To an Iraqi Grandmother…
Layla Anwar
January 11, 2010 – … Sabiha Khudur Talib, a 62 year old grandmother from Basra is a dead witness… For no make mistake about it, our dead speak…and they will speak until the day of Judgment…they will recount your horror stories, just like my grandmother did on winter days, sitting by her stove, where Iraqi tea brewed gently on red hot silent burning coals… Make no mistake about it, for they will testify until the day of Judgment… Sabiha Khudur Talib – you can’t pronounce her foreign name… a name that became foreign even in her own land…a name whose sound and vowels escape you… running like bullets before and after you… Sabiha Khudur Talib – Mrs Talib’s body was dumped on a roadside in a British body bag in November 2006. There was a bullet hole in her abdomen and her face had injuries consistent with torture…I saw the body in a brown dish- dash [one-piece tunic], bare feet and hands with marks of handcuffs. I saw traces of torture on the body of the victim. I saw a non-penetrated bullet entry in the abdomen…”…

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Video: Israeli Prof Nurit Peled tells the truth about Israel
Australians for Palestine
January 11, 2010: A truly amazing and inspirational Israeli woman. Her own 13-year-old daughter was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber in 1997 and yet she speaks and works to end the oppression of the Palestinian people. She said: “My little girl was murdered because she was an Israeli, by a young man who was humiliated, oppressed and desperate to the point of suicide and murder and inhumanity, just because he was a Palestinian.”…

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THE ANATOMY OF A MASSACRE
Malcom Lagauche
January 11, 2010 – In a few days, we will experience the 19th anniversary of the beginning of the first Gulf War. Unfortunately, many people have forgotten that era. Today, the news from Iraq mentions nothing about the first wave of destruction of the country. When the first bomb fell on Iraq at 2:00 a.m. on January 17, 1991, the United States began the military implementation of years of deceit and dirty tricks to attain a permanent foothold in the Middle East. George Bush I enlisted, coerced and paid 27 other nations to help massacre Iraq, depriving these newly-won allies of any ethical high ground…

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Free my dad from Guantanamo, 12-year-old asks Brown
By Robert Verkaik
January 11, 2010 – It is an anquished plea from a daughter for a father who has been imprisoned for a crime she believes he did not commit. But Johina Aamer’s two-page hand written letter to Gordon Brown is not like any other child’s request for state intervention in a miscarriage of justice. Johina’s father is Shaker Aamer, the last recognised British resident at Guantanamo Bay where the Americans have held him for eight years without ever charging him with a crime…

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Interview: Disabled activist continues struggle in Bilin
Jody McIntyre writing from Bilin, occupied West Bank
January 11, 2010 – The Electronic Intifada contributor Jody McIntyre recently interviewed Palestinian activist Rani Bornat about his life after being shot by the Israeli army. Rani Bornat: My name is Rani Abdelfatah Ibrahim Bornat, and I’m 29 years old. I’m from the village of Bilin, west of Ramallah. I was shot in the throat on the first day of the second intifada. Jody McIntyre: How was your life before you were injured? RB: Before it happened, my life was like any other young person. I used to study, go horse riding, herd my goats, ride donkeys … do all the things farmers do. My dream was to finish school, but I was deprived of it. I was to become an electronic engineer, and I was also deprived of that. God willing, I will be able to help my children study to become engineers instead…

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Iraq: A New Civil War?
Robert Dreyfuss
January 11, 2010 – The “good war” in Afghanistan isn’t going so well, but the Obama administration may soon learn that the “bad war” — that would be the one in Iraq — isn’t over yet… Last week, Iraq’s Shiite-sectarian political establishment laid down a marker when a mid-level governent organ, the so-called Justice and Accountability Commission, banned more than a dozen political parties and leading political figures from the March election. The commission is heir to the old De-Baathification Commission, set up in 2003 by Paul Bremer, the US czar of Iraq, and led by Ahmed Chalabi and his cronies. Among those banned was one of Iraq’s most significant players, Saleh al-Mutlaq, a secular Sunni leader and an important member of parliament, whose National Dialogue Front is a popular vote-getter among Iraq’s disenfranchised Sunni populace. Mutlaq, a well-known politician, has drawn support from current and former Baathists, secular Sunnis opposed to the Shiite-sectarian rulers in Baghdad, and Iraqis concerned about the intrusive influence of Iran in Iraqi affairs…

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Appeals Court Extends President’s Wartime Powers, Limits Guantánamo Prisoners’ Rights
Andy Worthington
January 11, 2010 – On the eighth anniversary of the opening of the “War on Terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the implications of a ruling last week in the Court of Appeals (PDF) have added another layer of uncertainty to the prisoners’ future, in a week that was notorious for a barrage of lies and misinformation, and a promise by President Obama that he was freezing the release of all Yemeni prisoners until further notice…

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125,000 Jerusalem residents “could lose residence rights”
Middle East Monitor
January 11, 2010 – The Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER) has claimed that over 125,000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem could eventually have been stripped of the right to live in their city because of the separation wall and the Judaisation policies adopted by successive Israeli governments. JCSER warns that Jerusalem is being subjected to the most dangerous Judaisation process, which is demographic in nature and is designed to control, as much as possible, what remains of Palestinian citizens’ lands…

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U.S. Denies Economic Threat on Israel
Xinhua
January 11, 2010 – The Obama administration on Monday denied that it would withhold loan guarantees to Israel if the Netanyahu-led government fails to advance the peace process, reiterating its commitment to resume peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. In an interview with PBS TV on Wednesday, U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell said that under American law, the United States can withhold support on loan guarantees if Israel fails to make sufficient concessions in negotiations with the Palestinians. The remark was responded angrily by the Israelis. Foreign Minister Yuval Steinitz said Israel doesn’t need the loan guarantees…

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More De-Baathification Antics in the Iraqi Parliament
Reidar Visser
January 11, 2010 – …Back at the time of the Hashemi veto, the Daawa party were in the lead in the most savage and least logical attacks on the presidential veto, although they were ably assisted by both Sadrists and ISCI. This time, it is the Sadrist head of the justice and accountability committee, Falah al-Shanshal, that is the loudest defender of the moves by the justice and accountability board to bar Salih al-Mutlak from participating in the March elections (Shanshal apparently seems to think his committee has a role in “supervising” the board, even though no such specific role is prescribed by the justice and accountability law). Unsurprisingly, the Buratha news agency, which caters for the ISCI rank and file, is also ecstatic, as is Al-Bayyina al-Jadida, one of the more sectarian Shiite newspapers which tends to support Maliki (every day it has a new Baathist conspiracy on its front page; this time it alleges that Mutlak is excluded due to money received from former US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad!) On the other hand, Maliki’s own party has been somewhat more subdued in its response, even if Ali al-Adib today is reported as having accused Mutlak of “exploiting the issue for propaganda purposes (sic)”…

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US to store more weapons, ammunition in Israel: official
AFP
January 11, 2010 — The US military plans to expand its stockpiles of weapons in Israel under a recent agreement with Jerusalem, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday. The deal will double the value of military equipment kept on Israeli soil from 400 million to 800 million dollars, Major Shawn Turner told AFP. Tensions with Iran over its nuclear program were not an impetus for the agreement, he said, noting that the US Congress initially authorized the expansion in 2007…

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On Eighth Anniversary, Guantánamo Allows Little Hope
Andy Worthington
January 11, 2010 – One year ago, as George W. Bush prepared to leave office, there were high hopes that Barack Obama would move swiftly to undo his ruinous legacy of torture, “extraordinary rendition” and indefinite detention without charge or trial […] As Obama’s principled stand eroded, he also dismayed lawyers, progressives and human rights activists by reintroducing the Military Commissions and stating that, according to legislation passed by Congress in the wake of the 9/11 attacks (the Authorization for Use of Military Force), he was entitled to hold dozens of other men indefinitely, without charge or trial…

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The Recession is Over, the Depression Just Beginning
by Stephen Lendman
January 11, 2010 – In late 2009, former Merrill Lynch economist, now with the Canadian firm, Gluskin Sheff, said the following: “The credit collapse and the accompanying deflation and overcapacity are going to drive the economy and financial markets in 2010. We have said this repeatedly that this recession is really a depression because the (post-WW II) recessions were merely small backward steps in an inventory cycle but in the context of expanding credit. Whereas now, we are in a prolonged period of credit contraction, especially as it relates to households and small businesses.”…

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PFLP: Arab and international pressure to return to negotiations plays into the hands of the Zionist enemy
PFLP – Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
January 11, 2010 – Comrade Jamil Mizher, member of the Central Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, called for a total rejection of Arab and international pressure to return to negotiations, saying that such negotiations only play into the hands of the Zionist enemy. Comrade Mizher, speaking with Aljazeera.net on January 4, 2009, said that a return to the futile and harmful negotiations that even the Palestinian Authority leadership itself have recognized are unsuccessful would only serve Israeli interests. He said further that relying on the U.S. administration, which is fully aligned with the occupation, is betting on mirage and illusion. Comrade Mizher called upon Arab countries to support restoration of Palestinian national unity and put pressure on the occupation, not pressure Palestinians to serve the interests of Israel…

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Military Resistance 8A8: This Sgt Brings Our Future Closer – 11 January 2010
Thomas F. Barton
An Army Sergeant Sends An Open Letter To Active Duty Soldiers.
Although I am thoroughly opposed to the Army as a whole, and the war in the Middle East (I spent 15 months over there for no good reason), I decided that I could take advantage of the system and become one of the few Non-commissioned Officers that refuses to buy into the Army BS. Goodness knows we could use more of those. I was leaning heavily on the example set before me by some of the best Sergeants I had worked with, all of whom hated the Army with a fervent passion, but got their jobs done no less effectively. [ … ]

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Military Resistance 8A7: The Questioning – 10 January 2010
Thomas F. Barton
People Are Questioning Why We’re In Afghanistan. British Soldier Openly Condemns The War: “Soldiers Shook My Hand And Patted Me On The Back”.One Guy Said, ‘You’re Saying What Everyone Else Is Thinking’”.

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