William Bowles.info

Iraq Vets: Coverage of Atrocities Is Too Little, Too Late
Dahr Jamail
April 13, 2010 – The WikiLeaks video footage from Iraq taken from an Apache helicopter in July 2007 showing soldiers killing 12 people and wounding two children has caused an explosion of media coverage. But many Iraq vets feel it is too little and too late. In contrast to most of the coverage that favors the military’s stated position of forgiving the soldiers responsible and citing that they followed the Rules of Engagement (ROE), Iraq war veterans who have spoken to the media previously about atrocities carried out against innocent Iraqis have largely been ignored by the mainstream media in the United States…

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War Crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan
Robert Dreyfuss
April 13, 2010 – War crimes, massacres, and, as Al Jazeera properly calls it, “collateral murder,” are all part of the US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. The release last week of the Wikileaks video, thirty-eight grisly minutes long, of US airmen casually slaughtering a dozen Iraqis in 2007 — including two Reuters newsmen — puts it into focus not because it shows us something we didn’t know, but because we can watch it unfold in real time. Real people, flesh and blood, gunned down from above in a hellish rain of fire. The events in Iraq, nearly three years old, were repeated this week in Afghanistan, when trigger-happy US soldiers slaughtered five Afghans cruising along on a huge, comfortable civilian bus near Kandahar…

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Ethnic Cleansing By Any Other Name
Changes in Israeli Military Orders Effective Today Target Palestinians
Yousef Munayyer*
April 13, 2010 – The West Bank has been occupied by Israel since 1967. Israel maintains authoritative jurisdiction over the happenings in the West Bank via its military apparatus. Decisions governing the simplest aspects of Palestinian life, from traveling from one area to another to building a home, ultimately lie under the jurisdiction of the Israeli Military’s High Command in the West Bank. In October of 2009, amendments were made to military orders governing the legitimate presence of persons in Occupied Palestinian Territory. The changes, effective six months after the signing of the orders, are beginning to take effect. It is important to note that Palestinians are not in control of the Palestinian population registry. Israel maintains strict control over this database and continues to do so. It is because of this that Israeli authorities can determine the residencies of Palestinians and only through the Israelis can the Palestinian Authority issue identification documents. The main changes come as amendments to the Israeli Military Order No. 329 titled “Order Regarding Prevention of Infiltration” (PDF) which was signed into effect two years after the occupation began in 1969…

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The Rape of the Afghan Boys
Kelley B. Vlahos
April 13, 2010 – …Nevertheless, subsequent testimony from Canadian personnel and newly released documents shed light on an utterly confusing landscape of conflicting official statements and reports, and they raise the question of who knew what and when, and whether the chain of command was listening or passing the buck. There are more than a few official/unofficial acknowledgments that Afghan police and military members were “having anal sex with young boys,” plus disturbing allegations that the Canadian brass were told about the rapes and pressed soldiers to ignore them…The Taliban reportedly banned these practices when it was in power. Today, clerics we would consider radical openly and regularly condemn bacha bazi and sex with children…If Hamid Karzai sits on the top of this worm-infested confection without one word about prosecuting these crimes or protecting the children of his country, what does it say about the billions of dollars we have poured into his government to assist him? ..

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Pakistan air force ‘killed scores of villagers’
By Riaz Khan and Zarar Khan in Peshawar
April 13, 2010 – Dilla Baz Khan was pulling a woman from the rubble of an air raid when Pakistani jets screamed back into the valley for a second bombing run, killing scores of people in a village which locals say had been supportive of army offensives against militants along the Afghan border. Mr Khan and other survivors said yesterday at least 68 villagers were killed in the weekend air strikes, sharply contradicting initial army accounts that the dead were Islamist militants. A local administration official said $125,000 (£81,000) had been paid in compensation to victims. The official declined to confirm how many of the dead were civilians but said Shafiullah Khan, the top official in Khyber, apologised to local tribesman and admitted the victims were “mostly” innocent villagers…

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Video: Palestinians condemn Israeli order
Aljazeera.English
April 13, 2010 – A new Israeli military policy could result in the eviction of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank. They even risk being jailed. Amendments to the existing 1969 order on preventing infiltration could apply to Palestinians living in the West Bank without official ID cards issued by Israel. The Israeli army says the order was designed to “facilitate a process of judicial review of the extradition of illegal residents in the region”. But Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations have condemned the order…

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The American Way: In Defense of George W. Bush
Chris Floyd
April 13, 2010 – …Not that I believe Bush and his gang of gilded thugs are innocent; they are not. They are sadistic murderers at the outer reaches of depravity. But neither are they aberrations of the system that has produced them. Rather, they are its quintessence, its exemplars, its inheritors and continuers — and they have, in turn, bequeathed the core value of violent domination to their successors, who have freely and eagerly embraced it. If the Bush gang stands trial, then the entire system must be put on trial; otherwise, their prosecution would be nothing but a show trial, a scapegoating designed to perpetuate the system while appearing to cauterize and cleanse it of a limited, aberrant evil, as Arthur Silber has argued in his powerful series, “Against Prosecution.” Thus the evils inevitably and inescapably produced by a system of violent domination would go on and on, gaining new strength from the reinvigoration of the national myth that has justified so much horror for so long: “See? We got rid of the bad apples; everything is fine now, the system is good now, we’re exceptional again, the hill is shining once more.” And the righteous bombs of humanitarian liberation would keep falling on the bodies of innocent people…

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U.S. Group to Join International Aid Flotilla to Gaza
Free Palestine Movement
April 13, 2010 – The Free Palestine Movement announced plans to participate in an international initiative that will send at least eight cargo and passenger vessels to the Gaza Strip next month. Backed by activists in 30 countries and organized by groups in Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Sweden, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, and the European Union as well as the U.S., the project is the biggest international effort yet to break the Israeli siege of Gaza. The vessels, which will include at least three substantial cargo ships, will set sail from European ports in early May, converge in the eastern Mediterranean, and head for the port of Gaza…

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Deport the Palestinians to Where They Came From – Israel
By Ahmed Amr
April 13, 2010 – It was bound to happen. The Israelis have decided to opt for outright ethnic cleansing. As of April 13, 2010 – the Israelis military will be accorded the power to deport any Palestinian or any foreigner in the West Bank if their papers ‘aren’t in order.’ The IDF has already made it clear that the order will not apply to Israeli citizens in the West Bank – you know – the illegal Jewish settlers. In fact, if you are Mongolian and can produce a faded newspaper clip announcing your grandfather’s bar mitzvah – that will be sufficient documentation to acquire immediate Israeli citizenship and get a red carpet reception when you relocate to the occupied territories. They’ll even provide you with subsidized housing if you take them up on the offer…

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Gods and Monsters
Fighting American Wars From On High
Tom Engelhardt
April 13, 2010 – …In the last week, we’ve seen — literally viewed — a modern example of what it means in our day to act from the heights, and we’ve read about another striking example of the same. The website WikiLeaks released a decrypted July 2007 video of two U.S. Apache helicopters attacking Iraqis on a street in Baghdad. At least 12 Iraqis, including two employees of the news agency Reuters, a photographer and his driver, were killed in the incident, and two children in the vehicle of a good Samaritan who stopped to pick up casualties and died in the process, were also wounded. Without a doubt, that video is a remarkable 17-minute demo of how to efficiently slaughter tiny beings milling about below. There is no way American helicopter crews could know just who was walking down there — Sunni or Shiite, insurgent or shopper, Baghdadis with intent to harm Americans or Baghdadis paying little attention to two of the helicopters then so regularly buzzing the city. Were they killers, guards, bank clerks, unemployed idlers, Baathist Party members, religious fanatics, café owners? Who could tell from such a height? But the details mattered little…

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Ahmadinejad calls on Obama to improve ties with Iran
By Parisa Hafezi
April 13, 2010 – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday the Islamic state would respond positively if the United States changed its policy towards Tehran. In remarks that could indicate a shift of attitude, Ahmadinejad said he was “drafting a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama”…”Acknowledging Iran will benefit both sides. As far as Iran is concerned, we are not after any confrontation (with the United states),” Ahmadinejad told state television. “We are ready to talk to and to cooperate with (the United States), if our rights are respected.”…

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Grassroots organizer targeted by PA, Israeli forces
Nora Barrows-Friedman
April 13, 2010 – Mousa Abu Maria, father of a newborn baby and co-coordinator of the grassroots Palestine Solidarity Project (PSP) in the occupied West Bank village of Beit Ommar, was used to the sound of boots running on the ground and surrounding his home in the middle of the night. Awakened once again at 2:00am on Tuesday, 6 April, Abu Maria told an international volunteer with PSP who was sleeping in his house not to worry but that they should start moving the computers out of the rooms. Weeks earlier, PSP’s office was raided by Israeli forces; computer hard drives and printers were confiscated as Abu Maria’s entire family was forced to stand outside in the freezing cold. But when Abu Maria looked outside the window this time, it wasn’t Israeli forces shouting at him to come outside. It was a squadron of heavily-armed Palestinian Authority (PA) police…

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The U.N. Partition Plan and Arab ‘Catastrophe’
By Jeremy R. Hammond
April 13, 2010 – In 1947, Great Britain, unable to reconcile its conflicting obligations to both Jews and Arabs, requested that the United Nations take up the question of Palestine. In May, the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) was created by a General Assembly resolution. UNSCOP’s purpose was to investigate the situation in Palestine and “submit such proposals as it may consider appropriate for the solution of the problem of Palestine”. At the time, the U.N. consisted of 55 members, including Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. Palestine by then remained the only one of the formerly Mandated Territories not to become an independent state. No representatives from any Arab nations, however, were included in UNSCOP…

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Lawrence Wilkerson Demolishes Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld’s Lies About Guantánamo
Andy Worthington
April 13, 2010 – Those of us who have been studying the recent career of Col. Lawrence Wilkerson were not surprised when, last week, he submitted a declaration (PDF) in a lawsuit seeking compensation from the US government that was filed by former Guantánamo prisoner Adel Hassan Hamad. A Sudanese hospital worker, Hamad was sold to US forces by their unscrupulous Pakistani allies in the summer of 2002, but was only released from Guantánamo in December 2007. In the declaration, Col. Wilkerson, who served in the US military for 31 years and was Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from August 2002 until January 2005, stated that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld all knew — and didn’t care — that “the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were innocent.”…

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Archbishop Desmond Tutu to UC Berkeley: divesting is the right thing to do
Desmond Tutu
April 13, 2010 – It was with great joy that I learned of your recent 16-4 vote in support of divesting your university’s money from companies that enable and profit from the injustice of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and violation of Palestinian human rights. Principled stands like this, supported by a fast growing number of US civil society organizations and people of conscience, including prominent Jewish groups, are essential for a better world in the making, and it is always an inspiration when young people lead the way and speak truth to power. I am writing to tell you that, despite what detractors may allege, you are doing the right thing. You are doing the moral thing…

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Shaker Aamer: Campaign Group Asks Gordon Brown to Secure His Release from Guantánamo
Andy Worthington
April 13, 2010 – Regular readers of my work will be aware that I have long campaigned for the release of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo Bay. Shaker was cleared for release from Guantánamo over three years ago, yet he remains imprisoned for no discernible reason except that it suits both the US and UK governments to put off the inevitable day when he will be free to tell the media about his deep knowledge of Guantánamo (as one of the foremost advocates of the prisoners’ rights), as well as his knowledge of British and American involvement in torture…

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Spooked Wild In The Jordan Valley
Palestine Monitor
April 13, 2010 – Nobody can deny it: the Jordan Valley is one of the most beautiful places of the West Bank, except for the people who live in it. Classified as Area C, Israeli occupation forces have imposed harsh restrictions on building and movement. Inhabitants, like the Bedouins of Al-Hadidiyeh, have become hunted on their own lands, spooked like wild animals…

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JCESR:”New Israeli Decision, As Dangerous As the Nakba of 1948"
Saed Bannoura
April 13, 2010 – The Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights (JSCER) issued a press release slamming the Israeli decision to expel thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank, and stated that this decision is part of Israel’s demographic violations against the Palestinians, and is not less dangerous that the Nakba of 1948 when Israel expelled thousands of Palestinians who became refugees. The center added that the ramifications of this decision will not only affect Gaza Strip residents who are living in the West Bank, but will also affect the Palestinians of Jerusalem, the Arabs in Israel and the Palestinians who carry international citizenships, mainly American and European…

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Commemorating one holocaust while effecting another
By Khalid Amayreh
April 13, 2010 – …Of course, Jews, like anyone else, have a legitimate right to commemorate the Jewish victims of the Second World War, but they have absolutely no right to manipulate the memory of Hitler’s victims in order to torment and commit a virtual holocaust against another people, the Palestinians. In fact, doing so, using the memory of Jews who perished at the hands of the Third Reich to justify the attempted destruction by Israel of the Palestinian people, is the worst possible act of identification with and commemoration of these victims. Yet, this is exactly what Israel is doing, which really makes many people around the world ask questions about the morality of using the holocaust as an industry or even a virtual religion to justify decidedly criminal policies against a people that has been and continues to be on the receiving end of Zionism’s Nazi-like savagery ever since the creation of the evil entity…

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US troops attack Afghan bus, killing four and wounding 18
By Keith Jones
April 13, 2010 – US troops opened fire on a passenger bus travelling on a highway in the Zhari District of Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province early Monday morning, killing at least four people, including a woman and a child. Eighteen other passengers were wounded. This latest shooting of civilians by US occupation forces sparked an angry protest. According to Western news sources, some 200 people blocked the highway near where the shooting occurred. They burned tires, fired guns in the air, and chanted slogans denouncing the US occupation and the US-installed government of Hamid Karzai. “The Americans are constantly killing our civilians and the government is not demanding an explanation,” protester Mohammad Razaq told the Associated Press. “We demand justice from the Karzai government and the punishment of those soldiers responsible.”..

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Palestinian killed, three others wounded during Israeli attacks on Bureij camp
Palestinian Information Center
April 13, 2010 – One Palestinian resistance fighter was killed and three others sustained different injuries during Israeli aerial and artillery attacks at dawn Tuesday on the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip. Dr. Muawiya Hassanein, the director of ambulance and emergency unit in the health ministry, told the Palestinian information center (PIC) that the ambulances managed to evacuate one resistance fighter called Marwan Al-Jarba and three others sustained medium to critical injuries from the bombed area…

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