posted at www.uruknet.de
US launches major Afghan assaultAljaeera.net
US forces have launched a major military operation in southern Afghanistan in the first big push to drive the Taliban out of a key stronghold since Barack Obama became US president. Four thousand marines, backed by Nato aircraft and a 650-strong Afghan force, are moving into towns in Helmand province, where the Taliban has been intensifying its challenge to the Kabul government and allied forces. Pentagon officials say the plan - said to be the largest US marine offensive since Vietnam - is not just to inflict casualties against the enemy, but to dig in and hold on to territory...
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m55629&hd=&size=1&l=e
|
 |
 |
posted at www.uruknet.de
It's All Good, Again: 'Uptick' in the American-Made Tides of Violence in IraqChris Floyd
...This was, of course, the famous "surge," which saw a fresh influx of not-so-fresh American troops, blanketing the country and helping consolidate the gains of the ethnic cleansing campaign for the occupier's favored factions. The ultimate result was the violent demographic shift -- including the forced migration of 4 million people -- and mass murder that is the foundation of the American-propped Maliki regime. Its sole purpose was to ensure that the war continued, and that the American military presence could be more deeply embedded in the client state. The levels of violence did drop from the horrific heights of 2006 and 2007 -- again, partly because the American-assisted ethnic cleansing had been so successful. (In much the same way, there was a significant drop in Nazi violence against Jews in, say, Poland -- after the Nazis had killed most of the Jews in Poland.) But the violence in Iraq never went away; the conquered land remained one of the most dangerous places on earth, and very few of the 4 million refugees felt safe enough to return home. (And in many cases, their "ethnically cleansed" homes were no longer available to them.) And of course, the million dead are still dead -- and the millions more maimed, broken, ruined, grieved and traumatized are still suffering...
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m55481&hd=&size=1&l=e
|
Monday, July 13, The World Can't Wait and other organizations will protest the inclusion of military recruiters at the national NAACP Convention in New York City. 4:30-7:00pm New York Hilton Hotel 1335 6th Avenue (53/54 Streets)
Read letter sent by NYC High School student to Benjamin Jealous, CEO of the NAACP, asking him why recruiters are invited to the convention.
Sign on to letter to be sent to the officers and Board of the NAACP this week:
|
|
Read more...
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
GI Special 7F15: Tyranny And Death [ 24 June 2009 ]Thomas F. Barton
"Americans, Your Interventions Have Brought Us Tyranny And Death". "Stay Home, Keep Your Hands Off And Leave Our Country To Us For A Change". "Carrying A Picture Of Mossadeq Today Means Two Things: 'We Want Democracy’ And 'No Foreign Intervention’". "These Demands Fit Together In The Minds Of Most Iranians".
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m55496&hd=&size=1&l=e
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
A Secret History of Dissent in the All-Volunteer MilitaryTom Engelhardt & Dahr Jamail
On May 1st at Fort Hood in central Texas, Specialist Victor Agosto wrote on a counseling statement, which is actually a punitive U.S. Army memo: "There is no way I will deploy to Afghanistan. The occupation is immoral and unjust. It does not make the American people any safer. It has the opposite effect." Ten days later, he refused to obey a direct order from his company commander to prepare to deploy and was issued a second counseling statement. On that one he wrote, "I will not obey any orders I deem to be immoral or illegal." Shortly thereafter, he told a reporter, "I'm not willing to participate in this occupation, knowing it is completely wrong. It's a matter of what I'm willing to live with."..
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m55610&hd=&size=1&l=e
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
Giving Honduras the Haiti TreatmentA Black Agenda Radio Commentary by Glen Ford
President Obama has joined all of Latin American in denouncing the coup in Honduras. But Washington's words should always be taken "with whole spoonfuls of salt." Obama could restore democracy to Haiti immediately, if he chose to, by allowing the return of deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, but instead shuts Aristide's party out of recent Senatorial elections. President Zalaya "was aligning himself with Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador and other left-led nations.... It is inconceivable that the U.S. looks forward" to his return...
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m55618&hd=&size=1&l=e
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
Video: UN shoots at mourners during funeral for Father Gerard Jean-Juste in Haiti, June 18, 2009Radio Telegine
This is footage from Radio Teleginen, Haiti's largest and privately owned television station, that captured the UN shooting at crowd level from the back of a small pickup truck on June 18, 2009. Mourners had just left Haiti's national cathedral to begin a procession when Brazilian troops with the UN attempted to arrest one of their numbers. During the arrest they are followed by the crowd and they begin firing into the air...
continua / continued http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m55513&hd=&size=1&l=e
|
|
International Liaison Committee
of Workers and Peoples (ILC)
STATEMENT FROM ILC COORDINATOR DANIEL GLUCKSTEIN: Free the "Spirit of Humanity" 21 Activists!Lift the Criminal Blockade Against the People of Gaza!
On June 30, Israeli Defense Forces attacked and boarded a Free Gaza Movement boat, the "Spirit of Humanity," kidnapping 21 human rights activists from 11 countries, including Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.
The boat was seized on international waters. Tons of medicine -- as well as toys, crayons and olive trees -- destined to the besieged people of Gaza were confiscated. The passengers and crew were forcibly taken to Israel, where they remain in detention today.
|
|
Read more...
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
New footage of deadly Afghan bombingJonathan Rugman
In the week that the US military pledged a new effort to avoid civilian casualties in Afghanistan, Channel 4 News has video evidence of an attack that may have killed up to 140 civilians. Airstrikes have long been a lethal coalition tactic, but the question of how targets are assessed refuses to go away. Late yesterday around 70 people were killed across the border in the south Waziristan region of Pakistan, when a US drone struck mourners attending the funeral of a militant. It is not known if civilians were among the dead...
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m55509&hd=&size=1&l=e
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
High-tech Barbarism:: Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's a Raytheon Spy Blimp!Tom Burghardt, Antifascist Calling...
As the American republic's long death-spiral continues apace, newer and ever more insidious technologies usher us towards an age of high-tech barbarism. "At first glance" Newsweek reveals, "there was nothing special about the blimp floating high above the cars and crowd at this year's Indy 500 on Memorial Day weekend." "Nothing special" that is, until you took a closer look. What you then discovered was another quintessentially American innovation, all the more chilling for its bland ubiquity. A silent, hovering sentinel linking commerce and repression; a perfect trope for our ersatz democracy. "Like most airships" Newsweek continued, "it acted as an advertising vehicle."...
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m55482&hd=&size=1&l=e
|
|
|
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
A question to the left on Iran: Can the people make history or not?By Mike Ely
There is a self-deceptive politics (among some leftists) that seeks to prettify all kinds of reactionary forces that (for one reason or another) are in opposition to U.S. imperialism — including Islamic reactionaries, Kim Jung Il, "hardline" revisionists of the Li Peng and Eric Honecker type and so on. And in the process they have a real, almost startling, hostility toward sections of the people who rise up in important if still-inarticulate ways. My sense is that such politics arise from a despair over actually developing our own revolutionary forces — and a resigned assumption that we have no other alternative but to fall behind any forces (ugly, oppressive, reactionary or not) who (one way or another) who seem to be on America’s shit list. This is not a uni-polar world with only one defining contradiction. Yes, we understand (and must understand) that the U.S. acts as a central pillar of world capitalism… but it is hardly the only pillar or the only reactionary force...
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m55484&hd=&size=1&l=e
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
Iran not a Twitter RevolutionErlich: Uprising crosses all classes, it's neither result of internet access nor CIA involvementReal News Network
Just days after his return from post-election Iran, we spoke with journalist and author Reece Erlich. Erlich explains that the importance placed on internet social networking like Twitter by the Western media is a function of how they have been learning about the events, not a reflection on the movement as a whole. "The movement is a lot broader than the relati vely well-to-do people who can afford to send Twitter or invest in computer equipment," says Erlich. Erlich published a book in 2007 exposing US attempts to destabilize Iran, such as the funding of domestic terrorist groups. But he adds that while the CIA and others may be active in the country, they are not responsible for the uprising...
Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55528
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
Will Iran Election Turmoil Affect Hezbollah?By Franklin Lamb
...Assuming that there is to be a serious ongoing power struggle between an Ahmaddinejad/Khameni group and a Mousavi/Rafsanjani faction, and one prevails over the other, rather than the more likely dialogue, some reshuffling of portfolios, and surface accommodation and slow transformation, many Hezbollah officials doubt it will affect the Party or its agenda partly because support for such groups as Hezbollah and Hamas is ingrained in Iran's ideology...
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m55539&hd=&size=1&l=e
|
from SOA Watch (6/28/9)
Military Coup in HondurasA military coup has taken place in Honduras this morning (Sunday, June 28), led by SOA graduate Romeo Vasquez. In the early hours of the day, members of the Honduran military surrounded the presidential palace and forced the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, into custody. He was immediately flown to Costa Rica.
A national vote had been scheduled to take place today in Honduras to consult the electorate on a proposal of holding a Constitutional Assembly in November. |
|
Read more...
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
Open letter of support to the demonstrators in IranVarious undersigned
...Years of foreign-sponsored 'democracy promotion' in various parts of the world have helped to spread a well-founded scepticism about civic movements which claim some sort of direct democratic legitimacy. But the principle itself remains as clear as ever: only the people themselves can determine the value of such claims. We the undersigned call on the government of Iran to take no action that might discourage such determination....
Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55494
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
Palestinian kids with kites reclaiming land and rightsInternational Solidarity Movement
ISM Gaza Strip activists participated in a children event/protest organized by the Beit Hanoun Local Initiative, close to the so called "buffer zone" that Israeli occupation forces are trying to impose all along the Green Line. Among the ruble of recently demolished homes, with other children watching from their homes full of bullet holes, the children of Beit Hanoun launched their kites, defying the siege and the buffer zone and reclaiming land and rights. The Israeli occupation forces participated also to the event with their military balloons...
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m55500&hd=&size=1&l=e
|
posted at revcom.us
New Online:
CPI(MLM) communiqué no 6:"People Beware! Mousavi is not your brother and he is not on your side!"
June 2, 2009. A World to Win News Service. Following are excerpts from Communiqué no. 6 of the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), put out on the morning of June 20.
These words might sound unpleasant for many of you engaged in bloody battle with the enemy, but open your eyes and ears!
Read on…
http://revcom.us/a/169/AWTWNS-CPIMLM_No6-en.html
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
Message from Iranian Workers’ Free Trade UnionThe Free Trade Union of Iranian Workers
Forty-eight days have passed since the suppression and arrest of workers’ gathering on International Labour Day – May Day. During this time our country has witnessed important events and we witness widespread and amazing changes in the social movement. During their televised debates the presidential candidates repeatedly accused each other of violating citizens’ rights, embezzlement, theft, mismanagement, and incompetence. But n one of them had any objection to the laws that have allowed the disastrous events affecting the majority of the population...
Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55465
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
US Missiles Turn Pakistan Funeral to GraveIslamOnline.net
Wrapped in white bandages and lying on a bed in the dust-bowed district hospital in Miramshah, the capital of North Waziristan, Fazl-e-Rabbi is one of who lucky enough to survive a US deadly missile strike at a funeral ceremony in neighboring South Waziristan a day earlier. "We had just finished the funeral prayers and I was wearing my shoes when I felt that the sun had exploded on my head," Fazl-e-Rabbi, who received injuries in his arms, legs and lower a bdomen, told IslamOnline.net on Wednesday, June 24. "What I remember is that I was hit by something in my lower abdomen and then in no time I fell on the ground. I tried to control my senses but I could not."...
Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55462
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
Bagram, the new GuantánamoClive Stafford Smith
The BBC's revelations about prisoner abuse at the US prison at Bagram airforce base in Afghanistan are the latest in a long line of revelations about abuse at US prisons around the world. President Obama told us that this sort of thing has stopped. Well, it hasn't. Sadly, the Obama administration is up to the former administration's familiar tricks, attempting to block the world from the truth. In April, a federal judge in Washington DC ordered that prisoners in Bagr am should be allowed counsel, and the right to be heard in court; the Obama administration refused to comply, and appealed the judgment. People being beaten up in Bagram should, apparently, grin and bear it...
Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55463
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
Video: Gaza Reality - Living in gravesANERAorg
www.anera.org continues "Gaza Reality" series. A close-up look at life in Gaza today. ANERA delivers donated medicine and medical supplies, shoes for children, fortified milk and biscuits for pre-schoolers and much more to help people struggling to survive in Gaza.
Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55436
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
Neda Soltan's family 'forced out of home' by Iranian authoritiesParents of young woman shot dead near protests are banned from mourning and funeral is cancelled, neighbours sayGuardian
The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of Neda Agha Soltan out of their Tehran home after shocking images of her death were circulated around the world. Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since sh e was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said...
Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55443
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
Argentina case threatens to criminalize criticism of IsraelHugh Harkin, The Electronic Intifada
In what Nobel Peace laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel has termed "a witch hunt and an attack on democratic freedoms," nine pro-Palestinian protesters in Argentina have been detained following a demonstration at a an event celebrating Israel's 61st anniversary. The activists have been vilified as violent anti-Semites by politicians and the television and print media, and now face up to 12 years in prison for "ideological a rrogance," under revived Juan Peron-era anti-terrorism legislation of dubious constitutionality...
Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55434
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
Revolutionary Marxist Current (Venezuela): Solidarity with the Iranian massesRevolutionary Marxist Current
In response to recent statements by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan Revolutionary Marxist Current has issued this statement. They express their support for the movement of the masses in Iran and explain the differences between the revolutionary movement in Venezuela and the counter-revolutionary regime in Iran...Clearly, as revolutionaries, we must oppose any imperialist interference in Iran . President Chávez has correctly supported Iran in international forums in the last few years against imperialist bullying on the part of the US. However, it would be fatal to mix up revolution with counter-revolution. The Bolivarian revolution must be on the side of the Iranian people, the workers, youth and women, who are in the streets of Tehran..
Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55452
|
posted at www.uruknet.de
Obama's Undeclared War Against Pakistan Continues, Despite His Attempt to Downplay ItJeremy Scahill
In a new interview, Obama said he has "no intention" of sending US troops into Pakistan. But US troops are already in the country and US drones attack Pakistan regularly....
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m55386&hd=&size=1&l=e
|
|
