Short Reflections on the Iraqi Resistance…
Layla Anwar
February 5, 2010 – I feel a little guilty underestimating the formidable resistance put up by the true Iraqis. This is not so much a Mea Culpa..ok, maybe it is…but not only… Two things made me open my eyes… One is a video called the war within on US “combat stress” or PTSD, which I urge to watch. There are many angles to this video. For this post, the angle I will stress on is the Resistance put up by the Iraqis in the face of the Occupier. No media outlet will tell you about it, but the testimony of U.S soldiers suffering from “combat stress” does. Second thing, is information on the icasualties website, run by an American by the name of Michael White…

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Arutz Sheva: Israel Reportedly Training Kurdish Forces in Iraq
by Avi Yellin
February 5, 2010 – According to recent media reports, Israeli military and intelligence agents are currently operating in Iraqi Kurdistan. Their primary role, according to reports, is to train elite Kurdish commandos in guerrilla warfare and anti-terror tactics… When the New Yorker asked Mark Regev, then spokesman for Israel’s Embassy in Washington, to comment on allegations of Israeli-Kurdish cooperation in 2004, Regev denied the claims, telling the magazine that “the story is simply untrue and the relevant governments know it’s untrue.” But American intelligence officials at the time sought to expose Israel’s assistance to the Kurds…

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Afghanistan and NATO: Figleaf summit
By Eric Walberg
February 5, 2010 – London has been the venue of a three-ring Middle East circus over the past month. There is the ongoing Chilcot inquiry into the (il)legality of British participation in the invasion of Iraq…Then there was an impromptu conference on “saving” Yemen, which the five major Yemeni opposition parties denounced as “intended to save the political regime in Yemen.” Yemen is described by a British official as “Afghanistan with a sea”. Just as farcical was last week’s summit on Afghanistan, called to “move the international effort forward in key areas of security, governance, development, and regional support.” In reality, it was a cosmetic follow-up to the war council held two days earlier at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where the NATO Military Committee met, bringing together the chiefs of defence of all 28 member states along with 35 “partners”, wannabes and observers — an astounding 63 nations…

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UNICEF, NGO’s: Haitian Children at Risk
Mike O’Sullivan
February 5, 2010 – Aid workers in Haiti say hundreds of thousands of children are at risk in the aftermath of the January 12 earthquake. The case of 33 children allegedly abducted by a group of Americans illustrates the plight of children separated from parents, and those whose families are living in desperate conditions. The circumstances remain murky surrounding the 33 children allegedly being smuggled out of the country by a group of American church members. Aid officials say all were supposed orphans, but at least 20 were known to have living family members, in some cases parents…

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John Yoo Renews Claim That President’s Authority to Torture Depends on What Is “Necessary”
Stephen Rohde
February 5, 2010 – Challenged for his 2005 statement that whether the president could lawfully torture a person’s child depends on “why the President thinks he needs to do that,” undaunted, John Yoo repeated his claim that it would depend on whether the president finds it “necessary.” Promoting his new book “Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power From George Washington to George W. Bush,” Yoo spoke in Los Angeles Thursday at a program sponsored by the Federalist Society and the Libertarian Law Council…

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The Rising Tide of Internet Censorship
by James Corbett
February 5, 2010 – The focus is back on Internet censorship this week as a pair of articles from Time Magazine and The New York Times came out almost simultaneously advocating for licences to operate web sites. These articles were skillfully skewered by Paul Joseph Watson as lame attempts to shore up a disintegrating establishment media in the face of a blogosphere that is increasingly replacing them. The articles follow on calls by Craig Mundie—Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer—for an Internet licencing system. Introducing the idea, he said “We need a kind of World Health Organization for the Internet.” …

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Cutting Clare Short
By William Bowles
February 5, 2010 – Back in February 2004 I wrote a piece about the GCHQ worker Katherine Gun who really did ‘break ranks’ when she blew the lid on the UN spying operation and of Ms. Short’s role in the run-up to the invasion, bits of which I think are worth reprinting here: “The dirty tricks campaign mounted against members of the UN Security Council that included bullying, bribery and blackmail by the US to get the half dozen recalcitrant members to endorse its invasion of Iraq (a campaign that amazingly failed), has yet again exposed the bumbling English political class as an inept and divided servant of US capital. “Is there no end to Blair’s screw-ups? Apparently not as the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decision not to continue with its case against Katherine Gun for breach of the Official Secrets Act reveals. Apparently afraid that the defence would use the illegal nature of the invasion as part of its defence and that a jury would agree with Ms Gun, at the very last minute the Crown decided not to continue with the prosecution. “More’s the pity that Ms Short didn’t have the ‘courage of her convictions’ back when it counted, before the war was launched…

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The Planning of War Behind Closed Doors
Brussels, London, Istanbul: A Week Of Western War Councils
Rick Rozoff
February 5, 2010 – The defense chiefs of all 28 NATO nations and an undisclosed number of counterparts from non-Alliance partners gathered in Istanbul, Turkey on February 4 to begin two days of meetings focused on the war in Afghanistan, the withdrawal of military forces from Kosovo in the course of transferring control of security operations to the breakaway province’s embryonic army (the Kosovo Security Force) and “the transformation efforts required to best conduct the full range of NATO’s agreed missions.” Istanbul was the site of the bloc’s 2004 summit which accounted for the largest expansion in its 60-year history – seven new Eastern European nations – and its strengthening military partnerships with thirteen Middle Eastern and African nations under the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative…

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Mustafa Barghouthi nominated for 2010 Nobel Peace Prize
Palestine Monitor
February 5, 2010 – “I have pleasure in nominating Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. I am inspired by the life and work of Dr. Barghouthi whose commitment to nonviolence, in his personal and public life, is truly in the Ghandian spirit”, stated in her letter to the Nobel Committe, Maired Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Co-founder of the Peace People (Northern Ireland). Mairead Maguire today announced her nomination of Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize…

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Pepe Lobo, Imperialism and the Resistance
Consolidating the Coup in Honduras
By TODD GORDON and JEFFREY R. WEBBER
February 5, 2010 – A country of sharp inequality and class polarization, Honduras recently returned to the frontlines in the battle for Latin America’s soul. The terrain of struggle has shifted on multiple occasions over the last seven months, following the military coup against the democratically-elected President, Manuel “Mel” Zelaya. The battle entered its latest phase last week with the ascension to power of Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo. Lobo was inaugurated on January 27, following his victory in the fraudulent November 29 election last year. Hundreds of thousands of Hondurans greeted the inauguration with a spirited march through the capital, Tegucigalpa, against the coup and his presidency. Zelaya, a member of the broad tent Liberal Party who defeated Lobo in the 2005 Presidential campaign, was removed from power and forced into exile in the middle of the night on June 28, 2009. This was the first successful coup d’état in Latin America..

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Israel slaps six-month travel ban on Palestinian map expert
Marian Houk
February 5, 2010 – Citing “security reasons” — the ubiquitous and unanswerable catch-all phrase against which it is almost impossible to mount any defense — Israel’s Ministry of the Interior has just issued a six-month travel ban on map expert Khalil Tafakji. Tafakji, like almost all other Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem, is a “permanent resident,” but not a citizen of Israel. He is frequently interviewed as an expert on Al-Jazeera satellite channel, as well as on Palestinian television and other media..

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In Mossad’s sights: the killers who wait decades
Loveday Morris
February 5, 2010 – Agents of Kidon, the department of Mossad that carries out assassinations, can spend decades waiting for the perfect moment to strike a target on their “wanted list”. Mahmoud al Mabhouh was probably watched closely for months. His Damascus home would have been scouted out, phones tapped and the comings and goings of neighbours and visitors meticulously recorded. Although there is no certainty that Mossad was responsible for the killing, both Dubai Police and intelligence analysts say it fits their pattern, and the Israeli government hasn’t denied involvement…

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NYT’s Israel Editor’s Sticky Situation
Ethan Bronner’s Conflict With Impartiality
By ALISON WEIR
February 5, 2010 – Ethan Bronner is the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief. As such, he is the editor responsible for all the news coming out of Israel-Palestine. It is his job to decide what gets reported and what doesn’t; what goes in a story and what gets cut. To a considerable degree, he determines what readers of arguably the nation’s most influential newspaper learn about Israel and its adversaries, and, especially, what they don’t. His son just joined the Israeli army. According to New York Times ethics guidelines, such a situation would be expected to cause significant concern. In these guidelines the Times repeatedly emphasizes the importance of impartiality. This is considered so critical that the Times devotes considerable attention to “conflict of interest” (also called “conflict with impartiality”) problems, situations in which personal interest might cause a journalist to intentionally or unconsciously slant a story…

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Pressure continues on Veolia and Alstom to halt light rail project
Adri Nieuwhof
February 5, 2010 – French transport giants Veolia and Alstom are involved in the construction and running of a light rail line which connects West Jerusalem to several illegal settlements in or surrounding occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem. The light rail project is part of the “Jerusalem Transportation Master Plan” sponsored by the Israeli government and the Jerusalem municipality. In reality, the project is intended to strengthen Israel’s grip on occupied East Jerusalem. Palestinian officials recently announced that they will call on Arab countries to end business ties with Veolia and Alstom at the planned Arab League summit in March. Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and the annexation of East Jerusalem are illegal under international law…

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