Peace and Justice Post

Exclusive: A recurring refrain about the Afghan War is that the United States must stay for the long haul now to avoid repeating the “mistake” made in 1989 when Soviet forces left and Americans supposedly disappeared, too. But this conventional wisdom, spread by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others, is a lie, Robert Parry writes.

By Robert Parry, Consortium News,  June 24, 2011

In Official Washington, there’s one “fact” about the Afghan War that nearly everyone “knows”: In February 1989, after the Soviet army left Afghanistan, the United States walked away from the war-torn country, creating a vacuum that led to the rise of the Taliban and its readiness to host al-Qaeda’s anti-American terrorists.

It is a point made by senior administration officials, including incoming Ambassador Ryan Crocker and departing Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who once summed up the conventional wisdom by saying: “We will not repeat the mistakes of 1989, when we abandoned the country only to see it descend into civil war and into Taliban hands.”

And Gates was there at the time, as President George H.W. Bush’s deputy national security adviser. So, he should know.

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Campaigning against Israeli apartheid has resulted in 23 Palestinian solidarity activists facing US federal grand jury.

The United States government has criminalized the Palestinian people, and now it is increasingly treating US citizens who stand in solidarity with Palestine as criminals as well – including those courageously putting their lives on the line to break the siege on Gaza.

I am a Palestine solidarity activist in the US, and one of 23 US citizens who have been issued with a subpoena to appear before a federal grand jury as part of what the government has said is an investigation into violations of the laws banning material support to foreign “terrorist organizations”.

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by Sheldon Richman, fff.org, June 24, 2011

Despite President Obama’s trumpeted force drawdown in Afghanistan, by the end of next summer more than twice as many U.S. troops will be fighting in that country’s civil war as there were when he became president in 2009. His soothing words notwithstanding, a force of about 70,000 will remain there at least until the end of 2014. We can be sure, however, that that won’t stop the president from campaigning for reelection on a peace platform.

Obama’s speech the other night was mostly show, a spectacle to make the war- and deficit-weary public think he’s taking substantial steps toward disengagement. He did something similar in Iraq, though 50,000 troops remain and are still taking casualties.

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By Uri Avnery, MWC News, June 26, 2011

The Palestinians are planning something thoroughly obnoxious: they intend to apply to the UN for statehood.

Why obnoxious? Any Israeli spokesman (not to mention spokeswoman) will tell you readily: because it is a “unilateral” move. How dare they proclaim a state unilaterally? How dare they do so without the consent of the other party to the conflict – us?

A stickler for detail might ask at this point: “But was the State of Israel not proclaimed unilaterally?” Our state, it may be remembered, was declared by David Ben-Gurion and his colleagues on Mai 14, 1948, without asking anyone.

But who would dare to compare?

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By Stephen Lendman, Countercurrents.org,  25 June, 2011

Besides its Knesset, security forces and intelligence services, Israel’s High Court and Civil Administration ravage Palestinian civil society repressively. Two examples illustrate the problem.

On June 22, a B’Tselem press release headlined, “Sharp increase in West Bank home demolitions,” saying:

Through late June, Israel’s Civil Administration, its Judea/Samaria (West Bank) governing body, illegally “demolished more Palestinians homes….than in all of last year.” Most often, soldiers and Border Police accompany them, forcefully evicting longtime residents.

Over the most recent seven day period, 33 residential buildings were demolished in Jordan Valley Fasayil, al-Hadidiyeh, and Yarza communities, as well as southern Hebron Hills Khirbet Bir al-‘Id. As a result, 238 Palestinians, including 129 minors, lost homes.

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by Eric Margolis, CommonDreams.org, June 26, 2011

Far-called our navies melt away— On dune and headland sinks the fire— Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Rudyard Kipling “Recessional” NEW YORK – War is waged to achieve political objectives, not to kill enemies. In this sense, the United States has lost the ten-year Afghan conflict, its longest war. Afghanistan remains the “graveyard of empires.”

The US has failed to install an obedient regime in Kabul that controls Afghanistan. It has made foes of the Pashtun majority, and, in pursuing this war, gravely undermined Pakistan. Claims that US forces were in Afghanistan to hunt the late Osama bin Laden were widely disbelieved.

Last Wednesday, President Barack Obama bowed to public opinion, approaching elections, military reality and financial woes by announcing he would withdraw a third of the 100,000 US troops from Afghanistan by the end of next summer.   Pentagon brass growled open opposition.

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Letter from head of Israel’s Government Press Office warns that taking part in convoy of boats sailing to Gaza could result in being barred from Israel for 10 years.

By Haaretz, June  26, 2011

Israel’s Government Press Office issued a letter Sunday to foreign journalists, warning them that participating in the upcoming flotilla sailing to Gaza is illegal under Israeli law, and could result in anyone who joins the convoy being barred from Israel for up to 10 years.

The letter, signed by GPO director Oren Helman, states that the flotilla “is a dangerous provocation that is being organized by western and Islamic extremist elements to aid Hamas.”

	Israel Navy forces approach one of six ships of an aid flotilla bound for Gaza on May 31, 2010.
	Photo by: Reuters

Jason Burke, The Guardian, June 25, 2011

A Saudi woman applies makeup to a woman at a cosmetics exhibition in Jeddah. Photograph: Amer Hilabi/AFP/Getty Images

Shortly after dawn, as the sun rises over the hills behind the city, tens of thousands of women will wake in the Saudi Arabian port of Jeddah and go to work. Maybe 14 or 16 hours later, their day will be over.

They are maids, almost all from the Philippines or Indonesia, working for £100-£200 a month. There are more than 500,000 of them in Saudi Arabia, among nearly nine million foreign workers who sweep roads, clean offices, staff coffee shops, drive the cars that women are banned from driving and provide the manpower on the vast construction projects.

The story of the maids rarely receives attention, except when a new shocking incident reveals once again the problems many of them face. . . .

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REUTERS

President Obama is a hit with US troops, but don’t be fooled by his Afghan ‘withdrawal’

Alhamdulillah! President Barack Obama is finally withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.

Except he’s not – only those extras that he deployed in the “surge” of 2009; 68,000 will remain, double the number sent by his predecessor, George Bush.

Obama keeps doing this. Sounding marvellous, then, in retrospect, disappointing. After eight long and bloody years of Bush, everyone outside America, especially Muslims, welcomed this voice of reason, sobriety and perhaps even empathy. Scribbled on a bullet-punctured wall in Gaza was “Obama Inshallah!”. Even in Pakistan, the only ally of the US, which the US regularly bombs, people came out on the streets – any excuse, admittedly – to celebrate his election victory.

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by Joseph Dana, CommonDreams.org, June 24, 2011

Source: The Nation

UPDATED

ATHENS, Greece  — Israeli diplomatic and economic pressure is looming large over preparations of the second Gaza aid flotilla, set to sail from a number Greek ports at the end of the month. Israel has clearly stated that it will use every diplomatic and military avenue to maintain its naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. The events of the past few days in Athens confirm that Israel is making good on its claim. Learning from last year’s botched military operation against the flotilla– which left eight Turkish civilians and one Turkish-American civilian dead– Israel is seemingly applying pressure directly on the Greek government to stop the flotilla boats from setting sail.

Early this morning, I discovered that a ‘private complaint’ had been filed against the US boat to Gaza. The complaint, it is still unclear who filed it, stated that the US boat to Gaza is not ’sea worthy’ and requires a detailed inspection. The harbor master where the boat is in port has declared that until the complaint is resolved the boat is not permitted to leave. Currently, lawyers representing the US boat are looking into the origins of the complaint and whether it was filed as a result of Israeli economic or diplomatic pressure on the Greek government. The boat is US flagged and registered in the United States.

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