Peace and Justice Post

Mary Schwalm / AP

“I think we really need to give them an opportunity to economically, socially grow,” says Mary Campbell, 56, a Mass. city worker. She joins the growing number of Americans who see no end in sight in Afghanistan.

LAWRENCE, Mass. — A majority of Americans see no end in sight in Afghanistan, and nearly six in 10 oppose the nine-year-old war as President Barack Obama sends tens of thousands more troops to the fight, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.

With just over 10 weeks before nationwide elections that could define the remainder of Obama’s first term, only 38 percent say they support his expanded war effort in Afghanistan — a drop from 46 percent in March. Just 19 percent expect the situation to improve during the next year, while 29 percent think it will get worse. Some 49 percent think it will remain the same.

The numbers could be ominous for the president and his Democratic Party, already feeling the heat for high unemployment, a slow economic recovery and a $1.3 trillion federal deficit. Strong dissent — 58 percent oppose the war — could depress Democratic turnout when the party desperately needs to energize its supporters for midterm congressional elections.

Continues >>

As Obama Administration officials and a willing mainstream media report that yesterday was the end of the Iraq War it would likely surprise many that 56,000 US troops remain on the ground engaging in combat operations.

But it seems like the spin is even more surprising to the Pentagon leadership, as Gen. David Petraeus was pressed today on whether this was the right time to have left Iraq, and he said what he most likely wasn’t supposed to say.

“First of all we are not leaving,” Petraues insisted, adding that “there are 50,000 US troops that are remaining in Iraq” and that they retain an “enormous capability.” It is a capability that is tough to reconcile with the official story that these are all just trainers.

Continues >>

By Bill Noxid, Information Clearing House, August 20, 2010

Watching MSNBC’s coverage of ‘the last combat troops leaving Iraq’ for 3 hours reminded of a few brutal realities that still plague this country and this planet. The first being just how far this country remains from any semblance of reality. It’s the kind of delusional denial that truly can only be believed when witnessed from within. As Keith Olbermann was describing the cinematic quality of the “Strykers driving into your living room,” I could really think of only one thing – The aftermath of a 7.5 year all out United States operation to decimate a people and their society.

There’s no way to comprehend the scope and facets of this operation, because you would need a Pentagon for that. From the first day after initial conquest when the money disappeared from the banks and their record of civilization was decimated by the looting of their museums, it was like any other colonial conquest in history, except every excruciating moment of this one was on television. The following 7.5 years of the assimilation of a country went as diagrammed.

Continues >>

By Patrick Martin, wsws.org, Aug 19, 2010

As the toll of death and destruction in Pakistan from unprecedented flooding continues to mount, US government officials and the American media are raising concerns not over the colossal human tragedy, but over the potential threat to political stability and US security interests in the region, the focus of American military action for nearly nine years.

Flood victims on Monday and Tuesday blocked highways to demand state help and show their opposition to the government of President Asif Ali Zardari. Tens of thousands of villages have been inundated and there is little sign of aid, either from the government or from the huge and heavily armed Pakistani military apparatus.

According to a report by Reuters, “Dozens of stick-wielding men and a few women tried to block five lanes of traffic outside Sukkur, a major town in the southern province of Sindh. Villagers set fire to straw and threatened to hit approaching cars with sticks.”

Continues >>

Commander says camp will take months to shut – and he’s still waiting for the order

By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor

The Independent/UK, August 19, 2010

GETTY IMAGES

The US Vice-President Joseph Biden, left, and retired military officers watch President Barack Obama sign orders to close down the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in January 2009

Iran Labour Report, August 18, 2010

The massive crackdown on the independent labor activists continues in Iran. Several leaders and activists in the union movement remain in jails while others have been subject to summons and terminations from their jobs. A sketch of the repression of the independent union activism in today’s Iran follows.

Mansour Osaloo, the legendary leader of the Tehran and Suburbs Vahed Bus Workers Syndicate, was taken to court on August 1 and tried under the pretext of having connections with the illegal opposition groups. The trial lasting an hour and ten minutes commenced at 9:00 a.m. at the branch one revolutionaly court in the city of Karaj. At the trial, Osaloo did not have his lawyers present and they were also uninformed about the court session.

While the Iranian Labor Minister had given a promise of release of Osaloo to ILO, the Vahed Union leader remains in jail and new cases filed against him. At the said court session, Osaloo was sentenced to a new one year term. He is currently serving a five year term in Karaj Gohardasht prison. His attorneys will file a petition against the ruling within the twenty day period allowed.

Continues >>

Fidel Castro, Periodico, Aug ust 19, 2010

Resolution 1929 of the United Nations Security Council on June 9, 2010 sealed the fate of imperialism.

I’m not sure how many noticed that among other absurdities, the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, fulfilling orders from above, committed the blunder of appointing Alvaro Uribe (when he was about to complete his mandate) as vice president of the commission to investigate the Israeli attack on the humanitarian fleet carrying essential food to the besieged population in the Gaza Strip. The attack occurred in international waters and at a considerable distance from the coast.

That decision gave Uribe, accused of war crimes, total impunity: as if a country full of mass graves of the bodies of murdered people, some with as many as 2,000 victims; and seven US military bases, plus the rest of the Colombian military bases at its service, had nothing to do with terrorism and genocide.

Continues >>