"Beware the 'Progressive Agenda'" -- Charles Davis

Tweet http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/beware-the-progressive-agenda/

Since taking office nearly 18 months ago, Barack Obama has failed to deliver on his promise to close Guantanamo Bay, has expanded the war in Afghanistan, has dropped cluster bombs on civilians in Yemen, has intensified a proxy war in Somalia and is currently seeking the authority to search every Americans e-mail and web history without so much as a warrant from a rubber-stamping intelligence court. In other words, he’s been successfully advancing the progressive agenda, or so liberal magazine The American Prospect tells me in a piece that notes the bulk of the professional bloggers and Democratic activists who attended the recent “Netroots Nation” conference in Las Vegas likewise believe our smooth-talking murderer-in-chief is a Pretty Swell Guy.

Take it away, Jamelle Bouie:

The Netroots Nation straw poll, conducted during the conference by Revolution Messaging, shows President Obama with an approval rating of 84 percent among the attending activists, journalists, and bloggers. Given the mostly somber mood of the conference, this is higher than I expected, but on reflection, I’m not too surprised. Among conference attendees, there didn’t seem to be much disagreement with the idea that Obama has been pretty successful in advancing a progressive agenda. While I’m sure there was plenty of disappointment over the lack of a public option in the Affordable Care Act, for example, I don’t think anyone challenged the notion that passing health care is a defining achievement for the administration.

I particularly like the last line: while sure the president didn’t actually deliver on his promise to enact a public option, much less the single-payer system desired by much of the liberal left, passing something and calling it “health care reform” was certainly an achievement, and shouldn’t we all be proud of that? Absent from the piece, you’ll of course notice, is any mention of all those dead foreigners that liberal cosmopolitans purportedly care about, which I guess might just indicate that they never really cared about them. A civilian killed by a Democratic president in an unjust landwar in Asia just doesn’t inflame a liberal’s passions as much as when it’s a nasty ‘ol Republican dropping the bombs.

Beyond just the sickening partisan morality of these activists, the Netroots poll also shows that the liberal lore that the Democratic rank-and-file are more willing to stand up to their politicians than their mouth-breathing Republican counterparts — carbon-copies, I say — is just that: Lore. Fiction. Bullshit. The Netroots liberals are just as impressed by the pomp and prestige of the presidency, are just as worshipful of authority and liable to join a creepy cult of personality, as any conservative.

What, too much? A bit unfair? Yeah, well: 84 percent.

"Massive anti-US rally held in Afghanistan" -- Press TV

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http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/massive-anti-us-rally-held-in-afghanistan/

In eastern Afghanistan, hundreds of people have taken to the streets to protest against the mounting civilian death toll in US-led raids in the war-torn country.

Some 600 demonstrators blocked the main highway linking the Capital, Kabul and the eastern city of Jalalabad on Wednesday. The protesters were chanting slogans against the growing foreign presence in the country and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

An Afghan father and his son were killed when their house in Nangahar Province was stormed overnight by NATO soldiers, triggering an outcry that led to the demonstrations.

The US-led forces in the country say they killed two militants in the operation, a claim local villagers have firmly rejected.

Earlier this week, a similar rally was held in the eastern province of Wardak.

A UN report published earlier this week said that 386 civilians were killed by NATO or Afghan forces in the first six months of 2010.

On Monday, at least five Afghan civilians, including a woman and her three children, were killed after a NATO supply vehicle hit their motorcycle in southern Afghanistan. According to Afghan officials, the accident took place on a road in Helmand province, a Press TV correspondent reported Sunday.

Civilians have been the main victims of violence in Afghanistan, particularly in the country’s troubled southern and eastern provinces. The issue of civilian casualties has caused friction between Washington and the Karzai government in Kabul.

Obama/Murray Bloodsucking Event in Seattle 8-17-10

Tweet Shot of the protest pen on Olive Way & 5th across from the Westin. Mostly occupied with the immigrant rights folks with the El Comite Pro-Reforma Migratoria Y Justicia. They broke out later and made to the Westin, but were turned back.

Democrat party people nonchalantly waiting to deposit their bloody tribute with the President and Senator, after a super fine repast, I'm sure.

Me. On the sidewalk in front of me was a small contingent of antiwar, protect social security, Obama is a war criminal, troops home from afghanistan folks.

A couple of us tried to move to the other side to make our signs more visible to the war funders, but the cops would not allow it, seeing as how we weren't paying the big bucks.

The tea party was pretty tiny. Unlike me, they were not vocal. I tried to give the Dems in line the word that they were funding the deaths of children in Pakistan and Palestine. I was definitely heard; doubt if I was heeded.

"Protests Greet John Yoo on First Day of Classes" -- Way to go Cindy

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http://www.berkeleyside.com/2010/08/16/protests-greet-john-yoo-on-first-day-of-classes/

Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war activist, and dozens of protestors from Code Pink, The World Can’t Wait, the Boalt Alliance to Abolish Torture and other groups marched through Berkeley Law School today to protest John Yoo’s position as a member of the faculty.

After holding a brief press conference outside the law school, the group marched through the halls and into an outdoor plaza where many students had gathered to have lunch. The protestors were wearing latex gloves dipped in red paint and they yelled “Torture is a war crime,” and “What do we want for John Yoo? Arrest! Indictment! Imprisonment!”

Monday was the first day of classes at Berkeley Law and most students seemed more interested in reuniting with friends and eating than hearing what the protestors had to say, although most politely took bright pink flyers when offered them.

“I didn’t expect to see this,” said Daniel Gillaspia, a first year student from Houston. He had just come out of his first class – on torts – when a woman who had dipped her hand in red paint confronted him. “It’s cool and stuff but your first day of classes you don’t expect to run into that.”

Gillaspia, who was aware of Berkeley’s reputation as a place with numerous protests, said he didn’t yet have an opinion about whether Yoo should be teaching at the school.

Yoo was a member of President’ Bush’s Office of Legal Counsel from 2001 to 2003. During his tenure, he authored memos providing legal justification for waterboarding and other forms of torture.

The Obama administration ordered the Justice Department to investigate Yoo’s work. It determined that Yoo and his former colleagues showed “poor judgment” but did not commit professional misconduct.

Yoo, who started teaching at Berkeley Law School in 1993 and who received tenure in 1999, returned to Berkeley in August 2004. He has compared his residency in Berkeley as akin to “being in West Berlin during the Cold War, a shining beacon of capitalism and democracy surrounded by a sea of Marxism.”

Members of Code Pink and other organizations think that Yoo’s authorship of memos justifying torture should disqualify him from teaching constitutional law. They have called for him to be fired and were handing out “pink slips” to him on Monday.

Cindy Sheehan addressing the crowd.

“Even though the Bush administration is no longer in power, many of the policies continue,” Sheehan told the crowd during the rally outside the law school. “Their responsibilities didn’t end on Jan. 20, 2009. John Yoo should be sitting in prison, not teaching courses here at Berkeley.”

Christopher Edley, the dean of the law school, has defended Yoo’s position. “Because this is a public university, he enjoys not only security of employment and academic freedom, but also First Amendment and Due Process rights,” Edley wrote in a memo in August 2009.

Michael Couzens, an Oakland attorney who graduated from Boalt Hall (the former name of Berkeley Law School) in 1975, thinks Yoo’s positions make him unfit to talk about civil liberties.

“I don’t think John Yoo should be teaching constitutional law,” said Couzens. “He’s unfit to do that. He believes in dictatorship, not the constitution.”

The protestors are hoping that the Berkeley City Council declares October 10 to 16 “No to Torture Week.” The city’s Peace and Justice Commission approved a resolution for the week and the City Council is scheduled to consider the proposal on September 21.

Court Finds Israel Responsible for 10 Yr Old Abir Aramin's Shooting Death

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http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/court-finds-israel-responsible-for-girls-shooting-death/#comment-5900

via Aletho News

JERUSALEM — An Israeli court ruled Monday that the state was responsible for the fatal 2007 shooting of a 10-year-old Palestinian girl in a village near Jerusalem.

The court ruled that an Israeli border guard shot Abir Aramin in the head with a rubber bullet in Anata village north of Jerusalem, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported. Abir was buying sweets during a break from school with her sister and two friends when she was killed.

An army statement at the time said troops were responding to a riot in the village and “were forced to respond with methods for dispersing protesters.” The army has never accepted responsibility for the killing.

Ruling the shooting “totally unjustifiable,” the court found that Abir and her friends were walking down a street from which no stones were thrown, and “there was no apparent reason to fire in that direction,” Haaretz reported.

Judge Orit Efal Gabai ordered the government to pay damages to the family.

The civil suit was brought to the Jerusalem District Court after the army and state refused to open a criminal investigation into the killing. An appeal to the High Court to force an investigation was rejected in October 2009, when Judge Beinish ruled that Abir may have been killed by stones thrown by Palestinian protesters.

Judge Orit Efal Gabai said Monday that “There is no debate over the conclusion that Abir was injured by a rubber bullet shot by border guards, which in turn leads to the conclusion that the shooting of Abir occurred out of negligence, or in violation of the rules of engagement,” Haaretz reported.

Abir’s father is a founding member of Combatants for Peace, a joint Israeli-Palestinian peace group.

Israel's Destruction of the Bedouin Village Al-Arakib

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rud19ytcPS8

UK Dance Group Faithless Join the Growing List of Artists Choosing to Boycott Israel

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All Races All Colours All Creeds Got The Same Needs.

Hi, this is Maxi Jazz and these are just some of the lyrics I perform every night with my friends known as Faithless. And this short note is for all fans and family of the band in Israel. It's fair to say that for 14 years we've been promoting goodwill, trust and harmony all around the world in our own small (but very loud!) way. Ok. We've been asked to do some shows this summer in your country and, with the heaviest of hearts, I have regretfully declined the invitation. While human beings are being wilfully denied not just their rights but their NEEDS for their children and grandparents and themselves, I feel deeply that I should not be sending even tacit signals that this is either 'normal' or 'ok'. It's neither and I cannot support it. It grieves me that it has come to this and I pray everyday for human beings to begin caring for each other, firm in the wisdom that we are all we have.

Reminder: Gaza still under Siege! Vigil for Gaza, End the Israeli occupation of Palestine!

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Please forward to your list....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKQqItZu4Is&feature=related

Saturday, August 14

Noon-2:00 pm

Westlake Plaza, 4th & Pine

==================================

Amin Odeh
VoicesofPalestine.org

Theaacc.org

"Stand up for what is right, even if you are standing alone"

Sameh Habeeb -- Inside Gaza

Tweet http://tiny.cc/h7gvs

Life in Gaza is unique. Misery is mixed with joy, pain, happiness and suffering. Siege still suffocates people via different manners and tactics. Israel which indirectly pushed Hamas and Fateh towards the split is announcing day and night that siege has been lifted. But facts on the ground are obviously different. Siege is still on there with the same manner but with a different shape.

As you walk and tour in Gaza you will discover that a change has been made recently. Israeli goods ranging from fruits, to vegetables to snacks and other products are streaming into Gaza. Whilst other goods are brought from Egypt via tunnels. Although these goods are filling markets but prices are high while buying force is less. Not everyone in Gaza can afford the prices which dramatically became higher.

Egyptian smuggled cars started to stream into Gaza. But the prices are high. Every car getting into Gaza should cost between 7 to 10 thousand dollars as tax and smuggling fees for the local authorities of Hamas. This made it difficult for people to buy such cars in which their prices will be high.

Speaking to taxi drivers can expose you to what's inside Gaza. They listen a lot to those commuters and daily passengers. They know exactly what the people need or what they are up to. As I have arrived in Gaza over a month ago, I started to chat with every driver. I like doing this to measure the mood of the public in Gaza. I spoke to a car driver in al Nusairat area mid of Gaza City.

The driver told me zealously, "We are not dying from hunger but rather from the huge anger. We are jailed in our spirits and psyche. We don't feel happiness. I work as a car driver. I gain around 50 NIS a day nearly $15. This is not enough for me and my kids. Daily life became expensive while some of my kids are students at local colleges. The anger we experience due to political failure of Hamas and Fateh. It's due to Israel who is continuing its polices against us. Still we are suffering to get power. Heat is higher this year between 30-42 degrees. Imagine we are living in such temperatures with electricity and water. If power is cut water will be cut too. My house is made of metal sheets. No exaggeration, sometimes it becomes oven like!"

In Gaza, restaurants' prices are high. I see it can be the same of some of London's restaurants. Roots, Lighthouse, Beech and Al deera restaurants are the most elegant places to eat at or visit. Israeli premier, Binyamin Netanyahu, through his cunning policy mentioned such places to say that there is no siege in Gaza. He sent out through his PR machine (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) an old video for Roots restaurants to say that there is no siege in Gaza. But the fact he didn't mention is who are those who visit those places. Obviously they are a few people. I visited these places and came to know that those who visit these place are those journalists, foreigners, politicians and others who are engaged and work for International organizations along with their local peers. Workshops and conferences for HRW organizations, USAID, Save the Children and other organizations are running these places with their money. Some high class people in Gaza and War landlords (Tunnels owners) visit these places. But normal Gazans don't visit such places. A meal could cost you between 30 to 100 British Pounds.

Power and Water problems are making life worse here in Gaza. Whenever you want to have a rest from the summer heat you will find no power to run an air conditioner or a fan. Whilst Water is cut as water wells rely on generators that need power to pump water to residential areas. Some people, and I'm one of them, go to the sea to have some fun and rest. But in vain, heat is over there as well as huge rates of humidity. Tens of thousands of people are going to the sea as it's their only place left to relax.

Infrastructure is still destroyed. Sewage water leaks in many residential areas. If you visit Jabalia Refugee camps you will see an extra suffering. Besides the power cut and the heat; sewage water is filling its small streets and corroders. Smell is sharing the house with those refugees. Indeed, it's unbearable for a visitor, so how about those who reside in it. the camp is in bad need of rebuilding and renovation. But with the siege nothing is changing. Israel still prevents construction materials to stream into Gaza. Many are still homeless due to the last war.

Garbage and rubbish are everywhere. Local municipalities (as they say!) they do their utmost to keep the Gaza cities clean. But looking into the ground, facts are grim and different. Indeed, life in Gaza remains grim. Political failure, siege, lack of hygiene, power and water. Heat and summer, high and low classes with no one in the middle. War landlords and taxis. Smuggling and victims. Lack of infrastructure. Lack of health basics. People still die due to lack of medications or inabilities to leave abroad for treatment. Violations of human rights and muting of freedom.

"One More War, Please" -- David Bromwich

Tweet http://pulsemedia.org/2010/08/09/one-more-war-please/

EXCERPT:

Afghanistan, for now, is the war we are in. Iraq is the war we’re getting out of — even if tens of thousands of soldiers and mercenaries remain, and the bases that protect them, and the world’s largest embassy. Yet our image of what we did to Iraq has been remarkably cleansed. The mainstream media have taken the cue of the president’s pledge not to look at the past. So, when we get a story of the impoverishment and squalor of Iraq, nothing appears to trace such effects to the economic sanctions of 1990-2003. Those were part of the “decent” fight against Saddam Hussein, according to American mythology; the pressure skillfully applied under the older, wiser Bush and under Bill Clinton. But pass now from the American media to a review of the evidence on sanctions by Andrew Cockburn in the London Review of Books, and a different story emerges. To take one example: the sanctions kept out pumps for the treatment of dirty water; and, writes Cockburn,

Every year the number of children who died before they reached their first birthday rose, from one in 30 in 1990 to one in eight seven years later. Health specialists agreed that contaminated water was responsible.

The effect, meanwhile, of inflation and unemployment was to make the people of Iraq ever more dependent on their dictator. Madeleine Albright in March 1997 declared that even if Saddam Hussein complied with the inspection requirements, the sanctions should not be lifted, since they were there to help overthrow the dictator himself.

Thirteen years after an American secretary of state uttered those words, we come no closer to the truth about U.S. policy when we read of the “benchmark” of electrical competence in a recent Times story by Steven Lee Meyers. Meyers tells us that “chronic power shortages are the result of myriad factors, including war, drought and corruption, but ultimately they reflect a dysfunctional government.” “Ultimately” must be taken here outside its normal usage to refer to the latest but not the largest cause. This mode of analysis is in keeping with other elements of Meyers’s coverage; for example the way the brute fact of American destruction of the electrical grid (a central feature of Shock and Awe) is dropped into a sagging sentence whose tenor is the vague idea that things happen: “Before Mr. Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait 20 years ago this month, Iraq had the capacity to produce 9,295 megawatts of power. By 2003, after American bombings and years of international sanctions, it was half that.” Notice the reluctance to say it plain: “American bombs destroyed Iraq’s electrical grid, and American insistence organized and maintained the sanctions.” Yet the Times story by Steven Lee Meyers is hardly a terrible example; it is if anything more honest and less self-acquitting than most that appear in the Times and elsewhere.

So much for present and past wars. What of the future war, the war a significant body of Israeli and American opinion is already preparing, the war against Iran? President Obama has called Israel a “sacrosanct” ally, and even before he used language so pious, fulsome, and unsuitable to the leader of an independent republic, Iran did not entirely trust the United States. To remember why, we would have to violate President Obama’s pledge to look only at the future, and actually look at the past. But let us follow his injunction for the moment; look only at the war of the future. How, then, does Iran link up with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? From the tenor of Obama’s recent words about Afghanistan, one would suppose he is doing the best he thinks possible now — namely, getting out — but at the speed his domestic opponents compel, that is, more slowly than he knows it would be right to do. With Iran, by contrast, Obama seems to be doing what he believes is wrong — namely adding momentum to the pressure for a future war — but, again as with Afghanistan, he is doing it more slowly than he knows his opponents would wish in order to secure their ends. The war party within his administration is placated but not yet happy. Possibly the result Obama is hoping for is that these two manifestations of slowness, slow on the right side in Afghanistan, slow on the wrong side with Iran, will meet somewhere in the middle, and spare us two catastrophes at once. Yet time, in politics, doesn’t work like that; a fact this president often seems unwilling to absorb. It is sometimes important to say No early and definitively. You must say it early and definitively if you don’t want to get trapped into saying yes later in spite of yourself. History suggests that wars, by their nature, are not as well equipped for multitasking as the mind of Obama.

We are involved now in a slow effort to extricate ourselves from the defeat of our hopes for an empire in Asia. That seems the uncontroversial meaning behind Obama’s recent words if not all his actions; yet he is trying to do it without surrendering the assumptions we began with. The strongest word that Obama ever said against the Cheney-Bush war in Iraq was not that it was unjust, impolitic, or ignoble, only that it was “dumb.” A harsh condemnation in the idiom of technocrats, but not really in a league with Gladstone’s appeal to the English people

to ask whether you are substantially to be governed, your future pledged, your engagements enormously extended, the necessity for your taxes enlarged and widened, not only without your assent, but without your knowledge, and not only without your knowledge, but with the utmost care to conceal from you the facts.

It is hard to say which is worse, the expenditure or the secrecy, but as Gladstone saw, both function on the same principle. Much of the spending goes to beneficiaries whose identity must be kept secret, and every blunder committed in secret requires fresh outlays to cover it up.

"Israeli Soldiers Open Fire At A Nonviolent Protest In Gaza"

Tweet http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8633&Itemid=28

Palestinians along with a number of international supporters gathered in the Abssan town near the southern borders with Israel.

People demanded the Israeli army to stop creating the buffer zone near the borders and building the fence using Palestinian farmers lands.

Protesters managed to reach the fence before soldiers opened fire at them. Organizers ended the protest avoiding any injuries.

Adnan Al Faqawi, a local organizer, told Palestinian media that the weekly protests against the Israeli fence and buffer zone will continue regardless of the violence it met with from the Israeli soldiers.

Palestinians along with a number of international supporters gathered in the Abssan town near the southern borders with Israel.

People demanded the Israeli army to stop creating the buffer zone near the borders and building the fence using Palestinian farmers lands.

Protesters managed to reach the fence before soldiers opened fire at them. Organizers ended the protest avoiding any injuries.

Adnan Al Faqawi, a local organizer, told Palestinian media that the weekly protests against the Israeli fence and buffer zone will continue regardless of the violence it met with from the Israeli soldiers.

Interview: Haneen Zoabi, Palestinian Member of Israeli Knesset

Tweet via Palestinian Pundit

http://www.newstatesman.com/middle-east/2010/08/israel-interview-palestinian

What is it like being a Palestinian in Israel?
Israel did everything it could to make us forget our history: controlling education and the media, putting us in a ghetto, preventing us from having normal relations with the Arab world and visiting our families in Syria and Lebanon.

Are Arab members of parliament treated differently?
Of course. The state treats all Jews and Palestinians differently. Israel doesn't recognise us as the owners of this homeland. The theory is that we have equal civil rights, but the practice is very far from this.

Do you endorse a two-state solution?
The reality of Israel's actions shows us that it's unrealistic to have a real sovereign state in the West Bank and Gaza with Jerusalem as the capital. The more realistic solution is one state with full national equality for both national groups.

Is the west right to refuse to engage with Hamas?
No one can tell the Palestinian people whom to choose as a government. Hamas is not a terrorist organisation. I don't think that Hamas has a clear political vision, but regardless of whether I disagree [with it], the international community cannot mediate neutrally if it starts to label the organisations of the Palestinians as illegitimate.

Why did you join the Gaza aid flotilla?
The natural question should be: "Why not?" I participated not just because I'm Palestinian, but because I believe in freedom, equality and justice. One and a half million people in the biggest prison in the world is not just an occupation, it is a humiliation.

Did you feel a duty to speak out?
I was not elected in order to keep silent or to sit at the table and clap.

Were you surprised by the violent response?
I wasn't surprised, but I didn't expect it to be so severe. This aggressive kind of reaction indicates a total breakdown of politics. They could not challenge our arguments politically, so they called us traitors and terrorists.

Do you have faith in the Israeli investigation into the flotilla raid?
No, none at all. Those accused of committing war crimes cannot investigate themselves. Bin­yamin Netanyahu [the Israeli prime minister] has said that this committee will show that Israel is a victim and that there were no violations. So is he already stating the results?

You've had death threats. Are you afraid?
Personally I am not afraid, but politically I am worried. After the vote in the Knesset when they stripped me of my parliamentary rights, two members - one from the coalition, one from the opposition - said: "Haneen, this is just the beginning, this is not the end - we don't want to see you in the Knesset." They mean not just Haneen, but everything I represent.

Will you be able to carry on working?
We didn't expect an easy struggle. I chose to be involved in politics because I was born in a racist context. I will continue using all the democratic tools that are available. I ask Israel not to push us into undesirable activities.

Are you against the very idea of Israel?
We do not want to throw Jews into the sea. We are not against Jews. We are against Israeli policies and the definition of Israel as a Jewish state.

How does the struggle in the Palestinian territories compare to your own in Israel?
This is the difference - as citizens of Israel, we are utilising all the tools that we have, but those in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have given up resisting occupation.

What about the Palestinian Authority?
The PA seems more focused on building a state than ending the occupation. It's irrational; you can't negotiate borders while Palestinians are under siege and Israel is expanding settlements.

What is your hope for Arab citizens in Israel?
I have a vision of our rights as indigenous people. We didn't migrate to Israel; it is Israel that migrated to us.

You've been quoted as saying that it would be a good thing for Iran to have nuclear weapons.
That is inaccurate. It cannot be that someone who is struggling against oppression is calling for nuclear weapons. But if the world doesn't prevent Israel from having nuclear weapons, why does it prevent others?

What would you like to forget?
I think it is better not to forget. I want to learn from the mistakes and enjoy the positive memories, especially because I live in a context that is obsessed with making me forget.

Do you vote?
Of course I vote. I am a political representative.

Are we all doomed?
No. If you struggle for justice and human values, then this is enough reason to continue.

Defining Moments

1969 Born in Nazareth
2001 Joins Balad (National Democratic Assembly), the Israeli Arab political party
2003 Co-founds and heads I'lam, an NGO exposing Israeli media bias
2009 Becomes first woman to be elected to parliament (Knesset) on an Arab party list
2010 Participates in the Gaza aid flotilla in May. On 13 July, the Knesset votes by 34-16 to strip her of three privileges, including the right to hold a diplomatic passport

"Clinton Refuses to Answer My Questions About Gaza Flotilla" by Col. Ann Wright

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http://www.truth-out.org/clinton-refuses-answer-my-questions-about-gaza-flotilla62064

Dear Secretary of State Clinton,

I am a retired US Army reserve colonel with 29 years in the US Army and Army Reserves, and a former US diplomat who resigned after 16 years in the US State Department in opposition to the war on Iraq.

I was one of fourteen American citizens on the Gaza flotilla.

On June 14, 2010, I delivered to the Bureau of Consular Affairs, Office of American Citizen Services a letter to you requesting investigation of the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla in which one unarmed American citizen was killed by Israeli commandos and fourteen other American citizens were kidnapped from international waters and taken to Israel against their will, imprisoned, and their personal possessions stolen by Israeli commandos.

Despite numerous inquiries to the State Department about the status of the response to my letter, after seven weeks I have not received a response to the letter, nor to the 80 questions that I requested that the United States government pose to the Israeli government concerning their attack on the Gaza flotilla.

As an American citizen, I am distressed that no one in the State Department government will respond to this request for assistance.

As a former US diplomat who worked for 16 years in the State Department and served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan (I helped reopen the US Embassy in December, 2001) and Mongolia, and who received an award for heroism from the State Department for actions during the evacuation of the US Embassy and the international community during the Sierra Leone civil war, I am deeply saddened by the lack of professionalism in my former organization in responding to such a request.

Now that your daughter Chelsea's wedding is over, could you please ask the State Department's inspector general to determine why after seven weeks there has been no response to my June 14, 2010 letter?

Could you also determine if the State Department has made a demarche to the Israeli government concerning the circumstances surrounding the commandos deadly shooting of unarmed 19-year-old American citizen Furkan Dogan, who was shot 5 times, several times to the head?

Of much less importance, but still of concern because of evidence contained, I want to know if a demarch was made for the return of our personal possessions, including cameras, cellphones and computers taken when the Israeli commandos forcefully boarded all six of the ships in the flotilla.

We returned to the United States with the clothes on our backs and our passports. Despite lists of our possessions being given to US consular officers during a June 2 visit to us while we were in prison in Israel, and to US consular officers in Istanbul, Turkey, during our brief stay after being deported from Israel and to American Citizen Services officials at the State Department in Washington, DC, virtually nothing has been returned to us (I did receive a diary sent from the US Consulate in Istanbul, but nothing else - no computer, camera, cellphone, clothing, handbag, address book, $800 in cash, backpack, suitcase, etc.). Phone calls in Israel have been made on cellphones in the possession of the Israeli government.

In case the State Department bureaucracy did not make you aware of my June 14, 2010, letter to you, I am copying it for you below.

Signed,

Ann Wright, former US diplomat and retired US Army Reserve Colonel

Interview w/ Haidar Eid, Founding member of Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel

Tweet http://peaceforgaza.blogspot.com/2010/08/israel-has-turned-gaza-into-largest.html
Interesting piece, w/status updates on the Occupation's ongoing effect

EXCERPT:

Do you see any possibilities of gains for Palestinians through the so called peace process led by the Quartet (USA, ONU, EU, and Russia)?

Haven’t we learnt from Oslo and Camp David that Israel translates its military power onto the negotiation table? There will be and should be no peace without justice. That means for Israel to be punished for its war crimes and crimes against humanity and for the UN resolution 194 to be implemented and the return of all refugees who were expelled in the Nakba of 1948. No negotiation is possible between the executioner and the victim. After Gaza 2009, we no longer have faith in the international community, but in civil society. Due to the huge imbalance of power, Israel being the largest nuclear power in the region and owning the fourth largest army in the world on one hand, and Palestinians with stones and sometimes firecrackers called "rockets" on the other, the only way this imbalance could be overcome is to build on an international solidarity movement. There have been turning points in the Palestinian issue, with the First and Second Intifada, with Gaza 2009, and now the massacre against peace activists.

Similar to the growing international solidarity movement that lead to, amongst other pillars of struggle, the liberation of South Africa and the collapse of the racist apartheid regime, the liberation of Palestine is through this path. And what could be more powerful than the global BDS movement against Israel that has resulted in the South African dock workers boycotting apartheid Israel, the British UCU union of colleges and universities boycott, the Scottish and Irish trade unions, and also the achievements of brave student bodies in the US-- such as the Hampshire college, UC, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan at Dearborne-- that resulted in divestment from some companies that support Israel.

How is the Obama administration seen in Gaza?

The Obama administration is not different from Bush's. When Obama gave his much talked about speech at Cairo University, very few people took him seriously. They were proven right only last week when he held the white flag before Netanyahu upon the latter's visit to the White House. Israel is still expanding its settlements, ethnically cleansing Jerusalem, besieging Gaza, killing Palestinians and Internationals with the full support of the Obama administration. Obama never had a single word of sympathy with the murdered children and starving women of Gaza. The only difference between Obama and Bush, when it comes to Palestine, is only in style, not substance.

Do you believe the Arab and Muslim governments supported the Palestinian people against Israel all they should?

A defeatist attitude governs the official Arab regimes. The idea of an invincible Israel and the constant fear and need to satisfy the US are prevalent. The organization of Islamic conferences along with the Arab league have failed the Palestinian people and failed to put an end to this deadly siege. The mainstream and dominant political discourse in the Arab world is to make peace with Israel, no matter what this entails.

What is the importance of the BDS campaign (Boycott, De-invest, and Sanctions) to isolate Israel? Why is it important to establish a link between Israel and South African apartheid?

Our BDS campaign is modeled on the South African boycott campaign. Its importance emanates from the fact that there is a huge power imbalance between Israel and the Palestinians, similar to the imbalance between the apartheid regime and anti-apartheids campaign. The international community was called on to intervene and live up to its responsibilityagainst the racist regime. We expect the same. In the mid-70's an UN resolution considered apartheid a crime against humanity. Israel is an apartheid state that discriminates against the 1.2 million Israelis of Palestinian descent. But the 2005 Palestinian call for BDS called also for the end of the military occupation and colonization of the 1967 areas and the return of refugees in accordance with UN resolution 194. In other words, the importance of the BDS emanates from the fact that it is a rights-based campaign and the fact that it addresses ordinary people all over the world, represented by civil society, to live up to their moral responsibility. The campaign is democratic, secular, inclusive and universal. It worked against the apartheid regime, and it is working now against apartheid Israel.

"All Aboard the Mavi Marmara" -- David Rovics

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnqItpJI4rs

“Mongrel”: Historically, and from Obama’s Mouth -- by Glen Ford (Black Agenda Report)

Tweet http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/mongrel%E2%80%9D-historically-and-obama%E2%80%99s-mouth

EXCERPT:

Barack Obama behaves as if he has no historical or cultural knowledge of “the nation over which he presides.” The president’s labeling of African Americans as “mongrels” reveals an astounding and fundamental disrespect for Black Americans as a distinct people. As an epithet, “mongrel” is an even “more powerfully shaped political charge than the ubiquitous ‘nigger!’”

“The term packs as much concentrated bile and murderous intent as any in the English language.”

I did not learn of President Obama’s reference to Black people as “mongrels” on ABC’s “The View” until two days after the fact, and could not initially believe it had happened. Surely, such an occurrence should have provoked a scream heard in every corner of Black America. Yet, it did happen, last Thursday, and there was no general outcry.

The crime unfolded casually. Asked about his racial background, the president replied, "We,” meaning African Americans, “are sort of a mongrel people."

Could it be that the First Black President does not know the country over which he presides, its history and peculiar vocabulary? Even as the Tea Party’s white nationalists strive to resurrect a White Man’s Country, this president bandies about a term that not long ago packed as much concentrated bile and murderous intent as any in the English language – a racial epithet with a more powerfully shaped political charge than the ubiquitous “nigger!”

“Mongrelization” was the bane of American Manifest Destiny, an ever-present threat to white notions of “civilization.” The extermination of Native Americans and the fire and whips of daily white terror during slavery and Jim Crow kept “mongrelizing” influences at bay, but protecting the gene pools of “Anglo-Saxons” and other Europeans later allowed into the “white” fold required constant vigilance. In the post-Civil War era, as the muscular settler state prepared to push its empire beyond ocean barriers, expansionism ran into the brick wall of race purity. The United States could conquer the lands of Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Cuba, but how could these territories be absorbed into the national structure without hopelessly tainting “America” – politically, culturally and biologically

“As the muscular settler state prepared to push its empire beyond ocean barriers, expansionism ran into the brick wall of race purity.”

For many southern segregationists, the price of empire was too high. Their racist fulminations on the House and Senate floors are what passed for statesmanship at the turn of the 20^th century.

Sen. James Vardaman, of Mississippi, was implacable in his resistance to granting self-rule to Filipinos, much less treating them as equal to white Americans. “Preparing the Filipino or any other Mongrel race for the duties of citizenship or self-government can not be done,” he railed.

South Carolina’s Sen. John McLaurin could not agree more. Were the Philippines to be annexed, it would bring a “mongrel and barbarous race” into the body politic of the United States.

Not to be outdone, fellow South Carolinian Sen. Ben “Pitchfork” Tillman warned that denizens of Puerto Rico, also recently seized from Spain along with Cuba, be kept at a healthy distance. “It is to the injection into the body politic of the United States of that vitiated blood, that debased and ignorant people, that we object,” said Tillman. But even if kept confined to their islands, these “mongrels” required rule by a firm, white hand, Tillman explained, because “No combination of Spaniards and half-negroes capable of self-government exists on the face of the earth.”

The American Republic feared itself in danger of terminal racial pollution. In 1900 the Overland Monthly, a journal published in San Francisco, wrote, “The Philippines are under the process of absorption. Cuba is occupied, and a proposition to annex the island with all its mongrel population may be made any day.”

"My Reflections on the 5th Anniversary of Camp Casey by Cindy Sheehan"

Tweet Below is an excerpt from Cindy's blog, remembering when she jump-started Camp Casey in 2005. Above is a picture Doug took of me while we were at Camp Casey, after driving from Seattle to Crawford. It shows one of our black & white banners that we took with to train folks on how to make them. This style has since used in many many demos -- Doug's amazing contribution to the antiwar movement (if such a thing still exists).

I am so grateful for Cindy. She (together with Doug) encourages my trust and optimism in humanity. Everything she writes these days seems to come out of my own thoughts. As she says, the feistiness is still there, but it is chary.

EXCERPT from http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-reflections-on-5th-anniversary-of.html :

Not only is the 6^th of August the fifth anniversary of the beginning of Camp Casey, but it will also be the 65^th anniversary of the first time the USA used an atomic weapon. I didn’t plan on marching on Crawford the first time on Hiroshima Day, but I think it’s fitting and a perfect example of the insanity of Empire.

To me, everyday is exactly like a nightmare that I can't wake up from. The powers that be lied to the world about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and lied about some kind of connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and then admitted to lying--and the entire world yawned and the killing continued and continues. The kicker in all this is that I have to live each and every day for the rest of my life knowing that my son died for these lies and that the people who have perpetrated these mass crimes against humanity walk among us freely and, as a matter of fact, are doing quite well for themselves. It's totally mind blowing to me and I get accused of being "angry." The thing about Casey dying in a war based on lies is because his recruiter lied to him. Our entire Imperial structure is constructed on lies and functions off of heartache.

The feistiness in me remains, but now I know that the enemies of peace are not just George Bush and the Republicans—the enemies of peace are widespread, diverse, in all segments of our society, and include the first female Speaker of the US House of Representatives and Nobel Laureates.

Camp Casey was a miracle to me and I will never forget that summer and the high we were on thinking that we were going to finally make a difference but the Empire knows how to neutralize those movements and we were distressed that the energy was inappropriately used to elect Democrats. But five years later, I am older and wiser and the proud grandmother of three grandbabies two years and under that have given me more love and joy than I thought was still possible in my life. The babies have also given me a renewed sense of urgency and commitment to making this planet a better place for all the babies.

Uribe, NATO and the IMF -- Julio Escalona (Venezuela)

Tweet http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=95228

via the Stop Nato list

Venezuela's Adjunct Ambassador to the United Nations, Julio Escalona writes:

The military-financial complex that rules the world has been strengthened in detriment to the real economy. For that reason the US economy hegemonizing transnationalization is not based on savings, investment and production linked to a distribution of wealth that offers greater levels of employment and welfare as the base of social cohesion.

Social cohesion is achieved today through media dictatorship that imposes values, a world vision and individual solutions sustained by material success. Fear is the common denominator: against the foreigner with a different skin color, religion, culture, against the poor. Exclusion that denies democracy and legitimizes violence.

It has led to a revitalization of slavery, including sexual trafficking of million of women and children and super-exploitation of nature that grows with the assignation of prices on eco-systems, biological diversity and knowledge of aboriginal civilizations.

To sustain this framework of violence for the first time in history a military-world block has been set up with ramifications on all continents directed by the Pentagon through NATO of which the military bases in Colombia, Costa Rica and around a thousand military bases on the planet are part and parcel.

This militarization is combined with IMF policies that reduce social expenditure and the destruction of public space guaranteeing that banks recover loans while weakening social movements.

Uribe and the governments of Colombia are part of that network which militarizes international relations. President Chavez has pointed out that this contrasts with Venezuela's efforts to establish a society of peace founded on justice and with Uribe's initiatives to extend transnational violence to sabotage peace efforts.

Among other measures, the key to neutralize those threats is a Colombia-Venezuela commission on presidential level to monitor the borders, dismantle narco-paramilitary networks, regulate the flow of refugees, and avoid the penetration of regular or irregular forces.

Julio Escalona
escalonaojeda@gmail.com

H.E. Ambassador Julio Escalona is Venezuela's Adjunct Ambassador to the United Nations in New York. He holds degrees in economics, geopolitics and environmental issues, and is a former director of the School of Economics at the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV) in Caracas and head of its department of human development. He is a professor of economics, general economic history, economic education in Latin America, contemporary Marxism and contemporary social problems. He has coordinated research seminars on economic integration, local economies and local development, and alternative technologies and has been a participant and guest lecturer at seminars, forums, academic institutions in Peru, Brazil, Japan, Paris, Mexico and Venezuela.

International Solidarity Under Attack -- Mike Marqusee

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Just as the Palestinian cause is a global magnet for victims of discrimination and dispossession, so the cause of Israel is a magnet for the privileged, the entitled, the beneficiaries of Western and white supremacy. The rich and powerful see themselves as under siege from the poor and powerless and in Israel’s self-portrayal they recognize themselves. The gated communities of the world rally around the gated nation. [Quote from whole article, below]

http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/international-solidarity-under-attack/

From small beginnings and with few resources, the international movement in solidarity with the Palestinians has grown into a force that Israel perceives as a major threat. The assault on the Gaza aid flotilla was a lethal escalation in what has become an increasingly bitter campaign against that movement, whose constituents now range from dockworkers in South Africa refusing to offload Israeli goods to students at Berkeley demanding divestment.

The brutality of the flotilla attack was a measure of the extent to which the Israeli polity has grown to fear and loathe this global grassroots movement. In a way, the violence was a perverse tribute to a band of voluntary campaigners who are massively outstripped by Israel in money, institutional resources and access to the media, but who nonetheless have put more pressure on Israel than the world’s most powerful governments. Indeed, it’s the long-term collusion of those governments with Israel that has prompted the growth of citizen’s initiatives, such as the Freedom Flotilla, to redress the balance. People from very differing societies have come to the politics of international solidarity with Palestine via many routes. Nearly always, their commitment to the cause, the commitment that led the passengers on the boats to take such risks and suffer such punishment, is an expression of a wider aspiration for social justice, and above all a belief that this justice must be global in nature if it is to mean anything. One of the primary objects of the Israeli media barrage that followed the assault was to discredit and divide this movement. In particular, it sought to isolate and demonize an “Islamist” or “jihadi” element among the activists. (This was presaged by the especially vicious treatment meted out to those passengers identified by Israeli armed forces as Muslims.) The “Turkish boat” was said be the source of all the trouble. At one point it was claimed that an “al-Qaeda” team had been on board. The Turkish charity Isani Yardim Vakfi or IHH was traduced. People in the West with sympathies for the Palestinians were being warned: there was a type of person involved here with whom they would never want to make common cause.

Unfortunately, in France, a section of the left, driven by a misconceived interpretation of secularism, seemed to agree. They refused to join a protest against the assault on the flotilla on the grounds that other participants would include Muslim clerics. Under the guise of a dedication to universal values, this refusal was actually a restriction of those values: the expression of human solidarity was subjected to ideological conditions. Elsewhere the movement has prospered by its embrace of pluralism. This pluralism has been forged not by making a special case for the Palestinians but by universalizing their struggle: founding it on a commitment to human rights and common standards of justice. Far from “singling out Israel,” as is routinely claimed, the movement has begun, at long last, to expose how Israel singles itself out, demanding (and receiving) exemptions from those standards.

The diversity of the passengers on the flotilla was always its greatest strength. It meant that a much wider circle of people felt some kind of connection with the events in the Mediterranean, and also that they would have access to sources of information not trammeled by the Israeli state line. Transcending the boundaries of nation, religion and language, the passengers represented a growing global public that feels itself compelled to act because its governments will not. Like the motley delegation of foreigners who pledged their support for the French Revolution to the National Assembly in 1790, they were “ambassadors of the human race.” Of course, far from deterring Israel, this status made them a threat which had to be countered with a show of extreme violence.

True to form, Israeli spokespersons described the killings on board the Mavi Marmara as “self-defense” by Israeli soldiers threatened with “lynching.” The ensuing arguments about “violence” and who was responsible for it recapitulated a long history in which Israel has identified every denial of Palestinian rights or annihilation of Palestinian life as “self-defense.” Conversely, every assertion of those rights and every attempt to preserve those lives is deemed illegitimate, denounced as “aggression” or “terrorism.”

Here the Israelis tapped into a long-established bias in the Western media. A study by Arab Media Watch of the mainstream British press from January to June 2008 found that violent Israeli actions were almost always portrayed as “retaliating” to Palestinian aggression. Rocket attacks were represented as a “provocation” to Israel five times more often than the Gaza blockade was represented as a “provocation” to Palestinians. Forty years of occupation were portrayed as a provocation to Palestinians on only one occasion and settlement building twice. Where debate arises within the mainstream media, it tends to revolve around the “proportionality” of Israeli action, thus evading the underlying questions of Palestinian rights and Israeli domination.

Unlike the solidarity movements which grew up in response to the struggles in Vietnam or South Africa, the Palestine movement faces an opponent with its own international network, preaching its own form of solidarity (with Israel), very much a movement in its own right, however reliant on state support. Its rhetoric and tactics may be cynical in the extreme, but there’s no denying its emotional fervor. Building opposition to South African apartheid never involved the kind of on-the-ground contest with ideologically motivated, well-resourced opponents that pro-Palestinian activists routinely engage in. Just as the Palestinian cause is a global magnet for victims of discrimination and dispossession, so the cause of Israel is a magnet for the privileged, the entitled, the beneficiaries of Western and white supremacy. The rich and powerful see themselves as under siege from the poor and powerless and in Israel’s self-portrayal they recognize themselves. The gated communities of the world rally around the gated nation. The increasingly wealthy Indian elite — which has vigorously pursued governmental and business exchanges with Israel — sees in Israel not only an ally in a struggle against “Islamic terror” but a stepping stone to a closer relationship to the United States, and in a wider sense an entry into the exclusive club of the affluent and powerful.

Thus the highly particularist ideology of Zionism — which rests on the assertion of eternal ownership of a specified territory by a specified people — becomes a broader “civilizational” cause. This ideology underpins the ever-widening Israeli definition of “self-defense.” To those for whom the maintenance of a Jewish supremacist state in Palestine is the sine qua non of Jewish survival, any assertion of Palestinian rights is an “existential” threat — a negation that must itself be negated. As a state for all Jews, Israel embraces a global mission and enjoys special prerogatives. In the contemporary world only the US claims a wider remit of self-defense, insisting that it can strike anywhere to protect its perceived interests. Israeli exceptionalism finds a mirror and enabler in US exceptionalism, which in turn has its roots in the long history of Western colonialism, whose stock-in-trade was, for centuries, acts of piracy on the high seas. Through many years of grassroots education, agitation and organization, not to mention a steadfast defiance of intimidation, the solidarity movement has begun at last to have a real effect on the balance of power. But there is so much further to go. Governments around the world joined in the condemnation of the Israeli attack on the flotilla, but many of these same governments continue to provide essential means for Israel to pursue its destruction of the Palestinian people. In that context, those who consider themselves, in Thomas Paine’s words, “citizens of the world” are called upon to redouble their efforts to secure boycott, divestment and sanctions. If Israel continues to act with impunity, if Palestine instead of Israel is subject to isolation, then the powerful everywhere will have their options strengthened.

Nice Front Page on the PI -- Peace Fleet Greets Killing Fleet

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Caption was: "Fleet's in -- But Not Everybody's Happy About it!"

Couldn't manage a screen shot, so copped the above two pics. At least for today (8/4), the front page at http://www.seattlepi.com/ might still have it.

Villagers of Al Walaja vs. IDF (No Matter What Happens, IDF Is Losing)

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K_-gpgTy_8&feature=player_embedded

Mazin Qumsiyeh films struggle for their land.

5 y.o. Palestinian Boy Begs Israeli Soldiers Not To Take His Father

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcC1sXsu6Sw

from Political Theatrics website

TV cameras have captured the distressing moment a five-year-old Palestinian boy sees his father arrested for stealing water. [WATER SHORTAGE IS AN INCREASING PROBLEM FOR FAMILIES WITH NO RESOURCES.]

Khaled Jabari wails in torment and confusion as Israeli soldiers drag away his father Fadel in the West Bank district of Hebron.

"Death of War Criminals Over the Carpathian Mountains" -- Kawther Salam

Tweet http://palestinethinktank.com/2010/08/02/death-of-war-criminals-over-the-carpathian-mountains/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PalestineThinkTank+%28Palestine+Think+Tank%29

EXCERPT:

The justice of heaven intervened to relieve the children of Gaza and Lebanon from the war crimes of six Israeli zionists of the IAF. It is divine justice which wanted the zionists murderers to die on the Romanian Carpathian Mountains, to shred their bodies into small pieces just as they did to the undefended children of Gaza and Lebanon, who they bombarded with tons of cluster bombs and phosphorous. The providence has intervened to put an end to these war criminals and to comfort thousands of children, women, elderly and other innocent victims from their crimes. The skies intervened after human justice was paralyzed and buried by corrupt governments worldwide.

Rather than prosecuting the Israeli war criminals who were in Romania, Germany, UK, France, the EU and many other countries which have signed international agreements and conventions against genocide, war crimes and violations of human rights, these regimes looked away. These are states which present themselves as states of law where the human rights, international agreements and accords, where laws are enacted and where rights of the individual are protected. These regimes signed military “war” agreements with the “State of the Israel”, the occupators of Palestine, and continue receiving the commanders of the cluster and phosphorous bombs to train them so that they can perpetrate more war crimes and terrorism against the occupied Palestinian nation and the neighboring countries. Simply said, these regimes are complicit of genocide and war crimes perpetrated by the “State of Israel”.

CH-53 helicopter dropping IDF over Carpathian Mountains.

The death of the IAF war criminals in the Yasur crash over the Carpathian Mountains of Romania exposed the shameful agreements which European regimes have signed behind the back of their nations. It is a blot of shame on Romania, EU, Nato, and also a blot of shame on their justice authorities of these countries, as it shows ever more clearly that the purpose and intention of these regimes is not to comply with enacted laws and signed treaties against the most egregious crimes which are known, these being genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, but to protect these criminals of the worst kind.

For the last two years, after the “second Lebanon war” and Gaza massacre, the Israeli Air Force criminals have increased the number of joint exercises with the air forces of NATO and other countries. These exercises are designed to prepare the Israeli air force for a new “war” against the Palestinians jailed in the Gaza concentration camp, to allow them their combat pilots to practice for future crimes against neighboring countries like Lebanon, Syria and Iran. The Israel military is training intensively in combat tactics suited to Lebanon, with the aim of lunching another war and achieving “better” results in their next “war”, or rather, atrocity.

Last year the Israeli IAF took part in a “Red Flag” exercise with the US Air Force. Two months ago they took part in an exercise over Crete Island in Greece. Some exercises were also with NATO's advanced facilities. Other exercises took place in Eastern Europe, allowing the Israeli Air Force training flights with air defense systems. In 2008, the Israeli Air Force took part in a large-scale exercise with hundreds of fighters, rescue helicopters and refueling planes over the Aegean Sea, the training scenario was a large-scale attack. The exercise was done in collaboration with the Greek Air Force.

Last Monday six IAF war criminals and a Romanian officer, Captain Stefan-Claudiu Dragnea, age 31, died in the crash of a CH-53 helicopter nicknamed "Shearwater”, in the Fundata-Zarnesti area of central Brasov County near the township of Bran. The Israelis killed in the crash were a group of war criminals from the Lebanon attack in 2006 and the Gaza massacre of 2009 (“Operation Cast Lead”). The IAF officers were supposed to take part in a planned Israeli war against Lebanon, Syria and Iran. Before their travel to Romania, they participated during the last half week in a joint exercise of the “Petrels” squadrons of the Israeli Air Force in Tel Nof. They also spent long hours in the forest area south of Mount Carmel. In the natural terrain around the Elyakim training base, where the army has constructed outposts resembling as closely Hezbollah's extensive system of bunkers and emplacements in nature of southern Lebanon, which the IDF failed to cope with during the Second Lebanon War.

"BP Is Creepy" -- Kinsey Sicks

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C90DVNVORw

From Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox: "Metrics"

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http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2010/08/metrics-by-cindy-sheehan.html
Queen Nancy

“Metrics”

Cindy Sheehan

Here is a partial exchange between ABC’s Christiane Amanpour and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in regards to the multi-billion dollar war-funding bill recently passed by Pelosi’s Democratically controlled House of Representatives:

CA: "Now you didn't vote. I know the speaker doesn't have to vote. But how would you have voted?"

NP: "Well we brought the bill to the floor. And that was a statement that said that we knew that our troops needed to have ... would be provided for them. So we will never abandon our men and women in uniform. On the other hand it gave our members a chance to express their view. How does this figure into our protecting the American people? Is it worth it?"

CA: "Is it worth it? Is it worth it?"

NP: "That is the question," Pelosi replied.

CA: “But that's my question to you.”

NP: "Well we will, as I said, we will see the metrics as they unfold in the next few months.”

Planet Earth of the Real People to Queen Nancy of the Robber Class—can you use some of your husband’s millions to buy a clue? We here down in the class that does the fighting, killing, and dying while you and your buds do the profiteering, don’t quantify human loss as “Metrics.”

My son, Casey, was not a “Metric,” nor a stat that you can blink away with your plastic eyes, Nancy. He was a man that loved his family, animals, WWE, and Jesus. He served at his parish at Ft. Hood as an usher and Eucharistic Minister until your ilk shipped him off to die. I cry everyday for him, but you wouldn’t know anything about that would you, Nancy? Your children haven’t enlisted to be damaged in the wars of your class have they, Nancy? Your sons and daughters sit in their comfortable mansions far removed from your “Metrics” of war.

Queen Nancy, I received an email today from someone who was with my son when he was killed over six years ago and I can’t stop crying because pain dripped from every word. He apologized for emailing me, but he says that he can never stop thinking of Casey and that day. He didn’t want to cause me any more “pain,” but he felt like he needed to reach out before he exploded himself.

But you, Nancy—you don’t even know the kind of pain you are causing all of the “Metrics” in the world, do you? The mothers in all the parts of the world that we are bombing, or helping other people to bomb don’t even enter into your rarefied society. We wouldn’t want to spoil your dinner parties/DNC fundraisers at your estate in Sonoma County, now, would we?

You looked me right in the face in September of 2005 and with crocodile mist in your eyes (do you use Vicks Vaporub for your fake, tears like Glen Beck?) you told me that if the antiwar movement helped Democrats get elected, you would help us end the wars. You are nothing but a cold-hearted liar and I am ashamed that the first female Speaker of the House is nothing but another lying, calculating, and callous politician.

It’s beyond tragic that the power you wield so carelessly hurts so many people. You don’t deserve the power you have stolen with your money and your cruelty and if anything positive comes from your reign of terror, I hope it’s a working-class Renaissance.

How "beneficent" you are to "provide" for our troops by keeping them fighting and dying in these Ruling Class-less wars. This is personal to me Nancy, and I hope my fellow members of the working-class also realize how personal your wars for Empire are to them, too.

Olympia Co-op Thanked at Bil'in Demo; Two Injured

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Bil'in protest on Friday July 30th (photo by Bilin-FFJ.org)

http://www.imemc.org/article/59217

Around 200 Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals – including a group of hip-hop musicians from the US and Britain – joined a protest on Friday afternoon in the Palestinian village of Bil’in calling on the international community to boycott Israel in order to end Israeli apartheid practices.

The protesters chanted, sang and held signs calling for Israel to tear down the Wall which it is constructing through the farmland of the people of Bil’in, as well as dozens of other Palestinian towns. They appealed to the international community to use economic pressure, through the tactics of boycott, divestment and sanctions, to pressure Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian land and to provide equal rights to all Palestinians, as required under international law.

The non-violent demonstrators marched from the village center to the area where Israeli forces have been constructing the Annexation Wall on village land. Israeli soldiers stationed at the gate come rushing forward, according to eyewitnesses, and fired high-velocity tear gas canisters at the protesters, along with rubber-coated steel bullets. One of these bullets struck an Israeli demonstrator in the leg, injuring him. Another protester, from Great Britain, was dragged along the ground by the Israeli soldiers, causing bleeding and bruising on his back.

In addition, the tear gas ganisters caused two fires to start, but the demonstrators were able to put them out with no injuries.

Despite the Israeli attack on the demonstration, the hip-hop musicians managed to jump on a truck with a sound system and speakers, and gave a rap performance with songs focused on the Israeli occupation and the need for a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign.

In addition, the protesters honored the town of Olympia, Washington, in the US, for their courageous stance in calling for a boycott of Israeli goods in the town. Olympia was the home of non-violent activist Rachel Corrie, who was run over and killed by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003 while standing in front of a Palestinian home in Rafah trying to prevent its demolition by Israeli troops.