Obama’s national security adviser: Boeing and Chevron
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Blog
From the Times: A retired Marine general and former Nato commander is emerging as a leading contender to become Barack Obama’s national security adviser, the most important foreign policy post in the White House. James Jones, a decorated Vietnam veteran and former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, is admired by Republicans and Democrats – he is a close friend of John McCain – and would bring particular expertise on Iraq and Afghanistan, two of Mr Obama’s overseas priorities when he takes office on January 20. From Wikipedia: Following his retirement from the military, General Jones became president of the Institute for 21st Century Energy , an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and chair of the board of directors of the Atlantic Council of the United States. He also served as chair of the Independent Commission on Security Forces of Iraq, sponsored by the Atlantic Council of the United States…

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Gaza’s hospitals struggle to save lives amid Israeli siege
Rami Almeghari writing from occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine
Over the past two weeks, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have faced a sharply deteriorating humanitarian situation as Israel further tightened its closure of the border crossings. Virtually no food, medicine or other vital supplies have been allowed in to the territory that is home to 1.5 million people. The impact of the siege is most directly observed in Gaza’s health sector. Despite desperately needed medication, equipment, supplies, and spare parts, doctors continue to try to save lives and look after their patients at the European Gaza Hospital, one of territory’s largest medical centers. Dr. Zaki Azzaq Zouq, an oncologist, explained, “There is a widespread shortage of essential medicines which we used to give to patients prior to the blockade. Currently, there are no tools for physicians to treat patients who suffer from lung, stomach, colon or brain cancers.”…

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Security Agreement Déjà Vu
Stephen Farrell
The security agreement allowing U.S. combat troops to remain in Iraq for three years, which Iraq’s Parliament is to vote on Monday, took more than 12 months to negotiate. Some of that time was taken up with the “vanilla” elements, as one senior U.S. official described them, like taxes, licensing and import-export requirements. But the knottiest parts were delicate issues touching on sovereignty, including what legal rules apply to American soldiers, and who authorizes military operations involving American troops. The Iraqis insisted on knowing exactly what and who the U.S. will be moving into and within Iraq’s borders after Jan. 1, 2009…

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Iraqi general claims British troops allow the Mahdi army to rule Basra
Thomas Harding
…In an interview at the newly opened Basra Operations Centre from which the Iraqi army and police will control the city, Gen Mohammed had little praise for the British presence in Basra since 2003. While the Iraqis have an excellent working relationship with the British Army and are grateful for the superior military training they received, Gen Mohammed was openly critical of how JAM was able to take key positions at all levels of government. “When we got to stage where JAM was controlling all the civilian directorates then you weren’t really in a position to fight JAM anymore. “I don’t for any minute want to knock Allied forces who have done a lot for us but I must stress in the end Iraqi forces decided to grip it, took the hard choices, entered the battle and won it.” Asked if British forces could have done more over the last five years Gen Mohammed said: “I think you should ask the coalition forces that question.”…

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PRESS RELEASE FROM VITTORIO ARRIGONI
FreeGaza.org
Manifestly violating every human and civil right and against every international law, I spent the last six hours with Andrew locked in a piggish toilette full of fleas and parasites and without drinking water. This was the treatment we received because we announced a hunger strike in order to ask for the restitution of the fishing boats stolen to Palestinian fishermen offshore Gazan coasts when we were kidnapped by Israeli soldiers. They took away the telephones we were given yesterday by our lawyer but, even more shameful and clearly violating international laws, they prevented us from getting in touch with our lawyers and with our consulates even though Andrew and I asked for it tenaciously many times…

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In the Public Interest: The More Things Change The More They Stay The Same
Ralph Nader
While the liberal intelligentsia was swooning over Barack Obama during his presidential campaign, I counseled “prepare to be disappointed.” His record as an Illinois state and U.S. Senator, together with the many progressive and long overdue courses of action he opposed during his campaign, rendered such a prediction unfortunate but obvious. Now this same intelligentsia is beginning to howl over Obama’s transition team and early choices to run his Administration. Having defeated Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primaries, he now is busily installing Bill Clinton’s old guard…

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Heil, Feiglin!
Khaled Amayreh
With Israeli Jewish society drifting towards right-wing extremism, especially with regard to the Palestinian issue, Israeli political parties contesting the upcoming elections, slated to take place on 10 February, are radicalising the tone of their public discourse in the hope of wooing as many potential voters as possible to their respective agendas. The Kadima and Labour parties, erstwhile coalition partners, are escalating their rhetoric against the Palestinians, with ministers and former ministers calling for the resumption of assassinations of Palestinians…

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Netanyahu hires 2 of Obama’s advisors
Yuval Karni, YNet
After designing a website similar to that of Barack Obama, Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu has now hired two of the US president-elect’s advisors to help him in his election campaign. On Thursday the opposition leader finalized the employment of Bill Knapp and Josh Isay, who have worked in recent years with candidates of the Democratic Party in the United States, as well as former President Bill Clinton, Senator Joe Lieberman, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and president-elect Obama…

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Poverty and Despair: The Failed Policies & Human Rights Violations directed against Native Americans
Fate of Lakotahs Highlights America’s Failed Native American Policies
Stephen Lendman
On November 6, South Dakota’s governor Michael Rounds declared a state of emergency as heavy snow blanketed the state and threatened all parts of it – including Native American reservations. They, however, were excluded from his declaration. They’ll get no badly needed help, and it’s an all too familiar story for our nation’s original inhabitants. They’ve been abused and slaughtered for over 500 years. At Mabila, Acoma Mesa, Conestoga, the Trail of Tears, Pamunkey, Mystic River, Yellow Creek, Sand Creek, Gnadenhutten, and Wooded Knee. At far too many other places as well at a cost of many millions of lives, now forgotten and erased from memory…

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Israel continues starvation of Gazans despite UN pleas
Irish Sun
In what the UN has described as collective punishment, the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip continues. Notwithstanding 56% of the 1.5 million Gazan population consists of children, Israel has shut down access to the region refusing to allow desperately needed food trucks to reach their destination. UN food agencies in Gaza that have had their food supply cut by the Israeli blockade say they are facing a “humanitarian catastrophe”…

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UNRWA chief: Gaza on brink of humanitarian catastrophe
Reuters
Gaza faces a humanitarian “catastrophe” if Israel continues to prevent aid reaching the territory by blocking crossing points, the head of the main UN aid agency for the Palestinians said on Friday. Karen AbuZayd, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said the human toll of this month’s sealing of Gaza’s goods crossings was the gravest since the early days of a Palestinian uprising eight years ago…

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Muslims, Christians stand against the Gaza siege
Palestinian Information Center
The Muslim-Christian Committee and the General Islamic Conference for Jerusalem have called on the international community and human rights organizations to immediately move to end the crippling unjust siege on Gaza Strip. “You should play an active role in halting the [Israeli] aggression against an unarmed people to avoid a human catastrophe that could lead to massive exodus of thousands of Palestinians out of the country”, asserted the two groups in a joint statement they issued in this regard…

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Gates seen more likely to stay as Pentagon chief
ROBERT BURNS and ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writers
What Robert Gates once called “inconceivable to me” — his remaining as defense secretary beyond Inauguration Day — is looking a bit more conceivable to the rest of Washington. The 65-year-old former spymaster has turned publicly mum on the circumstances under which he would stay, even briefly, after President-elect Barack Obama takes office. But one of the leading scenarios for a wartime transition at the Pentagon has Gates holding the fort, at least for some months. If Gates does stay on, the announcement could come soon…

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Iran: Two cyber-dissidents jailed, 5 million websites censored
Reporters without borders (press release)
Reporters Without Borders condemns online journalist Shahnaz Gholami’s arrest at her Tehran home on 9 November without any official reason being given. Her arrest came just a few days before a publication that supports the president called the Internet a “tool of subversion.”… Theologian and online journalist Mojtaba Lotfi was arrested on 8 October for a posting a sermon by a well-known opponent of Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei online. The sermon, by Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, criticised President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for saying Iran was “the world’s freest country”.. The Iranian parliament’s justice commission decided on 3 November, when ratifying certain articles of a “cyber-crime” bill, to establish a new committee for online filtering. The government has, since 2003, had a committee dedicated to maintaining a blacklist of websites regarded as “illegal.” They currently include YouTube, Facebook and Orkut. The Tehran attorney-general’s adviser said on 19 November that the authorities were responsible for filtering out “five million websites.” At the same time, parliament is currently in the process of adopting a 2 July bill under which creating websites that promote “corruption, prostitution or apostasy” would be punishable by death…

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“Shimon Peres, you’re a war criminal!” say Oxford students
Abigail Humphries, The Electronic Intifada
Text messages came from student protestors who had managed to get inside the lecture hall. They let the their fellow demonstrators outside know that their chanting could be heard inside over the voice of Israeli President Shimon Peres. There was clapping and stamping of feet and placards banged on the railings to make as much noise as possible, along with the constant “Free, free Palestine” which did not stop for a moment of the hour-long lecture…

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Stacks of dead presidents or flesh and blood companions?
Jason Miller interviewed by Robert Turnbull
Robert Turnbull
… First of all, I’m not a liberal. Early in my sociopolitical evolution I called myself one, but that was before I understood the meaning of the word and had begun to deepen my convictions. Liberals are reformists. I see no possibility of reforming the American Way of Life. Fuck Bush, Cheney and whomever else has said it’s non-negotiable. The death of the American Way of Life is what’s non-negotiable (…) And, yes, I’m angry. In fact, I feel morally outraged and furious more often than I’d like. Television is both a cause and a symptom of our diseased existence. Consider the corporate media. I can only take its onslaught of pro-corporate, ahistorical, Zionist, and contextually deficient “reporting” in very small doses…

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The truth comes out about Gulf War Illness
Elizabeth Schulte, Socialist Worker
AFTER AN agonizing 17 years, the U.S. government will finally have to admit what veterans and their families have long known—Gulf War Illness is a very real and debilitating condition that has affected one-quarter of soldiers who served in the 1990-91 war. The Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses (RAC-GWVI)—a committee of scientists and veterans appointed by Congress in 2002 to investigate the illnesses experienced by veterans of Operation Desert Storm—presented its 450-page report to Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake on November 17… While the report did not link depleted uranium (DU) to the Gulf War Illness, the widespread effects of soldiers’ exposure to DU are also a part of the report…

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Hamas – Fatah – Divided Unity – Gaza Strip – West Bank
Hiyam Noir, PalestineFreeVoice
The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) convened in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and Wednesday, ratifying a number of proposed laws. In a speech delivered at the opening of the council meeting,the PLC speaker Ahmad Bahar asserted that Israel had “deliberately violated” the five month ceasefire between the Hamas movement in Gaza and Israel – “both militarily and through the blockade of shipment, and closure of border crossings.”…

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Former Marine outlines secret dossiers
Rick Rogers
Two years after his arrest, a former Marine gunnery sergeant is talking about the FBI, CIA and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement files he stole from Camp Pendleton for a civilian agency. In interviews with The San Diego Union-Tribune, Gary Maziarz, 39, said “dozens of files” he gave the Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning Group while serving as an intelligence specialist at the base were dossiers on Muslims and Arabs living in Southern California. This marks the first time Maziarz has spoken to the media about the files since pleading guilty in July 2007 to mishandling classified material and stealing government property…

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November 21, 2008: 3 GIs, 3 Iraqis Killed; 20 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
Although the prayer day tends to be relatively peaceful, a massive demonstration took place in Baghdad at the behest of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Across Iraq, three people were killed and another 20 were wounded, mostly in Baghdad. Three U.S. servicemembers died in three separate incidents as well. Also, the U.S. military reported that a group of Iraqi soldiers donated money to victims of recent U.S. wildfires…

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