MOVEON SHOULD MOVE OUT
Malcom Lagauche
Shortly after the illegal March 2003 invasion of Iraq, a new group came to the forefront of the anti-war movement: MoveOn. Its only stated goal was to get the U.S. out of Iraq. It endorsed no one or no party. Its principles seemed honorable. Shortly after its inception, MoveOn began to endorse and collect money for John Kerry’s candidacy. MoveOn became a shill for the Democratic Party. At this time, the calls for money for the group began to intensify. The problematic aspect of the change in direction was that Kerry voted to go to war against Iraq. I sent MoveOn a long message and tried to find out why the group changed. I received no reply, despite the organization’s false pretense of being an anti-war movement that endorses no candidate. Since the Kerry fundraising effort, MoveOn has blatantly moved away from its original goal. Today, the group is more pro-Obama than Obama. I have yet to ask MoveOn to take my name off its mailing list only so I can see how morally bankrupt and deceitful it is. When you think it has reached its lowest, MoveOn surprises you and descends even further…

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Missile Tests and Bluster from Iran
Robert Dreyfuss
Iran is in the news again today, with reports that it has test-fired missiles with a range of 1,200 miles. “Our hands are always on the trigger and our missiles are ready for launch,” blustered a general from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. That sent oil prices up again. It also fueled the debate about the Bush Administration’s plan to put missiles in eastern Europe. And it caused more speculation about a U.S. and/or Israeli preemptive strike against Iran. I’m not worried. Iranian President Ahmadinejad doesn’t seem to be worried, either, since he referred to such threats as a “funny joke.” He added, “I assure you that there won’t be any war in the future.”… In my opinion, progressives ought to worry a lot more about the real wars we’re fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, not the one we aren’t going to have with Iran…

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Legitimizing the Permanent Occupation of Iraq
Stephen Lendman
Washington is currently negotiating two accords with the al-Maliki government to take effect after expiration of the UN’s military mandate on December 31. One agreement is for a long-term “strategic framework” to establish “cooperation in the political, economic, cultural and security fields.” Or according to the administration – to defend Iraq’s “sovereignty and integrity of its territories, waters, and airspace.” The other is a so-called “status of forces agreement” (SOFA) to provide legitimacy for the US occupation beginning January 1, 2009. Following the 2003 invasion, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1511. It officially recognized the “Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)” and authorized a multinational force to bring “stability” to the country. Part of the agreement was for the mandate to be reauthorized each year. It’s been done “at the request of the Iraqi government.”..

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Bipartisanship
Arablinks
…The candidates’ reactions to the Maliki and Rubaie statements illustrate this nicely: AlHayat quotes McCain telling MSNBC that “the Iraqis have told me very clearly” that they think withdrawal should depend on conditions on the ground… “We will withdraw…but the withdrawal must be dictated by events on the ground”. And Obama, for his part, is quoted by AFP as having said on Monday: “I think it’s encouraging … that the prime minister himself now acknowledges that in cooperation with Iraq, it’s time for American forces to start sending out a timeframe for the withdrawal.” In other words, Washington position is “timeframe, with links to conditions on the ground”, and this is shared by the two parties, with only rhetorical differences in emphasis. And the agreement to switch the negotiations to a bridge or Memorandum of Understanding format is the mechanism for handing this bipartisan position off to the new administration. And you thought there were two parties in Washington involved in a struggle over this…

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Urgent appeal for saving more than 500 Palestinian patients
Palestinian Information Center
The health ministry in Gaza appealed Tuesday to all humanitarian organizations in the world to urgently intervene to save the lives of more than 500 Palestinian patients in need of immediate life-saving medical treatment outside the Strip, warning that any delay could jeopardize their lives any moment. In a statement received by the PIC, the ministry also warned that the closure of Gaza crossings claimed the lives of more than 200 patients and the toll is likely to increase…

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One out of five Iraqis is a refugee, U.N. says
Jawad Ghanim, Azzaman
An international conference on the plight of Iraqis displaced in the years since the U.S. invasion says there is little hope at the end of the tunnel for millions of Iraqi refugees. The conference organized by the Ministry of Immigration and attended by U.N. Refugee Agency estimated that about five million Iraqis are now refugees out of a population of more than 25 million…

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The Occupation is the Framework
Sick at the Gaza Crossing
PHILIP RIZK
Between her hands the sick woman grasped a pack of six tea glasses. It seemed a bit strange of an item to be bringing back into Gaza with so few permitted to make this rare excursion beyond Gaza’s borders. Later that day, after a large welcoming lunch and over tea in plastic throw away cups I found out that tea glasses like so many other things had run out in Gaza. A single glass had nearly reached the cost of the price of a whole set and for my hosting family this was simply not affordable. Much of my second day I spent at the beach. The one outlet for a majority of Gaza’s population is still very much a reality and on summer days like this one, hundreds of people flock to the beach to forget the daily routine…

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Video: Israeli army shuts Palestinian shops and schools – 09 Jul 08
AlJazeeraEnglish
The Israeli army has raided City Hall in the West Bank town of Nablus, as part of a crackdown on organisations it says are linked to Hamas. Troops have been shutting down schools, shops and charities as part of a campaign that the Palestinian prime minister says is badly undermining his government…

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The Forgotten: Somalia’s American-Made Road to Perdition
Chris Floyd
The on-going, American-backed atrocity continues to rage in Somalia, where George W. Bush has launched a third “regime change” front in his global Terror War, with the help of one of his many pet dictators, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia. This week the head of the UN Development Program in Somalia, Osman Ali Ahmed, was shot dead as he left evening prayers at a mosque near his home in Mogadishu. The Bush Administration immediately blamed insurgent factions fighting against the Ethiopian-imposed government; insurgent leaders immediately denied the charge: “All the Mujahedeen are not behind his killing and it is not becoming of them to kill important persons who help the Somali people on whose behalf we are fighting,” said a spokesman for one of the Islamist factions opposed to the Ethiopian-imposed government. Whoever carried out the killing was obviously trying to foment more chaos in the shattered land and derail the fraught and fragile peace process, which has as one of its ultimate goals the withdrawal of Bush’s Ethiopian proxy army…

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The Persian Paradox
Why is so much sensitive US military technology winding up in Iran?
Laura Rozen, Mother Jones
…Perhaps as interesting as Durrani’s extracurricular Mexican activities and his persistent presence in US arms sales to Iran from the Reagan to the George W. Bush administrations is this paradox, also reminiscent of the Reagan era. Just as the Bush administration has led a concerted effort to cobble together an international alliance to isolate Iran, statistics from the US government document a rather startling fact: a rise in the instances of export-controlled, sensitive US technology, in particular fighter-jet and military-aircraft parts, making their way to Iran. The latest statistics on illegal US arms sales to Iran detected and compiled by investigators at the US bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), now part of the Department of Homeland Security, read like the basis of a spy novel. The story they tell raises many questions…

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‘It’s like living at the end of the world’
Dirty, dilapidated and desperate, al-Ram is typical of the Palestinian towns cut off by the barrier on Jerusalem’s eastern outskirts
Toni O’Loughlin, Guardian
Sufian Odeh used to be able to see his cousin’s house across the street from his apartment window – until Israel built a wall of concrete down the middle of their neighborhood two years ago. Standing eight metres high and just 13 metres from his building, it overshadows Sufian’s second-floor apartment like the wall of a prison, darkening this once thriving Palestinian district. “When I look from the window and see the wall, I immediately close the blinds and smoke a cigarette. It’s like living at the end of the world,” says Sufian, who asked to change his name to preserve his family’s privacy…

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Secret US-Iraq “Status of Forces” Agreement Would Preserve Human Rights Violations, Torture Policies in Iraq
Tom Hayden
The Bush-Cheney administration is engaged in secret talks with their Iraqi counterparts to craft a binding executive agreement renewing current US military and detention policies when the United Nations authorization expires this December. The “status of forces” proposal is bogged down in disputes between the Pentagon and key Iraqi factions, and faces potential sharp questions in the US Congress in the coming weeks. Assuming the administration has its way, which is by no means certain, the agreement between the two executive branches will preserve the right of US forces to initiate unilateral military action and continue rounding up tens of thousands of Iraqis in abusive preventive detention facilities where human rights are violated routinely…

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WHAT REALLY HAPPENED RADIO TO HOST MOHAMMED OMER THIS SATURDAY
Desertpeace
Michael Rivero, the host of What Really Happened GCN Radio Show, has invited Mohammed Omer to be his guest this Saturday. Mohammed will detail the ordeal he went through at the hands of Israeli terrorists working as security officials at one of the entries to Israel from Jordan. He was nearly beaten to death, tortured and totally humiliated by them as he attempted to return to Gaza after recieving a prestigious award for journalism in Britain. The format of the show allows for phone-ins and questions. Here is your chance to show Mohammed the appreciation you have for him as being the ‘Voice for the voiceless in Gaza’…

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Video: Palestinians document settler violence
AlJazeeraEnglish
The victim of a beating captured on videotape outside the West Bank city of Hebron has spoken about the day he was set upon by Jewish settlers. Midhat Abu Karsh, a 30-year-old Palestinian teacher was beaten for allegedly setting fire to fields in the area. Nour Odeh reports on how he and human rights groups are fighting back…

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Iraq official: U.S. could be out by 2011
CNN
A deadline should be set for the withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces from Iraq, and the pullout could be done by 2011, an Iraqi government spokesman said Tuesday. Ali al-Dabbagh said any timetable would depend on “conditions and the circumstances that the country would be undergoing.” But he said a pullout within “three, four or five” years was possible. “It can be 2011 or 2012,” al-Dabbagh said. “We don’t have a specific date in mind, but we need to agree on the principle of setting a deadline.”… But in Washington, State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said U.S. negotiators are “looking at conditions, not calendars.”…

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Iraq a bottomless cash pit
Linda S. Heard, Online Journal Contributing Writer
THE UAE has generously written off Iraq’s debts to the tune of just under $7 billion to assist Baghdad’s reconstruction efforts. President of the UAE Sheikh Khalifah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan has described the gesture as an expression of brotherly solidarity and as leader of the only Gulf state to step forward in this way he should be congratulated. However, in case other countries are reluctant to follow suit, they shouldn’t be negatively judged as, in the past, pumping money into Iraq has been akin to tossing it into a bottomless pit. A recent BBC “Panorama” documentary, presented by Jane Corbin, illustrates how a whopping $23 billion, equivalent to the GDP of a small country like Lebanon, disappeared from Iraq’s coffers…

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A Siesta…
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
If there is one thing that should absolutely not be relinquished, it’s Siesta time. Those short afternoon naps are considered a luxury in the West, here they are considered essential coping skills… Westerners often criticize us for this habit. They believe it is a waste of time. Their whole culture hinges on being available for work, for profit, for more…Yet most of them are hardly available at all. I remember having to note down in an agenda the date and precise time to meet anyone for a cup of coffee. You are all a very busy people running around like headless chicken, doing nothing. Yes nothing, because if you really look back on all your years of running around, you will realize you have achieved nothing of substance. You are still empty, hollow and got your minds very tired in the process. You really need to learn how to nap in the afternoons. Of course, being the very envious, jealous, uncreative people that you are, you even want to take napping away from us. With your globalization and its Weberian ethic of non stop production, which you call innovation and creativity when in fact it is nothing but slavery -you want to turn everyone into your own image – a mental, emotional, sexual and spiritual robot. Come to think of it, all of your achievements have managed to produce you and your wars and destruction – hardly something worth praising…

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Report: 250 civilians killed, injured in last 5 days in Afghanistan
Monsters and Critics
Up to 250 civilians are reported to have been killed or injured since July 4 by various attacks in Afghanistan, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported Wednesday… Of equal concern is the reportedly high number of civilian casualties resulting from recent air strikes in the east of the country. Several injured civilians have undergone surgery at the ICRC-supported Jalalabad Public Hospital, said the statement…

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Ahmadinejad on his way out?
Political scientist Ilgar Velizade for RIA Novosti
One year from now Iran will hold presidential elections. Political changes are not frequent in that country, but each of them is invariably associated with the major political event of a five-year period. This time that applies to a recent article in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. It was written by one of the most influential Iranian politicians, Ali Akbar Velayati, who served as Iran’s foreign minister for almost 17 years. Although Velayati has not played a prominent political role in the last few years, he has retained his political influence as a diplomatic advisor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme religious leader. In his article, Velayati writes that from now on Khamenei will himself conduct talks on the nuclear program. In other words, he has relieved Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of this responsibility. Velyati says the Iranian leader’s decision was prompted by the need to search for compromise over Iran’s nuclear program. Velayati makes it clear that Iran is fully prepared to revise the main provisions of the president’s foreign policy. He quoted Khamenei as saying that global peace rests on the recognition of sovereignty and respect for international borders…

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Under the pretext of fighting Hamas:
Israel launches all-out war on Islamic institutions in the West Bank
From Khalid Amayreh in Nablus
Palestinian Islamic leaders have called on Arab and Muslim states as well as “all human beings who believe in justice” to strongly condemn an ongoing Israeli campaign against Islamic civilian institutions throughout the occupied West Bank. The Israeli army on Tuesday, 8 July rampaged through the northern town of Nablus, raiding schools, businesses, charities, sport clubs and a major medical center. Eyewitnesses said as many as 130 Israeli military vehicles and armored personnel carriers stormed Nablus’s downtown shortly after forces loyal to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas were ordered by the town’s nominal governor Jamal Muhesen to return to their barracks and stay there until a further notice…

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Sectarian battles continue in north Lebanon after four killed
AFP
Sectarian battles continued to rage early Thursday in the north Lebanese port city of Tripoli despite a ceasefire accord reached the previous evening, after four people died, a security official told AFP. While the ceasefire was meant to come into effect at 8 p.m. (1700 GMT) Wednesday, new clashes involving rockets and automatic arms broke out overnight between the poor districts of Bab al-Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen in the northeast of the city…

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