Western Asia ("Middle East")

By Kevin Zeese

The case of Private Bradley Manning raises legal issues about his pre-trial detention, freedom of speech and the press, as well as proving his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Putting aside Manning’s guilt or innocence, if Bradley Manning saw the Afghan and Iraq war diaries as well as the diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks what should he have done? And, what should be the proper response of government to their publication?

In the beginning, chemicals collided and catalyzed, evolving a system of development from non-living to living things, proteins and nucleic acids interacting--greeting and meeting, dating and mating—in a metaphorical dance of romance. The recipe to make more was born. Now, chemicals portend the end. So much tells us so. An eye for an eye doesn’t just blind the world; it annihilates. The blueprint for reproduction becomes one of destruction.

I’m not relaxed.

Sen. Lindsay Graham advocates permanent military presence in Afghanistan, despite an objection from Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government.

And despite the deaths of thousands of military men and women during Bush’s war—the War OF Terror that passed seamlessly to Commander Obama. Last week, two US troops died in Iraq where combat ENDED months ago. Because the president told us so, even announcing the improved name of the non-war: Operation New Dawn.

A Conversation With Muslim Public Affairs Council’s Alejandro Beutel

Dec 27th, 2010 - Not since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 has the fear and loathing of Muslims been as virulent, as widespread among Americans, and as close to morphing from hateful rhetoric into life-threatening violence.

It’s been so cold I’ve powered on the elliptical trainer. I prefer running through my neighborhood, in sunshine, observing people, reading bumper-sticker messages, and breathing fresh air.

I was on the exerciser, though, and consumed enough by the monotony (groan) to glance OFTEN at the mounting minutes. I was thinking about cutting the workout short but, instead, decided to reverse and go backwards. Backwards, backwards, my legs worked, and, suddenly, I was struck by a thought--the possibility that I could continue this redirection and undo time. I could accelerate the pace until the mile display indicated a negative as I ellipti-seized the past. Faster and faster, I would retreat to a place in my life that carried the promise of fullness, satisfaction, those days when the children were young and more was right in my world.

US trauma treatment center assists Iraqi refugees

Dec 23, 2010 - Ekhlas Gorgees kept her composure as she recounted the horrific traumas she and her family endured in Iraq.

She calmly recalled how her husband was severely wounded after a bomb exploded outside of his Baghdad plumbing shop, how she was threatened at gunpoint while walking home from church and how her family tried to escape north to the city of Mosul just before a bloody attack on civilians sent them fleeing back to the capital. It wasn't until later when she talked about the difficulty of leaving her homeland that the tears came.

"We are the native people of Iraq - it's hard for us to leave our native country," she said through an interpreter. "The hope - even now - is to go back to my country."

‘Muslim terrorist’ on Air Malta plane turns out to be Caribbean Christian

24 December 2010 - The story that made the rounds of the world that a Muslim man was apprehended on an Air Malta plane when he persisted in praying out aloud in the aisle just as the plane was taxying to take off at London’s Heathrow Airport, now has to be revised.

It was a Caribbean Christian man, Maria Busuttil who was on the plane with him, told The Times. And the prayer he was chanting was the ‘Our Father’.

Yet even yesterday on In-Nazzjon, Brian Grech who had a hand in restraining the man, still insisted the man was an Arab Muslim.

Writing on The Times comment pages yesterday, Ahmed Sain wrote: “For all of you who made a comment yesterday on this subject, I think you got it all wrong regarding this man’s religion. Now you guys ask for forgiveness.”

Obama apologists are on a low rung of the ladder to hope, hoping that the president will, suddenly, fulfill some of his promises of, yes, hope.

Articles and letters have been composed, direct pleas to the president, by historians, economists, former politicians, retired veterans, physicians, educators, the underemployed, unemployed, and others, all people who just want the man they supported to do something, anything, indicating that he is real, that he works for americaville, for them, for the woe-man on the street.

This week we saw a fired-up Obama, defending negotiations with Republicans. The president explained his position on tax breaks for the wealthy, saying he compromised to insure tax cuts for the middle class. A majority of Americans oppose extending Bush-era tax cuts to the rich.

In the muddy of my mind, the Minutemen are singing “Warfare” lyrics:

Falling down the road
Steeper as it goes
Friend or foe
Nobody knows

In the muddy of my mind the Minutemen are singing “The Big Stick” lyrics: “We learn and believe there is justice for us all and we lie to ourselves with a big stick up our ass.”

On Monday, six US troops, serving in Afghanistan, died after receiving friend-foe fire from an Afghan police officer during a training exercise. Friend or foe (?) must be among the many complexities servicemen, women, and their families ponder.

This wasn’t unique, isn’t an aberration. Similar incidents have occurred. Last December, five British soldiers were killed by an Afghan police officer.

I'll say this again: Sadly it looks like these don't go back far enough, I for one want to know how much it cost this country for the so called 'coalition of the willing' for the invasion of Iraq, and there's still plenty that needs to be added to what has already come out as to the previous admin!!

US embassy cables: browse the database

Sunday 28 November 2010 - Use our interactive guide to discover what has been revealed in the leak of 250,000 US diplomatic cables. Find stories and original documents by country, subject or people Visit to Use Their Interactive Globe and More

All week, I intended to write about Nancy Grace and her Veterans Day tribute to our “fallen,” that euphemism for the war-torn dead. I would begin and, suddenly, see her surname with fallen and be Galatians 5: 4’d to “ye are fallen from grace.” I blame it on childhood years of Baptist brainwashing.

It’s just that my mind has been a smorgasbord of images and messages, lately. There’s Bush’s self-masturbatory, ghostwritten diary, along with email pleas for efforts in futility, war and more war, income disparity, and all the people who lead lives of either quiet or screaming desperation.

Soon after W began pushing his memoir, a flurry of requests for petition signing, demanding an investigation of Bush Administration

John Grant

Sergeant Salvatore Giunta will receive a Congressional Medal of Honor this week for bravery under fire in October 2007. At great risk, he assaulted a hill and rescued a gravely wounded comrade being dragged away by an insurgent. He will be the first living soldier to receive the medal since the war in Vietnam.

The man Giunta rescued did not survive, and the US forces eventually abandoned the Korengal Valley where the fighting took place.

Giunta, 25, saw his actions this way:
“I ran to the front because that is where he (the wounded comrade) was. I didn’t try to be a hero and save anyone.”

As for the ten-year-old war in Afghanistan, he said, “I have sweat more, cried more, bled more in this country than in my own. These people won’t leave this valley. They have been here far before I could fathom an Afghanistan.”

By Gareth Porter, IPS

WASHINGTON, Nov 10, 2010 (IPS) - The drone war that has been anticipated in Yemen for the last few months has been delayed by the failure of U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) to generate usable intelligence on al Qaeda there.

That failure has given the CIA a new argument for wresting control of the drone war in Yemen from the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) which now controls the drone assets in the country. But some key administration officials are resisting a CIA takeover of the war in Yemen, as reported by the Washington Post Nov. 7.

The struggle between the CIA's operations directorate and SOF officials over management of a drone war in Yemen has been a driving force in pushing the war against al Qaeda and affiliated organisations into many more countries – along with President Barack Obama's eagerness to show that he is doing more than his predecessor on terrorism.

I received three robocalls from Barack Obama in the days before the election. I listened to the first and cut short the second and third. The President implored me to vote because so much was at stake.

I had a brief conversation with the man who phoned on behalf of Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Rep. John Sarbanes. He wanted to know if the two could count on me. I explained that I've called their offices many times to ask that they stop funding war. And that I’ve always received the obligatory acknowledgment, thanking me for my input. Then, I told the caller, “But they continue to vote for war, so, no, since I can’t count on them, they cannot count on me.”

By Linda Milazzo

At a time when Israel faces near universal condemnation for the May 30th killings of eight Turkish citizens and one Turkish American aboard the Gaza bound Mavi Marmara, and worldwide rebuke for its continued blockade of Gaza and ongoing expansion into Jerusalem and the West Bank, American midterm candidates still pandered for pro-Israel money and votes during this 2010 midterm election.

Cognizant of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) financial support for American politicians who legislate on Israel's behalf, allegiance to Israel played a role in several of this year's races.

The face of war (don't look!)

Nov 2, 2010 - A new isolationism is metastasizing in the American body politic. At its heart lies not an urge to avoid war, but an urge to avoid contemplating the costs and realities of war. It sees war as having analgesic qualities - as lessening a collective feeling of impotence, a collective sense of fear and terror. Making war in the name of reducing terror serves this state of mind and helps to preserve it. Marked by a calculated estrangement from war's horrific realities and mercenary purposes, the new isolationism magically turns an historic term on its head, for it keeps us in wars, rather than out of them.

Caterpillar Withholding Sale of D9 Death Bulldozers to Human Rights Violator

October 30, 2010 - American Corporation Caterpillar has Taken a Stand for Humans in Stopping the Sales of Bulldozers that Destroy Homes of Indigenious Peoples Jewish Groups for Peace Rejoice with Millions Around the World

I have remarkable news. The Israeli press is reporting that Caterpillar is withholding the delivery of tens of D9 bulldozers—valued at $50 million—to the Israeli military.(1)

These are weaponized bulldozers that are used to illegally destroy homes and orchards of Palestinian families. And they are the very same bulldozers as the one that killed a 23-year-old American peace activist named Rachel Corrie seven years ago when she tried to protect the home of the Nasrallah family in Gaza.

26 October 2010 - The Berlin-based watchdog monitors perceived corruption and has published its annual report, based on a poll of businesses and people in 178 nations.

The worst country is Somalia, followed by Burma, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore tie for top place as the world's least corrupt countries, with the UK 20th.

'Good governance needed' {read rest}

 

Rachels parents were living and working in Charlotte NC at the time of her killing and working with Pro-Peace Activist as the drums of the war of choice, Iraq, were beating louder and louder!

Parents Seek Justice From Israel In Activist's Death

Sebastian Scheiner/AP: Cindy and Craig Corrie, seen earlier this month in Jerusalem, are suing the Israeli Defense Forces to get a full accounting of their daughter's death. Rachel Corrie was crushed by a bulldozer as she tried to stop it from demolishing a Palestinian home in 2003.

October 21, 2010 - Cindy Corrie says she'd given little thought to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict until her daughter Rachel became immersed in it.

This story originally appeared at TomDispatch.com.

Consider this: the number three book at Amazon.com at the moment is entitled Obama’s Wars, and yet the war that may most truly turn out to be the president’s seems only now to be gaining steam.  Is it a case of premature titling?

How Revenge Perpetuates Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

ScienceDaily (Oct. 4, 2010) — Revenge cuts both ways in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Scientists of the University of Zurich, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Tel Aviv and Quinnipiaq Universities show that attacks by either side lead to violent retaliation from the other. Both Israelis and Palestinians may underestimate their own role in perpetuating the conflict.

A team of scientists from the University of Zurich, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Tel Aviv and Quinnipiaq Universities have found that attacks by both Israel and Palestinians lead to violent retaliation from the other side. This finding challenges claims by both Israelis and Palestinians that they confronted with a fundamentally hostile and implacable foe, suggesting instead that part of the violence of each side is a direct reaction to previous attacks by the other party.

The team analyzed a large dataset of killings and rocket attacks in the Second Intifada between Israel and Palestine, spanning the years 2000-2008, using a statistical method called Vector Autoregression. "This technique allows us to study the effect of a single additional attack from one side on future attacks by the other side," says lead author Johannes Haushofer, a neurobiologist and economist at the University of Zurich. "We find that when one side attacks the other, they directly inflict a certain additional number of fatalities or rocket attacks on their own people, because they can be nearly certain that the other side will retaliate. For example, when Israeli forces kill 5 Palestinians, they automatically increase the probability that Israelis will die from Palestinian attacks on the following day by 50%."

By Daniel Dombey, FT

The US administration has concluded multibillion-dollar arms deals with Gulf states without establishing whether they were in the national interest, according to a congressional investigators’ report seen by the Financial Times.

The report by the Government Accountability Office ex presses concern that “US priorities are not consistently considered before such sales are authorised”.

It comes as the government is stepping up arms sales to Arab states in an effort to contain Iran.

In its audit of authorisations of weapons exports to six Gulf countries, the non-partisan report suggests the administration has failed to ensure the deals are in the national interest.

By Dave Lindorff

The surprise disclosure that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, through its state Homeland Security Agency, along with a number of local police departments in the state, have been employing a private Israeli security company with strong links to Mossad and the Israeli Defense Force grows increasingly disturbing when the website of the company, called the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, is examined.

ITRR’s slick site at www.terrorresponse.org features a homepage image of an armor-clad soldier or riot policeman preparing to fire an automatic pistol, while the company boasts of being “the preeminent Isreal/American security firm, providing training, intelligence and education for clients across the globe.”

by Linda Milazzo

This story originally appeared at TomDispatch.com.

Afghans burning an effigy of the Florida pastor.

September 9, 2010 - There is always an angle worthy of discussion in this megalomania of “Burn al Quran Day”. May be that is why so many comments have been voiced and they are all against this disgraceful and stupid plan by a discredited pastor who can’t get the support of his mother church in Germany nor the sympathy of his own daughter.

I hate to contribute to the man’s psychic lust for publicity- for that’s what he is after- and join the flocks of writers who have penned many articles on the subject.

This story originally appeared at TomDispatch.com.

On August 22, I was in Manhattan for the counter-protest to support the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero. My friend Elaine Brower gave an impassioned speech, talking about the “gentlemen’s" club by the site, and a huge Century 21 clothing store (shop, shop, shop), emphasizing the Constitutional right to freedom of religion and reminding the gathering that 15 of the hijackers who used planes as missiles on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, that the US continues to conduct business with that country, that we buy oil from Saudi Arabia, and that bikers, who roared in, joining the bigots to protest the Islamic center, most probably, filled their tanks with gas from Saudi Arabia.

Timothy McVeigh, convicted of killing 168 people in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, was parented by Irish Catholics. He referred to himself as agnostic yet wrote to a friend, prior to his crime: “I have come to peace with myself, my God and my cause.” McVeigh didn’t explain his concept of God. He did, however, request a Mass and a Catholic chaplain as his execution neared.

Are you wondering where I’m going with this?

Straight to Ground Zero and the Cordoba Initiative’s proposed building of an Islamic center within a couple of blocks of the huge hole where the World Trade Center once towered. Straight to confront the firestorm of opposition to a plan that includes a prayer room, an athletic center, culinary school, and art studios.

What if members of the Catholic Church wanted to build a center within a few blocks of the Oklahoma City National Memorial? I doubt there’d be a problem.

But we are living a problemathon.

Update - The military has taken the highly unusual decision to deploy the 3rd ACR in the middle of the night, tonight, under cover of darkness.  The protesters have stated they will confront the deployment with "radical, direct action" whatever the hour.  See latest update video below. If you keep your computer on tonight with this page up it will automatically play when broadcast recommences.

Using webcam technology, the anti-war soldier's coffee house outside of Ft. Hood, Texas is providing video updates and webcasting live the protest against redeployment of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment this month to Iraq. Protesters include active-duty soldiers (off-duty), veterans, soldiers families and supporters. Ft. Hood is the largest military base in the nation. The Under the Hood Cafe website reads: