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Israel Will Go to War over Water
Mitchell Prothero & Peter Beaumont
["انهم يسعون وراء نهر الليطاني و وادي البقاع. سوف يحولون مجرى الليطاني لتعبئة بحيرة طبريا و نهر الاردن إمتداداً من وادي الاردن حتى البحر الميت. ارضهم التي استولوا عليها بالقوة ستمتد من النيل حتى الفرات بالشرق. ستجبر مملكة الاردن على التنازل عن مساحة من الأرض - وادي الاردن باكمله سوف يؤخذ من هذه المملكة المحتوم على أمرها. الحرب على لبنان و سوريا أمرٌ محتوم." [Translation: Jana Najjar][1]]
Jordanian Professor: Israel Will Go to War over Water. Hezbollah gears up for new war.
Fighters rearm and reinforce positions in valleys amid fears that Israel is about to launch attack on Islamic group
Hezbollah is rapidly rearming in preparation for a new conflict with Israel, fearing that Benjamin Netanyahu's government will attack Lebanon again prior to any assault on Iran's nuclear facilities.
US preparing for war in Latin America
Eva Golinger
An official document from the Department of the US Air Force reveals that the military base in Palanquero, Colombia will provide the Pentagon with “…an opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America…” This information contradicts the explainations offered by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the US State Department regarding the military agreement signed between the two nations this past October 30th. Both governments have publicly stated that the military agreement refers only to counternarcotics and counterterrorism operations within Colombian territory. President Uribe has reiterated numerous times that the military agreement with the US will not affect Colombia’s neighbors, despite constant concern in the region regarding the true objetives of the agreement. But the US Air Force document, dated May 2009, confirms that the concerns of South American nations have been right on target. The document exposes that the true intentions behind the agreement are to enable the US to engage in “full spectrum military operations in a critical sub-region of our hemisphere where security and stability is under constant threat from narcotics funded terrorist insurgencies…and anti-US governments…”
Why I am not a Zionist
Kevin Coval
The formation of the State of Israel is rooted in blood and deceit, is the same story as all colonies built in the name of imperialism, capitalism and dehumanization. Therefore, I am not Zionist.
Last week I was disinvited from my second Jewish conference in two months for poems I'd written in solidarity with Palestinians, poems that make an unapologetic call for justice. Subsequently, I and the poet I was to read with at the J Street conference, wrote a response to being censored. People from all over the country wrote to us supporting free speech, supporting art as a tool for change, supporting real talk about the degradation of Palestinians, and people wrote to let us know they disagreed. Some more thoughtfully than others.
I love Europe, but I despair of the EU
Henry Porter
When the European Court of Human Rights announces a ban on crucifixes in Italian schools, you can either celebrate the liberal march of secularism or deplore the illiberal attack on religious expression and national tradition.
Perhaps there is a third option which is to say that this has nothing to do with rights and everything to do with the EU's manic drive to standardise behaviour and attitudes, in the same way as it regulates the transportation of livestock and the safety specifications of new mowers.
The crucifix is none of the EU's business and, as we celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall this weekend and the miraculous bravery and persistence of the Christian congregation of the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig, who sparked the East German revolutions with candles and peace prayers every Monday evening, it is perhaps right to remember that the last Europeans to ban the display of religious symbolism in schools belonged to the communist regimes of the east.
Why I Voted NO
Dennis Kucinich
We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.
Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000%. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.
U.S. media overlook obvious explanation for Maj. Nidal's mass murder
Gwynne Dyer
Earlier this year, the Pentagon committed $50 million to a study investigating why the suicide rate in the military is rising. It used to be below the suicide rate in comparable civilian groups, but now it’s four times higher.
Thirteen American soldiers were killed by a gunman at Fort Hood in Texas last Thursday, but 75 others have died by their own hand at the same army base since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Why?
To most people, the answer is obvious. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been frustrating, exhausting, and seemingly endless, and some people just can’t take it any more. But the Pentagon is spending $50 million to search for other possible causes, because it doesn’t like that answer.
The U.S. military budget tops half a trillion dollars, so the military can splash out on diversionary studies that draw attention away from the main problems, which are combat fatigue and loss of faith in the mission. And we are seeing exactly the same pattern in the response to the killings in Fort Hood, although in this case the military are also getting the services of the U.S. media for free.
Let’s see, now. A devout Muslim officer serving in the U.S. Army, born in the United States but of Palestinian ancestry, is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in the near future. He opens fire on his fellow soldiers, shouting “Allahu akbar.” (“God is great” in Arabic.) What can his motive have been? Hard to guess, isn’t it? Was he unhappy about his promotion prospects? Hmm.
The Walls of Berlin and Bil'in
eileen fleming
[Bil'in, West Bank] Twenty years ago on Nov. 9, the Berlin Wall came crashing down due to the build up of pressures exerted by the Solidarity movement demanding freedom at the time of the demise of Communism. The fall of the Berlin Wall symbolically portrayed the end of the Cold War and proved that walls cannot keep people apart. The Berlin Wall was twenty-seven miles of rolls of barbed wire augmented with a high concrete barrier and watchtowers, floodlights, and a no man's land. A few scaled over, some tunneled below and 136 East Germans died trying to cross it.
A wall twice as high and five times as long as the one that fell in Berlin, is close to completion in the West Bank. One of the chants I learned during one of my four visits to the agricultural village of Bilin, was "The wall will fall in Bilin; the wall will fall like in Berlin".
The Evolution Of Goliath
Concert-4-Palestine
“I have stood in front of tearful Palestinian women as they nursed the bruises of their children who had been attacked by soldiers or settlers. I have listened to their sobs and wails as bulldozers plowed into their houses while Israeli soldiers laughed and cheered. I have seen men picking up little bits of people stuck to asphalt, walls, and trees. I have seen Israeli soldiers beckon settlers to come and spit on terrified young men at a checkpoint. Israel makes me wish that my theology permitted me a purgatory where folks like Ariel Sharon would have to experience every bit of the pain and terror they have inflicted on their victims over the last decades.”- Kathleen Kern, Christian Peacemaker Teams
Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires or just a graveyard with a pipeline running through it?
William Bowles
“The US does not need a final victory over the Talibs. Despite their widely advertized ferocious conflict, the US and the Talibs manage to coexist quite successfully in Afghanistan…”[1]
Come on folks, it’s just good sense, there is no way the Empire can actually win the war in Afghanistan. As I have stated before it’s not about ‘winning’ but occupation. Afghanistan is basically a stepping stone on the way to some place else and leaving an oil pipeline behind with a friendly government in place to protect it. Ah, but the best laid plans of mice and men etc...And this is why it bears no comparison to the idiotic occupation that the Soviets got sucked into, except for the slaughter of course. But from a strategic and economic perspective, along with Iran, Pakistan and India, Afghanistan commands the entrance to East Asia and there’s gold in them thar hills!
Rendition prosecuted abroad while U.S. courts do nothing
Mary Shaw
The George W. Bush administration was the target of much criticism from human rights groups for, among other things, its policy of extraordinary rendition, in which detainees have been transferred for interrogation in other countries that are known for their use of torture. And human rights groups and individuals have long been calling for an end to rendition, and accountability for all those who have enabled or participated in the use of torture in the "war on terror".
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like any kind of accountability will be achieved here in the U.S. anytime soon. The latest evidence of this came on November 2, when the Second Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case of Maher Arar against U.S. officials who had sent him to Syria, where he was interrogated under torture for a year.
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