Archive for July, 2010

Hindus forced out in Karachi

July 11, 2010
The Asian Age |  Correspondent, July 10th, 2010 |

Islamabad, July 9: Muslim extremists have forced dozens of Hindu families to abandon their homes near Pakistan’s commercial capital Karachi for daring to drink water from a cooler placed outside a mosque, the police sources said.

“What we have now is that a boy from the Hindu family drank water from the cooler placed outside the mosque. Some Muslims have made it an issue and have maltreated the Hindus,” a police official in Memon Goth area said.

He said the extremists think the Hindu has made the water impure and also tried to “cross the limits”.

He said as many as 60 Hindu men, women and children were forced into abandoning their homes.

Netanyahu 1, Obama 0

July 11, 2010
MJ Rosenberg,  PoliticalCorrection.org, July 07, 2010

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said it best at his joint press conference with President Barack Obama yesterday.  Speaking of the urgency of beginning talks with the Palestinians, he said “we need to begin negotiations in order to end them.”

One has to wonder if it will even get that far.  After yesterday’s meeting of the Obama-Netanyahu Mutual Admiration Society, it does not appear that the Israeli leader is under any pressure to begin serious negotiations anytime soon.  Or freeze settlements.  Or do much of anything except express dedication to the concept of peace.

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Kashmiris strike, India “ends curfew”

July 11, 2010
World Bulletin, July 11, 2010
Still, thousands of security forces in battle fatigues patrolled some residential areas in Srinagar, Kashmir’s summer capital, asking people to stay indoors, witnesses said.
Sunday, 11 July 2010 16:04

Indian authorities lifted a six-day curfew on Sunday most of Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, but a strike called by pro-independence leaders to protest against recent civilian killings kept shops and offices closed.

Indian security forces have been struggling to control a wave of demonstrations in the Kashmir valley after being accused of killing 15 civilians — many of them teenagers — in a month.

Still, thousands of security forces in battle fatigues patrolled some residential areas in Srinagar, Kashmir’s summer capital, asking people to stay indoors, witnesses said.

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Iranians still facing death by stoning despite ‘reprieve’

July 10, 2010

Fifteen could still die in horrific sentence after being allegedly convicted of adultery

Saeed Kamali Deghan and Ian Black,  The Guardian/UK, July 8, 2010

An Iranian woman at a protest in Brussels highlights the barbarity  of death by stoning
An Iranian woman at a protest in Brussels highlights the barbarity of death by stoning, in which women are buried up to their necks in front of a crowd of volunteers and killed in a hail of rocks. Photograph: Thierry Roge/Reuters
Twelve Iranian women and three men are on death row awaiting execution by stoning despite an apparent last-minute reprieve for a mother of two who had been facing the horrific sentence after being convicted of adultery.

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Hanrahan: Confronting Rendition to Torture in North Carolina

July 9, 2010

By Clare Hanrahan, ZNet, July 9, 2010
Source: WarIsACrime.org
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Clare Hanrahan’s ZSpace Page

Despite what our leaders may profess, U.S. directed torture continues and efforts to obtain redress for victims and accountability from perpetrators are met with systematic obstruction. We know we cannot rely on government, at any level, to take the initiative for accountability.

But we must not be bystanders.

Six years have passed since the release of the gruesome photos of torture at Abu Ghraib, and it is well past the deadline President Obama set for closing the prison camps at Guantanamo. Yet this Administration has steadfastly refused to seek accountability for U.S.-sponsored torture—the murderous extent of which is still being revealed—and invokes the “state secrets” privilege to obstruct prosecution when torture victims, some released without charge, seek legal redress.

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‘Fun to Shoot People’ General Named as New CENTCOM Commander

July 9, 2010

Mattis Will Replace Petraeus in Position Overseeing Afghan, Iraq Wars

by Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com,  July 08, 2010

The Pentagon has announced its selection of a replacement for General David Petraeus as Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander today, and it will be the controversial Gen. James Mattis that goes to Congress for final approval.

Gen. Mattis

Gen. Mattis, who was previously serving as Joint Forces Command chief, had been out of the headlines for a few years, but his colorful past and what Gen. Michael Hagee called his tendency to “speak with a great deal of candor” ensure that the approval process will be anything but boring.

In 2005, then Lt. Gen. Mattis spoke of his “fun” experience in Afghanistan at a forum in San Diego, describing it as “a hell of a hoot.” After laughter from soldiers in the audience Mattis went on to declare “it’s fun to shoot some people.”

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Hope and Change Fade, but War Endures

July 9, 2010

Seven Reasons Why We Can’t Stop Making War

by William J. Astore, TomDispatch.com, July 8, 2010

If one quality characterizes our wars today, it’s their endurance.  They never seem to end.  Though war itself may not be an American inevitability, these days many factors combine to make constant war an American near certainty.  Put metaphorically, our nation’s pursuit of war taps so many wellsprings of our behavior that a concerted effort to cap it would dwarf BP’s efforts in the Gulf of Mexico.

Our political leaders, the media, and the military interpret enduring war as a measure of our national fitness, our global power, our grit in the face of eternal danger, and our seriousness.  A desire to de-escalate and withdraw, on the other hand, is invariably seen as cut-and-run appeasement and discounted as weakness.  Withdrawal options are, in a pet phrase of Washington elites, invariably “off the table” when global policy is at stake, as was true during the Obama administration’s full-scale reconsideration of the Afghan war in the fall of 2009.  Viewed in this light, the president’s ultimate decision to surge in Afghanistan was not only predictable, but the only course considered suitable for an American war leader.  Rather than the tough choice, it was the path of least resistance.

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Pakistan’s ship-breakers strike

July 9, 2010

A courageous group of highly exploited workers in Pakistan’s ship-breaking yards have defied state repression to fight for their rights, reports Adaner Usmani.

Socialist Worker,  July 6, 2010

A shipbreaker at the shore in Gadani (Michael Foley)

A shipbreaker at the shore in Gadani (Michael Foley)

TODAY, AS the Pakistani government hurtles itself along the path of IMF-mandated austerity, working people around the country find themselves bearing the ever-steeper costs of a capitalist crisis not of their own making. The ordered withdrawal of government subsidies of basic staples–as well as the effects of global and local slowdown–have meant an environment of sharp cuts to real wages and rapidly heightening job insecurity.

Yet even while the Pakistani left lacks the infrastructure to combat this onslaught head-on, in the most underdeveloped and oppressed province of the country, several thousands of workers have taken dramatic action to this end.

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Paul C. Roberts: Hillary Clinton’s Latest Lies

July 9, 2010

Paul Criag Roberts, Counterpunch, July 8, 2010

The BBC reported on July 4 that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the US ballistic missile base in Poland was not directed at Russia.  The purpose of the base, she said, is to protect Poland from the Iranian threat.

Why would Iran be a threat to Poland? What happens to US credibility when the Secretary of State makes such a stupid statement?  Does Hillary think she is fooling the Russians?  Does anyone on earth believe her?  What is the point of such a transparent lie? To cover up an act of American aggression against Russia?

In the same breath Hillary warned of a “steel vise” of repression crushing democracy and civil liberties around the world. US journalists might wonder if she was speaking of the United States. Glenn Greenwald reported in Salon on July 4 that the US Coast Guard, which has no legislative authority, has issued a rule that journalists who come closer than 65 feet to BP clean-up operations in the Gulf of Mexico without permission will be punished by a $40,000 fine and one to five years in prison. The New York Times and numerous journalists report that BP, the US Coast Guard, Homeland Security, and local police are prohibiting journalists from photographing the massive damage from the continuing flow of oil and toxic chemicals into the Gulf.

On July 5 Hillary Clinton was in Tbilisi, Georgia, where, according to the Washington Post, she accused Russia of “the invasion and occupation of Georgia.” What is the point of this lie?  Even America’s European puppet states have issued reports documenting that Georgia initiated the war with Russia that it quickly lost by invading South Ossetia in an effort to destroy the secessionists.

It would appear that the rest of the world and the UN Security Council have given the Americans a pass to lie without end in order to advance Washington’s goal of world hegemony.  How does this benefit the Security Council and the world? What is going on here?

After President Clinton misrepresented the conflict between Serbia and the Albanians in Kosovo and tricked NATO into military aggression against Serbia and after President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the secretary of state, the national security advisor and just about every member of the Bush regime deceived the UN and the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, thus finagling an invasion of Iraq, why did the UN Security Council fall for Obama’s deception that Iran has a nuclear weapons program?

In 2009 all sixteen US intelligence agencies issued a unanimous report that Iran had abandoned its weapons program in 2003.  Was the Security Council ignorant of this report?

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s weapons inspectors on the ground in Iran have consistently reported that there is no diversion of uranium from the energy program. Was the Security Council ignorant of the IAEA reports?

If not ignorant, why did the UN Security Council approve sanctions on Iran for adhering to its right under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to have a nuclear energy program? The UN sanctions are lawless. They violate Iran’s rights as a signatory to the treaty. Is this the “steel vice” of which Hillary spoke?

As soon as Washington got sanctions from the Security Council, the Obama regime unilaterally added more severe US sanctions. Obama is using the UN sanctions as a vehicle to which to attach his unilateral sanctions. Perhaps this is the “steel vice of oppression” of which Hillary spoke.

Why has the UN Security Council given a green light to the Obama regime to start yet another war in the Middle East?

Why has Russia stepped aside? At Washington’s insistence, the Russian government has not delivered the air defense system that Iran purchased. Does Russia view Iran as a greater threat to itself than the Americans, who are ringing Russia with US missile and military bases and financing “color revolutions” in former constituent parts of the Russian and Soviet empires?

Why has China stepped aside?  China’s growing economy needs energy resources. China has extensive energy investments in Iran.  It is US policy to contain China by denying China access to energy. China is America’s banker. China could destroy the US dollar in a few minutes.

Perhaps Russia and China have decided to let the Americans over-reach until the country self-destructs.

On the other hand, perhaps everyone is miscalculating and more death and destruction is in the works than the world is counting on.

Like the Gulf of Mexico.

Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury.  His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

Papers reveal Nixon plan for North Korea nuclear strike

July 8, 2010
Planes on alert after US spy plane shot down had weapons 20 times size of Hiroshima bomb

Chris McGreal in Washington,
The Guardian/UK, July 7, 2010

Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon is believed to have ordered nuclear bombers to be put on standby for an immediate strike on North Korea. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

It is more than 35 years since he was shunted out of office, but the thought of Richard Nixon‘s finger on the nuclear trigger still has the power to terrify.

Now it has been revealed that the highly erratic president’s metaphorical digit was hovering even closer than was widely realised as his administration laid plans for an atomic strike against North Korea in 1969 following the shooting down of a US spy plane.

According to newly revealed government documents, Nixon is even believed to have ordered nuclear bombers to be put on standby for an immediate strike after North Korean jets downed the American plane as it flew over international waters collecting electronic and radio intelligence.

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