Plans for disintegrating Pakistan are now up for debate.
ABID ULLAH JAN
Frederick Kagan and Michael O’Hanlon presented their strategic plan for disarming Pakistan in the New York Time on November 19, 2007. Written with imperial arrogance and colonial mindset, this piece cannot be contemptuously dismissed because the duo is a respected pair of neocons. O’Hanlon is the cheerleader of surge in Iraq and with Brookings and New York Times standing behind them, there is good reason for Pakistanis and their corrupt leadership to wake up…

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November 20 Anniversary of UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child
PalestineFreeVoice
The 20 th of November 2007 marks the 18 th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989, by the United Nations General Assembly through Resolution 44/25. The Convention is the first international legally binding instrument that establishes minimum standards for the protection of the human rights of children. It is the most widely ratified UN human rights treaty, with 193 ratifications among 195 UN Member States. This global acceptance of UNCRC norms for the respect and promotion of all children’s rights without discrimination of any kind is a significant first step towards global implementation. The Convention entered into force in Israel in November 1991, but as with most other international conventions and treaties, Israel denies its applicability to the Palestinian territory….

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Tuesday, 20 November 2007
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. www.freearabvoice.org
….In a dispatch posted at 10:35pm Baghdad time Tuesday night, the Yaqen News Agency reported that Iraqi Resistance gunfire brought down a US helicopter to the southeast of Baghdad, according to US admissions on Tuesday. Yaqen reported a communiqué issued by the American occupation authorities as saying that a US military helicopter crashed near Salman Bak, 45km southeast of Baghdad. The American military admitted that two of its personnel were killed in the attack and 12 more of them wounded….

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The Bush Doctrine in Somalia: Yet Another Success
Kris Petersen, harmonicminor.com
Over 500,000 people have now fled Mogadishu and its seems safe to assume that the Bush doctrine is alive and well in Somalia. With the Islamofascists overthrown and the bloodshed intensifying, America has added yet another success to its long list of accomplishments in spreading freedom and democracy. Somalis may yet throw candy to the U.S.-backed Ethiopian troops, but there’s just one hitch: the Islamist forces overthrown last year by the U.S.-backed Ethiopian army are regaining their strength and are likely to reassert their power if Ethiopia’s own domestic rebellion intensifies….

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Israel to heart patient: “Go die in Gaza”
Report, PHR-Israel
…PHR-Israel reminds the government of Israel and the international community that deliberate withholding of medical care for reasons external to medical considerations can in extreme cases constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment as defined in the UN Convention Against Torture. Since Israel controls the sole exit point from Gaza to the outside world, it bears sole responsibility for access of patients to care, irrespective of the legal status of Gaza as occupied territory. PHR-Israel emphatically condemns the policies of the Israeli government regarding Gaza, as well as the failure of international governments to oppose the policy of isolation implemented against the 1.4 million protected civilians of Gaza…

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Baghdad Bonanza
The Top 100 Private Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan
Bill Buzenberg, The Center for Public Integrity
KBR, Inc., the global engineering and construction giant, won more than $16 billion in U.S. government contracts for work in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2004 to 2006—far more than any other company, according to a new analysis by the Center for Public Integrity. In fact, the total dollar value of contracts that went to KBR—which used to be known as Kellogg, Brown, and Root and until April 2007 was a subsidiary of Halliburton—was nearly nine times greater than those awarded to DynCorp International, a private security firm that is No. 2 on the Center’s list of the top 100 recipients of Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction funds. Another private security company, Blackwater USA, whose employees recently killed as many as 17 Iraqi civilians in what the Iraqi government alleges was an unprovoked attack, is 12th on the list of companies and joint ventures, with $485 million in contracts…

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IRAQ: Toward National Reconciliation or a Warlord State?
Analysis by Jim Lobe
On one side, advocates of the surge — the deployment beginning last February of some 30,000 additional troops to Iraq to help pacify Baghdad and al-Anbar province — claim that the counter-insurgency strategy overseen by Gen. David Petraeus has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. On the other side, surge sceptics argue that the strategy’s “ground-up” approach to pacification — buying off local insurgent and tribal groups with money and other support — may have set the stage for a much bigger and more violent civil war or partition, particularly as U.S. forces begin drawing down from their current high of about 175,000 beginning as early as next month. One prominent analyst, George Washington University Prof. Marc Lynch, believes that Petraeus’ strategy of reducing violence by making deals with dominant local powers is leading to the creation in Iraq of a “warlord state” with “power devolved to local militias, gangs, tribes, and power-brokers, with a purely nominal central state.”…

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Urgent action needed to avoid humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan, says Oxfam
The Associated Press
Urgent action is needed to avert humanitarian disaster in Aghanistan where millions face “severe hardship comparable with sub-Saharan Africa,” the international aid agency Oxfam said. A report by the Britain-based agency said U.S. spending on aid in the country was only a fraction of its military expenditure there, and too much of the aid money goes on high salaries. Although the U.S. Agency for International Development has spent more than US$4.4 billion (€3 billion) in Afghanistan since 2002, Oxfam said that figure is dwarfed by U.S. military spending here — US$35 billion (€23.88 billion) in 2007 alone. “As in Iraq, too much aid is absorbed by profits of companies and subcontractors, on non-Afghan resources and on high expatriate salaries and living costs,” said the report Tuesday prepared for a British parliament committee. “Each full-time expatriate consultant costs up to half a million dollars a year.”…

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The unreported destruction of Somalia
Graeme Anfinson, LEFT IN EAST DAKOTA
According to the United Nations, the situation in Somalia is the worst humanitarian crisis in all of Africa. In the last two weeks 100,000 people have fled Mogadishu, the capital of the country. It is estimated that 1.5 million Somalis are now in need of immediate assistance. Despite all this, coverage of the situation has been absent from nearly all national, and local, news outlets. One can’t help but think that the United States’ involvement in the catastrophe is one reason why the media has been so silent on the issue….

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US Denies Americans Detained in Shooting
KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer
Iraqi troops detained 43 people, most Sri Lankans and other foreigners, traveling in a convoy run by a U.S.-contracted firm after an Iraqi woman was wounded in a shooting involving their vehicles in Baghdad, the military said. It denied reports that two Americans were among those arrested. The incident follows a series of recent shootings in which foreign security guards have allegedly killed Iraqis. Last month, the Iraqi Cabinet sent parliament a bill to lift immunity for foreign private security companies that has been in effect since the U.S. occupation began in 2003…

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Critique of the Arab Left: On Palestine and Arab Unity
Hisham Bustani, Monthly Review
The situation of the Arab Left is similar to “the phenomenon of the transformation of the Left” on the global scale and a reflection of it. The reason is simple: the Arab Left, as a general rule though with some exceptions, was never a “Left” in the dialectical materialist sense. It has always been a reserved, conservative entity, “reactionary” rather than proactive, “importing” theory rather than producing it, adhering to the “letter of the text” (mainly the text of the Soviet policy!) rather than being an innovative critical thinker. Below I attempt to dissect the main weaknesses of the Arab Left, as well as the obstacles it faced, and discuss whether there really was an Arab Left at all….

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Tuesday: 2 Coalition Soldiers, 71 Iraqis Killed; 33 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
A U.S. helicopter crashed near Salman Pak, killing two soldiers and injuring 12 more. At least 71 Iraqis were killed and 33 more were also wounded in the latest violence. Also, the finance ministry announced that Iraq will give Syria $15 million to defray the costs of hosting Iraqi refugees who fled there to escape violence at home. In Baghdad, six bodies were found dumped in different neighborhoods…

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Fallujah Now Under a Different Kind of Siege
Ali al-Fadhily*, Inter Press Service
Three years after a devastating U.S.-led siege of the city, residents of Fallujah continue to struggle with a shattered economy, infrastructure, and lack of mobility. The city that was routed in November 2004 is still suffering the worst humanitarian conditions under a siege that continues. Although military actions are down to the minimum inside the city, local and US authorities do not seem to be thinking of ending the agonies of the over 400,000 residents of Fallujah. “You, people of the media, say things in Fallujah are good,” Mohammad Sammy, an aid worker for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Fallujah told IPS, “Then why don’t you come and live in this paradise with us? It is so easy to say things for you, isn’t it?”…

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Salvador Option Comes to Pakistan
The Fanonite
Presumably encouraged by the wonderful results from Iraq, where death squads reign by night even as rotting corpses terrorize streets by days, the United States is now considering grafting the Salvador Option — policy to arm factions to fight proxy wars on American behalf, a la death squads in Central America and, more recently, Iraq — to Pakistan. I hope the leadership in Pakistan is not stupid to play along. This could spiral out of control sooner than anyone can imagine, and literally mean the end of Pakistan….

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Hi-tech Torture
Rosemarie Jackowski
Just when it seems that things cannot get any worse, we learn that U.S. military commanders in Iraq are seeking permission to use a new weapon system. This will be the ultimate torture weapon. Its purpose is to cause excruciating pain, but leave no evidence of wounds on the victim. Imagine this weapon at AbuGhraib or Guantanamo. Imagine this weapon at your local precinct. The Department of Defense has named this weapon system “Active Denial”. Besides torture, this weapon can also be used for crowd control. It is a ray gun which could literally make blood boil….

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One child dies every five minutes in Iraq because of the conflict
Cesar Chelala, Gulf Times
Looking at photographs of Iraqi children maimed by the war makes the conflict unforgettable. Reflecting on the causes that led to that war makes it unforgivable. Slowly but steadily new information is coming out on the effects of the war on children, and how it has affected not only their health but also their quality of life and prospects for the future. The International Children’s Day is celebrated throughout the world today, but certainly not in Iraq, where children have become the most tragic victims of the conflict. One child dies every five minutes because of the war, and many more are left with severe injuries…

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The Middle East has had a secretive nuclear power in its midst for years
George Monbiot, The Guardian
George Bush and Gordon Brown are right: there should be no nuclear weapons in the Middle East. The risk of a nuclear conflagration could be greater there than anywhere else. Any nation developing them should expect a firm diplomatic response. So when will they impose sanctions on Israel? Like them, I believe that Iran is trying to acquire the bomb. I also believe it should be discouraged, by a combination of economic pressure and bribery, from doing so (a military response would, of course, be disastrous). I believe that Bush and Brown – who maintain their nuclear arsenals in defiance of the non-proliferation treaty – are in no position to lecture anyone else. But if, as Bush claims, the proliferation of such weapons “would be a dangerous threat to world peace”, why does neither man mention the fact that Israel, according to a secret briefing by the US Defence Intelligence Agency, possesses between 60 and 80 of them?…

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IRAQ: No trace found for thousands of manuscripts U.S. troops discovered in 2003
Mohammed Dhaher, Azzaman
Thousands of manuscripts have disappeared among them priceless copies of the Holy Koran, an Iraqi librarian said. The librarian, who wanted his name kept secret, said the manuscripts were “expropriated” by a U.S.-led force shortly after the 2003 invasion of Baghdad. The former government had moved the manuscripts from the national library shelves to a cellar close to the Umm al-Teboul mosque in Baghdad for fear of damage or theft. The librarian said the troops removed the manuscripts from the cellar but there is no trace of them…

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Dear Prime Minister – An Open Letter
Felicity Arbuthnot
…I note you are considering legislation which will outlaw those who have broken the law, from profiting from the books they have written, based around their illegal actions. I take it that there will be no exception for your predecessor Anthony Lyndon Blair QC., who, on the basis of a ten year old thesis taken off the internet and ‘sexed up’ dossiers, committed the ‘supreme international crime’, under the Nuremberg Principles, an act of aggression against a country which posed no threat to Britain and America and the overthrow and lynching of members of a sovereign government, whose ‘sovereignty’ was guaranteed by the United Nations. I assume this will also include yourself, who, as Chancellor, wrote the cheques and your colleagues in Cabinet who also voted for this crime of historic enormity…

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Gaza: the Final Solution in Slow Motion
Agustin VELLOSO, Translated by Ernesto Piramo
….For many months ill Palestinians have been dying needlessly because many other trucks have not been authorized to transport medicines or even any other basic products – to the prison into which Gaza has been transformed. The martyr children Mohammad Turk, Mohammad Helow and Shaban Lulu, are only three of the hundreds of Palestinians that have died in the last so many months as a result of the Israeli and international blockade. Shifa’a hospital staff in Gaza City pointed out September 5, 2006 that the three boys had died because of renal complications that could not be treated as they had run out of the necessary medicines. The Emergency General Director of the Ministry of Health warned at the time of the imminent danger of death faced by more than six hundred children suffering from renal deficiencies. Since then, actually since Israel occupied Palestine for the first time, it has been very plain that Palestinian children, old people, women and men face the very present danger of losing their land, their houses, their way of life and even life itself, for no other reason other than they are not Jews….

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DEPLETED URANIUM STRIKES AGAIN—THIS TIME IN THE USA
Kevin Stoda
I have written previously about the fact that today in Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkons the number of victims of depleted uranium (DU) weapons technology is growing but that the actual numbers of victims largely remain uncounted due to political aversions in the U.S. and in allied nation states to share more data and conduct more investigations on what DU has been doing to those who have come into contact with the deadly uranium contamination created when such weapons hit or miss their targets. Finally, a British-funded study has been conducted in the United States. A report in November 18th’s Guardian reports that “23 years after a US arms plant closed, workers, and residents have cancer—and experts say their suffering shows the use of such [DU] weapons may be a war crime.”…

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Two U.S. soldiers killed in helicopter crash near Baghdad
Xinhua
Two U.S. soldiers were killed and 12 others were injured when a U.S. helicopter crashed southeast of Baghdad on Tuesday, the U.S. military said. The incident took place near the town of Salaman Pak, some 25 km southeast of the capital, a military statement said without providing further details….

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IRAQ: Extremists fuel anti-women violence in Basra
IRIN News
Anti-women violence in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, about 600 km south of the capital, Baghdad, has increased markedly in recent months and has forced women to stay indoors, police and local NGOs have said. “Basra is facing a new type of terror which leaves at least 10 women killed monthly, some of them are later found in garbage dumps with bullet holes while others are found decapitated or mutilated,” the city’s police chief Maj. Gen. Abdel Jalil Khalaf told IRIN in a telephone interview. “The perpetrators are organised gangs who work under religious cover pretending to spread instructions of Islam but they are far from this religion. They are trying to impose a life style like banning women from wearing western clothes or forcing them to wear head scarf,” Khalaf said…

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Iraq to punish 3 soccer players over asylum bid
Wisam Mohammed, Reuters
The Iraqi Football Association said on Tuesday it plans to block three players from joining foreign clubs and may try to ban them from international matches after they sneaked off after an Olympic qualifier in Australia with plans to seek asylum. The association’s Secretary-General Ahmed Abbas said it was considering “severe punishment” against the players, who secretly left their team hotel just hours after losing 2-0 in a 2008 Olympic qualifier on Saturday. Midfielder Ali Abbas, one of the heroes of Iraq’s stunning Asian Cup triumph in July, was among the defectors. The other two players were identified as Ali Mansur and Ali Khadher. Assistant coach Sadi Toma also went missing, the association said on Sunday….

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US steps up plans for military intervention in Pakistan
Bill Van Auken, WSWS
In the midst of public statements of support for “democracy” in Pakistan and the recent visit to Islamabad by the American envoy John Negroponte, Washington is quietly preparing for a stepped-up military intervention in the crisis-ridden country. According to the New York Times Monday, plans have been drawn up by the US military’s Special Operations Command for deploying Special Forces troops in Pakistan’s frontier regions for the purpose of training indigenous militias to combat forces aligned with the Taliban and Al Qaeda….

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Thus Spoke Equality
Why Israel Has No “Right to Exist” as a Jewish State
OREN BEN-DOR
Yet again, the Annapolis meeting between Olmert and Abbas is preconditioned upon the recognition by the Palestinian side of the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. Indeed the “road map” should lead to, and legitimate, once and for all, the right of such a Jewish state to exist in definitive borders and in peace with its neighbours. The vision of justice, both past and future, simply has to be that of two states, one Palestinian, one Jewish, which would coexist side by side in peace and stability. Finding a formula for a reasonably just partition and separation is still the essence of what is considered to be moderate, pragmatic and fair ethos. Thus, the really deep issues—the “core”—are conceived as the status of Jerusalem, the fate and future of the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories and the viability of the future Palestinian state beside the Jewish one….

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Iran agrees new talks with US on Iraq
AFP
Iran said on Tuesday it has agreed to a new round of talks with the United States on improving security in Iraq, despite mounting tensions between the two arch foes over Iran’s nuclear drive. The announcement came after the United States said Iran has stemmed the flow of weapons and militants across the border amid a decrease in violence in its western neighbour. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Washington had requested the new talks through the Swiss embassy in Tehran, which looks after US interests in Iran in the absence of a US mission. “The Swiss embassy in Iran passed on the message of the US government for a new round of talks on Iraq to my colleagues in the foreign ministry,” Mottaki told reporters alongside his visiting Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem….

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Monday, 19 November 2007
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. www.freearabvoice.org
…In a dispatch posted Monday, the Yaqen News Agency reported that it had been disclosed that puppet regime police tortured a prisoner to death in the city of ‘Anah, 300km northwest of Baghdad. Yaqen reported numerous residents of ‘Anah as saying that Ahmad ‘Arif Habib al-’Ani was one of three people arrested two days ago in the course of mass arrests that followed an upsurge in ambushes and sharpshooter attacks on US occupation troops in the city. Only a small number of close relatives of Ahmad Habib al-’Ani were allowed to attend his funeral, as US troops and puppet police prevented local residents from leaving their homes to pay their last respects to the victim, in an action designed to protect the occupation forces and their puppet regime allies from outraged protestors angry over the torture death of a local man at the hands of the occupation regime and its local stooges….

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Israeli siege on Gaza Strip claims more Palestinian lives
Palestinian Information Center
The Israeli siege on Gaza Strip took its toll on innocent and sick Palestinian citizens as it claimed the life of a 9-year-old Palestinian child Monday after the IOF troops denied him a passing permit for medical treatment outside of Gaza Strip. The Palestinian center for human rights strongly condemned the Israeli behavior, affirming that the child died after the IOF troops deliberately delayed his entry into the 1948-occupied Palestinian lands for medical treatment although he had an official entry permit. The center identified the child as Amir Shaher Abdullah Al-Yazeji, 9, of Al-Sheikh Redwan suburb in Gaza city (…)
The unfortunate death of the Palestinian child brings the number of Palestinian citizens who died because of the unjust Israeli blockade on the tiny Strip to ten, including a woman, a child, and an infant among others since the middle of the month of August this year…

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Former WH Press Sec.: Bush, Rove helped pass along ‘false information’ on Plame
Jason Rhyne, RAW STORY
President Bush, Karl Rove, and other top administration officials were “involved” in misleading the White House press corps about the outing of ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame, a forthcoming book from former Press Secretary Scott McClellan alleges. Entitled What Happened, the new tell-all features McClellan’s account of his days as the White House’s top spokesman — including a behind-the-scenes look at the Bush administration’s handling of the Plame affair, according to a tantalizing excerpt from the book released on its publisher’s website…

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Jihad and Reform Front: Statement regarding the closure of the AMSI headquarter and Radio
Jihad and Reform Front
…We were shocked by the announcement of closing the headquarter and radio of AMSI by the administration of “Waqf al-Sunni”!! It was the first time that happens, this will achieve the dreams of who hate Sunni people and target them, this time in the name of Sunnis!We -Jihad and Reform Front- warn from such reckless actions against the Sunnis institutions and religion and consider it a kind of giving loyalties to the others which will achieve their goals against Sunni people… We affirm that this will lead to nothing but disgrace in this world, and punishment in the judgment day and Allah knows, and ye know not….

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Israel increases restrictions on occupied Palestinians in preparation for summit
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
Curfews have been imposed on all towns and villages in the northern West Bank. Access to Jerusalem for worshippers hoping to pray at the al-Aqsa mosque has been cut off. Soldiers operating the over 700 checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank have been instructed to severely restrict the movement of Palestinian people. These and many other measures have been put in place Tuesday by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in preparation for a ‘peace summit’ between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on Monday….

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American “justice”
Eli Stephens, Left I on the News
An Iraqi AP reporter has been in jail for 19 months. And now: The U.S. military plans to seek a criminal case in an Iraqi court against an award-winning Associated Press photographer but is refusing to disclose what evidence or accusations would be presented. And how reminiscent does this sound of other “cases” the U.S. has mounted (Wen Ho Lee, Jose Padilla, James Yee, the list goes on): The AP says various accusations were floated unofficially against Hussein and then apparently withdrawn with little explanation…

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