The UN general assembly voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to condemn the US blockade on Cuba and for the 18th consecutive year, urged Washington to lift it.
The 192-nation assembly voted 187-3, with two abstentions, to adopt yet another resolution calling for the US embargo to be struck down.
US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice and the representatives from Israel and Palauwere the only three members to vote against the non-binding resolution.
Malou Innocent, cato-at-liberty.com, Oct 28, 2009
Former Marine captain Matthew Hoh became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war. His letter of resignation echoes some arguments I have made earlier this year, namely, that what we are witnessing is a local and regional ethnic Pashtun population fighting against what they perceive to be a foreign occupation of their region; that our current strategy does not answer why and to what end we are pursuing this war; and that Afghanistan holds little intrinsic strategic value to the security of the United States.
Saed Bannoura,IMEMC, Oct 28, 2009
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A number of European lawyers and human rights activities stated that they obtained names of Israeli army officers suspected of committing war crimes during the war against the Gaza Strip earlier this year.
The lawyers said they would be filing lawsuits against the officers for committing war crimes against the Palestinian people. Israeli paper Haaretz said that the lawyers collected testimonies from residents of the Gaza Strip in preparation to file the lawsuits. The lists are being filed in Britain, Spain, Norway, Belgium and Holland as the legislation in these countries allow arrest warrants against war crimes suspects. Haaretz added that attorney Daniel Makeover, from London, told its reporter that the report of Judge Richard Goldstone will be helpful in the lawsuits. Israel said it would be countering the lawsuits, and that it is preparing legal teams but did not offer further details. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said that it is working against the issue which it described as ‘efforts carried out by pro Palestinian groups and their supporters to harm Israel’. Last month, former Israeli Army Chief of Staff, Moshe Yaalon, had to cancel a trip to London due to fears of being apprehended there. Yaalon is the current vice Prime Minister and Minister of the so-called Strategic Affairs. |
The Raw Story, Oct 27, 2009
US drone strikes against suspected terrorists in Afghanistan
and Pakistan could be breaking international laws against summary executions, the UN’s top investigator of such crimes said.
“The problem with the United States is that it is making an increased use of drones/Predators (which are) particularly prominently used now in relation to Pakistan and Afghanistan,” UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Philip Alston told a press conference.
by Maidhc Ó Cathail, Dissident Voice, October 28, 2009
In their 2006 article “The Israel Lobby,” John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt famously assert, “Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.” Having for decades successfully steered policymaking in Washington in a pro-Israel direction, Israel’s American Lobby has more recently turned its attention to Europe. Despite its brief presence in Brussels, it appears to have already had marked success in influencing the nascent foreign policy of the European Union.
By Paul Craig Roberts, Information Clearing House, Oct 28, 2009
There’s no word in the Western press, but Al Jazeera reports that the US and Israel are conducting tests of the high altitude missile defense system that the US has provided to Israel.
The anti-missile system is useless against the short range rockets of Hamas and Hezbollah. Its purpose is to protect Israel from longer range Iranian missiles.
Everyone understands that Iran would not attack Israel except in retaliation. It is logical to conclude that the missile defense system signals an upcoming Israeli attack on Iran.
If the US were opposed to an Israeli attack on Iran, the US would not provide Israel with protection against retaliation and would not engage in war games with Israel to test the system. The best way to prevent an Israeli attack on Iran is to leave Israel open to retaliation.
Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting
by Karen DeYoung, The Washington Post, October 27, 2009
When Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service early this year, he was exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts in Afghanistan.
![[Matthew Hoh was asked to stay in the job. (Gerald Martineau - The Washington Post) ]](https://i0.wp.com/www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/Hoh_resignation.jpg)
Matthew Hoh was asked to stay in the job. (Gerald Martineau – The Washington Post)
A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq, Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed.
But last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.
The Huffington Post, Oct 28, 2009
WASHINGTON � Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the president of Afghanistan, gets regular payments from the CIA and has for much of the past eight years, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
The newspaper said that according to current and former American officials, the CIA pays Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the CIA’s direction in and around Kandahar.
The CIA’s ties to Karzai, who is a suspected player in the country’s illegal opium trade, have created deep divisions within the Obama administration, the Times said.
Allegations that Karzai is involved in the drug trade have circulated in Kabul for months. He denies them.
Critics say the ties with Karzai complicate the United States’ increasingly tense relationship with his older brother, President Hamid Karzai. The CIA’s practices also suggest that the United States is not doing everything in its power to stamp out the lucrative Afghan drug trade, a major source of revenue for the Taliban.
Some American officials argue that the reliance on Ahmed Wali Karzai, a central figure in the south of the country where the Taliban is dominant, undermines the U.S. push to develop an effective central government that can maintain law and order and eventually allow the United States to withdraw.
“If we are going to conduct a population-centric strategy in Afghanistan, and we are perceived as backing thugs, then we are just undermining ourselves,” Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the senior American military intelligence official in Afghanistan, was quoted by the Times in an article published on its Web site.
Ahmed Wali Karzai told the Times that he cooperates with American civilian and military officials but does not engage in the drug trade and does not receive payments from the CIA.
Karzai helps the CIA operate a paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, that is used for raids against suspected insurgents and terrorists, according to several American officials. Karzai also is paid for allowing the CIA and American Special Operations troops to rent a large compound outside the city, which also is the base of the Kandahar Strike Force, the Times said.
Karzai also helps the CIA communicate with and sometimes meet with Afghans loyal to the Taliban, the newspaper reported.
CIA spokesman George Little declined to comment on the report.
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Peace and Justice Post 
Sami Al-Hajj Addresses Conference to Criminalize War
October 29, 2009From: Mathaba
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Mathaba) After thanking those who are present and those who spoke out
against torture and human rights abuses, and Dr Mahathir the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, and all the people of the world who want peace for mankind, the Al-Jazeera journalist who had been abducted to Guantanamo Bay and tortured, he went on to say:
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Tags:Baghram and Guantanamo, Conference to Criminalise War, Dr Ayman Batarfi, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Sami Al Hajj, U.S. policies
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