30 December, 2011 — Information Clearing House

Ron Paul: Sanctions Against Iran Are an ‘Act of War’
By Jason M. Volack
Paul said that Iran would be justified in responding to sanctions by blocking the Straits of Hormuz, adding that the country blocking the strategically important strait is “so logical” since they have no other recourse.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30110.htm

Iran, Another False Enemy?
By Stephen_Merrill
How would the people of the United States respond to the acts of warfare already underway against Iran, if launched against them?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30111.htm

The Lies of War
Leaving Iraq, Remembering Vietnam
By Jack Random
The lies of war are forgotten as easily and readily as the wrappings of Christmas or the resolutions of a new year. Like a child still in diapers, the lessons of war must be learned again and again until finally they are taken to heart.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30115.htm

How Many U.S. Soldiers Were Wounded in Iraq? Guess Again.
By Dan Froomkin
The true number of military personnel injured over the course of our nine-year-long fiasco in Iraq is in the hundreds of thousands — maybe even more than half a million.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30120.htm

Toy Soldiers
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
According to recent news accounts, shattered and shredded body parts and remains of U.S. servicemen were found in a landfill.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30119.htm

United States As A Global Power: New World Disorder
Editorial
The US is struggling with a paradox: while its military power retains global reach, its role as world leader is gradually ending.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30113.htm

U.S. Behind Deliberate Murder Of Qadhafi: Russia
By Vladimir Radyuhin
The report said the order to liquidate Qadhafi was given to U.S., French and British commandos. The Russian Foreign Ministry details numerous instances of mass killings of hundreds of civilians.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30109.htm

Paul Once Criticized Equal Pay, AIDS Patients, Sexual Harassment Victims
By Stephen C. Webster
“By what right does the government assume low power to tell an airline it must hire unattractive women if it does not want to?”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30117.htm

Ron Paul and the Killing Machine
By Mike Whitney
What’s more important; ending the bloodletting or some potential threat to Social Security?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30118.htm

Testimony of a Palmach Fighter who Expelled Palestinians During the Nakba
Video and Transcript
We drove them out because of the Zionist ideology. Pure and simple.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30116.htm

Chavez Speculates On Latin American Presidents with Cancer
By Tamara Pearson
“Would it be strange if the U.S had developed the technology to induce cancer? I don’t know, I leave it to be reflected on”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30114.htm

Why Are American Citizens Getting Locked Up and Deported By Immigration Authorities?
By Rania Khalek
Although it’s difficult to obtain an exact number of Americans illegally detained by ICE, Jacqueline Stevens, a political science professor at Northwestern University estimates that over 4,000 US citizens were detained or deported in 2010 alone.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30121.htm

Time for Supreme Court to Weigh in on Forced DNA Collection
By Rebecca Jeschke
Can the government force people who are arrested – but not yet convicted of a crime – to give a DNA sample without a search warrant, or does that violate the Fourth Amendment?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30112.htm

Hundreds of Thousands of Syrians Protest; Activists Say at Least 19 Killed: Syria is seeing its largest protests in months. Activists say hundreds of thousands have poured into the streets across the country today, shouting for the downfall of Bashar Assad’s regime.
http://bit.ly/rzFvCO

Video: Arab League observers caught in crossfire : In the videoy, Arab League observers take cover when they are caught in crossfire in the city of Homs.
http://bit.ly/uJZrdV

Syria: invasion of terrorist elements sponsored by the west: The Egyptian newspaper al-Arabi said on Friday that a colonel in the U.S. with the last name Cleveland is overseeing the operations of training and weaponry, and is the real leader of the “Syrian Free Army.”
http://bit.ly/sfVduV

Most Syrians ‘supportive of Assad’: According to the latest opinion poll commissioned by The Doha Debates, Syrians are more supportive of their president with 55% not wanting him to resign.
http://bit.ly/tiVZ2b

US mulls transfer of high-risk Taliban prisoner in peace bid: The Obama administration is considering transferring to Afghan custody a senior Taliban official suspected of major human rights abuses as part of a remote bid to improve the prospects of a peace deal in Afghanistan
http://bit.ly/vFhJpg

Car bomb kills eight in Southwestern Pakistan: – A car bomb killed eight Pakistanis on Friday in the southwestern city of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan Province, which neighbors Afghanistan and Iran, police said.
http://nyp.st/rBPb17

4 killed in Afghanistan roadside bomb attack: Four people were killed in Afghanistan’s southern Uruzgan province Friday when a civilian vehicle hit a roadside bomb, according to the country’s Interior Ministry.
http://bit.ly/rP0udx

NATO soldier killed, Afghan casualties mount: A NATO service member died Friday in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan, while allied and Afghan forces killed three senior Taliban figures and captured 11 fighters and sympathizers, the alliance said.
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20111230/API/1112300559

Turkey admits 35 killed in air strike were civilians, not militants: Television images showed a line of corpses covered by blankets on a barren hillside, with a crowd of people gathered around, some with their head in their hands and crying.
http://natpo.st/u31e2J

Turkey: Clashes as police break up Kurd protest air strike on civilians: Turkish police used tear gas and water cannon to break up a demonstration in Istanbul by around 2,000 Kurds protesting against an air strike in southeastern Turkey [ northern Kurdistan] that killed 35 Kurdish villagers.
http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2011/12/turkey3641.htm

Iraqis celebrate US withdrawal at mass rally: Thousands of Iraqis gathered in the capital Baghdad on Friday to celebrate the withdrawal of US troops from the country: They chanted slogans against the ‘occupation’ that started in 2003 and called the pullout earlier this month a ‘day of liberation and evacuation.’
http://bit.ly/sn8WeK

Iraq row festers as speaker denies writing editorial: A political row festered in Iraq on Friday, as a top Sunni leader denied he penned a commentary criticizing the Shiite-led government, the latest in a crisis that has stoked sectarian tensions.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/12/30/185394.html

Doctors Without Borders Say Two Staffers Shot to Death in Somalia: The Somali government says the shootings were an isolated incident and says it is doing all it can to provide security to humanitarian workers.
http://bit.ly/t8ni8F

Israeli air strike kills 1 in Gaza: Israel said its warplanes killed a senior jihadist militant in Gaza yesterday, two days after saying it was weighing a wider campaign there to curb rising rocket attacks.
http://bit.ly/u2MJHW

Witnesses: Israeli tanks shell eastern Gaza Strip: Israeli tanks on Friday opened fire on Zaitoun neighborhood south of Gaza City, witnesses said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=448972

Orthodox Judaism treats women like filthy little things: If a man and a woman are drowning in a river, first they’ll save the man, ‘who is obligated to perform more commandments,’ whereas a woman’s ‘wisdom is only in the spindle.’ In fact, ‘words of Torah should be burned rather than being given to women.’
http://bit.ly/sDbnaU

‘Stuxnet virus used on Iran was 1 of 5 cyberbombs’:
Researchers say crippling computer virus unleashed on Iran in 2010 has at least four ‘cousins’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4168874,00.html

Saudi pays protection money:
US to sell fighter jets worth $30 billion to Saudi Arabia:
The United States has confirmed a deal to sell 84 Boeing F-15 jets to Saudi Arabia, and to upgrade 70 F-15s already in the Saudi air fleet, the BBC reports.
http://bit.ly/rWZ0wb

US arms sale to Saudis sends message to Iran: ”This sale will send a strong message to countries in the region that the United States is committed to stability in the gulf and the broader Middle East,” said Andrew Shapiro, the Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs. ”It will enhance Saudi Arabia’s ability to deter and defend against external threats to its sovereignty.”
http://bit.ly/rpzdkN

UAE pays protection money:
UAE Said to Sign Lockheed Thaad Pact Valued to $3.49 Billion: –
The U.S. and the United Arab Emirates have signed a deal valued at as much as $3.49 billion for the first international sale of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s newest missile interceptor, according to government officials.
http://buswk.co/t9n6Ob

Yemeni protests persist despite Saleh deal: Thousands of Yemenis held rival rallies across Sanaa Friday despite President Ali Abdullah’s agreement to quit and a military panel continuing to lift barricades from the streets, witnesses said.
http://bit.ly/t0HVLd

Yemen Fed U.S. Bad Intel: Report: Maybe the U.S. should reconsider allowing Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh here on a medical visa? According to The Wall Street Journal, some U.S. military leaders believe Yemen fed them bad intelligence last year in order to trick them into killing a local political leader who had fallen out with Saleh.
http://bit.ly/tq3MUp

Jordanian hold mass rally in Amman: Jordanians have held a mass demonstration in the capital, Amman, to call for an end to corruption in the kingdom and demand political reform.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/218529.html

Anger at slow pace of cash flow in Libya: Libyans wait for their wages paid as interim government sits on huge cash reserves released recently.
http://bit.ly/uXbmaR

Aisha Gaddafi claims severe emotional distress at images of father’s execution:
The daughter of the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has hired an Israeli lawyer to petition the international criminal court to investigate the circumstances of the death of her father.
http://bit.ly/vhZtdY

Video: U.S. Special Ops Team Crosses the Border into Mexico; Escorted by Mexican Military: A helicopter followed the convoy from the U.S. side of the border until it reached the Mexican military base. A video showing the convoy in Matamoros was broadcasted by Univision.
http://bit.ly/tMa0J6

U.S.: Hugo Chavez cancer claim ‘horrific’: The Obama administration on Thursday slammed Hugo Chavez for “horrific and reprehensible” suggestions that the United States may have found a way to cause his cancer and that of other Latin American leaders.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70929.html

Wiretap suits OKd against U.S., not telecoms:
The nation’s telecommunications companies can’t be sued for cooperating with the Bush administration’s secret surveillance program, but their customers can sue the government for allegedly intercepting their phone calls and e-mails without a warrant, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/30-0

Bachmann stands firm on bribery allegation against Paul campaign: – Michele Bachmann pressed her allegations that the former head of her Iowa presidential bid was bribed by the campaign of rival Ron Paul to endorse him, even as one of her own aides denied the charge.
http://wapo.st/uSnbIA