Peace and Justice Post

by Ira Chernus, CommonDreams.org, April 12, 2011

The Arab League will ask the UN to impose a no-fly zone on Gaza, according to its Secretary-General Amr Moussa. “If the Arab League wants a no-fly zone in Gaza is it also talking about missiles that are fired from Gaza on Israeli cities?”, the Israeli government retorted. “About missiles fired at school buses? About mortar shells fired at farms?”

If you get all your news from the U.S. mass media, you’d think that was a perfectly logical response. Every mass media report I’ve seen has Israel attacking Gaza in retaliation for Palestinian attacks. The Palestinians always start it — or so the U.S. mass media tell us, as if it were incontrovertible fact. Even commentators who criticize the disproportionate scale of Israeli attacks typically add, “But of course Israel has the right to defend itself, as any nation would.”

Self-defense? That excuse just doesn’t stand up, for those few who know the facts. The facts are out there, though they’re difficult to find in the fog of media distortion. I was lucky enough to discover “Associated Press Deconstructed,” a project of the very useful website If Americans Knew.

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BBC News, April 11, 2011

Two Bahraini Shia activists who were detained after weeks of anti-government protests have died in police custody.

The interior ministry said Ali Issa Saqer, 31, had died when guards tried to restrain him for “causing chaos”.

Another detainee, Zakaraya Rashed Hassan, 40, had died of sickle cell disease, the ministry added. It was the second such death in a week.

Several Shia activists have complained of being tortured while in custody. The government denies the allegations.

(Warning: Towards the end of the story, there is a photograph of Mr Saqer’s body which viewers may find disturbing).

Bahrain imposed emergency rule last month after weeks of anti-government protests in the tiny Gulf kingdom, where the Sunni monarchy is accused of discrimination against the Shia majority.

The authorities used force to put down the protests, which have left more than 25 people dead.

Rights groups say the government has since detained more than 400 people – including human rights activists, doctors, bloggers and opposition supporters.

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By Ted Newcomen, Socialist Viewpoint, March/April  2011, vol. 11, No. 2

The U.S. “lamestream” media circus has been fulminating about Arab dictatorships killing innocent demonstrators in recent uprisings across the Middle East but has been conspicuously silent about the origins of the weapons used. Although some governments, such as the UK, have recently had second thoughts and are revoking arms licenses to Libya and Bahrain. This includes weapons such as tear gas grenades and other ammunition to suppress demonstrations. Never mind that it’s a bit late to actually affect what’s happening in the street but at least the thought was there!1

The issue has been an ongoing one in the EU since the lifting of the arms embargo back in 2004 with the Belgian courts again stopping arms sales only last year.2

Thirteen months ago the Russians announced a $2 billion deal with the Libyan regime to supply armaments, mainly combat aircraft, tanks, and surface-to-air anti-missile systems.3

In 2008, President Putin visited Libya and cancelled billions of dollars of the nation’s Soviet-era debt in exchange for big new contracts with Russian firms. Prior to this Moammar Gadhafi had visited Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine, all of which had offered to supply Libya with weapons. He said he was also discussing possible arms deals with Britain, France, and Italy, “everyone is trying to offer a better choice,” he said.4

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Editorial,

Weekly Rehbar, Srinagar (Kashmir), April 12, 2011

|| Archieve || Page1 || Page 2 || Page 3 || Page4|| Page 5 || Page 6 || Page 7 || Page 8 || Since 1932 Founder : Late Ghulam Mohi-ud-din Rehbar, Since 1932  Contact Us:  The “REHBAR” Urdu News Paper, E.Mail:-  weeklyrehbar@gmail.com Printer, Publisher and Editor: Shahid Rehbar, Published from Palladium Street Lal Chowk Srinagar Kmr., Pin Code:- 190001 J&K India Visitor No :  #9419094623 Copyright © 2008 Weekly Rehbar Powered by Sterling IT Services. Visit Kashmir At www.MyKashmir.in

While Obama talks of saving civilians in Libya, information about innocents killed by U.S. drones is kept secret

The big focus of the Obama administration in the last week has been, in President Obama’s words, “to stop the violence against civilians.” That’s in Libya, of course, where Moammar Gadhafi was threatening to quell a rebellion based in Benghazi.

In this context, it’s particularly striking to read the news from the ACLU — which has been waging a legal battle to wring information from the government about American drone strikes — that the military doesn’t even keep a tally of civilian deaths caused by drones:

The Department of Defense has confirmed that it does not compile statistics about the total number of civilians that have been killed by its unmanned drone aircraft. The DOD disclosed this information in a letter in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union demanding that the government disclose the legal basis for its use of unmanned drones to conduct targeted killings overseas.

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Peter Symonds, wsws.org, April 12, 2011

Yesterday marked one month since the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated much of north-eastern Japan and produced the worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 reactor explosion at Chernobyl in the Ukraine. While Japanese politicians, officials and representatives of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) marked the occasion with profuse apologies and soothing reassurances, there is no doubt that a concerted operation remains in place to downplay the extent of the catastrophe and the ongoing dangers.

The dissembling of Japanese officials might take a national form, with elaborate acts of contrition, but the underlying reasons for the cover-up are universal in character. Throughout the crisis, the government and TEPCO have been driven, not by concerns about Fukushima residents or the safety of workers at the plant, but a determination to preserve the profitability of TEPCO and the country’s nuclear industry at all costs.

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Bob Johnson, OpEdNews.com, April 11, 2011

Child workers in a coal mine in Pennsylvania by History Palce

The religious right spends a lot of money and energy in their efforts to make rank and file Christians believe that the Bible god is against workers’ rights, unions and social welfare programs. Since the Bible suffers from severe ambiguity, they are able to get away with it. This is why, for example, during the American Civil War the North used the Bible to support its cause while the South used the Bible to support its cause. A book that ambiguous is worthless and has unlimited potential for suffering and misery if it is taken seriously and acted upon.

Just as the religious right is wrong when they promote their false idea that America was founded as a Christian nation, so they are wrong when they claim the Bible god supports unrestrained capitalism.

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Obama professor among 250 experts who have signed letter condemning humiliation of alleged WikiLeaks source

Ed Pilkington in New York, The Guardian, April 10, 2011

 

A man protests about the detention of Bradley Manning. More than 250 legal scholars have signed a letter expressing outrage. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

More than 250 of America’s most eminent legal scholars have signed a letter protesting against the treatment in military prison of the alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning, contesting that his “degrading and inhumane conditions” are illegal, unconstitutional and could even amount to torture.

The list of signatories includes Laurence Tribe, a Harvard professor who is considered to be America’s foremost liberal authority on constitutional law. He taught constitutional law to Barack Obama and was a key backer of his 2008 presidential campaign.

Tribe joined the Obama administration last year as a legal adviser in the justice department, a post he held until three months ago.

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By Gareth Porter, Consortium News,  April 8, 2011

Editor’s Note: Under pressure from U.S. neoconservatives to continue at least some form of the Iraqi occupation, the Obama administration is signaling that it is willing to maintain a significant military presence there after the scheduled troop departure at the end of this year.

The neocons want this continued toehold in Iraq both for the future projection of U.S. power in the region and to sustain the image of their “surge” victory, but there is strong popular opposition inside Iraq to allowing any American troops to stay, as Gareth Porter reported for the Inter Press Service:

President Barack Obama has given his approval to a Pentagon plan to station U.S. combat troops in Iraq beyond 2011, provided that Iraqi Premier Nouri al-Maliki officially requests it, according to U.S. and Iraqi sources.

But both U.S. and Iraqi officials acknowledge that Maliki may now be reluctant to make the official request. Maliki faces severe political constraints at home, and his government is being forced by recent moves by Saudi Arabia to move even closer to Iran.

And it is no longer taken for granted by U.S. or Iraqi officials that Maliki can survive the rising tide of opposition through the summer.

As early as September 2010, the White House informed the Iraqi government that it was willing to consider keeping between 15,000 and 20,000 troops in Iraq, in addition to thousands of unacknowledged Special Operations Forces. But Obama insisted that it could only happen if Maliki requested it, according to a senior Iraqi intelligence official.

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Thousands of Egyptian activists press ruling military council on promised reforms, justice.

Middle East Online, April 8, 2011

By Samer al-Atrush – CAIRO

Protests have been held regularly since Mubarak was toppled Tens of thousands of Egyptian activists massed in Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square on Friday to demand that former regime officials be purged and put on trial, including ousted president Hosni Mubarak. Draped in Egyptian flags, Muslims were joined by Christians as they gathered for weekly prayers in a protest dubbed the “Day of Trial and Cleansing” to press the ruling military council on promised reforms and justice. Muslim cleric Safwat al-Higazi, who led the prayer, called for Mubarak to face criminal charges. “We don’t only want to try him for the millions (of dollars) but also for the blood,” he told the crowd. “We want to try him just as he tried the people in state security courts, but we want a popular trial.” Continues >>