Scenes from an Iraki Childhood – Incident at Samra
Mohammed Ibn Laith.Gorilla’s Guides
This is Khalid Mohammed, he’s nine years old. The village he’s from is called Samra and it is 15 Kilometres north of Tikrit. Today Wednesday June 25th 2006 the Americans bombed his uncle’s house — those are the ruins you can see Khalid sitting on and crying. The American killed, Khalid’s uncle, his aunt, and four of their children who were aged between four and 11, 3 other children are seriously wounded. The Americans are now trying to claim that there were no casualties from this attack. Oh really? Tell that to Khalid, tell it to his dead family members. And while you are at it explain to him why he and everyone else in the village were forced from their houses at gunpoint by American troops who, surprise, surprise, didn’t find their imaginary gunman from al-Qaeda in any of the houses.—

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U.S. soldiers kill as many as 9 civilians in Iraq
Doug Smith, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Nine Iraqi civilians were killed Wednesday in two armed clashes involving U.S. soldiers, local authorities reported. The military said U.S. soldiers were fired upon first in both incidents. In the capital, three people were killed in a fiery crash after gunfire erupted as their vehicle passed U.S. soldiers from a convoy stopped near the Baghdad international airport to recover a stalled vehicle. Officials at Yarmouk Hospital identified the dead as a manager and two female employees from a bank at the airport. Iraqi police also reported that two bodyguards were injured…Earlier Wednesday outside Tikrit, about 80 miles north of Baghdad, six people were killed and threeinjured in and near a farmhouse that was destroyed in a U.S. airstrike, police said…

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Iran not interfering with Iraq-U.S. security deal: envoy
IRNA
Iran’s Ambassador to Baghdad Hassan Kazemi Qomi said on Wednesday that Tehran is not interfering with the strategic agreement between Iraq and the U.S. Speaking at a banquet given in honor of a group of media persons in Baghdad, he said Iraq is an independent state with democratic government and for the same reason Iran does not interfere with the strategic agreement between Baghdad and Washington…

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Tracking Torture Coverage: The Lost Boys of Guantánamo
Between 2000 and 2003, more than 20 prisoners under the age of 18 were held at Guantánamo. In early 2004, pressured by human rights organizations, Pentagon officials released most of the juveniles—first to a separate facility at the base, then to a rehabilitation program in Afghanistan. But the three that remain have spent a quarter of their lives behind bars and are subjected to the same harsh interrogation tactics as their adult cellmates, a policy that, according to a recent piece posted on Salon, “defies logic as well as international law.”…

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Renditions: New report accuses European governments of complicity and inaction
Amnesty International
Amnesty International has today accused European governments of complicity and inaction over US-led rendition and secret detention, as it published a new report on European renditions and a ‘Six-point Plan’ for their prevention. The report focuses on a number of notorious rendition cases, one of whom is Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national and UK resident, rendered in 2002, allegedly tortured in Morocco and now detained for nearly fours years without trial at Guantánamo Bay. Mr Mohamed’s US military lawyer is extremely concerned for his physical and mental health and Amnesty International has today written to the Foreign Secretary David Miliband seeking his urgent intervention…

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IRAQ: Flurry of oil deals with foreign firms continues
Azzaman
Both the central government in Baghdad and the regional Kurdish government in Arbil are vying to lure oil majors to sign deals to develop Iraqi oil fields. But the rush, analysts say, is full with risks in the absence of laws and regulations on the division of royalties and nature of the deals. The Kurdish government announced Tuesday the signing of yet two other contracts, one with the Canadian Talisman Energy Corporation and the other with Western Zagros for the development of two oil fields in the disputed Province of Kirkuk…

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Last-minute deal saves Olmert’s govt
AFP
Embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert averted a major crisis on Wednesday, reaching agreement with his Labour allies for them to reverse a decision to vote to dissolve parliament, a move that could have brought down the government. Under the accord, Olmert agreed to a demand that his Kadima party hold primary elections by September 25 and Labour undertook not to back opposition efforts to bring down the government, parliamentary sources said…”He has lost popular legitimacy,” said Hanan Cristal, a political commentator with Israeli public radio. But he pointed out Olmert did gain time at a crucial moment when Israel is involved in indirect negotiations with Syria and considering prisoner swaps with the Lebanese Hezbollah militia and the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip…

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Keeping America Safe: Prosecuting Children as Terrorists
Dave Lindorff
President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and the rest of the warmongers and terror-pimps in the White House would have us believe that Omar Khadr is a monster. Khadr is the 21-year-old Canadian who is facing one of the first show-trials at Guantanamo. But let’s just step back a minute and consider Mr. Khadr’s case…In 2002, after the Taliban government had fallen, Khadr was still out in the hills with the forces of resistance. The Taliban government was gone, but the war was not over. In fact it’s still not over, with the Taliban resurgent in much of Afghanistan. In this situation, with some 20,000 US and European troops battling across Afghanistan, Khadr, by then at the ripe age of 15, found himself with a group of five older fighters in a compound up in the hills. Some US Special Forces came on the location, and, peeking through cracks in the door, saw the group, armed with AK rifles. They called on the men to surrender, but the men allegedly refused. At that point the brave Americans called in an air strike, and clobbered the building. After that softening up, they went inside to pick up the pieces…

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Khudari: The closure of Gaza crossings is a flagrant violation of the truce
Palestinian Information Center
MP Jamal Al-Khudari, the head of the popular committee against the siege, stated that the Israeli decision to close the Gaza crossings is a flagrant violation of the truce and its items, and a step backwards, adding that the closure of crossings raised big question marks about the nature of the coming days. MP Khudari deplored the Israeli occupation for assassinating two young men in cold blood in Nablus, calling on the Palestinian factions to seek a national consensus before taking any step to retaliate against Israeli violations in order to strengthen the internal front through taking a unified vision serving the higher national interests…

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Elections, Capitalism, and Democracy
Charles Sullivan
…The presence of McCain makes the very moderate Obama an appealing alternative and that assures victory for the status quo. Barach Obama was the real choice of the established orthodoxy all along. The marketing strategists have used John McCain to funnel the votes toward Obama and away from genuine progressives. That is where the real fight was. You can call it voting in the absence of real choice because that is precisely what it is. The same policies that have been in play for decades will continue on and we will keep getting a similar result. Obama’s recent endorsement of warrantless wire-tapping is not only evidence of his belonging to the established orthodoxy; it directly connects him to the draconian policies of the Bush regime and to those of Senator McCain…

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How Psychologists Have Abetted the CIA
The Torture Trainers and the American Psychological Association
STEPHEN SOLDZ
The CIA’s Torture Teachers, psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, are in the news again. In a front page New York Times article on the interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, it is mentioned that the subject of the story, Deuce Martinez is now employed by the dynamic torture firm: His life today is quiet by comparison with the secret interrogations of 2002 and 2003. But Mr. Martinez has not turned away entirely from his old world. He now works for Mitchell & Jessen Associates, a consulting company run by former military psychologists who advised the C.I.A. on the use of harsh tactics in the secret program. His new employer sent Mr. Martinez right back to the agency…

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Sadr’s representative: Baghdad bombing was a conspiracy to to blame the Sadrists
AFP
…Iraqi defence ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said the Americans were not the target of the Sadr City bombing. “Initial reports indicate that the multinational forces were not the target but members of the council itself. Americans just happened to be there by chance,” he said. “There was a plan to bomb the council even before.” Some council members from Sadr’s movement had recently resigned from the civic body, sparking tension with other associates. On Tuesday, the head of the Sadr movement in eastern Baghdad, Sheikh Salman Fraiji, said the bombing was a “conspiracy of those council members who have been with the Americans since our representatives left the council. “They want to blame the Sadrists.”…

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PRESIDENT SARKOZY NEEDS NEW GLASSES
Desertpeace
President Sarkozy started the press conference by saying that the only way that Israel can have security is by creating” viable, modern and democratic Palestinian state.” He added that Palestinians should renounce violence, in the same time the French President slammed the Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and said that its should be stopped, “ including east Jerusalem.” He concluded by saying that “France see Abbas as a man of peace.” There are a number of contradictions in the above paragraphs… The first one is regarding the creation of a “ viable, modern and democratic Palestinian state.” How is this even possible when Israel continues to deny recognition to the leadership DEMOCRATICALLY elected by the Palestinian people?…

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Israeli army wounds an elderly Palestinian in southern Gaza
Rami Almeghari – IMEMC
The Israeli army shot and wounded on Wednesday morning a Palestinian elderly man in southern Gaza Strip, less than 24 hours after homemade shells hit the nearby Israeli town of Sderot, as a truce deal between Palestinians and Israel has been agreed upon since last Thursday. Palestinian medical sources confirmed that Salem Abu Raida, 80, was wounded with several live bullets in the shoulder and that he was transferred to hospital for medical attention…

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Fun in the Sun: Gitmo Gets Makeover as R&R Resort
Chris Floyd
Flowers, fishies, frogs and dolphins, and the most precious, cutesy color printing you ever saw: “Someone who loved me got me this t-shirt in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba!” You can pick up one of these sparkly items for the kids – along with stuffed iguanas, decorated coffee mugs (”Kisses from Guantanamo Bay!”), snazzy keyrings (”It don’t GITMO better than this!”) and all manner of bric-a-brac from the sun-drenched heaven that bills itself as “Taliban Towers, the Caribbean’s Newest 5-star Resort.” Yes, the Pentagon has turned the Terror War concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay into a luxurious vacation spot for military personnel and their families – and military contractors, too, of course!…

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The Political Economy of Media
Review of Robert McChesney’s book (Part I)
Stephen Lendman
…American journalism has been sinking for decades. Now it’s in crisis. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Without viable journalism, democracy is impossible, tyranny takes over and when full-blown needs revolutionary disruption to uproot. Constructive action is needed now, and “the political economy of media is uniquely positioned to provide” it. The starting point – democratic journalism to hold those in power (and wannabes) accountable. It must separate truth from lies and provide a wide range of informed opinions on the cutting-edge issues of our times. By this standard, today’s dominant media fails, and that’s putting it mildly. Journalism is co-opted and corrupted. Commercialism gutted it. Investigative journalism is a memory…

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Iraq and US closer to military deal
AlJazeera.net
Iraq and the US are making progress in efforts to forge a new security deal on a long-term US military presence in the country, the Iraqi president has said. Speaking on Wednesday after talks with George Bush, his US counterpart, Jalal Talabani said both sides had made “very good, important steps towards reaching … this agreement”. Bush said the pair also discussed efforts to reduce violence in Iraq, saying the US recognised “there’s still a lot of work to be done”…

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Israeli soldiers using Palestinian children as human shields
Iqbal Tamimi, Palestine Think Tank
Israeli Soldiers force Palestinians to approach, enter and search buildings where they believe gunmen may be hiding. The civilians are subjected to different forms of manipulations to use them as human shields during operations to acquire control of the houses, detaining inhabitants in one place (often in one room of the house) and turning the houses into military barracks, and using the occupants as human shields to deter any counter-attacks. They then force them to perform acts and chores on behalf of the soldiers like opening outlets in the walls or removing the floor tiles to use as barriers to protect the soldiers near the windows. All of that happens during the time the occupation forces would open machine gun fire by its snipers from these houses to shoot at anything moving in the area…

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State-Sponsored Terror: British and American Black Ops in Iraq
Andrew G. Marshall
…In May of 2007, an Iraqi who formerly collaborated with US forces in Iraq for two and a half years stated that, “I was a soldier in the Iraqi army in the war of 1991 and during the withdrawal from Kuwait I decided to seek asylum in Saudi Arabia along with dozens of others like me. That was how began the process whereby I was recruited into the American forces, for there were US military committees that chose a number of Iraqis who were willing to volunteer to join them and be transported to America. I was one of those.” He spoke out about how after the 2003 invasion, he was returned to Iraq to “carry out specific tasks assigned him by the US agencies.” Among those tasks, he was put “in charge of a group of a unit that carried out assassinations in the streets of Baghdad.”…

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Ailing detainee needs dentist, deprived from medical attention
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
The Palestinian Popular Committees reported on Tuesday that a Palestinian detainee from the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem is gradually losing weight as his teeth are falling out, with more than half of his lower teeth and some of his grinders were totally removed. The Committees stated that the detainee, identified as Thabit, is imprisoned at the Ramon Israeli prison since April 4, 2004. He was sentenced to 25 years. He currently cannot talk well, and his health condition is sharply deteriorating due to malnutrition while the prison administration still rejects to allow a dentist to examine him…

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War News for Wedsday, June 25, 2008
Iraq Today
The British MoD is reporting the death of another soldier from a suspected IED explosion in the Upper Sangin Valley, Helmand province, Afghanistan on Tuesday, June 24th. No other soldiers were wounded in the attack. MNF-Iraq is reporting the deaths of three Multi-National Division – North Soldiers in a roadside bombing in Ninewah Province on Tuesday, June 24th. An Iraqi interpreter were also killed in the attack…

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The Anti-war.com’s Midsummer Night’s Dream
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Blog
To celebrate the summer solstice, Ivan Eland, the director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at the Independent Institute, wrote a romantic comedy published by Antiwar.com, titled “Lessons for Iraq from the Former Yugoslavia”…Barbarians in Yugoslavia, barbarians in Iraq. Thank God the world can count on Uncle Sam and its many nephews, always so enlightened and generous of brilliant ideas. Eland gives us the solution for Iraq: “Given Iraq’s history of one group dominating the central government machinery – the Sunnis – and using it to oppress the other groups – the Kurds and the Shi’a – [ALERT: you’re reading PROPAGANDA] the groups will likely eventually fight over any significant central government power. Thus, to prevent an all-out civil war when the United States finally pulls its finger out of the dike and withdraws its military forces from the country, the power of the Iraqi government will probably have to be reduced to a weak confederation of autonomous regions based on voluntary tribal or ethno-sectarian associations..” Back to reality. The US illegal invasion and occupation is responsible for the Iraq genocide, including the sectarian violence and the ethnic cleansing occurred AFTER THAT INVASION. The myth [the bad Sunni oppressing Kurds and Shi’a] on which the Antiwar.com’s author builds his shameful proposal [the partition of Iraq], is just one of the many propaganda tools the Empire sold its ruthless adventure. [Just out of curiosity, hav! e you no ticed that since the 2003 US-led invasion-occupation of that country, Iraq’s citizens are not called Iraqis anymore but Muslims or Christians, Sunni or Shi’a, Arabs or Kurds? Interesting, isn’t it?]…

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The Great Mirage
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Blog
…Iraq Body Count has been continuously quoted by the warmongers – Bush’s “30,000, more or less”, remember? – and the state-corporate media; even more disgracefully, IBC is also been the darling of the Western so-called anti-war movement, its think-tanks and alternative media. The hypocrisy is overwhelming! Just two recent examples – among many – of this deadly hypocrisy. Robert Fisk, known as the best British reporter, wrote a few days ago, “tens of thousands dead in Iraq”, when the best estimates tell us that the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, the Nuremberg’s supreme international crime, may have slaughtered well over 1.2 million Iraqi citizens. Why does Robert of Arabia, the Middle East correspondent of the British Independent, keep deceiving his readers on the most important point of the most outrageous scandal of our times, the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq? In a recent correspondence with Human Rights Watch, I was told: “We do not do any numbers on this, as it would be just guessing – no one really knows how many have died.” Human Rights Watch’s hypocrisy is nauseating if only one considers the efforts they put for well over a decade in promoting the story of Saddam’s genocide against his own people…

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Father and 4 year old son slaughtered by the US in Afghanistan
Professor Marc Herold
During the night of June 22/23, 2008 in a village of the Khogyani district of Nangarhar Province. U.S-led forces allegedly were conducting an operation and spotted a “militant.” Close air support was called in and a helicopter’s rocket struck a home killing a father and his 4-yr-old son according to the district chief of Khogyani. Pajhwok Afghan (Persian) carried a photo of the victims (below). The following day 200 people demonstrated chanting “we want the trial of those responsible for the death of civilians.” They carried the bodies of the victims. Again, the wire service reports’ headlines are revealing with the Associated Press as usual obscuring the U.S. responsibility in the killings…

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The Supreme Court, Habeas, John Yoo and Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal
Stephen Lendman
Rupert Murdoch has a corrosive effect on whatever he touches, and this writer once tangled with him in an article called Lies, Damn Lies and the Murdoch Empire. Former Chicago columnist Mike Royko also did and remarked that “no self-respecting fish would (want to be) wrapped in a Murdock paper…His goal (isn’t) quality journalism (it’s) vast power, political power.” Even Murdoch’s private joke is that “God doesn’t trust (him) in the dark.” Nor should anyone ever, including Wall Street Journal readers. They’ve seen the paper’s quality deteriorate since he took over, cleaned house, installed his own people in key positions, and now runs it like his other enterprises. He’s boss, what he says goes, including on editorial policy after he promised its former owner he’d keep hands off…

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Finally, the Oil…
Tom Engelhardt
More than five years after the invasion of Iraq — just in case you were still waiting — the oil giants finally hit the front page… Last Thursday, the New York Times led with this headline: “Deals with Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back.” (Subhead: “Rare No-bid Contracts, A Foothold for Western Companies Seeking Future Rewards.”) And who were these four giants? ExxonMobil, Shell, the French company Total and BP (formerly British Petroleum). What these firms got were mere “service contracts” — as in servicing Iraq’s oil fields — not the sort of “production sharing agreements” that President Bush’s representatives in Baghdad once dreamed of, and that would have left them in charge of those fields. Still, it was clearly a start…

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US may open diplomatic outpost in Iran
MATTHEW LEE and ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writers
The Bush administration is considering setting up a diplomatic outpost in Iran in what would mark a dramatic official U.S. return to the country nearly 30 years after the American embassy was overrun and the two nations severed relations. Even as it threatens the Iranian regime with sanctions and possible military action over its nuclear program, the administration is floating the idea of opening a U.S. interests section in Tehran similar to the one the State Department runs in Havana, diplomatic and political officials told The Associated Press on Monday…

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Sarkozy says no peace without resolution of refugee plight
From Khalid Amayreh in East Jerusalem
…Trying to strike a balance between his infatuation with Israel and France’s policy toward the Arab world, especially the Palestinian question, Sarkozy said Jerusalem would have to be capital of both Israel and a future Palestinian state. “The Palestinians have the right to a viable state of their own,” he said, adding that such a state would be in Israel’s interests. More to the point, Sarkozy said there would be no peace in the Middle East without a resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem which he called a sticking point in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). However, what probably upset the Israeli government most was his call for an immediate halt to Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem…

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Elderly Palestinian man wounded by Israeli gunfire in Gaza
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies
Palestinian medical sources reported that an elderly Palestinian man was shot and seriously wounded by Israeli military gunfire on Monday evening as he was working in his land near the border fence in the northern Part of the Gaza Strip. The sources identified the man as Jamil Abdul-Rahman Al Ghoul, 68. He was shot in his back and is currently in a serious condition. The man was transferred to Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, and remains in a critical condition. Political sources in Gaza described the attack as the first Israeli violation to the truce which started last Thursday…

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Stop the Expulsion campaign launched
CCDPRJ
The Civic Coalition today launched a campaign to mobilize the international community to end Israel’s expulsion of Palestinians from Jerusalem. We are calling on everyone from activists to governments to take concrete action to pressure the occupying power into ending violations against Palestinians housing and residency rights in the city. According to the Civic Coalition’s human rights bulletin for May just released, seven Palestinian homes were bulldozed in Jerusalem last month, part of a sustained campaign of demolition since January. The demolitions are part of a wider picture: the Israeli master plan for Jerusalem explicitly aims to keep the Palestinian population at no more than 30% of the total population of Jerusalem. This is being achieved through rapid settlement expansion, punitive restrictions on Palestinian communities, demolition of Palestinian homes and withdrawal of ID cards…

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On Love & Sectarianism.
Layla Anwar, Uncensored Arabwomanblues
She – Tara, a beautiful, smart, Iraqi woman in her late 20's, calls me and tells me that she is very much in love and that she finally found the “right” guy. He – a Lebanese beau (according to her – I never trusted her taste in men), early 30's, from the South. According to her, kind and gentle but a few problems…- So what is the problem then ? – His parents. – What about his parents ? – Layla, am a Sunni. His parents are opposing any idea of marriage because am a Sunni. – Bloody Hell, I can’t believe that ! And what did he say ? – He said nothing yet…So that was our conversation. But my mind wandered to when I was introduced to my then future parents in law…I had come from a very secular home, where Shias, Sunnis and Christians intermarried. I had no fucking clue what she was on about. And in Iraq, we really, at least not in my environment, ever heard or uttered such drivel. It was “Ayb” – shameful to say Shia and Sunni. The proof is that most of my friends and some of my family members are married to Shias. And I was too…

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ISRAEL’S STRANGE CONCEPT OF PEACE
Desertpeace
‘60-40?… an expression we sometimes hear when asked how things are going. Here in the Middle East it has a different meaning… 60 years since the State of Israel was established… ON PALESTINIAN LAND, and 40 years (now 41) years since the remaining segments of Palestine were occupied by Israeli forces. Throughout those years Israel has claimed to be the victim of terrorism. Its Lobby in the United States has been successful in getting the US government to support every move that Israel has made… all in the name of ‘protecting Israel from it’s enemies’. If the truth is to be known, Israel has one enemy… ITSELF!…

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Iran-Iraq trade volume to reach 4bn US dollars this year -Official
IRNA
Head of Industries Commission of Joint Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines said here Friday volume of two countries’ trade that was one billion US dollars in Iranian year 1385 (2006) reached $2.8 billion in 1386 and is expected to stand at 4bn by end of 1387 (March 20th, 2008). Mahmoud Hojjati who was speaking on the verge of convening the first joint conference-exhibition on opportunities for making investments in two countries’ medical drugs and health sectors on June 28th in Tehran, added, “Since Iraq has lots of religious commonalties with Iran, our strategy is achieving a greater share of Iraq’s market each year.”…

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Two U.S. soldiers killed in ambush near Baghdad
Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Two U.S. soldiers were killed and three others were injured in a shootout Monday outside a local council building southeast of Baghdad, the military said. A gunman ambushed the soldiers and their interpreter, who was wounded in the exchange, as they left the Madaen municipal building, the U.S. military said in a statement. The Interior Ministry in Baghdad identified the shooter as a local official, who it said emerged from the building with the Americans, pulled a Kalashnikov from the trunk of his car and sprayed them with bullets. The man’s colleagues sought cover as the Americans returned fire and killed him, according to the ministry, which oversees the police…

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35 foreign firms win deals to develop Iraq’s oil riches
Ahmad Kadhem, Azzaman
The Ministry of Oil has given 35 foreign oil firms the permission “to extract and develop” oil fields in Iraq, the ministry’s spokesman said. Isam Jihad said more than 120 applications were made in response to offers the ministry had announced by the end of 2007. “The selection of these companies was made in the light of expertise, their financial situation, environment-related issues and equipment,” the spokesman added…

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Noam Chomsky, Tom Hayden, Brian Wilson: At Work for John Negroponte?
Toni Solo
On June 16th the Nicaraguan centre-right newspaper El Nuevo Diario published a letter [1] from various well known people calling for the Nicaraguan coalition government, led by the Sandinista FSLN, not to shut down political freedom and to hold a national dialogue to address the food crisis and the high cost of living in Nicaragua. This appeal was made in solidarity with Dora Maria Tellez, the former president of the neo-liberal social democrat Movimiento Renovador Sandinista. The letter’s signatories end their appeal by saying that Tellez represents a broad section of Nicaraguan political opinion and should be listened to…

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Israeli army uproots 500-year-old olive grove in Beit Hanina near Jerusalem
alajnabiya’
A friend called me a couple days ago and told me that the Israelis were going to cut down or remove some groves of olive trees in Beit Hanina to make way for the wall. Some of the trees were on her father’s land. I bought oil from them just last fall. We talked about going over there to take some pictures and I looked around online to see if there was anything about a protest. Unfortunately I just read that they already cut them down this morning. Imagine killing 500 year old trees to put up that horrible wall…

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6,000 troops urgently needed in Afghanistan: NATO
Reuters
Up to 6,000 additional troops are urgently needed in Afghanistan and a failure to deploy them will only prolong the presence of Western forces in the country, a German NATO general said on Sunday. Egon Ramms told public radio station Deutschlandfunk that alliance members would end up paying a price later if they did not boost troop numbers now. “We are talking about a total of 5,000, 6,000 soldiers,” Ramms said. “We need these soldiers now, very soon, because we need to hold specific areas, we need to win over Afghanistan’s citizens and because at some point, in 2010, 2011 or 2012 we will want to hand over responsibility to Afghan forces…

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Heat Waves: Burning Off the Fog of the FISA Fiasco
Chris Floyd
Arthur Silber brings the heat in his latest posts on the FISA “compromise.” He cuts through the surface outrage over the Democratic-led, Obama-approved evisceration of the Constitution to expose the even deeper outrages beneath. And he takes on those progressive enablers who denounce critics of Obama’s position for their “freshman dorm cynicism” – i.e., calling a shameful action a shameful action, and decrying the Democratic candidate’s active collusion in undermining freedom…

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Awakening Councils fear Stab in Back
Juan Cole
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Awakening Councils are afraid they will be discarded by their American sponsors. Abi Abd, formerly a guerilla in the “Islamic Army,” formed the “Knights of Amiriya” in the Sunni Arab district of Baghdad near Sadr City, which kicked off the Awakening Council movement wherein former guerrillas took salaries from the US to fight Salafi Jihadis. Abi Abd said Sunday that he was afraid of being purged now as the need for the Awakening Councils declined. He has had to go into exile abroad after being accused of organizing murders and kidnappings. He denied the charges and said they were trumped up to force him out.,,

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House Approves Unconstitutional Surveillance Legislation
ACLU
Following a vote in the House of Representatives sanctioning warrantless wiretapping and handing immunity to telecommunications companies for their role in domestic spying, the American Civil Liberties Union expressed outrage at representatives who voted for the unconstitutional legislation. The bill, H.R. 6304, or The FISA Amendments Act of 2008, passed the chamber by a vote of 293-129, and is expected to be voted on in the Senate next week…

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Freed of militias, Basra has new problems
KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer
… Basra is suffering widespread electricity shortages that residents blame on Iraqi authorities, who in turn point the finger at neighboring Iran. And then there’s the lack of clean tap water…”The government gives us food rations, but it is not enough. We are all tired,” Chitaya Mashhan Madloon said as she pushed through the crowd at a market, using her black robe to wipe sweat from her forehead…

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