Divide and Conquer: The Anglo-American Imperial Project
Andrew G. Marshall
…Clearly, whatever the excuse, or whatever the means of dividing Iraq, it is without a doubt in the Anglo-American strategy for Iraq to balkanize the country. Saying that what is being proposed is not balkanization, but federalism, is a moot point. This is because reverting to a more federal system where provinces have greater autonomy would naturally separate the country along ethno-religious boundaries. The Kurds would be in the north, the Sunnis in the centre, and the Shi’ites in the south, with all the oil. The disproportionate provincial resources will create animosity between provinces, and the long-manipulated ethnic differences will spill from the streets into the political sphere. As tensions grow, as they undoubtedly would, between the provinces, there would be a natural slide to eventual separation. Disagreements over power sharing in the federal government would lead to its eventual collapse, and the strategy of balkanization would have been achieved with the appearance of no outside involvement…

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New Book Reveals Existence of Secret Red Cross Torture Report
Kate Klonick
In a secret report last year, the International Committee of the Red Cross found that the CIA’s interrogation techniques were “categorically” torture, a new book reveals. From the New York Times: The book, “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals,” by Jane Mayer, who writes about counterterrorism for The New Yorker, offers new details of the agency’s secret detention program, as well as the bitter debates in the administration over interrogation methods and other tactics in the campaign against Al Qaeda…

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Why the Socialist Solution in Palestine!
Adel Samara, Palestine Think Tank
… The minimum just and human solution for the Palestinian people is to return to Palestine without Zionism. This implies the following uncompromising conditions: 1) The land should be nationalized for all those who will live on it, Arabs and Jews. There is no justification for a ROR while the land is still colonized by settlers. In such a case, Palestinians will leave the status of refugees to a status of “helots” in their own country! Anyone who ignores the land nationalization is in fact supporting a racist ideology and Jewish supremacy imposed over “inferior” Palestinians. This justification adds a dimension of class discrimination besides the aspect of national discrimination and oppression. If there is no just solution, except socialism, then why not? 2) Any solution that maintains the military apparatus of the Zionist regime shouldn’t be acceptable for Palestinians. This is why this apparatus should be dismantled as a structure of aggression. 3) Termination of the capitalist base of the Zionist regime, the minimum requirement for that should be the nationalization of developed industries, especially those of hi-tech. 4) Termination of all nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction…

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Marine’s graphic interview describes killing of prisoners in Iraq
Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
A graphic, vulgarity-laced interview in which a Marine described how he and two other Marines killed four unarmed prisoners in Iraq was played today during a preliminary hearing in the case. Sgt. Jermaine Nelson, in a tape-recorded interview with a Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent, said he and Sgt. Ryan Weemer were ordered by Sgt. Jose Nazario to kill the prisoners as the Marines swept through a neighborhood in Fallouja in late 2004…

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In The Deep End…
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
…One of these conversations was with a fellow Iraqi, and we were discussing our days in Baghdad, when we would go swimming at the various sports clubs. He said matter of factly – I always remember Iraqi women being in bathing suits and swimming. What on earth happened since ? – Ask Iran and its sectarian, backward supporters, was my reply. We had excellent sports clubs in Baghdad. Showing up in bathing suits as opposed to dressing up in a potato bag, was part of the local scene at the pool. I mean this is what one expects to be dressed in by a pool- a bathing suit. Not a chador, Persian style… As my body was floating, my mind followed suit and engaged in a current of free associations…I kept on pushing the water back, in a resolute manner, and another conversation popped up in my head…

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Israel crosses all red lines in West Bank
By Khalid Amayreh in Ramallah
Until a few years ago, most of the Israeli army activities in the occupied territories were aimed primarily at forcing Palestinians to come to terms with their status as perpetual slaves tightly controlled by Jewish masters. The occupation army would demolish homes, seal college campuses and arrest suspected activists for prolonged periods of time. The message was clear: Don’t you ever dream of freedom, for whatever you do wouldn’t help you, the world won’t help you because we control America and America controls the world; we are the master race…

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Israel continues to build illegal Wall in defiance of ICJ ruling
Defence for Children International
On the 4th anniversary of the landmark ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which found that Israel’s construction of the Wall in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem is illegal under international law, DCI/PS exposes the harmful impact of the Wall and its associated regime on the rights of Palestinian children and is challenging Israel’s continued construction of the Wall in total disregard of the 2004 ICJ advisory opinion. Today, the Israeli High Court will hand down its decision in the petition brought by DCI/PS and Al Haq on behalf of the residents of the West Bank village of Al-Nu’man. The majority of the residents of Al-Nu’man have West Bank IDs but have been cut off from the West Bank by the Wall which surrounds them on three sides and illegally incorporates the village into the Jerusalem municipality…

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US air strike wiped out Afghan wedding party, inquiry finds
James Sturcke, Guardian
A US air strike killed 47 civilians, including 39 women and children, as they were travelling to a wedding in Afghanistan, an official inquiry found today. The bride was among the dead. Another nine people were wounded in Sunday’s attack, the head of the Afghan government investigation, Burhanullah Shinwari, said…

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Drought devastates Iraq’s wheat crops
Power outages disrupt irrigation
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
It’s been a year of drought and sand storms across Iraq – a dry spell that has devastated the country’s crucial wheat crop and created new worries about the safety of drinking water. U.S. officials warn that Iraq will need to increase wheat imports sharply this winter to make up for the lost crop – a sobering proposition with world food prices high and some internal refugees already struggling to afford basics. “Planting … is totally destroyed,” said Daham Mohammed Salim, 40, who farms 120 acres in the al-Jazeera area near Tikrit, 130 kilometres north of Baghdad. “Even the ground water in wells is lower than before.”…

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FISA ‘compromise’ completes transformation of US into full police state
Larry Chin, Online Journal
On Wednesday, the US Congress overwhelmingly passed legislation permitting government spying, including giving immunity to telecommunications companies involved in secret domestic surveillance programs. With the stroke of George W. Bush’s pen, the US is now a police state by definition. The extent of the spying program, and its larger implications, have been revealed by Mark Klein, who blew the whistle on secret domestic spying program of Bush/Cheney’s National Security Agency (NSA) and AT&T: AT&T whistleblower: spy bill creates infrastructure for police state…

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130 West Bankers arrested in one week
Ma’an news
The Palestinian Center for Defending Detainees, a Gaza-based organization, revealed on Saturday that Israeli forces apprehended 130 Palestinians in six West Bank districts during the first week of July. The report said that there were children and disabled individuals among those arrested. According to the report, Israeli forces relied mainly on undercover forces which raided cities, towns and villages in order to apprehend and assassinate Palestinians. They used police dogs to scare women and children during arrest raids…

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US official: Iran missile tests used ‘old equipment’
PAMELA HESS, AP
… an independent national security blog, ArmsControlWonk.com, Thursday analyzed video footage of the launch posted by the Iranian government. It determined the missiles were identical to a version of the Shahab missile first demonstrated in Iran in 1998 that has a known range of 746 miles. In a post called “Same old Boring Shahab 3,” it compared the diameter of the missile to its length and found it to be identical to the 1998 version. Unless the Iranians built a larger missile with the same length to width ratio, dramatically improved the thrust of the rocket or decreased its internal structural mass, the missile could not achieve the range Iran claimed it did. Otherwise, it is the same knockoff of North Korea’s Nodong-1, according to the blog…

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War crime watch
Eli Stephens, Left I on the News
In the midst of the grand war crimes which were the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, individual war crimes are committed on a regular basis. In today’s news, Marines admitted shooting and killing four handcuffed Iraqi prisoners, and the U.K. agreed to pay compensation (hat tip Cursor) for the beating death (93 separate injuries!) while in detention of an Iraqi suspected of being an insurgent…

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McCain’s Nomination – A Possible September Surprise?
Stephen Lendman
Party conventions are less than two months off, and already rumors are circulating. When the Democrats hold theirs from August 25 – 28, Obama is the virtually sure nominee. According to some, however, things aren’t settled for Republicans a week later. Presumptive nominee John McCain may not be as certain as most people think, and why so should be asked. For one thing, he trails in the polls (including in key battleground states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania) but not enough to be worrisome (in most of them), and the latest June Reuters/Zogby one is typical. It shows Obama ahead by about five points, and in recent months he’s been up by from 6 to 10 and in one poll down six to McCain…

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Iraq says no knowledge of any Israeli air drills
Reuters
Iraq’s Defence Ministry said on Friday it had no knowledge of any Israeli air force drills in its airspace after a report that the Israelis were preparing there for a possible strike on Iran. An Israeli security source said a media report, carried on the website of the Jerusalem Post and quoting a local news network, was wrong. In Washington, the Pentagon dismissed the report. “As the Ministry of Defence, we haven’t observed any IAF warplanes practising in Iraqi airspace,” said Major-General Mohammad al-Askari, spokesman for the Iraqi Defence Ministry…

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IRAN: War games are over … now, let’s talk
Ramin Mostaghim, LA Times
Just a day after the end of Iranian missile tests meant to scare away any potential Israeli or American attack on its nuclear facilities, a powerful Iranian cleric was all nicey-nice at Friday prayers about the continuing diplomatic negotiations over the country’s atomic research and production program. “Now it is high time for negotiation,” Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani, a member of the influential Expediency Council, told worshipers gathered for prayers in downtown Tehran. “Iran is ready for negotiation. Europe is ready for negotiation.” He said the recent missile tests were meant to show Iranian strength, not hostility toward the West…

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47 Afghan civilians killed by US bombs, group says
AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writer
A U.S. military airstrike this week killed 47 civilians traveling to a wedding, the head of an Afghan government commission investigating the incident said Friday. The airstrike on Sunday in Deh Bala district of Nuristan province also wounded nine civilians, said Burhanullah Shinwari, the deputy chairman of the Senate, who led the delegation…

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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ~~ NOT ONE OF MY ASSOCIATES FOR SURE
Desertpeace
… In other words, Associated Press has a monopoly on the news… which in reality means we the readers can be told anything they want to say to us, be it true or false. The above in italics was taken from this description of AP. Case in point is a report distributed yesterday by them regarding the ordeal that Mohammed Omer is going through. It is full of misinformation, lies and yet, has been copied to newspapers throughout the United States and the western world… There are EIGHT pages of links to the article in question on Google… Eight pages worth of newspapers that pay the AP good money for their ‘information’… which YOU pay for when you buy the newspapers in question…

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Iran missiles prove US shield not needed: Russia
The Post, Pakistan
Russia said on Friday Iran’s missile tests showed there is no military justification for U.S. plans to deploy missile defenses in eastern Europe because Tehran’s rockets cannot travel that far. Iran this week test-fired missiles which it said were capable of reaching Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East. Washington says the shield in Europe is needed to defend against any missile attacks from countries such as Iran. Russia says the U.S. plans are a direct threat to its security. “The tests in Iran have only confirmed that Iran at the moment has rockets with a range of up to 1,243 miles. That confirms what we have said before,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news briefing…

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Lebanon forms unity government with Hezbollah
Laila Bassam, Reuters
Lebanon ended weeks of wrangling on Friday and formed a unity government in which Hezbollah and its allies hold effective veto power, as agreed under a deal that ended a paralyzing political conflict in the country. Syria, Lebanon’s main power broker until its troops left in 2005, emerged from the tussle strong given the decisive say granted to the former opposition led by Hezbollah, an ally of Damascus. The birth of the government, the first under newly elected President Michel Suleiman, should close a long political crisis that had threatened to plunge Lebanon into a new civil war…

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US air strike wiped out Afghan wedding party, inquiry finds
James Sturcke, Guardian
A US air strike killed 47 civilians, including 39 women and children, as they were travelling to a wedding in Afghanistan, an official inquiry found today. The bride was among the dead. Another nine people were wounded in Sunday’s attack, the head of the Afghan government investigation, Burhanullah Shinwari, said…

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