphasis mine.]

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The American Surveillance State

Glenn Greenwald writes:

One of the hallmarks of an authoritarian government is its fixation on hiding everything it does behind a wall of secrecy while simultaneously monitoring, invading and collecting files on everything its citizenry does. Based on the Francis Bacon aphorism that “knowledge is power,” this is the extreme imbalance that renders the ruling class omnipotent and citizens powerless.

In the Washington Post today, Dana Priest and William Arkin continue their “Top Secret America” series by describing how America’s vast and growing Surveillance State now encompasses state and local law enforcement agencies, collecting and storing always-growing amounts of information about even the most innocuous activities undertaken by citizens suspected of no wrongdoing. As was true of the first several installments of their “Top Secret America,” there aren’t any particularly new revelations for those paying attention to such matters, but the picture it paints — and the fact that it is presented in an establishment organ such as the Washington Post — is nonetheless valuable.

Today, the Post reporters document how surveillance and enforcement methods pioneered in America’s foreign wars and occupations are being rapidly imported into domestic surveillance (wireless fingerprint scanners, military-grade infrared cameras, biometric face scanners, drones on the border).

In this respect — whose significance can hardly be overstated — Barack Obama is worse than George Bush: Bush’s excesses and the ideology he represented could be circumscribed by his administration and in theory America could purge itself of the effects through the ritual purification of an election. What Obama is doing is normalizing those excesses so that the Bush era can be perpetuated without being tainted by the names Bush and Cheney.

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Israel takes urgent action to counter Palestine’s rising diplomatic status

Haaretz reports:

After reports reached Jerusalem that the Palestinian Authority is trying to persuade about a dozen European Union member states to upgrade the PA’s diplomatic status, the Foreign Ministry on Monday ordered every Israeli envoy abroad to begin “urgent” diplomatic activity. The aim is to thwart Palestinian efforts at drafting a United Nations resolution that would recognize a unilateral declaration of statehood and put international pressure on Israel to halt settlement construction.

Acting Foreign Ministry Director General Rafael Barak sent a classified cable to Israeli charges d’affairs, in which he called for an immediate public relations campaign at the bureaus of the premiers, foreign ministers and parliament in each country.

The PA is in the midst of three diplomatic activities aimed at the international community, Barak wrote in the cable: advancing a UN Security Council resolution condemning settlement construction, securing international recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, and improving the diplomatic stance of Palestinian representatives in Europe, East Asia and Latin America.

Israeli officials expect Ecuador to shortly announce it is joining Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia in recognizing a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon called his counterparts in Mexico and Chile in the past few days and asked them not to make a similar move. He also asked senior officials in the Obama Administration to support Israel’s stance in Central and South America.

Akiva Eldar writes:

Attaining a permanent settlement with the Palestinians appears to be about as likely as the opening of an Iranian embassy in “united” Jerusalem. Almost no day goes by without some other country recognizing a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. According to the WikiLeaks documents, even the Germans, Israel’s steadfast supporters in Europe, have lost their faith in the peaceful intentions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Even loyal partner Ehud Barak and Nobel Peace laureate Shimon Peres have ceased to praise the “new Bibi.”

There is even the hope that the Labor ministers – who constitute the shriveled fig leaf of the prime minister – have discovered the emotion called shame and the option called opposition.

And then, just when it seemed that the deterioration in Israel’s international standing and the cracks at home would open the eyes of the Israeli public, the Jewish-American Superman soars in the skies over the Capital Hill.

He shows the Jewish-Israelis that there is no need to be frightened by the U.S. president, that there is no need to be unnerved by the Europeans and that the United Nations remains insignificant.

The Superman (or woman) strikes a winning blow against the claim of the “defeatists” that it is impossible to conduct negotiations over a piece of land while building on it at the same time. This figure proves that Israel can block U.S. efforts to advance negotiations toward the establishment of a Palestinian state, and then block the efforts of the international community to recognize such state. Our current Superman sells the illusion that the Jewish and Democratic state can exists indefinitely in the Middle East without bringing the violent conflict to an end.

This Superman is the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Howard Berman.

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Outsourced war in Afghanistan wins only a thin slice of America’s attention

The New York Times reports:

The grueling war [in Afghanistan], where a day rarely goes by without an allied casualty, is like a faint heartbeat, accounting for just 4 percent of the nation’s news coverage in major outlets through early December, according to a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an arm of the Pew Research Center.

That is down slightly from last year, when the war accounted for 5 percent.

“It’s never passed the threshold to be a big story week in, week out for Americans,” said Mark Jurkowitz, the associate director of the project.

One senior foreign correspondent for television, when told of the 4 percent coverage figure, said he was impressed — given the relatively small contingent of foreign journalists in Afghanistan.

“There are like seven of us there,” remarked the correspondent, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to call into question his network’s commitment to the war. Those who are there have done courageous work, exposing corruption and documenting military progress in rooting out insurgents.

The low levels of coverage reflect the limitations on news-gathering budgets and, some say, low levels of interest in the war among the public. About a quarter of Americans follow news about Afghanistan closely, according to recent surveys by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

“Inside the United States, you’ve got audiences that are beginning to suffer from war fatigue,” said Tony Maddox, who oversees international coverage for CNN.

Mr. Maddox said CNN had “worked very hard” to make the war resonate with viewers, sometimes through human interest stories. “It’s always the eternal challenge in terms of international coverage: making the important interesting,” he said.

The only kind of war that has an audience is someone else’s war — which is what America’s wars have become for Americans. And for a CNN executive to say that his viewers are suffering from “war fatigue” is to employ a perverse euphemism. No one suffers fatigue while watching a war from their couch — they simply become bored.

No wonder the antiwar movement has struggled to enlist wide support when those who oppose the war are so vastly outnumbered by those who have next to no interest in the war.

Only in a nation that has “outsourced” war — which is to say, normalized war as a governmental activity that can be handled by a dedicated workforce — can a nation’s war become someone else’s war.

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Pentagon health plan won’t cover brain-damage therapy for troops

T. Christian Miller at ProPublica and Daniel Zwerdling at NPR report:

During the past few decades, scientists have become increasingly persuaded that people who suffer brain injuries benefit from what is called cognitive rehabilitation therapy — a lengthy, painstaking process in which patients relearn basic life tasks such as counting, cooking or remembering directions to get home.

Many neurologists, several major insurance companies and even some medical facilities run by the Pentagon agree that the therapy can help people whose functioning has been diminished by blows to the head.

But despite pressure from Congress and the recommendations of military and civilian experts, the Pentagon’s health plan for troops and many veterans refuses to cover the treatment — a decision that could affect the tens of thousands of service members who have suffered brain damage while fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tricare, an insurance-style program covering nearly 4 million active-duty military and retirees, says the scientific evidence does not justify providing comprehensive cognitive rehabilitation. Tricare officials say an assessment of the available research [4] that they commissioned last year shows that the therapy is not well proven.

But an investigation by NPR and ProPublica found that internal and external reviewers of the Tricare-funded assessment criticized it as fundamentally misguided. Confidential documents obtained by NPR and ProPublica show that reviewers called the Tricare study “deeply flawed,” “unacceptable” and “dismaying.” One top scientist called the assessment a “misuse” of science designed to deny treatment for service members.

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Peter King: ‘I’m willing to’ be called a bigot if that’s what it takes to target Muslim community

ThinkProgress reports:

The Islamophobia gripping the U.S. grows more entrenched by the day. Once confined to the far right, more and more pundits, power-brokers, and politicians are bringing it into mainstream. Apparently unsatisfied with dragging Muslims through the mud, Rep. Pete King (R-NY) is now committed to dragging them before Congress. Elected Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee earlier this month, King penned an Newsday op-ed yesterday listing the investigation of “radicalization of the American Muslim community and homegrown terrorism” as a top priority. ” “I will do all I can to break down the wall of political correctness and drive the public debate on Islamic radicalization,” he said.

Civil rights, Constitutional, and sanity advocates have criticized King for repeatedly vilifying the entire Muslim community as obstacles to security. “We are disturbed that this representative who is in a leadership position does not have the understanding and knowledge of what the realities are on the ground,” the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s legal director Abed Ayoub said, adding that Mr. King’s proposal “has bigoted intentions.” But rather than consider, address, or even refute the charge, King embraced it yesterday. Lambasting the Muslim community for its supposed refusal to help expose homegrown terrorism, King told Fox News’ Jaime Colby that if targeting all Muslims makes him a bigot, then “I’m willing to take that hit if I have to.”

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