January 2011

Sadr’s sure rise to power

by Paul Woodward 01.06.2011

If one believes in such a thing as an arc of destiny, the one clear line that has spanned the last seven years in Iraq almost without wavering has been the ascent of Muqtada al-Sadr — the man who for so many years was referred to derisively by Western journalists as a “firebrand cleric.” Even [...]

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The tyranny of the national security state

by News Sources 01.06.2011

Andrew Bacevich writes: American politics is typically a grimy business of horses traded and pork delivered. Political speech, for its part, tends to be formulaic and eminently forgettable. Yet on occasion, a politician will transcend circumstance and bear witness to some lasting truth: George Washington in his Farewell Address, for example, or Abraham Lincoln in [...]

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Obama administration apparently complicit in the torture of an American teenager

by News Sources 01.06.2011

Glenn Greenwald writes: Gulet Mohamed is an 18-year-old American citizen whose family is Somalian. His parents moved with him to the U.S. when he was 2 or 3 years old, and he has lived in the U.S. ever since. In March, 2009, he went to study Arabic and Islam in Yemen (in Sana’a, the nation’s [...]

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William Astore: we’re number one (in self-promotion)

by TomDispatch 01.06.2011

Reprinted with permission of TomDispatch.com Can you believe that, in certain circles, support for obesity is becoming an American birthright (as in “the freedom to be…”) and a political position?  Like various radio and TV shock jocks, Sarah Palin has been attacking Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity initiative as yet another example of “the nanny state run [...]

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WikiLeaks: Israelis demanded bribes before allowing goods into Gaza

by News Sources 01.06.2011

Reuters reports: U.S. distributors accused Israel in 2006 of charging exorbitant fees to allow their goods into Gaza and an Israeli general admitted corruption existed at a major border crossing, a U.S. diplomatic cable shows. The cable, obtained by WikiLeaks and published Thursday by the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, said frequent closures of the Karni crossing [...]

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What Iranians really think

by News Sources 01.05.2011

Abbas Milani writes: The failure of American and British governments to predict the fall of the shah in 1979 was one of the biggest intelligence failures of the twentieth century. In the aftermath of that monumental mess, the British government ordered a policy review to learn what went wrong. They identified three main errors: inattention [...]

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Troubling trends in the Middle East

by News Sources 01.05.2011

In an examination of the “five mostly troubling trends from 2010 that will probably define and plague the Middle East for the year ahead,” Rami G Khouri writes: The transformation of the formerly localized Arab-Israeli conflict into the fulcrum of a much wider regional confrontation with strong religious overtones bodes ill for the region in [...]

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In Iraq, Turkey demonstrates the effectiveness of soft power

by News Sources 01.05.2011

Anthony Shadid reports: A Turkey as resurgent as at any time since its Ottoman glory is projecting influence through a turbulent Iraq, from the boomtowns of the north to the oil fields near southernmost Basra, in a show of power that illustrates its growing heft across an Arab world long suspicious of it. Its ascent [...]

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Another step towards fascism — Israeli parliament forms “committee of persecution”

by Paul Woodward 01.05.2011

Haaretz reports: The Knesset plenum voted Wednesday to establish a parliamentary panel of inquiry to investigate left-wing Israeli organizations that allegedly participate in delegitimization campaigns against Israel Defense Forces soldiers. The initiative, brought forth by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu faction, called primarily to investigate the sources of funding for these groups. The panel [...]

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Israeli media acting like North Korean media

by News Sources 01.05.2011

Didi Remez, whose blog is Coteret, provides a translation of an interview with the Israeli human rights attorney, Micheal Sfard, who appeared on Israel Defense Forces Radio yesterday morning. Niv Raskin, IDF Radio: Now we turn to the IDF investigation on the death of protester Jawaher Abu Rahma. According to the IDF investigation, senior officers [...]

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WikiLeaks: Israel told US it would keep Gaza near collapse

by News Sources 01.05.2011

Reuters reports: Israel told U.S. officials in 2008 it would keep Gaza’s economy “on the brink of collapse” while avoiding a humanitarian crisis, according to U.S. diplomatic cables published by a Norwegian daily on Wednesday. Three cables cited by the Aftenposten newspaper, which has said it has all 250,000 U.S. cables leaked to WikiLeaks, showed [...]

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Why think tanks attract sycophantic opportunists

by News Sources 01.05.2011

Benjamin H. Friedman lists the reasons think tank analysts lack intellectual independence. Think tanks are shaped by five forces creating political bias: The first is institutional funding. If you take government or industry money, you will hesitate to undertake research that offends your sponsors. Many people see foundations as somehow cleaner money, but they too [...]

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How the Dubai debacle showcased Israeli arrogance and Mossad’s incompetence

by Paul Woodward 01.05.2011

In a feature article for GQ Magazine, Ronen Bergman, senior political and military analyst for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, describes the rise and fall of Israel’s Mossad under the leadership of Meir Dagan. “Dagan’s unique expertise,” Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon once said, “is the separation of an Arab from his head.” Under Dagan’s [...]

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Once a terrorist, always a terrorist — unless you’re an Israeli

by Paul Woodward 01.05.2011

David Cole challenges the Supreme Court’s idiotic ruling on the definition of “material support” offered to designated terrorist organizations. Did former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Tom Ridge, a former homeland security secretary, and Frances Townsend, a former national security adviser, all commit a federal crime last month in Paris [...]

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Don’t deny detainees their day in court

by News Sources 01.05.2011

Amos N. Guiora and Laurie R. Blank write: The idea that every person deserves his or her “day in court” is a fundamental principle in the United States and many countries worldwide. Yet more than nine years after 9/11, the United States remains paralyzed not just about how to give the thousands of detainees in [...]

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The conventional right-wing wisdom in Israel

by News Sources 01.05.2011

Yaniv Reich at Hybrid States notes: A brilliant, must-see video by the Eretz Nehederet show in Israel. What is most remarkable about this short satirical piece is how realistic it is. It can be considered satire, but it unfortunately reflects far too common thoughts that have infected Israeli critical thinking capacities. Like conservatives who can’t [...]

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Tom Engelhardt: war is a drug

by TomDispatch 01.04.2011

The urge to surge — Washington’s 30-year high By Tom Engelhardt If, as 2011 begins, you want to peer into the future, enter my time machine, strap yourself in, and head for the past, that laboratory for all developments of our moment and beyond. Just as 2010 ended, the American military’s urge to surge resurfaced [...]

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‘The Left has nowhere to go’

by News Sources 01.04.2011

Chris Hedges writes: Ralph Nader in a CNN poll a few days before the 2008 presidential election had an estimated 3 percent of the electorate, or about 4 million people, behind his candidacy. But once the votes were counted, his support dwindled to a little over 700,000. Nader believes that many of his supporters entered [...]

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Psychologists protest ‘inhumane, harmful’ treatment of Bradley Manning

by News Sources 01.04.2011

Raw Story reports: A psychologists’ group has sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates asking him to “rectify the inhumane, harmful, and counterproductive treatment” of the Army private accused of being WikiLeaks’ source for the US State Department cables. In a letter dated Monday, Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) argued that PFC Bradley Manning, [...]

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Combined Systems Inc’s lethal products

by Paul Woodward 01.04.2011

Following the death of Jawaher Abu Rahmah, four American peace activist groups have written to the US manufacturer that supplies the Israeli military with CS gas products. The letter states: As US groups committed to justice and peace, we are writing to ask that Combined Systems Inc. cease providing CSI equipment to the Israeli government [...]

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The Israeli-Palestinian alliance that worries the Israeli government

by News Sources 01.04.2011

In an analysis on the political fallout from the killing of Jawaher Abu Rahmah, a Palestinian women who died after inhaling tear gas fired by Israeli troops in the West Bank on Friday, Tony Karon writes: [T]he news of Abu Rahmah’s death has highlighted a new alliance emerging between a small number of Israeli leftists [...]

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Why American journalists won’t stand up for the First Amendment

by Paul Woodward 01.04.2011

At Newsweek, Ben Adler asks: why aren’t American journalists standing up for WikiLeaks. He sees three reasons: 1. Refusal to engage in advocacy: American journalists, unlike many of their foreign counterparts, have a strong commitment to objectivity and nonpartisanship. At many mainstream media organizations, signing petitions is verboten, and many journalists impose such rules on [...]

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Substantial evidence contradicts the Israeli army’s version of the events surrounding the death of Jawaher Abu Rahmah

by News Sources 01.04.2011

The Popular Struggle Coordination Committee just released the following statement: Since yesterday, the army has been promoting in the Israeli media a mendacious version regarding the events that led to the death of Jawaher Abu Rahmah of Bil’in on Friday, 31 December 2010. According to the army’s version, Jawaher was not injured by tear gas [...]

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Israeli military tries to cover up killing of an unarmed Palestinian protester

by Paul Woodward 01.03.2011

As was widely reported on Saturday, Jawaher Abu Rahmah, a 36 year-old Palestinian woman from Bilin, died after inhaling tear gas at a demonstration in the West Bank village on Friday. The moment at which Jawaher was evacuated by ambulance from the scene was recorded by Rebecca Vilkomerson Emily Schaeffer from Jewish Voice for Peace [...]

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