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Why Condemning Israel and the Zionist Lobby is so Important
James Petras, Axis of Logic
Many Jewish writers, including those who are somewhat critical of Israel, have raised pointed questions about our critique of the Zionist power configuration (ZPC) in the United States and what they wrongly claim are our singular harsh critique of the state of Israel. Some of these accusers claim to see signs of ‘latent anti-Semitism’, others, of a more ‘leftist’ coloration, deny the influential role of the ZPC arguing that US foreign policy is a product of ‘geo-politics or the interests of big oil. With the recent publication of several widely circulated texts, highly critical of the power of the Zionist ‘lobby’, several liberal pro-Israel publicists generously conceded that it is a topic that should be debated (and not automatically stigmatized and dismissed) and perhaps be ‘taken into account.’…
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A Christmas Present from Gilad Atzmon:
Liberating the American People
Gilad Atzmon
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Anathema
Gabriele Zamparini, The cat’s dream
…With the BLOOD of ONE MILLION of OUR BROTHERS and SISTERS on HIS HANDS, Bush concluded his Christmas message: At this special time of year, we reflect on the miraculous life that began in a humble manger 2,000 years ago. That single life changed the world, and continues to change hearts today. To everyone celebrating Christmas, Laura and I wish you a day of glad tidings. Thank you for listening, and Merry Christmas. In Bush’s mouth these words have the gravity of blasphemy and every Christian has the moral responsibility to reject them, to condemn those responsible for this genocide and to stop it. If we want to celebrate Christmas we must say NO! to these fanatical mass murderers who reject Christ’s message of love and compassion, peace and justice. To Bush, Blair and their partners in crime, we shall denounce: Anathema!…
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Washington’s Game in Turkmenistan
Mike Whitney
Was the Bush administration involved in the death of Turkmenistan’s President, Saparmurat Niyazov? After all, Niyazov met all the criteria for Bush’s policy of “regime change”. He controlled massive natural gas reserves and he refused to take orders directly from Washington. Typically, these are the only factors that are weighed when considering whether a change of leadership is in order. Naturally, Niyazov was on the same “target list” as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez and Saddam Hussein, the other foreign leaders whose only real crime is that they control vital supplies of dwindling resources. This puts them at odds with the American oil giants whose plans to expand their corporate empire throughout Central Asia and the Middle East is now a matter of the public record…
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Video
Anthem for Someone’s Child
Sabbah’s blog
“Anthem for Someone’s Child” (written and recorded in memory of all the children killed in the Middle-East conflicts and forming the centrepiece of the www.forsomeoneschild.com/ website) has received the “Best Songwriter” award (France) in the national category in the 2006 Music Aid International Music Awards Contest. The song brought tears to my eyes and I could not resist but to make the following clip (hard to watch). Selected photos of Israeli, Palestinian, Iraqi and Lebanese children (in no particular order), victims of war crimes…
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Christmas under siege: Baghdad tree tradition dies
Sabah Jerges, Middle East Online
Baghdad’s vicious sectarian war has claimed another victim; a Christmas tradition that used to bond the city’s Christian community closer to their Muslim neighbours is dying. Until this year, Muslim farmers from Baghdad’s outskirts would descend on Sadun Street in downtown Karrada to sell Christmas trees to the area’s large Christian community and exchange season’s greetings. Prices were low and, for the remaining Christians in an increasingly dangerous district, it was as much an inter-religious social event as a market. “They used to wish me Merry Christmas before selling me the tree I chose,” said mother-of-two Mary Hanna. “I miss them and their trees this year.”…
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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Sunday, 24 December 2006.
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice
…In a dispatch posted at 2:21pm Makkah time Sunday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that US fighter bombers attacked an area of al-Latifiyah on Sunday killing more than 11 local residents and wounding several others, most of them women and children. The Baghdad correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported eyewitnesses in the al-Jannabat area of al-Latifiyah, about 30km south of Baghdad, reported that US F-16 fighter bombers attacked peaceful residents in the al-Jannabat and al-Mahamidah areas of the city, on the pretext that those houses were hideouts for “wanted” Iraqi Resistance fighters. The result of the American raids, however, was the death of 11 local civilians and the wounding of many others, most of them women and children according to local witnesses…
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Gates visited Baghdad to quell US soldiers mutiny in Anbar, US imminent attack on Ramadi soon
Roads to Iraq
According almoharrer newspaper quoting an Iraqi Military sources. Iraqi military sources told the newspaper that the reason that the American Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited Baghdad urgently after two days he received his new post as a Defense Minister; is to extinguish a military mutiny carried out by American VI battalion based in Anbar, after refusing to obey orders and prefer not to leave their base in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. The sources pointed out that the US military base is exposed to daily heavy tactical attacks and attempts to storm the walls of the base by Iraqi resistance. The sources added that Washington and specifically Military, and intelligence in the American Congress, designedly sending Gates to rectify the mistakes that were made by his predecessor Ramsifeld and the most serious is; the American soldiers surrendering to the Iraqi resistance in Ramadi, which is what happened a month and a half before, while Iraqi resistance clashed with American patrol and managed to burn their military vehicle, US soldiers had no choice but surrender and hope for safety…
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Iran criticizes hypocrisy of Security Council over Israeli WMDs
FARS News Agency
Iran denounced UN sanctions imposed on its nuclear program, accusing the Security Council of double standards for ignoring Israel’s recent admission of its nuclear capabilities. Speaking after the adoption of a Security Council resolution aimed at pressuring Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment program, Iran’s UN ambassador on Saturday called the sanctions illegal and accused Europe and the United States of trying to prevent Iran from pursuing peaceful nuclear technology…
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DAILY WAR NEWS FOR SUNDAY, December 24, 2006
Today in Iraq
Three 89th Military Police Brigade Soldiers were killed and one Soldier was wounded Saturday when their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device at approximately 12:20 p.m. in east Baghdad. (MNF – Iraq). An improvised explosive device detonated near a Multi-National Division – Baghdad patrol, killing one Soldier southwest of the Iraqi capital Dec. 23. The combat patrol was conducting a combat re-supply mission in order to deliver necessary supplies to units in the area. As they conducted their mission, a roadside bomb exploded near one of their vehicles, killing one Soldier. (MNF – Iraq)…
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Merry Christmas, War is Over.
Hussein Al-alak, The Iraq Solidarity Campaign
“So this is Christmas and what have you done?” The famous words of John Lennon’s Merry Christmas, War is Over. A great hypocracy in the eyes of Iraqi’s, as we imagine the butchers of babies; Mr. Bush and Blair, sitting down with their families around a Christmas tree, opening gifts and eating their Christmas dinner For the Iraqi people, like all Arabs, Christmas day is the day, that represents the birth of the great prophet and radical Jesus Christ. The man who opposed the Roman occupation of Palestine and whose ancestors originated from the land between the two rivers…
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PA government calls on UN to transfer Palestinians out of Iraq
palestine-info.co.uk
The PA ministry of refugees’ affairs has called on the UN to swiftly transfer the Palestinian refugees residing in Iraq to Syria and Jordan to preserve their threatened lives. The ministry, in a press release on Saturday, stressed that those refugees should remain under UN-supervision until their return to their homeland, and affirmed that they should remain near their homeland Palestine. It urged the UN to shoulder its responsibility towards those refugees and to provide protection for them in face of the daily murder and arrest threats that ran contrary to human rights…
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BETHLEHEM AT CHRISTMAS
Desert Peace
The ‘ghosts of Christmas past’ are haunting the empty streets of Bethlehem this holiday season. What once was a vibrant community during this time of year is a deserted ghost town. Tourism is down in Israel/Palestine because of the political situation and travel advisories from western countries about visiting the Occupied Territories. Shopowners are suffering due to the lack of tourist dollars that they are not getting this year. There was hope that a peace process would begin… that the end of the crisis was near… there still is that hope… but not for this Christmas…
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Bardawil charges Abbas with planning military coup against the government
palestine-info.co.uk
Salah Bardawil, the spokesman of the Hamas-affiliated change and reform parliamentary bloc, on Sunday charged PA chief Mahmoud Abbas with impeding national dialogue and with planning military coup against the PA government. Bardawil, in a press release, said that Abbas was preparing to topple the legitimate PA government using military force, citing the PA chief’s constant hampering of national dialogue. He drew the attention to the increasing deployment of presidential guards in the PA-run lands and to exploiting the constitutional court to issue rulings against the Hamas-led government…
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Shouting Truth to Depraved Power (and Its Unwitting Accomplices):
“Stephen Lendman Sounds Off “
Jason Miller
I recently had the privilege of conducting a “cyber interview” with one of the preeminent domestic critics of the American Empire. Despite his relatively recent start, Stephen Lendman has rapidly become one of the most ubiquitous and well-respected chroniclers of truth in the alternative media community. Asserting unflinching support for social democracy, Hugo Chavez, and the countless victims of US foreign and domestic policy, Lendman has penned a growing stack of essays assailing the brutality of American Capitalism and the genocidal crimes of unbridled United States militarism…
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GI Special 4L18: Troop Morale Down The Drain
Thomas F. Barton
U.S. soldiers serving repeated Iraq deployments are 50 percent more likely than those with one tour to suffer from acute combat stress, raising their risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Army’s first survey exploring how today’s multiple war-zone rotations affect soldiers’ mental health. Soldiers with multiple tours also reported greater concern over the length of the 12-month deployments than those on their first tours and were more likely to give lower ratings for their own morale and that of their units, which 55 percent described as low…
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Four U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq
Reuters
Four U.S. military personnel were killed and two were wounded in two separate incidents in Iraq on Saturday, the U.S. military said on Sunday. Three military police were killed and one was wounded when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad, it said. In a later statement, the military said one soldier was killed and one was wounded in an explosion while they were taking part in operations in Diyala province…
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