Peace and Justice Post

  Jurist.org, July 8, 2011

JURIST Contributing Editor Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson School of Law says that all instances of torture must be investigated as violations of US and international law and a failure to do so will allow impunity for those who authorized these actions…

---

James Petras, Information Clearing House, July 10, 2011

The US government (White House and Congress) spends $10 billion dollars a month, or $120 billion a year, to fight an estimated “50 -75 ‘Al Qaeda types’ in Afghanistan”, according to the CIA and quoted in the Financial Times of London (6/25 -26/11, p. 5). During the past 30 months of the Obama presidency, Washington has spent $300 billion dollars in Afghanistan, which adds up to $4 billion dollars for each alleged ‘Al Queda type’. If we multiply this by the two dozen or so sites and countries where the White House claims ‘Al Qaeda’ terrorists have been spotted, we begin to understand why the US budget deficit has grown astronomically to over $1.6 trillion for the current fiscal year.

During Obama’s Presidency, Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment has been frozen, resulting in a net decrease of over 8 percent, which is exactly the amount spent chasing just 5 dozen ‘Al Qaeda terrorists’ in the mountains bordering Pakistan.

It is absurd to believe that the Pentagon and White House would spend $10 billion a month just to hunt down a handful of terrorists ensconced in the mountains of Afghanistan. So what is the war in Afghanistan about? The answer one most frequently reads and hears is that the war is really against the Taliban, a mass-based Islamic nationalist guerilla movement with tens of thousands of activists. The Taliban, however, have never engaged in any terrorist act against the territorial United States or its overseas presence. The Taliban have always maintained their fight was for the expulsion of foreign forces occupying Afghanistan. Hence the Taliban is not part of any “international terrorist network”. If the US war in Afghanistan is not about defeating terrorism, then why the massive expenditure of funds and manpower for over a decade?

Continues >>

For several weeks now, Israel’s army and navy have been in a state of high alert, bravely facing a deadly threat to the country’s very existence – 10 little boats trying to reach Gaza.

These vessels are carrying a dangerous gang of vicious terrorists, in the form of elderly veterans of peace campaigns.

Benjamin Netanyahu has affirmed Israel’s unshakeable determination to defend his country – he shall not let anyone break the blockade to smuggle rockets to the terrorists in Gaza, who will then launch them to kill innocent children.

This is a kind of record even for Netanyahu. Not a single word is true.

The flotilla is not carrying any weapons – the representatives of respected international media on the boats have provided assurance of this.

Continues >>

Stephen Lendman, MWC News, July 9, 2011

Before and after Mubarak was ousted, Egypt’s military arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and disappeared thousands, a practice continuing to ruthlessly stay in power and prevent change.

Moreover, thousands arrested are being tried in military courts, denying them due process or judicial fairness. Allowed only court-appointed counsel, attorneys get minutes with clients to review charges before presenting their case in proceedings.

In addition, multiple defendants are tried simultaneously. Ten thousand or more were sentenced in recent months, some to death, and lawyers can’t appeal. Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) attorney Adel Ramadan said nothing under Mubarak was like this. The ruling junta is much more extreme, cracking down ruthlessly against challenges to its authority.

Continues >>

The Israeli Air Force carried out, on Saturday at night, an air-strike targeting a brick factory, east of Gaza city; damage was reported, no injuries.

File – Israeli Attack On Gaza

Eyewitnesses reported that at least one missile directly hit the factory causing excessive damage, and also inflicting damage to nearby homes.

Medics and civil defense personnel arrived at the scene following the bombardment to asses the damage and reported no physical injuries among the residents.

Besides damages to the factory, the bombardment led to cracks in the walls of civilian homes, shattering their windows and doors.

The latest Israeli military attack comes only a few days after the Israeli Air Force killed two fighters in Al Masdar village, in central Gaza.

My daughter’s death shows the cruelty of an America that won’t protect its own and is complicit in harming Palestinian civilians

By Cindy Corrie

When Greek authorities prevented the US ship the Audacity of Hope leaving its port in Athens this week, they dealt a blow to a group of brave and principled Americans who were trying to carry thousands of letters from US citizens to those who wait on Gaza’s shores.

I know many of the people who were on this boat, and my family’s letter was part of their cargo.

In 2003 my daughter Rachel Corrie made her journey to Gaza and was run down and killed by a US-made Israeli military Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer. She was trying to protect a Gazan family and their home, one of thousands illegally destroyed in Israeli military clearing operations.

Now my family is on a parallel journey with those activists as we return this week to Israeli court to confront Colonel Pinhas Zuaretz, the commanding officer of the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade in 2003. His testimony should shed light not only on actions of troops responsible for Rachel’s killing but also on the Israeli military’s broad failures as an occupying power to protect civilian life and property.

This week’s flotilla was travelling to Gaza, as Rachel did, to stand with Palestinians against oppression and illegal occupation and for a just, enduring peace.

Some liken the action to those of “freedom riders” who 50 years ago journeyed bravely to the American south to oppose racist laws that kept blacks and whites from sitting together on buses.

Continues >>

It is not a secret any more after Pakistan’s Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar finally admitted that drones fly from country’s southwestern Shamsi air base.

He said Pakistan has asked the US to evacuate the air base —- something —– Washington has refused to do so far.

Caught between the public demands and US pressure, the officials blame the previous governement fort the current conditions.

The US was never given access to carry out drone attacks. Washington was given access only for civilian purpose during the previous government. The matter had been raised over Washington’s control over the base at the highest level with the US government.

Continues >>

Socialist Worker, June 2, 2011

NEVER IN history has there been such a deliberately misunderstood and misrepresented historical figure as Lenin. It is extremely difficult to disentangle myth from reality because the Russian revolutionary was deified in the East and systematically vilified in the West.

In Russia, following his death in 1924 and up until 1991 and the collapse of the ex-USSR, something called “Leninism” was converted into a state religion to justify policies that Lenin would never have countenanced when he was alive.

His own introduction to his work State and Revolution describes how after the death of revolutionaries, “attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons.” The Stalinist bureaucracy turned Lenin into just such a harmless icon. Lenin was quite literally mummified, his embalmed body displayed in a mausoleum in Red Square–something that would have horrified Lenin had he known about it.

Continues >>

Socialist worker, July 8, 2011

The U.S. boat from the Gaza Freedom Flotilla 2 docked in Greece

WITH THE Gaza Freedom Flotilla 2 stalled in ports in Greece and elsewhere, more than 200 activists staged a lively July 5 protest outside the Israeli consulate in Chicago to condemn Israel’s international pressure campaign to expand the siege of Gaza to ports around the Mediterranean Sea.

Hundreds of activists from 22 countries have spent the last several months making preparations for a voyage to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza–organizing boats, collecting supplies of humanitarian aid and, in the last couple weeks, assembling in Greece, Turkey and elsewhere.

Continues >>

The long struggle of a female worker has drawn the attention of both the local and international community. Ms. Kim Jin-suk, a member of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) has been occupying the cabin of Crane No. 85, which is 35 metres high, in the shipyard of Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction (HHIC) in Busan for six months. Ms. Kim is demanding that the company reconsider the dismissal of dozens of employees and is refusing to leave the cabin despite being sentenced for trespass in January. The sentence carried a fine of KRW One Million (approximately US$ 1,000) for each day she has occupied and continues to occupy the crane cabin. Her struggle casts doubts as to the society’s interest in matters of labour and also the role of the government in respecting, protecting and fulfilling the human rights of a third party when business enterprises are involved.

Continues >>