bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
Roots of hatred in Zionist ideology
The recent triumph of extreme right-wing elements in the Israeli elections is not an accident, but is the logical outcome of a century of hatred in Zionist ideology, argues Salim Nazzal*
Peres (right) and Netanyahu talk about the next Israeli government
In 1939 Europe turned a blind eye to the rise of Nazism. The British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, believed that a policy of appeasement would work with Hitler. It did not. Hitler attacked Poland, giving the world a costly lesson — a policy of appeasement does not work with fascism. The outcome is well known: Europe was ruined, and around 50 million people lost their lives. Yet, thanks to the Norwegian “home front” resistance, Hitler was deprived of the material needed to manufacture the nuclear bomb. Had he acquired enough material to do so, the history of humanity might have been dramatically different to what we know today.
The fact that Hitler was democratically elected by the German people did not legitimate his policy of mass murder; in the same way the Israeli election of fascists and war criminals should not legitimate the Zionists’ policy of mass murder. However, if Hitler is the starkest example of a fascist politician brought to power by a democratic electoral system, the recent Israeli election is another more recent example of an election that brought another known fascist, Avigdor Lieberman, widely viewed as the Israeli duplicate of contemporary European fascists like Jörg Haider or Jean Marie Le Pen, to power.
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
Jaffa: from eminence to ethnic cleansing
Sami Abu Shehadeh & Fadi Shbaytah, The Electronic Intifada
A view from the sea at Jaffa looking east onto the city, 1898-1914. (Matson Collection)
Feb 27, 2009Jaffa was the largest city in historic Palestine during the years of the British mandate, with a population of more than 80,000 Palestinians in addition to the 40,000 persons living in the towns and villages in its immediate vicinity. In the period between the UN Partition resolution (UNGA 181) of 29 November 1947, and the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel, Zionist military forces displaced 95 percent of Jaffa’s indigenous Arab Palestinian population. Jaffa’s refugees accounted for 15 percent of Palestinian refugees in that fateful year, and today they are dispersed across the globe, still banned from returning by the state responsible for their displacement.
Jaffa was the epicenter of the Palestinian economy before the 1948 Nakba. Beginning in the early 19th century, the people of Jaffa had cultivated citrus groves, particularly oranges, on their land. International demand for Jaffa oranges propelled the city onto the world stage, earning the city an important place in the global economy. By the 1930s, Jaffa was exporting tens of millions of citrus crates to the rest of the world, which provided thousands of jobs for the people of the city and its environs, and linking them to the major commercial centers of the Mediterranean coast and the European continent.
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
Afghan: Taliban has 10,000 to 15,000 fighters
By ANNE GEARAN AP Military Writer
AP Photo/Allauddin Khan
WASHINGTON (AP) — Afghanistan’s interior minister says there may be between 10,000 and 15,000 Taliban fighting inside his country, and the insurgent group is operating across about 17 provinces. Mohammad Hanif Atmar offered a rare estimate of the size of his government’s most organized and potent opponent during a visit to Washington. A large delegation of senior Afghan officials was in the U.S. capital this week, along with a delegation from Pakistan.
Both groups were weighing in as the new Obama administration forms a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan and a related policy for Pakistan. Afghan officials say they told their hosts that a new strategy must include better cooperation from Pakistan, where Taliban and other militants have command operations.
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
US says enemy fire caused deadly air collision in Iraq
AFP
Feb 27, 2009
BAGHDAD (AFP) — The US military said on Friday that four soldiers killed last month when two helicopters crashed in northern Iraq had been the target of enemy fire.
An investigation “determined that the two OH-58 helicopters involved in the January 25 incident in Kirkuk province were engaged and struck by hostile fire,” army spokesman for north Iraq Lieutenant Colonel David Doherty told AFP.
“While executing evasive manoeuvres in response to the hostile fire, the two OH-58s collided, resulting in the catastrophic loss of both aircraft and crews,” he said, without elaborating on what had been fired at them.
An insurgent group claimed responsibility for downing the helicopters which were on a reconnaissance mission at the time, but the US military initially denied they had come under fire.
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
Enemy fire caused copter crash that killed Fort Drum soldiers
by The Associated Press
Friday February 27, 2009, 8:34 AM
FORT DRUM, N.Y. (AP) — Military officials now say the fatal collision of two Army helicopters in Iraq last month was caused by enemy fire.
The Defense Department initially said the cause of the Jan. 26 crash near Kirkuk didn’t appear to be the result of an attack. But on Thursday, Army officials at Fort Drum, where the pilots were based, said the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters collided and crashed while evading enemy fire.
An Army report says forensic evidence revealed that enemy fire led to the collision.
Pilots Philip Windorski, Joshua Tillery, Matthew Kelley and Benjamin Todd were warrant officers in the 10th Mountain Division’s 10th Combat Aviation Brigade.
A ceremony honoring the pilots was held Thursday evening at Fort Drum.
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
Army: Enemy fire caused copter collision in Iraq
2/27/2009, 12:31 p.m. EST The Associated Press
FORT DRUM, N.Y. (AP) — Enemy fire caused two U.S. Army helicopters to collide in Iraq last month, killing four American pilots from Fort Drum, officials at the northern New York military post said Friday.
The Defense Department initially said the cause of the Jan. 26 crashes near Kirkuk didn’t appear to be an attack. But on Thursday, the Army said forensic evidence revealed that the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters collided while evading enemy fire and crashed.
The details were announced after a memorial service for the soldiers at Fort Drum, where they were based.
“The two OH-58D helicopters were engaged and struck by hostile fire while conducting a reconnaissance mission,” Fort Drum spokeswoman Julie Cupernall said Friday.
According to a report from the U.S. Army Aircraft Shoot Down Assessment Team and the Joint Combat Assessment Team, the aircraft were hit while maneuvering to evade the fire and collided, Cupernall said.
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
US solider killed in Baghdad
Military and Security 2/27/2009 1:45:00 PM
BAGHDAD, Feb 27 (KUNA) — A US soldier assigned to the Multi-National Force (MNF) died on Thursday due to injuries he sustained while conducting a patrol in Baghdad, the MNF said in a statement Friday.
The statement did not reveal further details, noting that the incident is currently under investigation.
The soldier’s name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin, the statement added.
The death toll of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003 has jumped to 4,252, including 15 soldiers killed in February alone.
(end) ahh.sab KUNA 271345 Feb 09NNNN
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
CIA’s secrete Operations worldwide and drug money
Farzana Shah
Feb 25, 2009
In Afghanistan US/NATO put blame on Taliban for the poppy cultivation in Afghanistan for financing their resistance to allied forces. Ironically, it was only in Taliban era when the world had seen a sharp decline in opium crop in Afghanistan. Taliban banned opium cultivation nationwide. A more important question is how and when this business of drug production and trafficking started in region? CIA has been using drug money since long to generate money to support its operations all over the world. It did not start in Afghanistan it was brought here after experimenting somewhere else.
This is something which is not a lead story in international media for obvious reasons despite the fact it is harming millions of lives around the globe.
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
Prisoners tortured to death
Stephen C. Webster
Feb 25, 2009
The American Civil Liberties Union has released previously classified excerpts of a government report on harsh interrogation techniques used in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. These previously unreported pages detail repeated use of “abusive” behavior, even to the point of prisoner deaths.
Prisoners tortured to deathThe documents, obtained by the ACLU under a Freedom of Information Act request, contain a report by Vice Admiral Albert T. Church, who was tapped to conduct a comprehensive review of Defense Department interrogation operations. Church specifically calls out interrogations at Bagram Air base in Afghanistan as “clearly abusive, and clearly not in keeping with any approved interrogation policy or guidance.”
The ACLU’s release comes on the same day as a major FOIA document dump be three other leading human rights groups. Documents which reveal the Pentagon ran secret prisons in Bagram and Iraq, that it cooperated with the CIA’s “ghost detention” program and that Defense personnel delayed a prisoner’s release to avoid bad press.
Former judge wants to bar Muslims from scholarships
Updated Wed. Feb. 25 2009 12:14 PM ET
Geoff Nixon, CTV.ca News
A retired judge wants two Ontario universities to bar Muslim students from being awarded scholarships he has established, though the spokesperson for one institution says her school won’t support a proposal that “flies in the face of everything we stand for.”
Paul Staniszewski said he objects to the “medieval violence” used by the Taliban — such as when Taliban militants recently kidnapped and beheaded Polish engineer Piotr Stanczak — and he wishes to “disqualify” Muslim students from receiving financial aid he has paid for.
“I’m reacting to what’s going on to people who aren’t even soldiers, who are having their heads beheaded and this stuff is shown on the TVs and everything else,” Staniszewski told CTV.ca in a phone interview from his Tecumseh, Ont., home, just outside of Windsor.
“I am doing the same thing these people are doing, except I’m not cutting off heads, I’m cutting off applications for help in their studies,” he added later in the interview.
Back in March 2008 Atlas Shrugs blog ran a story entitled “GET OFF MY BUS I NEED TO PRAY!” The title linked to a “news report” from the British tabloid news paper The Sun.
According to the Sun the story went something like this: Muslim bus driver in London kicks passengers off his bus in order that he can pray. Keeps them waiting and then lets them back on after he has done his “Muslim thing.”
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
Charges dropped in killing seen on video
Feb 26, 2009 11:34 AM
Rosie DiManno Columnist
View an interactive map of homicides in the Greater Toronto Area since 2005.
Tens of thousands watched the killing of 18-year-old Abdikarim Ahmed Abdikarim, but few apparently came forward to help police build up a case worthy of prosecution.
And today, almost a year after the brutal, brazen crime, first-degree murder charges were withdrawn against two men.
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
VIDEO: Israeli snipers are using Palestinians and internationals as target practice
Watching this video should outrage all of us. Israeli snipers are using Palestinians and
internationals as target practice, and it is only a matter of time before more are murdered.
A study of public opinion in predominantly Muslim countries reveals that very large majorities continue to renounce the use of attacks on civilians as a means of pursuing political goals. At the same time large majorities agree with al Qaeda’s goal of pushing the United States to remove its military forces from all Muslim countries and substantial numbers, in some cases majorities, approve of attacks on US troops in Muslim countries.
People in majority-Muslim countries express mixed feelings about al Qaeda and other Islamist groups that use violence, perhaps due to this combination of support for al Qaeda’s goals and disapproval of its terrorist methods.
Kate Winslet’s Academy Award for Best Actress in The Reader surely disappointed and outraged Ron Rosenbaum. Amid the torrent of nonsense glutting U.S. media since the movie award nominations were announced, Rosenbaum’s objections to The Reader were far more substantive and accusatory.
In his Slate column, Rosenbaum attacked the “essential metaphorical thrust” of the film, which he said aimed “to exculpate Nazi-era Germans from knowing complicity in the Final Solution.” Rosenbaum decried the notion of honoring “a film that asks us to empathize with an unrepentant mass murderer and intimates that ‘ordinary Germans’ were ignorant of the extermination until after the war…”
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A study of public opinion in predominantly Muslim countries reveals that very large majorities continue to renounce the use of attacks on civilians as a means of pursuing political goals. At the same time large majorities agree with al Qaeda’s goal of pushing the United States to remove its military forces from all Muslim countries and substantial numbers, in some cases majorities, approve of attacks on US troops in Muslim countries.
Muslim in Suffer 