| Al Jazeera, July 6, 2009 |
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The Iraqi government has banned all organised visits to the grave of Saddam Hussein, the country’s former leader who was executed in 2006. The government issued the order on Monday after some schools began arranging trips for their pupils to visit the site in Saddam’s native village of Al-Awja, outside the northern town of Tikrit, a government statement said. |
Archive for July, 2009
Iraqi government bans visits to Saddam’s grave
July 7, 2009
Israel deports Gaza campaigners
July 7, 2009BBC News, July 7, 2009
The ship left the Cypriot port of Larnaca on Monday
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Israel has deported eight pro-Palestinian activists detained at sea last week as they tried to ferry aid to Gaza in defiance of Israel’s blockade.
Nobel peace laureate Mairead Maguire and former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was among them.
They complain the Israeli navy seized them illegally in Palestinian waters.
Israel’s navy has blockaded Gaza since the election victory of Hamas militants in 2006. It said the Greek ship ignored orders to stop and was intercepted.
RIGHTS: Muslims Under Scrutiny Despite Waning of ‘Terror War’
July 7, 2009By Thalif Deen | Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 6 (IPS) – When the administration of President Barack Obama formally abandoned the longstanding U.S. “war on terror” – perceived by some as a codeword for “war against Islam” – there were hopes of a new relationship between the United States and the Muslim world after eight long years of political friction.
A significant shift in U.S. policy was also articulated by Obama when he told a predominantly Muslim audience in Egypt last month that “America is not – and never will be – at war with Islam.”
The sentiments he expressed, including an appeal for “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world”, were applauded globally.
But the ground realities, both in the United States and in Western Europe, have not caught up with the widespread political euphoria.
Riot police battle protesters as China’s Uighur crisis escalates
July 7, 2009Times Online/UK, July 7, 2009
(AP) A Uigher woman confronts armed police in Urumqi
Jane Macartney, Urumqi
The “left” and the US military offensive in Afghanistan
July 6, 2009Joe Kishore, wsws.org, 6 July 2009
The American military is in the midst of a major offensive in Afghanistan, aimed at wiping out opposition to the US occupation in the country’s southern Helmand province.
Some 4,000 US Marines, along with 600 members of the Afghan Army, are participating in the drive to gain control of areas with populations deeply hostile to the American occupation.
How Meaningful Is the Pullback? Iraqis Are Skeptical
July 6, 2009Maliki Subsidized Parties Seen as Political Ploy
The celebrations in the streets of Iraq last week, held largely on the government’s dime, tell the story of a nation which sees the US pullback from Iraq’s cities as a huge step toward the return of the nation’s sovereignty in the wake of the 2003 invasion.
But is that story real, or imagined? On the streets, many Iraqis are skeptical that the pullback means anything, particularly given that the soldiers are all still there, just along the outskirts of the city limits. The parties too are regarded with suspicion, as many see Maliki’s role in organizing and funding them as a transparent attempt to curry favor with the voters.
Since leaving the cities, US troops have adopted a strategy to “encircle” them. In practice, this means most of the troops remain within a few miles of the city limits, and can re-enter at a moment’s notice with the permission of the Iraqi military.
The US isn’t planning on having troops leave in signfiicant numbers for the rest of the year, and there is growing concern that the rising violence of recent weeks may lead the Obama Administration to once again revise his pullout strategy, already significantly slowed from what he promised in the campaign.
Biden: US won’t stand in Israel’s way on Iran
July 6, 2009Middle East Online, First Published 2009-07-06
Green light
US Vice President says his country cannot dictate to Israel what they can do if they are threatened.
WASHINGTON – US Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview broadcast Sunday that the United States would not stand in the way of Israel in its dealings with Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else,” Biden told ABC television’s “This Week.”
“Whether we agree or not. They’re entitled to do that… We cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination, that they’re existentially threatened.”
But the top US military officer meanwhile warned of the dangers posed by any military strike against Iran.
“It could be very destabilizing, and it is the unintended consequences of that which aren’t predictable,” Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff told “Fox News Sunday.”
However, he added: “I think it’s very important, as we deal with Iran, that we don’t take any options, including military options, off the table.”
President Barack Obama has said he wants to see progress on his diplomatic outreach to Iran by year’s end, while not excluding a “range of steps,” including tougher sanctions, if Tehran continued its controversial nuclear drive.
Hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not ruled out a possible military strike against Iran, insisting that Tehran, which the Mossad spy agency could have a ready-to-launch nuclear bomb within five years, must not obtain nuclear weapons.
“If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice,” Biden said. “But there is no pressure from any nation that’s going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.”
Israel, the region’s sole if undeclared nuclear-armed state, contends — as does the West — that Iran is seeking to acquire a nuclear arsenal, despite Tehran’s repeated denials.
The Jewish state has also called the Islamic Republic a threat to its existence, citing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s call to wipe Israel off the map.
Biden also confirmed that the Obama administration remains open to pursuing negotiations with Tehran, despite the regime’s crackdown on protesters following a disputed election outcome last month that saw Ahmadinejad return to power.
“If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage,” Biden said. “The offer’s on the table.”
Mullen declined to say whether the danger posed by a nuclear-armed Iran would be sufficient to outweigh the negative consequences of a US military strike on Tehran’s weapons program.
Death toll in Uighur crackdown rockets to 140 and rising
July 6, 2009Times Online/UK, July 6, 2009
(Reuters/CCTV via Reuters TV )
A video grab from CCTV shows people turning over a police car in Urumqi, capital of China’s Xinjiang region where the ethnic unrest occurred on the weekend
Image :1 of 3
Jane Macartney, China Correspondent
VIDEO: Former General of all American Intelligence: An Aircraft did not hit the Pentagon on 9/11
July 5, 2009|
authoritative statement
by Major General (ret) Albert Stubblebine
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Global Research, July 5, 2009
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“I do know that the Pentagon was not hit by an aircraft”
NO WAY, THE PRESS IS SAYING WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN TOLD TO SAY, THE STORIES ABOUT 9/11 ARE FALSE, Major General Albert “Bert” N. Stubblebine III, former head of all intelligence says: The Pentagon was NOT hit by a plane click link below |
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Peace and Justice Post 
What if the Uighurs were Christian rather than Muslim?
July 7, 2009By Glenn Greenwald
According to The New York Times this morning, violent clashes between Chinese government forces and Muslim Uighurs — that country’s long-oppressed minority — have left at least 140 people dead and close to 1,000 injured. This incident in Western China highlights an important fact about America’s “War on Terror.”
Just imagine if the Uighurs were a Christian — rather than Muslim — minority, battling against the tyrannical Communist regime in Beijing, resisting various types of persecution, and demanding religious freedom. They would be lionized by America’s Right, as similar Christian minorities, oppressed by tyrannical regimes, automatically are. Episodes like these — where a declared Tyranny like China violently acts against citizens with whom we empathize — are ones about which, in general, the American political class loves to sermonize.
But the Uighurs are Muslim, not Christian, and hostility towards them thus easily outweighs the opportunity they present to undermine the Chinese Government. Rather than support and venerate them, we instead spent this decade declaring them to be “enemy combatants” and locking them up in Guantanamo — despite the fact that they have never evinced any interest in doing anything other than resisting Chinese persecution, and have certainly never taken actions against the U.S. (as even the Bush administration ultimately admitted). Yet even now, both Congress and the administration actively block release into the U.S. even of those Uighurs we wrongfully imprisoned for years, while the Right screams with outrage — and fear — over the administration’s commendable efforts to find a home for them elsewhere.
For all the Serious analysis about the War on Terror, so much of it has been driven by nothing more complex or noble than sheer hostility towards Muslims. Muslims generally — not just Al Qaeda — replaced Communists as our New Enemy and became the new enabling force for our endless state of War and never-ending expansions of executive power. Rather obviously, the Uighurs were swept into the Enemy category solely by virtue of their status as Muslims. What more compelling evidence of that could be imagined than the fact that we imprisoned — and continue to imprison — people at Guantanamo whose only political interest is in resisting oppression by the Chinese government?
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Tags:China, Chinese government, killed and injured people, Muslim Uighurs, United States
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