Abbas attempts a political coup on behalf of Washington

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem

In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Abbas attempts a political coup on behalf of Washington

By Jean Shaoul

18 December 2006

Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah president of the Palestinian Authority, has announced that he will dissolve the recently elected parliament and call new presidential and parliamentary elections. Abbas aide Yasser Abed Rabbo told Associated Press that the president would set the date within a week, and that new elections would be held within three months.

The move is an unconstitutional attempt to unseat the Hamas-led government that has been engineered by the United States and Israel. It threatens to precipitate a full-scale civil war. Washington and Jerusalem also have the backing of European powers and are being aided and abetted by the Arab regimes Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf States.

The move by Abbas is the product of consultation with the Bush administration. Washington welcomed the announcement of fresh elections, saying that it hoped they would help end violence in the region. Britain and Spain also welcomed the call. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was in Cairo as part of a Middle East tour, urged other governments to back Abbas. Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for the Israeli government, said that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert “respects Abu Mazen and hopes that he will have the capability to assert his leadership over all of the Palestinian people.”

Abbas echoed the position of the US and European Union in blaming the economic and political crisis created by Western sanctions on the refusal of Hamas to recognise Israel or participate in a government that would do so. The best solution, he said, would be to form a national unity government that would win the support of the Quartet (US, the European Union, United Nations and Russia) and enable the resumption of economic aid to Palestine. But months of talks between Hamas and Fatah have collapsed.

Hamas is vehemently opposed to new elections, having won a four-year term of office only last January with a landslide victory. It denounced the decision, calling it a coup against the Palestinian government and the will of the Palestinian people. Ahmed Yousef, an adviser to Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, said the call for elections was a recipe for violence. “I think this will lead to bloodshed because this is something against the constitution.”

“Abu Mazen is not part of the solution anymore. He is part of the problem now,” he continued.

Several Palestinian factions based in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and including Hamas’s leadership in exile, also rejected early elections. “Any step outside the context of the laws is rejected by us all and this is not just the position of Hamas,” said Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine supported the Hamas stance. Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shallah, who met with Mashaal in Damascus, urged Hamas and Fatah to reach an agreement, calling Abbas’s decision “lawless.”

Abbas also announced the revival of the Palestine Liberation Organisation negotiating department, implying that he was ready to go into talks with Israel and accede to its terms. A senior Israeli defence spokesman said, “This is a very important internal decision by the Palestinians, which creates a new opportunity to relinquish the path of terror and return to the negotiating table.”

The decision to call new elections must lead to an escalation of the internecine warfare now raging between Hamas and Fatah. There is every possibility that Abbas will use this to declare a state of emergency for 30 days. This would allow him to assume special powers, including those of the current government.

Abbas’s announcement has already sparked renewed fighting between Hamas and Fatah. It directly followed the attempted assassination of Haniya. Hamas accused Mohammed Dahlan, warlord and former Fatah chief of internal security in Gaza, of orchestrating the assassination attempt when Haniya was crossing the border into Gaza from Egypt after a tour of the Middle East to seek economic aid. Haniya had been detained at the border on the orders of Israel’s Defence Minister, Amir Peretz, who instructed the European monitors at the crossing to refuse his re-entry into Gaza.

Following seven hours of negotiations, the Fatah border guards let Haniya through after he left the money he had collected in Egypt. But his detention brought more than 1,000 Hamas members to the checkpoint, and armed clashes broke out during which a bodyguard was killed and 26 people were injured, included Haniya’s son. Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh told Israel’s Army Radio that government officials made the right decision not to let Haniyeh bring the money into Gaza, adding that if he had been killed, “I wouldn’t put up a mourning tent.”

Last Monday, masked gunmen fired on the car carrying the three young children of Colonel Baha Balousha, to school in Gaza City, killing them and their driver. Balousha is a Fatah intelligence officer and a leading prison interrogator during a Fatah crackdown on Hamas during the late 1990s. On Wednesday, Fatah gunmen killed Bassam El-Farra, a 32-year-old commander of Hamas’s military wing and Sharia judge, in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. On Thursday, a gun battle broke out when Fatah security forces arrested Hisham Mukhaimer, a member of the Popular Resistance Committees, in Gaza City, in connection with the killing of the three young children. More than 40 Palestinians have been killed in factional fighting since March.

On Friday, the West Bank city of Ramallah became a battleground when Hamas supporters tried to march towards the town centre to celebrate the 19th anniversary of Hamas’s founding. They were met by a mass deployment of Fatah police, and 32 people were wounded by stones and gunfire. In Gaza City, masked Hamas gunmen battled with Fatah-allied police near a security post, a block from the home of Mohammed Dahlan.

A policy made in the USA

The Bush administration, once it came to power, opposed and sabotaged any negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. It supported Israel in its refusal to recognise Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat as a “partner for peace.” Arafat was kept under virtual house arrest and his government compound all but destroyed, after he refused to suppress the uprising that erupted after Ariel Sharon’s provocative visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000. This gave Sharon the green light to expand the Zionist settlements and launch attacks on the Palestinians when he subsequently came to power.

The White House favoured Abbas, a businessman, as prime minister, and Dahlan as his security chief, after both had indicated their willingness to crack down on militant Palestinian groups. Abbas was appointed as PM by Arafat on March 19, 2003­the very day Iraq was invaded.

At the time, Bush made a pretence of returning to Washington’s role as an “honest broker” in the long-running dispute and proposed the “Road Map” in late April in order to help British Prime Minister Tony Blair and various Arab regimes defend their support for the US-led war. While the Road Map reiterated the commitment to a Palestinian state, even beginning to implement its provisions was made conditional on the Palestinians ending all resistance to Israel. But Abbas, too, balked at the civil war that would have resulted from an attempt to impose the repressive measures demanded by Washington and Tel Aviv, and resigned in October.

On Arafat’s death in November 2004, the White House made clear that Abbas was the only acceptable candidate for the presidency. He assumed the post in January 2005.

By April 2004, Bush had effectively shelved his Road Map and accepted Sharon’s policy of “unilateral separation.” This meant drawing up Israel’s borders to permanently annex much of the West Bank and the whole of Jerusalem, leaving any future Palestinian state as little more than a few discontinuous Bantustans hemmed in behind an eight-metre-high concrete barrier.

A pattern was established in which Israel mounted repeated military assaults designed to provoke a violent response from militant groups that could be used as the pretext for jettisoning talks and tightening the border controls, road blocks and curfews that made the Palestinians’ lives unbearable. For its part, the US continuously reiterated that statehood was entirely dependent upon Abbas suppressing opposition to Israel.

But this policy was to backfire. Abbas’s close relations with the US, the increasing economic hardship imposed on the Palestinians by Israel and widespread government corruption only served to alienate the mass of the Palestinians from Fatah, and strengthen Hamas. As a result, Hamas won a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections in January.

The consistent response by the US and Israel has been to seek to overthrow the government and to stoke up the tensions between Hamas and Fatah in the hope of precipitating civil war. Washington ensured that international sanctions prevented any economic aid from reaching the Palestinian government, while Israel withheld $600 million in taxes due to the Palestinian Authority and threatened Hamas with the assassination of their leaders, including the prime minister himself.

Last summer, Israel launched a full-scale war on Gaza that killed more than 300 people in order to scupper efforts to secure the acceptance by Hamas of the so-called “Prisoners’ Charter,” which accepted a “two-state” solution that implicitly recognised Israel, and tried to facilitate a common command structure between Hamas and Fatah.

It now appears that the US and Israel are preparing to subcontract the task of suppressing the Palestinians to Fatah. Washington has encouraged Abbas to strengthen the power of the presidency to counter the Hamas government, and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she would ask Congress for tens of millions of dollars for Abbas’s security forces.

There is evidence that the US has been making preparations for the civil conflict that has been provoked by Abbbas’s announcement for months. A report in the November 18 Economist noted that Lt. Gen. Kenneth Dayton, America’s security envoy to the Palestinians, had said that the Quartet should give up any hopes of a unity government and back Abbas by whatever means necessary to help him take on Hamas. The Economist cites a diplomatic source as saying that the other three members of the Quartet balked at this because it would be “tantamount to backing one side in a future civil war.”

Abbas’s announcement is in line with the hostile response of the Bush administration and Israel to the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report that urges the US to make some concessions to the Palestinians as part of a wider initiative to stabilise the Middle East. The White House’s response echoes the dictum of Sharon: “When in crisis, escalate, escalate, escalate.” Nothing short of complete submission by the Palestinians to Washington’s dictates will do: the time has come for Abbas and neighbouring Arab bourgeoisies to impose this on the long-suffering Palestinians by brute force on Israel’s behalf.

To this end, according to an earlier report in the November 4 edition of the Economist, the US is already financing a “training camp” near the West Bank city of Jericho for the Palestinians’ Force 17, for new recruits for the presidential guard, as part of its plans for “security reform.” Israel has sanctioned the transfer of heavy weaponry from Jordan in the form of the Badr Brigade, a Jordanian-based division of the Palestinian Liberation Army, which operates largely under Jordanian command, and allowed Fatah’s militia, Tanzim, to rearm.

The Economist cites Abbas’s advisors as saying that these troops would provide the backbone of a force of tens of thousands to take on Hamas, whose own forces are said to number 5,700 in Gaza and 1,500 in the West Bank.

source:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/gaza-d18.shtml

===

-muslim voice-
______________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

Torture Is Now Part of the American Soul

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

Torture Is Now Part of the American Soul

By George Monbiot, The Guardian. Posted December 18, 2006.

You might have imagined that every possible means of inflicting pain had already been devised. But never underestimate the human capacity for invention. United States interrogators have found a new way of destroying a human being.

After thousands of years of practice, you might have imagined that every possible means of inflicting pain had already been devised. But you should never underestimate the human capacity for invention. United States interrogators, we now discover, have found a new way of destroying a human being.

In early December, defense lawyers acting for Jose Padilla, a US citizen detained as an “enemy combatant,” released a video showing a mission fraught with deadly risk — taking him to the prison dentist. A group of masked guards in riot gear shackled his legs and hands, blindfolded him with black-out goggles and shut off his hearing with headphones, then marched him down the prison corridor.

Is Padilla really that dangerous? Far from it: his warders describe him as so docile and inactive that he could be mistaken for “a piece of furniture.” The purpose of these measures appeared to be to sustain the regime under which he had lived for over three years: total sensory deprivation. He had been kept in a blacked-out cell, unable to see or hear anything beyond it. Most importantly, he had no human contact, except for being bounced off the walls from time to time by his interrogators. As a result, he appears to have lost his mind. I don’t mean this metaphorically. I mean that his mind is no longer there.

The forensic psychiatrist who examined him says that he “does not appreciate the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him, is unable to render assistance to counsel, and has impairments in reasoning as the result of a mental illness, i.e., post-traumatic stress disorder, complicated by the neuropsychiatric effects of prolonged isolation.” Jose Padilla appears to have been lobotomised: not medically, but socially.

If this was an attempt to extract information, it was ineffective: the authorities held him without charge for three and half years. Then, threatened by a supreme court ruling, they suddenly dropped their claims that he was trying to detonate a dirty bomb. They have now charged him with some vague and lesser offences to do with support for terrorism.

He is unlikely to be the only person subjected to this regime. Another “enemy combatant,” Ali al-Marri, claims to have been subject to the same total isolation and sensory deprivation, in the same naval prison in South Carolina. God knows what is being done to people who have disappeared into the CIA’s foreign oubliettes.

That the US tortures, routinely and systematically, while prosecuting its “war on terror” can no longer be seriously disputed. The Detainee Abuse and Accountability Project (DAA), a coalition of academics and human rights groups, has documented the abuse or killing of 460 inmates of US military prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay. This, it says, is necessarily a conservative figure: many cases will remain unrecorded. The prisoners were beaten, raped, forced to abuse themselves, forced to maintain “stress positions,” and subjected to prolonged sleep deprivation and mock executions.

The New York Times reports that prisoners held by the US military at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan were made to stand for up to 13 days with their hands chained to the ceiling, naked, hooded and unable to sleep. The Washington Post alleges that prisoners at the same airbase were “commonly blindfolded and thrown into walls, bound in painful positions, subjected to loud noises and deprived of sleep” while kept, like Jose Padilla and the arrivals at Guantanamo Bay, “in black hoods or spray-painted goggles.”

Alfred McCoy, professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, argues that the photographs released from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq reflect standard CIA torture techniques: “stress positions, sensory deprivation, and sexual humiliation.” The famous picture of the hooded man standing on a box, with wires attached to his fingers, shows two of these techniques being used at once. Unable to see, he has no idea how much time has passed or what might be coming next. He stands in a classic stress position — maintained for several hours, it causes excruciating pain. He appears to have been told that if he drops his arms he will be electrocuted. What went wrong at Abu Ghraib is that someone took photos. Everything else was done by the book.

Neither the military nor the civilian authorities have broken much sweat in investigating these crimes. A few very small fish have been imprisoned; a few others have been fined or reduced in rank; in most cases the authorities have either failed to investigate or failed to prosecute. The DAA points out that no officer has yet been held to account for torture practised by his subordinates. US torturers appear to enjoy impunity, until they are stupid enough to take pictures of each other.

But Padilla’s treatment also reflects another glorious American tradition: solitary confinement. Some 25,000 US prisoners are currently held in isolation — a punishment only rarely used in other democracies. In some places, like the federal prison in Florence, Colorado, they are kept in sound-proofed cells and might scarcely see another human being for years on end. They may touch or be touched by no one. Some people have been kept in solitary confinement in the United States for more than 20 years.

At Pelican Bay in California, where 1,200 people are held in the isolation wing, inmates are confined to tiny cells for 22-and-a half hours a day, then released into an “exercise yard” for “recreation.” The yard consists of a concrete well about 12 feet in length with walls 20 feet high and a metal grill across the sky. The recreation consists of pacing back and forth, alone.

The results are much as you would expect. As National Public Radio reveals, 10% of the isolation prisoners at Pelican Bay are now in the psychiatric wing, and there’s a waiting list. Prisoners in solitary confinement, according to Dr Henry Weinstein, a psychiatrist who studies them, suffer from “memory loss to severe anxiety to hallucinations to delusions … under the severest cases of sensory deprivation, people go crazy.” People who went in bad and dangerous come out mad as well. The only two studies conducted so far — in Texas and Washington state — both show that the recidivism rates for prisoners held in solitary confinement are worse than for those who were allowed to mix with other prisoners. If we were to judge the United States by its penal policies, we would perceive a strange beast: a Christian society that believes in neither forgiveness nor redemption.

From this delightful experiment, US interrogators appear to have extracted a useful lesson: if you want to erase a man’s mind, deprive him of contact with the rest of the world. This has nothing to do with obtaining information: torture of all kinds — physical or mental — produces the result that people will say anything to make it end. It is about power, and the thrilling discovery that in the right conditions one man’s power over another is unlimited. It is an indulgence which turns its perpetrators into everything they claim to be confronting.

President Bush maintains that he is fighting a war against threats to the “values of civilized nations”: terror, cruelty, barbarism and extremism. He asked his nation’s interrogators to discover where these evils are hidden. They should congratulate themselves. They appear to have succeeded.

source:
http://www.alternet.org/rights/45613/

===

-muslim voice-
______________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

European Muslims face rising ‘Islamophobia’

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

European Muslims face rising ‘Islamophobia’ – Report

18/12/2006 – 13:50:10

EUMC Media Release
Vienna, 18 December 2006
Issue: 17-06-EN

---

The report “Muslims in the European Union: Discrimination and Islamophobia”, published by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) today, presents available data on discrimination affecting Muslims in employment, education and housing. Manifestations of Islamophobia range from verbal threats through to physical attacks on people and property. The report stresses that the extent and nature of discrimination and Islamophobic incidents against European Muslims remain under-documented and under-reported. The EUMC report recommends therefore that Member States improve the reporting of incidents and implement measures to counter discrimination and racism more effectively. Discrimination is illegal and could undermine Muslims’ sense of belonging in the EU.“This report presents available data showing the extent of the discrimination being suffered by European Muslims,” said Beate Winkler, Director of the EUMC. “It underlines their vulnerability to discrimination and demonstrates that greater efforts need to be made to ensure that all European Muslims enjoy the right to equal treatment and the same quality of life as other Europeans. The report makes it clear that Muslims, along with other migrant and minority groups, frequently suffer different forms of discrimination which reduce their employment opportunities, and affect their educational achievement. This can give rise to hopelessness, and could undermine Muslims’ sense of belonging in the EU.”The report gives examples of Islamophobic acts, ranging from verbal abuse to physical attacks and arson. “Such behaviour is illegal. Firm political leadership is needed to ensure equal treatment of all Europeans, whatever their background,” said Beate Winkler.

The report highlights that only one Member State – the United Kingdom – publishes criminal justice data which specifically identify Muslims as victims of hate crime incidents.

Anastasia Crickley, Chair of the EUMC Management Board, noted that yet again it had proved difficult to measure the precise nature of the discrimination suffered by European Muslims because of poor or missing official data: “The work of the EUMC in helping governments provide effective policies in the area of discrimination and xenophobia depends on knowing what problems we face. The failure of many Member Stats to collect effective data means that it is very difficult to develop workable policies to counter racism.”

The EUMC lists many examples of good practice by national or local governments, NGOs and others, drawn from several Member States. The report, however, proposes a number of further practical steps to be taken. The EUMC finds that improving educational achievement, granting equal treatment in employment, ensuring equal access to housing, and encouraging participation in public life are further key issues to be tackled, particularly at the local and regional level. The EUMC calls on all Member States to enforce the EU Anti-Discrimination Directives, and to ensure that the Equality Bodies which have been set up in each Member State are adequately resourced.

The report presents an overview of the situation of Muslims in the 25 EU Member States and follows EUMC publications on the situation of Jews, Roma and other groups in the EU. It presents available research and analyses statistical data. It shows that Muslims, as a group, are over-represented in low-paying sectors of the economy. Their educational achievement, in general, falls below average and their unemployment rates are higher than average. They are often disproportionately represented in areas with poorer housing conditions.

The EUMC is publishing a further study on “Perceptions of Discrimination and Islamophobia” at the same time. This study is based on in-depth interviews with members of Muslim organisations and Muslim youth groups in ten EU Member States. The interviews present a snapshot of the opinions, feelings, fears, frustrations, and also the hopes for the future shared by many Muslims in the EU.

“Integration is a two-way process. Many European Muslims acknowledge that they need to do more to engage with wider society. At the same time Europe’s political leaders must make a stronger effort to promote meaningful intercultural dialogue and tackle racism, discrimination and marginalisation more effectively,” said Beate Winkler. “Discrimination and racism are illegal. The key challenge is to strengthen cohesion in European societies. This means respecting diversity, upholding fundamental rights and guaranteeing equal opportunities for all of us.”

“Muslims in the European Union: Discrimination and Islamophobia” and “Perceptions of Discrimination and Islamophobia” can be downloaded at http://eumc.europa.eu/ from 18 December 2006 noon.

source:
http://eumc.europa.eu/eumc/index.php?fuseaction=content.dsp_cat_content&contentid=4582ddc822d41&catid=43d8bc25bc89d〈=EN

===

-muslim voice-
______________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW

US Terrorize The World – 28 Dzulqaidah 1427 H (19.12.06)

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

=== News Update ===

European Muslims face rising ‘Islamophobia’ – Report

Muslims across Europe are confronting a rise in ‘Islamophobia’ ranging from violent attacks to discrimination in the job and housing markets, a wide-ranging European Union report said today.

The study, compiled by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, urged European authorities to strengthen policies on integration.
http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/?jp=CWIDSNIDGBKF&rss=rss1

full report can be downloaded at: http://www.eumc.eu.int/eumc/index.php

===

9/11 : Torture Is Now Part of the American Soul

You might have imagined that every possible means of inflicting pain had already been devised. But never underestimate the human capacity for invention. United States interrogators have found a new way of destroying a human being.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/45613/

===

The terrorist you’ve never heard of : Hypocrisy of US Justice

Unlike alleged al-Qaida terrorist Jose Padilla, right-wing “dirty bomber” Demetrius Crocker was investigated and prosecuted the old-fashioned constitutional way.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15936.htm

===

Why isn’t the dog barking in Israeli Northern Iraq?

See what they’re doing? Do you see what they’re not doing?

They’re not telling us anything about Israeli (err) Kurdish northern Iraq.

What is going on there? Any “sectarian violence” (wink wink – nod nod!)? Any ministry policemen costumed “vendettas” happening there?

Kurds and Israelis are all fat – healthy and living the life in full serviced (electricity, water, medical) comfort on top of their stores of accumulated killing commodities protected under the 15 year “no-fly” zone. They probably got cable TV and their homes are warm.

Southern Iraq is not so chosen.
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2006%20Opinion%20Editorials/December/18%20o/Why%20isn%5C‘t%20the%20dog%20barking%20in%20Israeli%20Northern%20Iraq%20By%20Terry%20Thurber.htm

===

Former U.S. Detainee in Iraq Recalls Torment

Detainee 200343 was among thousands of people who have been held and released by the American military in Iraq, and his account of his ordeal has provided one of the few detailed views of the Pentagon’s detention operations since the abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15931.htm

===

It’s Either Occupation or Education

Two in three children in Iraq have simply stopped going to school, according to a government report.
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/iraq/000512.php

===

Iraq : Six brutal truths about Iraq

General William Odom, one of the earliest advocates of an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, attacks some of the mythologies that are interfering with an honest debate about how to proceed in the Middle East and says the media have failed to recognize dramatic changes in the region.
http://niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=00146

===

US Could Face Catastrophic Military Defeat In Iraq

US forces attempting to defend a zone of occupation deep within landlocked Iraq now face an extraordinarily critical situation. These forces are wholly dependent on a supply line based on two roads on either side of the Euphrates which stretch some 400 miles (about 650 km) from Kuwait north towards Baghdad. It is along these roads that gasoline, food, ammunition, and all other sinews of war must be transported by truck convoy. Two roads of 400 miles each add up to 800 miles of highway to defend ­ an impossible proposition in the face of a sustained people’s war by the Shiites of the lower Euphrates.
http://www.rense.com/general74/cara.htm

===

Iraq : Addendum to Clausewitz

It’s all but official: The war in Iraq is lost. Report after leaked report says so. Everybody in Washington knows it except that draft-dodging ferret in the White House. Politicians scurry to avoid the blame. One day soon people will ask aloud: How did we let 3000 GIs die for the weak ego of a pampered liar and his desperate need to prove he’s half the man his father was?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reed/reed116.html

===

Rumsfeld has one last lie for the road

I’m not going down that negative road that finished off old Bob McNamara’s legacy. What a disappointment – this is a guy who could sell us the Vietnam War and then blows it by suddenly getting all squishy about the truth when he’s long retired. Jeez Louise, he was once my role model. No secretary of defense ever sold a losing war better.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15934.htm

===

Soldiers Call for Iraq Withdrawal

For the first time since Vietnam, an organized, robust movement of active-duty US military personnel has publicly surfaced to oppose a war in which they are serving. Those involved plan to petition Congress to withdraw American troops from Iraq.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15933.htm

===

Democrat backs Iraq troop increase

The senate’s top Democrat politician has offered qualified support for a plan to increase US forces in Iraq, saying it would be acceptable as part of a broader strategy to bring combat forces home by 2008.
http://tinyurl.com/w58qt

===

Bush administration elaborates plans for bloodbath in Iraq

Reports on the Bush administration’s discussions on a change of course in Iraq indicate that Washington is preparing a major new bloodbath as part of a desperate attempt to salvage its nearly four-year-old bid to conquer the oil-rich country.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/iraq-d18.shtml

===

Powell, Baker, Hamilton … Thanks for Nothing! Washington Refuses to End the War

When Colin Powell endorsed the Iraq Study Group report during his Dec. 17 appearance on “Face the Nation,” it was another curtain call for a tragic farce.

Four years ago, “moderates” like Powell were making the invasion of Iraq possible. Now, in the guise of speaking truth to power, Powell and ISG co-chairs James Baker and Lee Hamilton are refueling the U.S. war effort by depicting it as a problem of strategy and management.

But the U.S. war effort is a problem of lies and slaughter.
http://www.counterpunch.org/solomon12182006.html

===

Gates sworn in as US defense secretary

Former CIA Director Robert Gates was officially sworn in as U.S. secretary of defense on Monday, replacing embattled Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, who was under fire for his handling of the Iraq war.
http://tinyurl.com/y7td8a

===

Former Iraqi Cabinet minister escapes police custody in Baghdad

A dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen and the country’s only postwar Cabinet minister to be convicted of corruption has escaped police custody for a second time, an Iraqi official said Monday.
http://tinyurl.com/yyn533

===

Iraqi ex-minister spirited from police custody

Plain-clothes Americans have taken a former Iraqi electricity minister, who is a dual U.S. citizen, from Iraqi police custody where he was awaiting trial on corruption charges, Iraqi officials said on Monday.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15932.htm

===

Iraq : Bush has lost battle for U.S. hearts, minds

Cheektowaga, N.Y.; Thibodaux, La.; Pflugerville, Texas; Presque Isle, Maine; Westerville, Ohio; Marysville, Wash.; Redding, Calif.; Stokesdale, N.C.; Bapchule, Ariz.; Oxford, Ala.

These are the hometowns of 10 American troops killed recently in Iraq, 10 of almost 3,000 fatalities. And there will be many more. The good folks of Pflugerville and Westerville and Marysville no longer believe their sons and daughters are dying for a good reason, but President Bush seems in no mood to hear them.
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/8999347827896493055

===

Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Sunday, 17 December 2006.

• US warplane kills two civilians, wounds three more in raid on home near al-Fallujah Saturday night.
• Saturday evening gun battle in al-Fallujah leaves US soldier reported dead; Americans respond to attack by killing two Iraqi civilians in wild gunfire.
• Resistance attacks Iraqi puppet troops in al-Fallujah.
• Resistance destroys US vehicle in battle in al-Fallujah.
• Resistance bomb wounds puppet “National Guardsmen” in Baghdad.
• Two US troops reported dead, three severely burned in Resistance bomb attack in al-Hadithah Saturday evening.
• US soldier reported killed by Resistance sharpshooter in al-Qa’im midday Saturday.
• Iraqi Resistance drives US forces out of al-Husaybah on Syrian border, takes control of town, destroying American military barriers and headquarters.
• Jaysh al-Mahdi gunmen kidnap Sunnis from Iraqi Red Crescent building in Baghdad midday Sunday.
• Resistance traps Jaysh al-Mahdi gunmen with fake checkpoint Sunday morning.
• Resistance bomb disables US Humvee late Saturday night.
• Puppet police wounded in Resistance bombing Saturday night.
• Resistance men battle puppet “Wolf Brigade” in al-Mada’in Sunday morning.
• Resistance bombards US consulate, Amercian base in al-Hillah.
• Rocket attack Saturday morning shuts down al-Basrah Airport.
• Arab tribal leader assassinated in al-Basrah, tribes blame Jaysh al-Mahdi militia.
• Resistance bombards Jaysh al-Mahdi headquarters in al-Mahmudiyah Friday.
• Iraqi Resistance forces attacked a puppet police checkpoint in al-Musayyib
• Rocket attack Saturday morning shuts down al-Basrah Airport.

http://www.albasrah.net/pages/mod.php?mod=art&lapage=../en_articles_2006/1206/iraqiresistancereport_171206.htm

===

Taliban Plans ‘Takeover’ by 2010

The Taliban organization has set the year 2010 as its deadline for the complete takeover of Afghanistan, an intelligence source revealed, according to the Pakistani daily The Nation.
http://themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=16080

===

Annals of the Damned Human Race: Liberating Afghans, Body and Soul

Let us turn once again to the other war, the “good war” in Afghanistan, where four years ago George W. Bush famously liberated the suffering Afghan people from the clutches of the militant Islamic extremists of the Taliban into the hands of the militant Islamic extremists of the Northern Alliance (and their U.S.-picked frontman, Hamid “Why, Yes, I Did Once Work for Oil Barons, Why Do You Ask?” Karzai).

In the Good War – long touted as a success not only by the compulsive liars of the Administration but also by the fat and sassy conventional wisdomists who gorge themselves on eager lappings of Bushist cud – the fighting is now far more brutal and intense than it was in the brief autumn campaign in 2001 that led to overwhelming “victory.” In fact, more than 1,000 innocent civilians have been killed by US and NATO bombs in the last year alone, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=966&Itemid=135#jc_allComments

===

Abbas attempts a political coup on behalf of Washington

Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah president of the Palestinian Authority, has announced that he will dissolve the recently elected parliament and call new presidential and parliamentary elections. Abbas aide Yasser Abed Rabbo told Associated Press that the president would set the date within a week, and that new elections would be held within three months.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/gaza-d18.shtml

Note also that the US is training the extremely corrupt Fatah to fight democratically elected Hamas. See
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/12/14/MNGIPMV3N61.DTL&type=politics

===

JORDANIAN PUPPET KING CREATES DISUNITY CALLING FOR UNITY

Why can’t the ‘outsiders’ just mind their own business? Why does Bush, Blair and now King Abdullah, in true puppet form, have to meddle in the inner politics of the Palestinian people? Abdullah supports Abbas in the name of unity…. is he not aware of the FACT that it was Haniyeh and his party that were ELECTED to represent the Palestinians?

Abdullah who attained his office by appointment by his late father might not be aware how elections work… the party that receives the most votes is elected….. simple as that!

In the case of Palestine it was Hamas…. not who Bush, Blair or Abdullah supports ‘in the name of unity’…..

Time for the ‘outsiders’ to literally mind their own business and let the Palestinians decide again who they want to represent them. So, what I am basically saying is that ‘in the name of unity’… SHADDUP!!!

The following is from Ynet about the King’s support of Abbas….
http://desertpeace.blogspot.com/2006/12/jordanian-puppet-king-creates-disunity.html

===

Counterproductive U.S. “Advice” to Palestinians – Slide of Palestinian divide into the brink of a US sponsored civil war

RAMALLAH. December 18, 2006 – Regardless of good will or bad faith, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ decision to go without national consensus to early presidential and parliamentary elections was divisive, counterproductive and conforms to U.S.-Israeli plans to remove the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” from power or pressure it into accepting what its rival Fatah had accepted: A peace process on their dictated terms and conditions.
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2006/12/18/p13028#more13028

===

Blair to Peretz: Help strengthen Abbas

British Prime Minister Tony Blair requested of Israel’s Defense Minister Amir Peretz to help construct Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ abilities in a meeting between the two.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3341706,00.html

===

Palestine on the brink of civil war?

Since the Palestinian elections on 25 January 2006 brought a resounding Hamas victory, Fatah and its US and Israeli allies have been working to destabilize the democratically-elected government.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6243.shtml

===

Cancer didn’t kill my mother, the occupation did

Early this morning, I received the sad news that my mother (54 years old) passed away after serious health complications last night.

I am sending this message to you and many other people around the world because I promised my mother before she died to let everybody know that it wasn’t cancer that killed her, it was the occupation.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6212.shtml

===

Hamas ready for peaceful coexistence with Israel within the borders of 1967.

A Must Read Interview with Hamas-Leader Khaled Meshaal.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15941.htm

===

Will The Israeli Palestinian Conflict Ever End?

In the current climate it is unlikely that Israel will go all out for peace. It appears that their every action is aimed at guaranteeing continued U.S support. That includes continuing the conflict and making the Palestinians look like –terrorists– the bad guys.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15938.htm

===

EU to Israel: Stop violating int’l law

European Council urges Israel to release detained Hamas ministers alongside release of abducted IDF soldier Shalit; ‘Israel must put an end to all activities which are contrary to international law, including settlement activities and construction of barrier on Palestinian land

Israel will, predictably, ignore this completely.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3341487,00.html

===

MEDIA BASHING OF JIMMY CARTER UNPROFESSIONAL AND UNFAIR, ISLAMIC CONGRESS SAYS

– NEW WEB PAGE ON CARTER AND BOOK BEING CREATED FOR THOSE WHO SEEKING TRUTH ABOUT ISRAEL- PALESTINE
– LATEST BOOK TO BE GIVEN TO CIC DONORS

The Canadian Islamic Congress said today that it plans to give complimentary copies of “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” to all donors who contribute $100 or more:
http://www.canadianislamiccongress.com/support.php

CIC has also created a permanent web page where it will regularly publish Carter’s recent articles, authorized excerpts from his books, reviews, media coverage and related material:
http://www.canadianislamiccongress.com/democracy/carter.php

CONTACTS:
Mrs. Wahida Valiante,
(905) 771-1023
E-mail: nvp@canadianislamiccongress.com

Montreal Muslim News Network – http://www.montrealmuslimnews.net

===

U.N. peacekeepers accused of rape

Reports that peacekeepers raped teenage girls have surfaced in Haiti, where a United Nations mission so far had avoided the sexual abuse scandals that have sullied the international organization’s reputation in other parts of the world.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20061217-122119-4767r.htm

===

Nuclear Weapon Nearly Detonated in the United States

A watchdog group charges a nuclear warhead nearly exploded in Texas when it was being dismantled at the government’s Pantex facility near Amarillo.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/12/15/15pantex.html

===

Tucson military recruiters ran cocaine

Two military recruiting stations sit side-by-side there, one run by the Army, the other by the Marines. Between them, a total of seven recruiters were on the take, secretly accepting bribes to transport cocaine, even as most spent their days visiting local high schools.
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/relatedstories/160717.php

===

US robberies, murders on the rise

Violent US crime such as robberies and murders rose by 3.7 per cent in the first half of 2006.

I wonder if it was mostly in the “gun free” zones.
http://rawstory.com/news/2006/US_robberies_murders_on_the_rise_12182006.html

===

More Americans hungry, homeless in 2006

More Americans went homeless and hungry in 2006 than the year before and children made up almost a quarter of those in emergency shelters, said a report released on Thursday by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The US government has no right to send tax dollars to foreign nations while there are American women and children sleeping in alleys and eating out of trash bins.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article15919.htm

===

 

-muslim voice-
______________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW