Washington’s War Theaters as March ends

Re-reported, compiled, edited by Carolyn Bennett
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual show in Washington would hardly be out of place in a Quentin Tarantino movie, Pepe Escobar wrote late last week. Picture a giant hall crammed with 7,500 very powerful people regimented by a very powerful lobby ─ plus half of the United States Senate and more than a third of the congress - basically calling in unison for Palestinian and Iranian blood. The AIPAC 2010 show predictably was yet one more ‘bomb Iran’ special but it was also a call to arms against the Barack Obama administration, as far as the turbo-charging of the illegal colonization of East Jerusalem is concerned.

The administration has reacted to the quarrel with a masterpiece of schizophrenic kabuki (classical Japanese dance-drama) theater. Corporate media insisted there was a deep ‘crisis’ between the unshakeable allies. Nonsense ─ One just has to look at the facts. …

When presidential candidate Barack Obama “addressed AIPAC on June 3, 2008 … he pulled a Netanyahu avant la lettre and declared ‘Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided.’…

“This ‘crisis’ between Tel Aviv and Washington is a non-event. … No one knows exactly whatever hardball Obama and Netanyahu played behind closed doors for three-and-a-half hours [last week] in Washington. … But Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies said it best: though “‘someone seems to have told the Obama administration that a series of polite requests equals pressure, it does not equal pressure. Real pressure looks like this:

Please stop settlements.

Answer: No

Then, you know that … $30 billion [former president George W] Bush arranged for you from U.S. tax money and we agreed to pay ─

Kiss that goodbye.

That’s what pressure looks like.’”

Casualty sites reporting
March 28, 2010 (accurate totals unknown, usual reporting not updated)

• Anti-war dot com March 19, 2003 ─ [Since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 157] Wounded 31,716-100,000; U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000; Suicides 18 a day http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
• Iraq Body Count figures documented civilian deaths from violence: 95,755 – 104,460 , http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,386 U.S., 4,704 Coalition; AFGHANISTAN: 1,029 U.S., 1,703 Coalition http://icasualties.org/oif/
• Just Foreign Policy: [not current] 1,366,350
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/.org

March 28, 2010
Iraq
Fifty-nine people died and 73 suffered wounds on Friday when two bombs exploded in Iraq’s Diyala province. In an attack on a local politician in the town of Qaim in Iraq's Anbar province an estimated six people died and 15 suffered wounds.

On Sunday, four roadside bombs exploded one after the other near the house of Ghanim Radh, a member of the Development and Reforms Movement, a faction of Iyad Allawi’s secular coalition. The attacks came two days after Iraq’s election commission announced complete results from the March 7 nationwide vote in which Allawi’s Iraqiya party narrowly edged out the State of Law bloc led by incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

March 23, 2010
Afghanistan
The Karzai government confirmed that government and anti-government movements had met in Kabul, the Afghan capital, “with a plan for peace talks.” Citing a Monday Reuters story, “the Hezb-i-Islami group sent a delegation headed by Qutbuddin Helal, a former prime minister and deputy to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the group’s leader.”

Earlier this month, the government said a number of Hezb-i-Islami fighters, who lead an insurgency separate from the Taliban, had agreed to back the authorities after clashing with Taliban fighters over control of villages in the north.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Kabul, David Chater, said the talks ─ directly resulting from negotiations with the Afghan government in January in the Maldives ─ “were a breakthrough for [President Hamid] Karzai’s efforts at reintegration and reconciliation of the fighters against his government.” It means the parties “will perhaps attend the peace talks being called for the end of April.”

March 21, 2010
Pakistan
Three people died today and 12 suffered wounds when a bomb on a bicycle exploded in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta. Violence has taken hundreds of lives in the province since 2004. Baluch fighters have been “demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region’s natural resources....”

Participants meeting in Tribal councils (or ‘jirgas’ that play a central role in Pashtun culture along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border) “said they had little faith in the U.S.-Pakistan alliance and that Washington and Islamabad were more worried about internal political issues than dealing with the social issues at the root of much of the violence. A government offensive begun last year is thought to have killed hundreds of people ─ fighters and civilians ─ in South Waziristan.

March 28, 2010
Arab Summit
Israel’s settlement policy is “‘a dangerous obstacle to a just and comprehensive peace process’” said the document coming out of the Arab summit ending today in Libya. Al Jazeera reports Arab leaders expressing “their total rejection of Israel’s settlement policy in occupied East Jerusalem.”

According to Al Jazeera’s correspondents, the Arab leaders also discussed “exploring closer relations between the Arab League and Iran, possibly through a forum that would include Turkey; Iraq and the state of security in Iraq following its recent elections.


Sources and notes
Pepe Escobar in the Asia Times’ The Roving Eye “Obama squeezed between Israel and Iran,” March 26, 2010, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LC26Ak01.html. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007); Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge; and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).


See also Counterspin, March 26, 2010, “Trudy Lieberman on health care, Phyllis Bennis on Israel-U.S. relations” Counterspin’s program segment lead in, “One of the most serious conflicts between the U.S. and Israel in decades? Or... something less than that? What does the recent exchange of heated language between U.S. and Israeli officials actually translate to in terms of U.S. policy toward the country? … a reading on things from Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies, author of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer,” http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4050


Fellow Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies. The Middle East component of the Project challenges the drive towards U.S. Empire in that region and beyond and focuses particularly on ending the U.S. wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq and supporting a just and comprehensive peace based on an end to Israeli occupation and apartheid policies in Palestine. Among Bennis's recent writings are:

• “Afghanistan: This War Won't Work” (Op-Ed) January 25: The reasons for ending the war are growing, and justifications are few
• Ending the U.S. War in Afghanistan: A Primer (Book) January 20: Was Afghanistan ever a ‘good war’ and will President Obama’s plan and escalation of U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan work?
• “Yemen: Déjà Vu All Over Again” (Commentary) January 13: The United States punished Yemen 20 years ago by cutting off aid. Today, the United States is punishing Yemen by sending aid.

“Iraq politician targeted in attack,” Al Jazeera [AFP] March 28, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/201032814334966748.html
“Afghan group on ‘Kabul mission,’” Al Jazeera March 23, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201032243846873289.html
“Fatal explosion hits Pakistani city,” March 21, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/20103217435090292.html
“Arab leaders condemn Israeli policy,” March 28, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/201032814252345504.html
Also news Sunday: “Obama makes ‘surprise’ Kabul visit,” March 28, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201032816319310458.html

Attempted Arrest of war criminal ─ Cronin to Blair in Brussels

Re-reported with comment by Carolyn Bennett

“You are guilty of war crimes”

“A war of aggression”

Military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense

In breach of customary international law

Specifically the Nuremberg Principles under the rubric of

the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court

the legal body exercising jurisdiction over

the crime of aggression

Irish journalist, Citizen David Cronin attempted to arrest former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and escort him to the nearest Brussels police station to be charged formally with these crimes.

If successful and “found to be eligible for the bounty,” Cronin said, “he would prefer that the money go to a Palestinian human rights charity in the Gaza Strip.”

Reports said Blair “momentarily flinched” at the attempted arrest; but a bodyguard “quickly pushed” Cronin away. The former UK prime minister is in Brussels for a hearing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Belgium and the UK have ratified the Rome Statute but all parties to the text have yet to adopt a definition of the “crime of aggression.” In a review conference to be held later this year, parties to the Statute are expected to come to an agreement on the definition of “crime of aggression.”

“My motivation in trying to arrest Blair,” Cronin told the press, “is entirely based on my contempt for the crimes he [Blair] has committed and abetted in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon and Serbia … Perhaps one million lives were lost in Iraq alone.”

This news item gives pause to consider another living quarter for the dock: Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama.


Sources
“Journalist attempts citizen's arrest of Blair in EU parliament” (Leigh Phillips), EUObserver, March 23, 2010, http://euobserver.com/9/29739
Also March 23, 2010, http://www.rnw.nl/english/radio-program-list/2539

Sea to shining sea cares less, cements homelessness

Compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett for Today’s Insight News

“Around the world more than 2.5 billion children, women and men  live in grinding poverty on less than $2 a day, the UN reports. “Such extreme poverty results in chronic hunger and malnutrition, preventable diseases, environmental degradation, low literacy rates and countless other social, public health, economic and political problems.”

National Coalition for the Homeless tallies U. S. homeless/poverty at

• • 1.35 million children annually estimated homeless
• • 200,000 children daily homeless
• • 150,000 veterans homeless
• • 600,000 veterans annually will experience homelessness
• • Families with children one of the fastest growing segments of the homeless
• • Families’ requests for emergency assistance in some cities spiked in one year by 15 percent

 “Homelessness and poverty are inextricably linked.

• • In 2007, 12.5 percent of the U.S. population (37,300,000 million people) lived in poverty.
• • The official poverty rate in 2007 was statistically undifferentiated from 2006 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2007).
• • Children are overrepresented: 24.8 percent of the total population but 35.7 percent of people in poverty

CARIBBEAN  COMING RAINS  POST-EARTHQUAKE
Private owners hold and hoard the lion’s share of Haiti’s land while Haitians are homeless.

Most of the homeless people are in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, which “has neither appropriate nor available space for massive relocation. The government has identified several sites totaling 6 million square meters (some 1,500 acres) for relocating people to the perimeters of the capital but most of the land is under private ownership, not the government. Success of negotiations between private and public sources will determine whether enough land will be available for use by currently homeless people.”

Haiti’s government currently “needs 40,000 dwellings for 200,000 people currently homeless in flood- or mudslide-prone areas or in the most congested tent cities,” correspondent Kathie Klarreich reports for the Christian Science Monitor; and the critical question is whether the government can obtain for the people the necessary housing before the start of the rainy season in early April.

U.S. West coast with homes want the homeless out of sight, out of mind.

Homeless camps have grown “larger and more visible particularly along Washington’s Woodland and Chehalis Western hike and bicycle trails. “Many of the camps are on private property.” Owners called on the public sector to act in their behalf. The Seattle Times and wire services report Olympia Police Lieutenant Bill Wilson saying a process has been put in force “to address homeless encampments in our parks.” Invited to enforce government action against the homeless are the departments of law enforcement, parks, community planning and development, and public works. What they are doing, a Bread & Roses volunteer told the press, is “reshuffling the problem.”

Wall Street East counts but shirks cause/cure of homelessness

New York City’s Department of Homeless Services on Friday announced the results of its survey on New York City’s “street homeless.”

• • 3,111 people were estimated in January 2010 to be homeless living on New York City streets
• • 783 more than the homeless on New York City streets in 2009
• • 1 in 2,688 of documented population in the home of Wall Street are estimated to be homeless

 Sea to shining sea, we see and are smart enough to cure homelessness. We just don't care.

Sources

End poverty ─ MDGs 2015, The UN works for people and the planet, http://www.un.org/works/sub2.asp?lang=en&s=17
National Coalition for the Homeless released a new report in March Tent Cities in America Pacific Coast Report, http://www.nationalhomeless.org/
National Coalition for the homeless, July 2009 report, htttp://www.nationalhomeless.org/factsheets/why.html
Haiti races to house post-quake homeless before the rainy season (Correspondent Kathie Klarreich) Christian Science Monitor, March 21, 2010, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0321/Haiti-races-to-house-post-quake-homeless-before-the-rainy-season
“Olympia homeless on notice to clear out” (The Olympian, Matt Batcheldor) The Seattle Times.  March 21, 2010, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011406775_homeless22.html
“Olympia readies to clean out homeless camps,” March 21, 2010 (AP), http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa_olympia_homeless_camps.html
The Olympian, http://www.theolympian.com
NYC Department of Homeless Services Announces Results Of Annual Street Homeless Survey, March 19, 2010, detailed information on methodology and results of survey: DHS website, www.nyc.gov/dhs; http://www.nyc.gov/html/dhs/html/press/pr031910.shtml

Meet interconnected global challenges “collectively” ─ Annan

Give up “old mindset of national security/economic growth at the expense of other countries” Thoughts of Kofi Annan
Edited excerpt for Today’s Insight News by Carolyn Bennett

Five principles I believe are essential for the future

conduct of international relations:

Collective responsibility

Global solidarity

Rule of law

Mutual accountability

Multilateralism

Kofi Annan’s final address as

UN Secretary-General, December 2006 [excerpt]

Now former UN Secretary General heading the Kofi Annan Foundation, he offered an Indonesian audience his insight on five years’ global reality and more immediate issues out of Copenhagen and the global economic crisis.

“…The last five years have seen severe global food shortages, soaring energy costs and, of course, the gravest economic crisis in more than 60 years. No continent, no country or community has escaped the fall-out,” Annan said. “The challenges of our time are many, complex and interconnected” ─ challenges that “cannot be tackled by any one country acting alone” ─ no matter how wealthy or powerful that country might be.… “We all live in the same boat and nations need not fear the success of another.…

“Multiple crises ─ of extreme poverty, famine, conflict, disease, natural disasters ─ will be made worse by climate change. Global terrorism, nuclear proliferation, piracy and the collapse of governance in various parts of the world have brought home the reality of our common vulnerability and the need for collective action.”

Old certainties of the political and economic order are disappearing. A system of global governance shaped largely by powerful countries in the North has shifted towards the emerging economies in the South.

These developments have left countries struggling to adapt but they need to catch up fast. The scale and urgency of the challenges demand it. A new style of leadership is required ─ one that looks beyond narrow national interests and recognizes that durable solutions will only come through multilateral action based on shared values and agreed goals.

Improvement in the quality of governance at international and national levels is required to ensure the meeting of countries and citizens’ demands for voice and fair representation. Leaders at the national level should strive for good governance based on a democratic political system, respect for human rights, and the rule of law. At the global level, governments should ask themselves whether the existing architecture of international institutions is adequate for the tasks before them.

The G20’s collective commitments to stimulate, regulate, and restructure global economic activity helped to calm nerves and restore confidence. Recession has not led to global depression but we are not out of the woods yet.… Crucially, we have not taken the steps needed to ensure that the mistakes and misjudgments that led to this crisis are not repeated.

Measures are also needed to prevent imbalanced growth and to ensure that the major economies reduce their long-term deficits.

Lessons that should have been learned from the initial success of the global response are in danger of being quickly forgotten. While anxiety levels in boardrooms and stock markets may have come down, the daily drama of survival has worsened for many in the world’s least developed countries including much of Africa. We risk forgetting the damage that has been caused to countries and communities that played no part in provoking this crisis.

Jobs have gone, incomes and opportunities lost. Tens of millions more people have been added to the already scandalously high number living below the poverty line. Therefore, together with collective action to prevent any repeat of this crisis, we also have to consider how we are going to step up protection for the most vulnerable on our planet.

Our common values and international solidarity require that we do more to tackle the inequalities in our world, not allow them to widen further; but we are actually seeing wealthier countries use this crisis to wriggle out of their development pledges.

Many African countries ─ who are not asking for charity but for stronger partnerships ─ fear their appeals may be rebuffed.…

• We need to see commitments met to mitigate the social impact of the crisis by ensuring that some of the enormous sums raised for global stimulus plans reach the least developed countries. 
• Reform of global financial institutions should also be stepped up to give a bigger voice not only to emerging economies but also to other developing countries.
•  Reform must be complemented by agreement on a timetable to tackle the unfairness in global economic rules and market distortions that heavily disadvantage developing countries.
•  Look again at the conditions so often attached to aid and loans, which unnecessarily constrain the policy autonomy of developing countries.
•  Measures to fix the immediate crisis and create greater stability in the long term will unravel if poor countries and poor people are left out or further disadvantaged.

These same lessons, based on shared values, must also guide us ─ and urgently ─ in tackling the crisis of climate change. As with the global economic crisis, those countries which have done least to cause global warming are paying the highest price. They are also, tragically, countries with the least resources to protect their people and adapt to the impact of climate change. “I believe climate change is the greatest challenge of modern times and the key test of leadership.…” Climate change must remain a top political priority for all countries. This means raising levels of ambition, educating publics, and rebuilding confidence in a multilateral process that delivers an agreement that is universal, effective and fair ─ with climate justice at its heart.

Fairness means that the industrialized countries responsible for the historic build up of emissions take the lead in cutting emissions dramatically and supporting mitigation and adaptation in developing countries. … The choice long-term is not a choice between being economically successful or environmentally sound; both areas of challenge are part of the same coin. The ability to look to the long-term is one of the qualities we need more than ever.

Political leaders will need to find the courage and vision to set aside special interests and ignore the tyranny of the electoral cycle. Focus instead on the implications of failure and the appalling burden this will place on future generations. However, leadership cannot be confined to politicians.… Governments alone cannot solve the world’s problems. We all need to accept our responsibility.

This responsibility imposes a heavy burden on our leaders but it also requires all sections of our communities ─ business, civil society, the media and the public ─ to call for collective action to find solutions for global challenges.

• The business sector must minimize the negative impacts of their operations and invest in clean energy and infrastructure at home and abroad.  
• Ensure that their pursuit of profit does not result in protectionism that prevents developing countries from accessing the knowledge and technology needed to shift to low carbon growth. 
• Civil society, academia, trade unions, professional associations, local authorities, youth and women’s groups have a contribution to make in education, in altering behavior, in pressing leaders to take sustained action.

We need to get out of the old mindset that the national security and economic growth of one country need come at the expense of another. In the modern inter-connected world, power and prosperity are not a zero-sum game. We all live in the same boat and nations need not fear the success of another.

It is cooperation … not competition that will lead to sustainable progress and durable peace.

Putting our common values of fairness and humanity into action will heal divisions, spread prosperity and bring stability.

Old certainties may be disappearing. The new multi-polar world in which we live may be more fluid and unpredictable; but if it leads to reformed institutions reflecting modern realities, more voices to help reach the right conclusions, and a consensus around shared values and goals ─ we should be confident. It is time to make further progress …. Our world depends upon it.

Sources and notes
“The Challenges for Leaders in a Multi-polar World” (speech by Kofi Annan, March 4, 2010 in
Jakarta, Indonesia), http://kofiannanfoundation.org/newsroom/speeches/2010/03/challenges-leaders-multipolar-world

While visiting Singapore former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan sat for an interview with Al Jazeera’s Teymoor Nabili in discussions covering China-African relations, African land sales, eradication of poverty, the Millennium Development Goals, invasion of Iraq, Middle East peace process, the Goldstone report, Annan’s role as mediator and the future of Kenya. Annan had come to Singapore to lecture at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. The Al Jazeera program “Talk to Jazeera: Kofi Annan” began airing Wednesday, March 10, 2010. http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/talktojazeera/2010/03/201031163028606113.html

“The Kofi Annan Foundation supports Kofi Annan’s efforts to provide inspirational and catalytic leadership on critical global issues, particularly preserving and building peace and facilitating more equitable sharing of the benefits of globalization, by promoting poverty alleviation, good governance, human rights and the rule of law.” http://kofiannanfoundation.org/activities

U.S. at COUNTER PURPOSES

Reported, Compiled, edited by Carolyn Bennett
WAR U.S. against Asia and itself
Springtime droned from America

March 20, 2010
PALESTINE
“Let us be clear, all settlement activity is illegal anywhere in occupied territory and this must stop.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has begun a two-day visit to the Palestinian territories. He has reaffirmed the Quartet of Middle East negotiators’ commitment to an independent Palestinian state. Ban’s next stop is the Gaza Strip, which has been for nearly three years under a crippling Israeli siege.

The Quartet on the Middle East (Diplomatic Quartet or Madrid Quartet) was established Madrid in 2002 by the Spanish Prime Minister Aznar as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. The Quartet is comprised of nations and configurations involved in mediating a peace process concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the European Union, the Russian Federation, the United Nations and the United States.

However, in the face of speeches and good intentions, blood continued flowing.

Muhammad Qadus had been participating in a demonstration in the occupied West Bank; demonstrators threw stones at Israeli soldiers in the West Bank city of Nablus. Israeli forces opened fire with live bullets piercing 16-year-old Muhammad Qadus in the heart. He died before reaching the hospital. According to medical staff reported by Al Jazeera, Israeli forces had delayed the Red Crescent ambulance sent to collect him. Also during the demonstration Muhammad Qadus’s cousin, identified as 16-year-old Palestinian Useid Abed an-Nasser Qadus, was seriously wounded.

An Israeli air strike targeting southern Gaza’s defunct international airport located near the town of Rafah wounded an estimated 11 people on Friday.

Palestinians fought running battles on Friday with Israeli police tear-gassing hundreds of stone-throwing Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. These latest clashes follow Israel’s announced construction of 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem. Hebron is home to about 160,000 Muslims; Encased in heavy Israeli security, some 500 Israelis and Jews live in a center city settlement.

March 19, 2010
A rocket firing from Gaza on Thursday was answered by a series of Israeli air raids striking multiple targets on the Gaza Strip. The rocket firing killed a Thai farmer near Ashkhelon, the first death resulting from a missile launched from the strip since the end of Israel’s December 2008-January 2009 war on Gaza. A representative of Hamas said, “The government of the Zionist enemy, which has launched a war against the Palestinian people and against holy sites and al-Aqsa mosque, bears the responsibility for all the escalation.”

March 15, 2010
IRAQ
At rush hour, 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Baghdad, eight people died and 21 suffered wounds when a car bomb exploded in Fallujah, a city in Iraq’s western Anbar province.

Though security had improved in recent years, Fallujah was once a hotbed of the Sunni insurgency against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Since 2006, Sunni tribesmen and former anti-U.S. fighters have joined forces with the U.S. military against al-Qaeda.

March 19, 2010
PAKISTAN/INDIA made in USA
U.S. citizen David Headley has pleaded guilty to scouting targets for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. One hundred and sixty-six people died in those attacks. At his trial in Chicago, Headley also pleaded guilty to plotting a revenge attack against the Jyllands-Posten newspaper. The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005 published 12 editorial cartoons believed to be defamatory against Islam. Headley exchanged guilty pleas on 12 counts of conspiracy for life in prison and no extradition to India, Pakistan or Denmark.

March 19, 2010
ARENA of U.S. PROTEST
“Seeking real end to Iraq War” ─ Sarah Lazare quotes courageous U.S. resisters

Jeff Paterson, Gulf War resister and project director of Courage to Resist, an organization supporting U.S. military personnel who refuse to fight:

“The pursuit of war has outlasted the change in the White House. Barack Obama, the U.S. president, swept into office on an anti-Iraq War ticket and has recently been claiming that the Iraq War is winding down.” However, some critics are skeptical that the pledge to remove combat troops by September 1, 2010, leaving about 50,000 troops in non-combat roles, will end the war. “‘For nearly six years, the American people have been told by our government that the Iraq War will be coming to an end soon, always in about six months if everything goes as planned’”

ENDLESS ─ Investment goldmine turns all-out war to all-out occupation of Iraq

Ryan Harvey of the Civilian Soldier Alliance:

“‘Some believe the occupation is really just now beginning, as the drop in violence means the realization of very lucrative contracts for Western companies operating in Iraq. The big oil give-away has begun, privatization schemes of [former Coalition Provisional Authority head] Paul Bremer are now really taking effect in the economy.…

“‘Anti-war campaigners need to take their efforts to the military bases, the schools, the communities, and in the occupied-countries themselves. It is going to take organizing around [the issue] of withdrawing our consent from the power structures that created these wars to bring them to an end.’”

Summer 2010
KOREA not forgotten
This summer marks the 60th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, a bloody three-year conflict that set Communist North Korea against a South Korea supported by a United Nations coalition headed by the United States.

The war against Korea “was the first armed confrontation of the Cold War. When a truce was signed  in 1953, “two million soldiers and two million civilians had died or suffered wounds. Now, six decades later, the conflict remains unresolved.…

“North Korea alleges that the United States used biological weapons against Korean civilians during the war – dropping ‘germ’ bombs containing insects, shellfish and feathers infected with anthrax, typhoid and bubonic plague on villages across the country. The United States has always vehemently denied these claims, dismissing them as crude and outlandish communist propaganda from a secretive and totalitarian state. Nevertheless, the accusations have refused to go away. Pyongyang continues to press for an apology for an ‘outrage’ that the Unites States insists never happened.”

March 20, 2010
AFGHANISTAN
Civilian Commander in Chief relinquishes power to Military
“U.S. commanders may send an additional 2,500 troops to fend off the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, a region that had been relatively peaceful until recently. U.S. officers were conferring with German commanders leading Regional Command North about shifting some of the forces in a U.S. troop buildup to the north instead of the south.” The chief of staff of the NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force, “General Bruno Kasdorf, told German ARD public radio Thursday the operation would be ‘similar’ to the offensive currently underway in the southern province of Helmand involving 15,000 U.S., NATO and Afghan troops.” [Agence France Presse]

March 21, 2010
PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN
United States at Counter purposes
The arrests in Pakistan of the Taliban’s second-in-command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and others in the Islamists’ hierarchy slowed down Afghan government peace initiatives, says Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s representative, Siamak Hirawi. Hirawi spoke to AFP.

The president’s representative confirmed that the UN former envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, had held peace talks with Taliban figures and said Eide had kept the Afghan government informed. The talks were part of a UN initiated process to help the Afghan government’s peace plan; they were supplemental to Afghan government’s efforts. “‘The international community has agreed with us that those Afghans who are not linked to foreign intelligence or terrorist organizations’ can be part of the peace process.”

“Pakistan’s powerful spy agency the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is believed to have been behind the arrests, in cooperation with the United States. Many in Afghanistan see the arrests as being aimed at destabilizing any peace process. Eide said the detentions in Pakistan had a ‘negative’ impact on attempts to find a political solution to the Afghan war and suggested Pakistan had deliberately tried to undermine the negotiations. The U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke praised the arrests, telling reporters on Friday he had been aware of the UN-Taliban contact but the United States played no role.” Holbrooke is reported saying the arrests were “‘a good thing for the simplest of reasons: good for the military efforts underway in Afghanistan.’”

AFGHANISTAN’s relentless 2010
Three or four times daily explosions rumble through Marjah, Afghanistan, a former Taliban stronghold. This is “an ominous sign that the insurgents have not given up despite losing control of the town several days ago to U.S. and Afghan forces. Taliban fighters scattered but have not abandoned the fight and are using homemade bombs as their weapon of choice. New bombs are planted every night even though Marines claim to find and render safe more of them than explode. “The bombs are often placed in spots where the Marines stopped on patrol the day before, or into holes from previous explosions so the upturned earth doesn’t look suspicious.”

Casualty sites reporting
March 20, 2010 (accurate totals unknown)

• Anti-war dot com March 19, 2003 ─ [Since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 157] Wounded 31,716-100,000; U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000; Suicides 18 a day http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
• Iraq Body Count figures: 95,724-104,427, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,385 U.S., 4,703 Coalition; AFGHANISTAN: 1,024 U.S., 1,692 Coalition http://icasualties.org/oif/
• Just Foreign Policy: [not current] 1,366,350
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq.org/iraq

Is it not fair to ask, indeed imperative to ask why Washington officials persist in killing and otherwise harming the world's peoples including Americans? Is it enough to answer decades later from Washington as the pontiff today answers from Rome: “Sorry?”


Sources and notes
“UN chief visits West Bank,” March 20, 2010 http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/2010320113956764437.html
“Israeli fire kills Palestinian teen,” March 20, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/2010320162053153537.html
“Gazans wounded in Israeli strike,” March 20, 2010,
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/2010319215541529583.html
“Israel hits Gaza after rocket death,” March 19, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/201031821950653943.html
“Car bomb blast strikes Iraqi center city, March 15, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/201031571112419343.html
“U.S. man admits Mumbai terror role,” March 19, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/03/2010318205118778482.html
“Seeking a 'real' end to Iraq War” in San Francisco Sarah Lazare (opinion), views expressed in this article are the author’s; do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy. Sarah Lazare is an anti-militarist and GI resistance organizer with Dialogues Against Militarism and Courage to Resist. She is interested in connecting struggles for justice at home with global movements against war and empire. http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/03/201031993452512230.html
“Dirty little secrets” (Diarmuid Jeffreys), Episode of Al Jazeera’s People & Power March 10-19, 2010
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2010/03/201031761541794128.html
“U.S. weighs more troops for north Afghanistan,” March 18-20, 2010, http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/afp/20100320/tap-afghanistan-unrest-us-nato-military-eea7cf4.html
“Afghanistan says Taliban arrests had ‘negative impact,’” March 20-21, 2010, http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/afp/20100320/tap-afghanistan-unrest-eea7cf4.html
“Taliban adjust, wage bomb attacks against Afghan town,” AFP, March 21, 2010, http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/ap/20100321/tap-as-afghan-bomb-ridden-town-d3b07b8.html

A SOLIDARITY IMPERATIVE

Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) soldiers today opened fire on thousands of Palestinian youth protesting the seizure of huge additional areas of Palestinian land in Jerusalem. The IOF forces fired so-called “rubber bullets”—really plastic-coated steel rounds capable of causing death or permanent injury—wounding scores of Palestinians, many seriously. Street fighting spread to other West Bank cities, and Palestinian shop-owners shut their stores in solidarity with the protests.

Last week, the Israeli government announced its plan to build 1,600 new settler homes in illegally annexed East Jerusalem. This latest aggression follows closely on the heels of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s annexationist declaration that the Mosque of Ibrahim/Temple of Abraham in the West Bank city of Hebron and a site in Bethlehem are now ‘Zionist heritage sites’…

Without the massive U.S. military, economic, diplomatic and other assistance, Israel could not carry out its relentless war against the Palestinian people.

Therefore, it is imperative that people of the United States more than anywhere else in the world stand in solidarity with Palestinians and with all peoples struggling against occupation.

Edited from notes by

A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition

http://www.answercoalition.org/

info@internationalanswer.org

National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948

New York City: 212-694-8720

Los Angeles: 213-251-1025

San Francisco: 415-821-6545

Chicago: 773-463-0311

U.S. credibility Af/Palestine/Iraq ─ WAR

Re-reported, compiled, edited by Carolyn Bennett

Casualty sites reporting
March 14, 2010 (accurate totals unknown)

• Anti-war dot com March 19, 2003 ─ [Since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 154] Wounded 31,706-100,000; U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000; Suicides 18 a day http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
• Iraq Body Count figures: 95,606-104,304, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,382 U.S., 4,700 Coalition; AFGHANISTAN: 1,020 U.S., 1,685 Coalition http://icasualties.org/oif/

• Just Foreign Policy: : [not current] 1,366,350 http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq

Bloodletting News from U.S. Middle East/Central/South Asia WAR

March 14, 2010
AFGHANISTAN
Latest reports estimate 35 people have died and 45 wounded including civilians and police officers following explosions hit Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. … Kandahar is Afghanistan’s third biggest city, after Kabul and Herat, and was the spiritual capital of the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Remnants of the movement have regrouped to wage an increasingly deadly insurgency, which last year killed more than 500 foreign soldiers.

March 13, 2010
PAKISTAN
Latest reports estimate 14 people have died and 50 wounded in a suicide attack in Pakistan’s Swat valley. This Saturday incident at a security checkpoint in Saidu Sharif town follows the previous day’s twin suicide attack on a military convoy in the city of Lahore the RA Bazaar a residential and commercial neighborhood where 49 people died. On Monday in the same city, 13 people died after a suicide car bombing targeting a police intelligence building.

The Lahore attack, according to Al Jazeera’s correspondent Hashem Ahelbarra reporting from Islamabad, “could be a clear message from the Taliban that although they were driven away from places like Swat, and their leadership is being hunted by the Americans and the Pakistani intelligence, they still have the capability to inflict maximum damage... The latest attacks seem to point to a fresh spike in violence.”

March 11-14, 2010
PALESTINE
Settlement expansion ─ Israel has extended a lockdown on the occupied West Bank and restricted access to the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem. Restrictions have been enforced since March 5 when police battled Muslim protesters at the mosque after weekly prayers. Tensions continue to build over Israel’s plans to build new homes for Jewish settlers in mainly Arab east Jerusalem… Saturday in the West Bank Israeli soldiers clashed with Palestinian women and youths protesting Israel’s settlement plans.


Clashes erupted last week after Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced plans to include two sites in the West Bank on a list of Israeli heritage sites. An interior ministry announcement of the approval of plans to build 1,600 new Jewish homes in East Jerusalem contributed to the tensions. Israel occupied East Jerusalem after the 1967 war with the Arabs and built settlements considered illegal under international law.

Expansion despite “superpower” ─ Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ordered an investigation into how government officials announced plans for a new Jewish housing project in East Jerusalem during a visit by U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden.…The Israeli settlement issue has been one of the main issues blocking the Israeli-Palestinian talks. …

“Things have been incredibly tense here following the announcement that there will be more Jewish housing units built on occupied Palestinian land,” said Al Jazeera correspondent Sherine Tadros reporting from Jerusalem. “I think that Palestinians are not just concerned once again that their presence in Jerusalem will be diminished and that Israel is trying to ‘cleanse’ them from the Holy Land; but also by the fact that these announcements came right under the nose, if you like, of the U.S. and [that] the international community is doing nothing to stop it.… Palestinians have always demanded that talks should not start without Israeli commitment to a complete settlement freeze.…”

EU affirms Goldstone Report ─ The European Parliament has backed the findings of a United Nations-backed report into last year’s [December 2008-January 2009] “Gaza war.” The Goldstone report had heavily criticized Israel and accused both Tel Aviv and Hamas of war crimes. … A key finding of the Goldstone report published last September [2009] was that Israel used disproportionate force in response to rocket attacks by Gaza-based fighters and failed to take adequate measures to protect civilians during its onslaught… After the United Nations, the European Parliament is the second institution to stand in favor of the report. The measure passed the European assembly by 335-287.

[The U.S. legislature in H.RES.867 has positioned the U.S. government against the Goldstone Report begging the question of whether the U.S. is or ever has been seriously committed to peace, a just peace in the Middle East.]

The European Union also has criticized Israel over its suspected role in the slaying of a Hamas operative this year (January 19) in Dubai and the killers’ alleged use of forged EU passports. The EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Wednesday condemned Israel’s plan to expand a Jewish neighborhood in disputed east Jerusalem, saying it should reverse the decision and “‘refrain from unilateral decisions and actions that may jeopardize the final status negotiations.’” Ashton [planning to visit Gaza] said the settlements are “‘illegal under international law … undermine current efforts for restarting peace negotiations ... and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible.’”


March 13, 2010
IRAQ
Overall results from Iraq’s March 7 general elections are still too close to call. Preliminary totals on Saturday from 10 of Iraq’s 18 provinces represented only a fraction of the vote. No figures were in from areas like Basra.



Sources
Deadly blast rocks Afghan city, March 14, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201031316756363636.html
“Death in Pakistan Swat blast,” March 13, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201031345755965359.html
“Israel extends West Bank closure,” March 14, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/201031323279106954.html
“Israel to probe ‘Biden fiasco,’” March 14, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/20103145338732887.html
“EU endorses Goldstone report,” March 11, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/03/201031115544623320.html
“Iraq vote count too close to call,” March 13, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/201031317039231784.html


H.RES.867 Calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the ‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in multilateral fora” sponsored: U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, [FL-18] (introduced 10/23/2009) and cosponsored by 202 members. The bill’s latest major action: November 3, 2009; passed/agreed to in House; status: On motion to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution, as amended Agreed to by the Yeas and Nays: (2/3 required): 344 - 36, 22 Present (Roll no. 838), http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/?&Db=d111&querybd=@FIELD(FLD003+@4((@1(Rep+Ros-Lehtinen++Ileana))+00985))

Women’s Day Intl’ spotlights WAMM USA

Women against Military Madness 1980 – NOW!
Re-reporting and editing by Carolyn Bennett

Until we move away from domestic and foreign policies of war, violence, aggression, plunder, exploitation, corruption in leadership and government ─ BREAKDOWN ─ progress toward the possible is impossible.

International Women’s Day USA from WAMM

Funds for education, housing, health care & human needs, not wars and occupations:

Out of Afghanistan & Iraq

Bring the Troops Home Now

No Escalation — Hands off Pakistan, Iran, Yemen and Somalia. Aid for Haiti, not occupation!

Women against Military Madness is a nonviolent, feminist organization working in solidarity with others

To create a system of social equality, self-determination and justice through education, action and the empowerment of women. WAMM’s purpose is to dismantle systems of militarism, economic exploitation and global oppression.

Ten women in the fall of 1981 met in Loretta’s Tea Room in Minneapolis to figure out how most effectively to respond to the threat of nuclear war, the huge increases in military spending and the massive slashes in human services budgets. Inspired by polls showing that most women were against war but as a group were unorganized and inadequately empowered to challenge government priorities, WAMM founders believed that by confronting our fear, anger and denial together, women could become the leaders of a movement to turn our country from the brink of nuclear holocaust to a peaceful and just society.

One hundred assembled at a founding conference January 16, 1982, then marched with signs along University Avenue in Minneapolis. A tradition was born ─ Never a meeting without an action. WAMM published a monthly newsletter informing members and the community about peace and justice issues. WAMM in the 1980s opposed the nuclear arms race and the U.S intervention in Central America.

WAMM supported Native American spear fishing rights, Minnesota nurses and P9 meat packers strikes, the welfare rights group Up and Out of Poverty, the struggle to get Honeywell to stop producing land mines in coalition with the Honeywell Project, and joined coalitions for police accountability. WAMM members demonstrated against war toys by buying out one store’s supply before Christmas then returning them all after the holiday.

WAMM is well known for creative and consistent legal nonviolent activism. WAMM members engage in freeway ‘bannering,’ weekly downtown marches, empowerment groups, school visitations with ‘Tough Dove’ the puppet, and distribution of ‘Tools for Tough Times’ packets to activate members.

WAMM and coalition partners in the 1990s held the first protest in the U.S. against troop deployment leading up to the Gulf War and then fought the deadly sanctions and continuing bombing of Iraq. WAMM protested interventions and bloody conflicts in Panama, Yugoslavia, East Timor, Somalia, and Israel/Palestine. WAMM campaigned against the ‘Contract on America’ making the critical link between domestic cuts and military madness. On the local level WAMM worked against police brutality, and with coalition partners defeated attempts to mandate Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) in Minneapolis public high schools.

WAMM has been focused since September 11, 2001, on opposing the ‘war on terrorism’ in all its forms ─ including attacks on the civil liberties of immigrants and activists. WAMM has formed a new committee to expose the danger of depleted uranium munitions.

WAMM continues to support direct action and coalition building and encourages women to act through committees, empowerment groups, and individual activism. WAMM spreads the word of peace and justice into schools and community organizations through WAMM Action!



Source
W A M M,310 East 38th Street, Suite 222, Minneapolis, MN 55409, USA,
wamm@mtn.org; www.worldwidewamm.org; http://www.worldwidewamm.org/home.html

U.S. Footprints AfPak/Iraq ─ WAR

Re-reported, compiled, edited by Carolyn Bennett

Casualty sites reporting
March 6, 2010 (accurate totals unknown)

• Anti-war dot com March 19, 2003 ─ [Since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 151] Wounded 31,693-100,000; U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000; Suicides 18 a day http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
• Iraq Body Count figures: 95,568-104,266, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,380 U.S., 4,698 Coalition; AFGHANISTAN: 1,014 U.S., 1,698 Coalition http://icasualties.org/oif/
• Just Foreign Policy: [not current] 1,366,350 http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq

Bloodletting News from U.S. Middle East/Central/South Asia WAR

March 5, 2010
AFGHANISTAN
Today's war in Afghanistan has its My Lai, Dave Lindorff writes this week in news analysis for Truthout. As U.S. warplanes bomb wedding parties or homes ‘suspected’ of housing terrorists that turn out to house nothing but civilians, the war in Afghanistan has My Lai massacres almost weekly.

However, these My Lai massacres are conveniently labeled accidents. They get filed away and forgotten as the inevitable ‘collateral damage’ of war. There was recently an unmistakable massacre involving fewer than a dozen innocent people but bearing the same stench as My Lai. This was an execution-style slaying of eight handcuffed students aged 11-18 and a 12-year-old neighboring shepherd boy who had been visiting the others in Kunar Province on December 26.…

Under the Geneva Conventions, it is a war crime to execute a captive. Yet, in Kunar on December 26, U.S.-led forces, or perhaps U.S. soldiers or contract mercenaries, cold-bloodedly executed eight handcuffed prisoners. It is a war crime to kill children under the age of 15 yet in this incident a boy of 11 and a boy of 12 were handcuffed as captured combatants and executed. Two others of the dead were 12 and a third was 15.…

“There is still time for real heroes to stand up in the midst of this imperial adventure that may now appropriately be called Obama’s War in Afghanistan.” … Plenty of reporters in Afghanistan and in Washington could investigate this story. Failing this, “they certainly should not be able ─ with a straight face ─ to call themselves journalists.”

Al Jazeera reports March 4, 2010 ─ Five people have died (four Pakistani nationals, one Afghan) in Afghanistan after armed men opened fire at a group of Pakistani construction workers on their way to work. The incident occurred Thursday morning in the Panjwayi district in Kandahar province.

March 4, 2010
IRAQ
“Twenty million eligible voters are invited to participate in this weekend’s parliamentary election in Iraq,” Raed Jarrar writes this week in Truthout. “The election, scheduled for Sunday March 7, will take place amid a wave of increased violence and political tension in Iraq. However, even with the possibility of a total political meltdown or even a military coup, the United States should not delay or cancel its plans to withdraw from Iraq. …

“Iraq’s problems are far more complicated than these threats to the electoral process. Even if this election proves to be inclusive, fair and transparent, there are other threats to a peaceful transition of power to the upcoming democratically elected government. The Iraqi armed forces continue to be infiltrated by militias and controlled by the current ruling parties. After the disbanding of the Iraqi Army in 2003 by Paul Bremer, the U.S. ruler of Iraq at the time, Bremer issued Order 91 to integrate nine militias totaling about 100,000 men or more into the Iraqi armed forces. It sounded like a good idea at first. However, the ruling parties kept control over their armed men even after they became members of Iraq’s new Army, national police and national guards.…

“The situation in Iraq is horrible. It will most likely deteriorate further this year but that should not be used as an excuse to delay or cancel the U.S. withdrawal from the country.

“Prolonging the occupation will not fix what the occupation has broken, and extending the U.S. military intervention will not help protect Iraq from other interventions.…

“Going back to a condition-based withdrawal plan would not only further diminish U.S. credibility worldwide, but it would also lead to more deterioration and destruction in Iraq. Linking the U.S. withdrawal to conditions on the ground creates an equation by which further deterioration in Iraq will automatically lead to prolonging the U.S. military presence. Some groups, like the Iraqi ruling parties, want the U.S. occupation to continue because they have been benefiting from it; some regional players, including the Iranian government, do not want an independent and strong Iraq to re-emerge. Other groups, including al-Qaeda, would gladly see the U.S. stuck in the current quagmire and would love to see the U.S. continue to lose blood, treasure and reputation in Iraq. Linking the withdrawal to conditions on the ground would be an open invitation to those who want to ensure an endless war.”

Al Jazeera reports March 6, 2010 ─ At least three people have died and more than 50 injured in the holy city of Najaf after a car bomb exploded a day before Iraq’s parliamentary elections.… At least 45 people - some of them members of the security forces who were voting early - have died in the past few days.… After the last national election in 2005, it took Iraq’s feuding political parties about five months to agree on a prime minister and approve a cabinet.

March 5, 2010
PAKISTAN
At least twelve people have died and 30 injured in northwest Pakistan as a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of Shia Muslims guarded by security forces. The victims were passing through a petrol station in the town of Hangu on Friday when the lone attacker on foot set off the bomb… Since the late 1980s, more than 4,000 people have died in sectarian violence between the country’s Sunni majority and Shiite minority.

Sources
Afghanistan's My Lai Massacre (Dave Lindorff, t r u t h o u t News Analysis), March 5, 2010,
http://www.truthout.org/where-are-this-wars-heroes-military-and-journalistic57406
“Laborers killed in Afghan attack,” March 4, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201034123644310919.html
“A Military Coup in Iraq?” (Raed Jarrar, t r u t h o u t Report), March 4, 2010, http://www.truthout.org/a-military-coup-iraq57374
“Blast hits Iraq in electioin run up,” March 6, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/20103673112451955.html
Shias targeted in Pakistan blast, February 5, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201035122623607878.html

West’s no notwithstanding, Gaza report won’t go away

Report from the International Service for Human Rights
Edited for Today’s Insight News by Carolyn Bennett

UN continues to probe Gaza massacre despite super-powered opposition.

Last month the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 64/254 requesting the Secretary-General to report in five months on the investigations by Israel and the 'Palestinian side' into serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law as documented in the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (also known as the Goldstone report). The resolution was adopted by a recorded vote of 98 in favor, 7 against (Canada, Israel, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Panama, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, United States) with 31 abstentions.

The vote revealed that since the Assembly's first resolution (Resolution 64/10) responding to the Goldstone report late last year, several Western and European States have reconsidered their opposition to the Goldstone report. That resolution was adopted by a recorded vote of 114 in favor, 18 against; with 44 abstentions. A number of States voting against the first resolution chose to abstain from this year's text (Australia, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia) but indicated their readiness to give the parties to the conflict a chance to conduct credible, independent investigations into the serious human rights violations of which they are accused. …

The UN Human Rights Council’s 12th special session asked the UN Secretary-General and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to report to the 13th session on the implementation of recommendations contained in the ‘Goldstone report.’ The 13th session will hold follow-up discussions on the ‘Goldstone report’ endorsed by the October 2009 12th special session. The four-week long Human Rights Council meeting, March 1- 26, 2010, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, is expected to adopt an estimated 30 resolutions.

Note in women’s history month ─ Human rights defenders are targeted while carrying out human rights work. Women human rights defenders are at even greater risk: risks that are gender-specific, risks with gendered consequences because of women's identities and because of the issues for which they are advocates.

Sources and notes
International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) publishes its vision as “a world where the UN and regional human rights systems effectively promote and protect the human rights of all and where everyone defending human rights enjoys protection of their rights.” ISHR’s headquarters is in Geneva: Office Rue de Varembé 1 - P.O. Box 16 CH-1211 Geneva 20 CIC Switzerland; its smaller office is in New York: International Service for Human Rights, New York Office777 UN Plaza, 8th floor New York NY 10017 USA, http://www.ishr.ch/about-us; www.defendingwomen-defendingrights.org.
“General Assembly adopts new resolution to follow-up on Goldstone report on Gaza conflict,” February 26 2010, report, latest update March 2, 2010, at http://www.ishr.ch/homepage
“Women Human Rights Defenders,” September 4, 2008, International Service for Human Rights, http://www.ishr.ch/women-human-rights-defenders

Education for society ─ “right not privilege, public not privatized”

Re-reporting, edited excerpts for Today’s Insight News by Carolyn Bennett
If Americans care about nothing more than economic competitiveness and job creation and economic recovery, they must pay attention to current trends disestablishing public education and denying access to quality education. Many of us care about much more: We care about social justice. We care about equality of opportunity. If we care about these issues, we must pay attention to who is able to get into college ─ whether education has become a privilege for a minority, or whether education is a widely held right.

University of California-Berkeley Professor Ananya Roy and UC Berkeley student organizer Ricardo Gomez spoke today with Democracy Now.

Gomez pointed out that the battle is to ban privatization. “Our institutions teeter all along the line of privatization,” he said; and public institutions becoming privatized is not the trajectory students want to see for public institutions. “As much as this is a battle over fee increases or a battle about K through 12, it is a battle about fighting against privatization and reaffirming and reasserting the public good.”

Choosing between penitentiaries and public schooling does not solve the problem of education for the good of all. “We reject these various tradeoffs ─ the privatization of prisons in order to stop cuts to [K-12 and post secondary education] is not a progressive social agenda,” Professor Roy said. “We must unite across social sectors to say that we have to find a way to invest in the collective future, which means thinking about investing; rather than simply thinking about shuffling resources from one set of cuts to another.”

The UC Berkeley professor and student were talking about education in California and the demonstrations to preserve and improve education there; but the same and even worse problems in education exist throughout the United States. Moreover, the current U.S. president’s race for the top euphemism for no child left behind (charters, competitive schools, business models and marketers) inherited from his predecessor bears watching as another education-as-private-enterprise furthering the destruction of public education scheme. In Rochester, New York, a former police chief turned mayor, an overtly religious man, is trying to take over the public school system.

We are looking “at a systematic destruction of the system of public education in California and we are feeling the effects,” Roy said. K-through-12 cuts have a huge impact on whether or not students are able to get into colleges. California is 49th among the 50 states in the number of adults with a high school education. Far fewer students today are able to join community college systems or enter the University of California system. This year community colleges turned away 40,000 students. California’s position in the number of adults with a college education continues to slip. Nationally and internationally, “there has been a horrible slide in California’s position in education.”

Today is a historic day, she said. It is a historic day because in California all sectors of public education—K through 12, community colleges, state universities, the University of California system—have come together to stand up against the defunding of public education, “to say that we have had enough.…

“Today is not a day of fear. It is a day of hope ─ hope expressed in how this day has become a national, even an international day for taking action to defend public education ─ elementary schools to community colleges to students in colleges around the world.”

Whether our concerns for the future are limited to economic competitiveness, job creation and economic recovery or these in addition to issues of social justice, excellence in education, and equality of opportunity – Roy correctly says, we must pay close attention to current trends and whether education has become a privilege for a minority or is a widely held right.



Source
“Thousands of Students Taking Part in National Day of Action to Defend Public Education,” February 4, 2010, http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/4/students
Ananya Roy is a University of California-Berkeley professor in urban studies and international development; Ricardo Gomez is a UC Berkeley student organizer

Delta Woman echoes on International Women’s Day

Edited excerpt for Today’s Insight News by Carolyn Bennett

Fannie Lou Hamer was a hardworking American. Hers was the kind of backbreaking work Americans born after the great Depression will likely never experience. As a civil rights leader, Fannie Lou Hamer spoke boldly to us about us: to Americans about their treatment of one another, their divisiveness from one another that, ultimately, will cause America’s breakdown.

“I work for the liberation of all people because when I liberate myself I’m liberating other people,” Hamer said. “Sometimes I really feel sorrier for the White woman than I feel for ourselves, because she [has] been caught up in this thing ─ … caught up in this thing because you worked my grandmother and after that you worked my mother and then, finally, you got a hold on me.”

Coming out of the poorest state in the nation, from one of the poorest classes, Mrs. Hamer was harsh and frank about the way some college-educated Black women had difficulty embracing her as their sister:

“A few years ago throughout the country the middle class Black women ─ I used to say not really Black women but the middle class colored women ─ didn’t respect the kind of work that I was doing.

“In this struggle, some people say, ‘well, she don’t talk too good.’ The type of education that we get here ─ years to come, you won’t talk too good. The kind of education we get in the state of Mississippi will make our minds so narrow it won’t coordinate with our big bodies. We know we have a long fight, because our leaders like the preachers and the teachers are failing to stand up today. But we know some of the reasons for that ─ this brainwashed education the teachers have got.

“You see now, baby, whether you have a Ph.D., D.D.., or No D., we’re in this bag together. Whether you are from Morehouse or Nohouse, we’re still in this bag together. Not to fight to liberate ourselves from the men … but to work with them; then we have a better chance to just act as human beings and be treated as human beings in our sick society.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. America is divided against itself and without considering us [today ‘us’ stretches to women, migrants, Muslims, minorities] as human beings, one day America will crumble!”

Fannie Lou Hamer was a woman of the Delta. She was born in 1918 on a plantation in the Mississippi hill country. Her parents were sharecroppers. She was the youngest of twenty children. When she was two years old, she and her parents moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi. In the time of her youth, the school term was only four months of a year; work took precedence over education. Fannie Lou Hamer loved to read and learned to read while in school though economic circumstances precluded her receiving more than six years of formal education.

Mrs. Hamer married and continued farming until the 1960s. She learned about voting in 1962 and later reflected, “That sounded interesting enough to me that I wanted to try it.”

When the civil rights movement began in Mississippi, Fannie Lou Hamer became a participant, first; then a leader. She joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC] as a fieldworker in voter registration drives. Her work for civil rights led her to becoming a leading figure in organizing the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. As a member of MFDP, she attended the 1964 National Democratic Convention to challenge the seating of Mississippi’s Regular Democratic Party. During a credentials committee hearing at this convention, she made a famous television appearance describing the struggle and violence encountered when trying to vote in Mississippi.

“The first vote I cast, I cast . . . for myself,” she said ─ “because I was running for Congress.”

Fannie Lou Hamer opposed the incumbent Representative Jamie Whitten from her congressional district.

On behalf of the civil rights movement, Fannie Lou Hamer traveled widely making speeches in major U.S. cities and colleges. She helped form the farming cooperative, Freedom Farms, in Sunflower County, Mississippi. She ran in 1971 for a seat in the Mississippi Senate.

Fannie Lou Hamer lived and died (March 14, 1977) in the Delta. Eulogized in Ruleville, Fannie Lou Hamer is buried at Freedom Farms Cooperative in Mississippi.


Sources and notes
Hamer should be pronounced as in “name-r” but with an H instead of an n

Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers, 1941-1965, edited by Vicki L. Crawford, Jacqueline Anne Rouse, Barbara Woods (Indiana University Press, 1993), pp 212-214
Biographical notes Oral Historian, a cooperative project of USM Libraries and USM’s Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage prepared and maintained by the Special Collections Digital Lab, a division of USM Libraries at the University of Southern Mississippi. http://www.lib.usm.edu/~spcol/crda/oh/hamer.htm