Peace and Justice Post

By Lawrence Davidson, MWC News, Aug. 13, 2011

Education as Indoctrination

Over the last ten years there have been periodic outbursts of rage over the alleged anti-Semitic nature of Palestinian textbooks. Most of these episodes have been instigated by an Israeli based organization called the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (AKA the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education). According to one Israeli journalist, Akiva Eldar, the Center does sloppy work. It “routinely feeds the media with excerpts from “Palestinian” textbooks that call for Israel’s annihilation…[without] bothering to point out that the texts quoted in fact come from Egypt and Jordan.” The Center’s conclusions have been corroborated only by other Israeli institutions such as Palestinian Media Watch.

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Dunya News, 13 August,2011

There were no announced celebrations of Castro’s birthday, though a concert was held in his honour.

Fidel Castro marked his 85th birthday outside of the public spotlight Saturday, with little fanfare around the aging revolutionary icon who is rarely seen in public these days but still casts a long shadow over Cuban society.

There were no announced celebrations of Castro s birthday, though the previous night two dozen musical acts from across Latin America held a concert in his honour.

“What we say in the songs of our invited artists will be little next to what he deserves,” Alfredo Vera, one of the organizers, said late Friday. “Congratulations, beloved and eternal commandant.”

The former president didn t make it to his own birthday bash — hardly a surprise since he appears infrequently since he stepped down in 2006, at first temporarily, and then permanently in 2008, due to  an intestinal illness that he later said nearly killed him.

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Clare Algar, The Guardian, Aug. 4, 2011

David Cameron in July 2010 giving the House of Commons details of an inquiry into claims that British security services were complicit in the torture of terror suspects Photograph: PA

Reprieve announced today that we would not be taking part in the government’s inquiry into collusion in torture and rendition by British security services.

Along with a coalition of 10 leading human rights organisations, including Amnesty, Liberty and Human Rights Watch, we’ve decided that the way the detainee inquiry is set up means that it will simply not be able to get to the bottom of the allegations that our country has been involved in some of the horrific abuses that have been taking place in the name of the “war on terror”.

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Jesse Jackson, Jr. shaking hands with former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on a 2003 trip to Israel

Nearly 20 percent of the constituents of Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) live under the poverty line, and nearly 15 percent are unemployed. Jackson’s congressional district, covering parts of the south side of Chicago and its southern suburbs, has been hit harder than many others by the crises plaguing the economy. Many of his constituents are looking at even more cutbacks in social services, higher prices for food and fuel, and ever scarcer jobs.

During this August congressional recess, Rep. Jackson, Jr. should be at home, meeting with constituents and proposing to them how he will help them cope with their difficult circumstances. Instead, the politician is proudly gallivantingaround Israel, in one of three separate congressional delegations heading there this month on all-expense-paid junkets organized by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), a so-called charitable affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most influential of the myriad pro-Israel lobbying outfits.

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The Daily Beast, Aug 11, 2011

With the 10^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks only a month away, former CIA Director George Tenet and two former top aides are fighting back hard against allegations that they engaged in a massive cover-up in 2000 and 2001 to hide intelligence from the White House and the FBI that might have prevented the attacks.

The source of the explosive, unproved allegations is a man who once considered Tenet a close friend: former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, who makes the charges against Tenet and the CIA in an interview for a radio documentary timed to the 10^th anniversary next month. Portions of the Clarke interview were made available to The Daily Beast by the producers of the documentary.

Richard A. Clarke in 2010., Markus Schreiber / AP Photo

In the interview for the documentary, Clarke offers an incendiary theory that, if true, would rewrite the history of the 9/11 attacks, suggesting that the CIA intentionally withheld information from the White House and FBI in 2000 and 2001 that two Saudi-born terrorists were on U.S. soil—terrorists who went on to become suicide hijackers on 9/11.

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Paul Craig Roberts, opednews.com, Aug. 12, 2011

A new study gives us the truest picture yet – in contrast to the CIA’s own account – of drones’ grim toll of ‘collateral damage’

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• Clive Stafford Smith
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 11 August 2011 

Sameeda Gul, 6, who was injured in a drone strike in Pakistan in 2009. Photograph: Getty Images

I would not deny that the pilotless plane, flying bomb, or whatever its correct name may be, is an exceptionally unpleasant thing, because, unlike most other projectiles, it gives you time to think. What is your first reaction when you hear that droning, zooming noise? Inevitably, it is a hope that the noise won’t stop. You want to hear the bomb pass safely overhead and die away into the distance …

– George Orwell, “As I Please”, Tribune, 30 June 1944

George Orwell wrote of V2 attacks on London in 1944. Yet, there are many more in Britain who identify with that voice, speaking 67 years ago, than with events that are a regular reality in Pakistan today.

This week, a new report from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism gives us the best picture yet of the impact of the CIA‘s drone war in Pakistan. The CIA claims that there has been not one “non-combatant” killed in the past year. This claim always seemed to be biased advocacy rather than honest fact. Indeed, the Guardian recently published some of the pictures we have obtained of the aftermath of drone strikes. There were photos of a child called Naeem Ullah killed in Datta Khel and two kids in Piranho, both within the timeframe of the CIA’s dubious declaration.

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by Chris Woods, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism,Aug. 10, 2011

CIA drone strikes have led to far more deaths in Pakistan than previously understood, according to extensive new research published by the Bureau. More than 160 children are among at least 2,292 people reported killed in US attacks since 2004. There are credible reports of at least 385 civilians among the dead.

In a surprise move, a counter-terrorism official has also released US government estimates of the numbers killed. These state that an estimated 2,050 people have been killed in drone strikes – of whom all but an estimated 50 are combatants.

Reassessment
The Bureau’s fundamental reassessment of the covert US campaign involved a complete re-examination of all that is known about each US drone strike.

The study is based on close analysis of credible materials: some 2,000 media reports; witness testimonies; field reports of NGOs and lawyers; secret US government cables; leaked intelligence documents, and relevant accounts by journalists, politicians and former intelligence officers.

The Bureau’s findings are published in a 22,000-word database which covers each individual strike in Pakistan in detail. A powerful search engine, an extensive timeline and searchable maps accompany the data.

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IRIN News, uruknet.info, Aug. 9, 2011

KABUL, 9 August 2011 (IRIN) – Ongoing drought in northern, northeastern and western Afghanistan is likely to push 1.5-2 million more people into food insecurity this autumn, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP). This is in addition to the seven million country-wide already facing food shortages. The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) is reporting a failure of the rain-fed wheat crop, which accounts for about 55 percent of the total domestic wheat yield. Irrigated wheat, which tends to yield more per hectare, has also been affected by the drought. The average wheat yield (without fertilizers) on irrigated land is about 2.7 tons per hectare (3.5 tons with fertilizer), versus only 1.1 tons on rain-fed land, according to MAIL. Continues >>

Tehran pays tribute to US activist crushed to death by bulldozer while trying stop the demolition of Palestinian homes

• Associated Press
• guardian.co.uk,  August 11, 2011

Iran has named a street in central Tehran after Rachel Corrie, an American pro-Palestinian activist who was killed in 2003. Photograph: Denny Sternstein/AP

Tehran city council has named a street after an American activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in 2003, a local newspaper has reported.

The report in the Hamshahri, a daily affiliated with Tehran’s authorities, said the council has named the street Rachel Aliene Corrie. It said the sign would be placed in the city centre, but did not say when it would be displayed.

Corrie, a pro-Palestinian activist from Washington, was trying to prevent what she and other campaigners believed was a push by the Israeli military to demolish nearby Palestinian homes. She was 23 at the time of her death.

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