Peace and Justice Post

At least 10 people were killed today and at least three others wounded, all but two said to be locals, in a pair of US drone strikes against the North Waziristan Agency of Pakistan. One of the attacks destroyed a house while the other hit a vehicle on the road.

Pakistani officials say that all of those slain in the attacks are officially being classified as “suspects,” though they admitted to having no names yet and have no evidence that any “high value” targets were among the slain.

At east four US drones were involved in the attacks and at least three missiles were fired in the attacks, the latest in an ever rising number of US strikes against Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

The latest attack came just hours after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates lamented that the Pakistani invasion of North Waziristan, something the US has long demanded, is being delayed by the massive flooding across the nation. He would not rule out the US invading the region themselves, but said at the moment it was unlikely.

Middle East Monitor,  September 1, 2010

Abdul Hamid Abdul Latif Sa’id Abu Haniyeh was beaten up severely before being hit hard by a large jolt of electricity.

Following a visit yesterday to some young prisoners being held at the Megiddo Prison, lawyers for the Ministry of Detainees have stated that the young prisoners testified under oath that they had been interrogated and systematically electrocuted and tortured by Israeli intelligence officers in settlements near to Palestinian cities.

According to Salim Redouane who was arrested near Qalqilya on 08.05.2010, he was kept in a camp near Tzofin for 3 hours before being transferred to the settlement of Ariel where he was questioned by Shin Bet interrogators. His head was repeatedly hit against the prison room wall in an effort to get him to confess and he was beaten severely. The investigators threatened to burn his skin if he did not confess to the accusations against him.

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By Felicity Arbuthnot, Information Clearing House, Sep 3, 2010

“Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war.” (Tony Blair, speech as newly elected Prime Minister, 1997.)

August is seemingly Spotlight on Illegal Invasion month. President Obama has made his Mission-Lost-Cause speech about US., Iraq fantasy “withdrawal” – leaving behind 50,000 troops, perhaps 50,000 mercenaries, and some have suggested 100,000 “advisors.”

In context: “Last month, the Congressional Research Service reported that the Department of Defense workforce has 19 percent more contractors (207,600) than uniformed personnel … in Iraq and Afghanistan, making these wars … the most outsourced and privatized in US history. Worse, the oversight of contractors will rest with other contractors. As has been the case in Afghanistan, contractors will be sought to provide “operations-center monitoring of private security contractors (PSCs) as well as PSC inspection and accountability services.”

Tony “I would do it again” Blair, announced, on 16th August, he is to give his entire £4.6 million advance on his book: “My Journey”, to the Royal British Legion, for support of British soldiers in need. As the ungracious calls for his “journey” to be to The Hague get louder – with some suggesting a far less civilized ordeal – it seems timely to assess British “achievements” in Iraq.

The British, of course, having come in flying the St George’s flag on their vehicles (the Crusaders’ flag) slithered out of Basra city, under cover of darkness, to hunker down at the fortified airport, some distance outside the town, in September 2007, much as US units did from other parts of Iraq, last week, fleeing in the night, over the border to Kuwait.

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Paul Craig Roberts, Information Clearing House, Sept 2, 2010

Obama’s “end of Iraq war” speech must have shattered any remaining belief in him. Forced to appease both his supporters and the warmonger right-wing, who denounce him as a Muslim and a Marxist, Obama resorted to Orwellian DoubleSpeak. He could only announce an end to the war by praising the president who started it and the troops who fought it. Yet, as most earthlings, if not Americans, surely know by now, the war
was based on a lie and on intentional deception. The American troops died for a lie.

President Obama spoke of the cost to Americans of liberating Iraq, but is Iraq liberated or is Iraq in the hands of American puppet politicians and still occupied by 50,000 American troops and 200,000 private mercenaries and “contractors,” governed out of the largest embassy in the world, essentially a fortress?

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John Pilger, New Statesman, Sept 1, 2010

Loud noises from Washington about a US pull-out from Iraq are a poor disguise for America’s determination to keep waging war. And the same sort of spin is at work here in Britain

US officials are continuing to jump on board the proclamation that the Iraq War has ended, with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates going from yesterday’s comments to a firm declaration today that we’re “not” at war in Iraq any longer.

The whole administration seems to have settled on this narrative, but the real bump in the road remains how simply untrue it remains. The war is not over and for the 50,000 troops, despite official claims that they will “do an awful lot of training,” this is still very much a shooting war.

In fact while President Obama was giving his “time to turn the page” victory speech, US troops in full combat gear were taking part in an attack on a northern Iraqi village. They no doubt would have been surprised to hear that there is no war in Iraq.

Violence is on the rise, hundreds of Iraqis have been killed since the “last combat brigade” moment and US troops continue to engage in combat missions, with the subtle difference that they are never called “combat missions” anymore. Within that difference, it seems, a whole war can be hidden.

In Pakistan, flood survivors line up for drinking water.

Photo by Nicholas Brooks/Oxfam

As the world comes to terms with the mind-boggling scale of the tragedy in Pakistan, many Americans are asking what we can do to aid the flood victims.

Some may hesitate to contribute to flood relief because we associate Pakistan with qualities we don’t admire—nuclear proliferation, religious fundamentalism, the oppression of women, and a corrupt and powerful military. But the people of Pakistan are more likely to be the victims than the perpetrators of these problems, and above all else, they are fellow human beings in dire need.

So how can we distance ourselves from the qualities we don’t like while offering solidarity to the people of Pakistan?

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by Michael Carmichael, Global Research, Aug 31, 2010

While the Republican right will be leading their Anti-Mosque Rally at Ground Zero in Manhattan this September 11th, Dr. Terry Jones will simultaneously launch what he hopes will become a global Anti-Muslim crusade from his modest church in Gainesville, Florida.