Refugees International

The humanitarian situation has severely deteriorated over the past year in Afghanistan and Pakistan, creating more displacement and vulnerability. To promote stability, the international community must better balance development and humanitarian assistance and target returnees to Afghanistan as well as displaced people in both countries. Donor governments must allocate budgets based on need, not on political objectives. The UN must raise its voice on concerns related to protecting civilians. Whether by establishing an independent OCHA office or appointing dedicated senior humanitarian staff, the UN must talk to all factions and send a clear message that it is determined to fulfill its humanitarian mandate. [Read More]

Soldier testimonies appear to contradict official Israeli statements

By Paul Wood
BBC

A group of soldiers who took part in Israel's assault in Gaza say widespread abuses were committed against civilians under "permissive" rules of engagement.

The troops said they had been urged to fire on any building or person that seemed suspicious and said Palestinians were sometimes used as human shields. [Read More]

By Mike Tharp
McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD -- Two weeks after U.S. combat troops withdrew from Iraq's major cities, amid sporadic outbreaks of violence countrywide, Iraqi authorities aren't asking American forces for help. Although U.S. troops are "just a radio call away," in Baghdad and five other major urban areas, it appears the Iraqis haven't asked even once.

In Baghdad, the Iraqis also won't allow U.S. forces on the street, except for supply convoys. [Read More]

By Benjamin Sarlin
The Daily Beast

The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh was mocked in March when he referred to Dick Cheney’s secret squad of CIA assassins. Now, he talks to The Daily Beast about the next shoe to drop.

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh raised eyebrows back in March when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that Dick Cheney ran a secret hit squad that he kept hidden from congressional oversight. [Read More]

Reuters

BERLIN -- Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency believes Iran is capable of producing and testing an atomic bomb within six months, much sooner than most analysts estimate, according to a report in German weekly Stern.

The report, which quotes BND experts, says the agency has information supporting the view that Iran has mastered the enrichment technology necessary to make a bomb and has enough centrifuges to make weaponised uranium. [Read More]

Violence is declining, argues psychologist Steven Pinker. What are we doing right?

By Steven Pinker
Greater Good Magazine

Over the past century, violent images from World War II concentration camps, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, Iraq, and many other times and places have been seared into our collective consciousness. These images have led to a common belief that technology, centralized nation-states, and modern values have brought about unprecedented violence. [Read More]

Any investigation will inevitably lead to the higher-ups who created and facilitated torture

By Scott Horton
Harper's

At the Daily Beast, I report that Eric Holder is now on the verge of appointing a special prosecutor to look into allegations of criminal conduct associated with the implementation of the Bush Administration’s torture program. This follows on a substantial and persuasive story in the current issue of Newsweek that is close to my own account and possibly draws from some of the same sources inside Justice. As I note, there is still no final decision to appoint the prosecutor, and senior figures in the Justice Department are wary that David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, the president’s two senior political advisors, will intervene behind the scenes to shut the process down. Axelrod and Emanuel strongly oppose the investigation for political reasons: they call the torture issue a “distraction” and are convinced it will get in the way of Obama’s attempts to get his health care reform agenda through Congress. [Read More]

Congress is outraged that Cheney concealed a CIA program to assassinate al Qaeda leaders, but they should also be investigating why Obama is continuing -- and expanding -- U.S. assassinations.

By Jeremy Scahill
Rebel Reports

In June, CIA Director Leon Panetta allegedly informed members of the House Intelligence Committee of the existence of a secret Bush era program implemented in the days after 9-11 that, until last month, had been hidden from lawmakers. The concealment of the plan, Panetta alleged, happened at the orders of then-Vice President Dick Cheney. [Read More]

An investigation continues into how the Taliban overran the US Bari Alai outpost in Afghanistan

Al Jazeera's Clayton Swisher spent two weeks embedded with the US military along the northeast Afghan border with Pakistan, where the Taliban has US troops on its heels.

As part of a special series, he asks if US claims of success in the region stand up to scrutiny.

Al Jazeera

When Barack Obama, the US president, hosted Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari at the White House back in May, a sense of urgency hung over the meeting that may not have been appreciated until now. [Read More]

Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Tuesday announced the deployment of newly modified Army brigades to Iraq to focus on training and development duties that will dominate the U.S. mission after combat forces leave by August 2010.

Four "advisory and assistance brigades," constituting up to 14,000 soldiers, will begin deploying to Iraq this fall as part of a routine 30,000-troop rotation that also includes three Army combat brigades and three Army division headquarters, defense officials said. [Read More]

By Tom Hayden
Huffington Post

Apparent differences between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are threatening to confuse American policy towards the coup in Honduras.

The differences seem to go back to the 2008 presidential primaries when Obama embraced a broad new direct diplomacy while Clinton hewed to a tougher traditional stance. Clinton era advisers like James Carville and Stanley Greenberg had gone on to become political consultants for Latin American presidential candidates favoring free trade policies in Venezuela, Bolivia, Mexico, and Argentina, as depicted in the documentary film "Our Brand Is Crisis." [Read More]

Carol Smaldino
Huffington Post

The subject of torture is not new. It isn't new for Army Sergeant Joseph Darby who honorably brought the brutal photos of incidents of torture in Abu Ghraib to his commanding officer in January 2004. It isn't new for all those whose lives are over in one way or another, or for those who suffer still and who were savagely and brutally mistreated with wanton sadism. It isn't new for those who care. [Read More]

By Quil Lawrence
NPR

Morning Edition, July 13, 2009 · Nearly two weeks after U.S. combat troops officially pulled out of Iraq's cities, the government in Baghdad is hailing the withdrawal as a sign that it is holding the U.S. to an agreement stipulating that all American troops leave Iraq by 2012.

Despite continuing violence, the Iraqi government says that the arrangement is going smoothly. Many Iraqis, however, aren't so sure. They can't understand why American soldiers are still on their streets. [Read More]

By Chip Gibbons

With negotiations in Costa Rica continuing between President Zelayla and his usurpers, much has been said about the US role in and response to the coup. President Obama has condemned the coup, much to the consternation of some on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, as opposed to most of the US media, which has ignored the coup altogether or devoted only a sliver of its coverage to distortions of the coup that bare little similarity to the actual realities. After much pressure from the global community, particularly Latin America, and those paying attention within the United States, Obama finally made his actions match his words by ending military aid to the illegitimate regime in Honduras. One realm of US complicity, however, has yet to be addressed--the training of the coup leaders with taxpayer money by the US Army at the School of Americas (SOA). [Read More]

Aswat al-Iraq

NINEWA -- U.S. forces have violated the security agreement signed with Iraq by entering two police departments in Mosul city, according to a local police source. [Read More]

HONDURAS RESISTS INTERVIEW WITH BERTA CÁCERES, CIVIL COUNCIL OF
POPULAR AND INDIGENOUS ORGANIZATIONS OF HONDURAS (COPINH)

Honduras Resists: What is the state of resistance against the coup d'etat after two weeks?

Berta Cáceres: The resistance of the Honduran people has been firm and heroic not just in Tegucigalpa but in all of the national territory. Just today hundreds more friends came from the west from as far as 500 kilometers. In Olancho the army machine-gunned the tires of the buses that were coming leaving the passengers to walk days to arrive in Tegucigalpa. More and more people are arriving from all over, from every state, from every region of the country each day. Today there were marches in Olancho, Santa Bárbara, Cortés, Progreso, Tela, Comayagua, Intibucá and many other places too. In the whole national territory this resistance is growing. [Read More]

By Rasoul Nafisi
TELOS

The religious state that has emerged in revolutionary Iran poses serious questions that, because of the rapidity of developments, have remained unanswered. In order to understand the Iranian revolution and the emergence of the clerical state, therefore, it is necessary to analyze the revolution's genesis, its course, its aftermath, and, most importantly, the clergy's role as a key sector of the power elite and its alliances. [Read More]

Barack Obama took another swipe at the advanced fighter jet, reiterating his threat to veto any bill containing F-22 funds, in letters to committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and ranking Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona on Monday.

By Jen DiMascio
Politico

The leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee don’t have the votes to strip from the defense authorization bill $1.75 billion for seven F-22 Raptor fighter jets, but they’re hoping the power of the presidency will sway some colleagues.
[Read More]

Accusing the man serving as interim president of trying to sabotage mediation talks, ousted Honduran leader Manuel Zelaya said he'll give him

By TIM ROGERS AND JIM WYSS
Miami Herald

MANAGUA -- Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya gave his rival, Roberto Micheletti, one week to step down, saying he was prepared to risk bloodshed to recapture the presidency, which he lost on June 28.

Speaking from neighboring Nicaragua, Zelaya accused Micheletti, who is serving as interim president, of trying to sabotage ongoing mediation talks in Costa Rica and using the time to consolidate his power. [Read More]

By ERIC SCHMITT
NY Times

ABOARD U.S.S. RONALD REAGAN, in the Gulf of Oman -- After taking repeated fire from Taliban fighters holed up in a building last week, a group of American Marines in southern Afghanistan called in airstrikes to wipe out the threat. [Read More]

The agency had a plan after Sept. 11 for paramilitary forces to take out Al Qaeda figures overseas. Congress was never told.

By Greg Miller
LA Times

Reporting from Washington-- The secret CIA program halted last month by Director Leon E. Panetta involved establishing elite paramilitary teams that could be inserted into Pakistan or other locations to capture or kill top leaders of the Al Qaeda terrorist network, according to former U.S. intelligence officials. [Read More]

Agency Didn't Tell Congress About Bush-Era Plan to Use Assassins

By Joby Warrick and Ben Pershing
Washington Post

The CIA ran a secret program for nearly eight years that aspired to kill top al-Qaeda leaders with specially trained assassins, but the agency declined to tell Congress because the initiative never came close to bringing Osama bin Laden and his deputies into U.S. cross hairs, U.S. intelligence and congressional officials said yesterday. [Read More]

…
By PAMELA HESS
Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Congressional demands for an investigation grew on Monday over new disclosures that a secret CIA program to capture or kill al-Qaida leaders was concealed from Congress for eight years, perhaps at the behest of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

The program, which never got off the ground and remains shrouded in mystery, was designed to target leaders of the terrorism network at close range, rather than with air strikes that risked civilian casualties, government officials with knowledge of the operation said Monday. [Read More]

Reports over the weekend indicate that Attorney General Holder is seriously considering the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate torture and other abuses that occurred during the Bush-Cheney administration.

This would be a major reversal and indicates that our efforts for torture accountability are paying off. We are close to success but pressure is mounting to prevent prosecution. Please act now to write the President and Attorney General to urge a criminal investigation. Click here to take action. [Read More]

• Ex-CIA officials say foreign leaders were also in dark
• Investigation demanded into post-9/11 strategy

By Chris McGreal
The Guardian

Dick Cheney, the former vice president, ordered a highly classified CIA operation hidden from Congress because it pushed the limits of legality by planning to assassinate al-Qaida operatives in friendly countries without the knowledge of their governments, according to former intelligence officials. [Read More]

McCain works to remove $1.75 billion from spending bill for Lockheed Martin F-22 fighter jets

AP

Sen. John McCain wants to remove the $1.75 billion recently inserted into the proposed 2010 defense budget for more fighter jets from Lockheed Martin. [Read More]

Britain revokes 5 arms export licenses to Israel, cites concerns over conduct during Gaza war

By AMY TEIBEL
AP

Britain has revoked several licenses granted to British companies to sell weapons parts to Israel because of concerns over their use in Israel's recent war in the Gaza Strip, British and Israeli officials said Monday.

The decision, which an Israeli official said applied to parts for missile boats, does not appear to affect Israel's military capabilities significantly. But it was symbolic given the international outcry against the Israeli military's conduct during the three-week war early this year. While recognizing Israel's right to defend itself, Britain has characterized Israeli actions during the bruising war as "disproportionate." [Read More]

Obama 'examining Afghan killings'

BBBC

The U.S. president says he is examining an alleged massacre in Afghanistan amid allegations the Bush administration resisted efforts to investigate it.

Barack Obama told CNN he had told officials to "collect the facts for me" and could order a full inquiry. [Read More]

Iraq and Afghanistan leave a trail of costs, debt and future obligations

By Linda J. Blimes and Joseph Stiglitz
LA Times

On the last Tuesday in June, the United States "stood down" in Iraq, finalizing the pullout of 140,000 troops from Iraqi cities and towns -- the first step on the long path home. After more than six years, most Americans are war-weary, even though a smaller percentage of us have been involved in the actual fighting than in any major conflict in U.S. history. We have relegated the car and suicide bombings to the inside pages of newspapers, accepting at face value that the "surge" has calmed things down enough so we finally can leave the whole sorry Iraq adventure behind us. [Read More]

Stephen de Tarczynski interviews Afghan women's rights activist MALALAI JOYA

"The same crimes are happening, repeating now under the name of democracy"

By Stephen de Tarczynski
IPS

MELBOURNE, Jul 13 (IPS) - It is easy to understand why epithets such as brave and courageous often accompany the name of Malalai Joya. Slight of stature and serenely demure, the young Afghan woman’s past and present encapsulate the plight of her countrywomen. [Read More]

THE PRESIDENT: (Trumpet plays.) I like this. Thank you. Thank you. I think Congress needs one of those horns. (Laughter.) That sounds pretty good. Sounds like Louis Armstrong back there. (Laughter.)

Good afternoon, everybody. It is a great honor for me to be in Accra and to speak to the representatives of the people of Ghana. (Applause.) I am deeply grateful for the welcome that I've received, as are Michelle and Malia and Sasha Obama. Ghana's history is rich, the ties between our two countries are strong, and I am proud that this is my first visit to sub-Saharan Africa as President of the United States of America. (Applause.) [Read More]

The attorney general is leaning toward appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Bush-era torture policy, sources tell Scott Horton. Inside the logic driving Eric Holder's possible conversion.

By Scott Horton
The Daily Beast

The Obama White House has deflected calls for appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the formulation and implementation of Bush-era torture policies with an argument that they want to "look forward, not backward." But Justice Department lawyers took careful note of a different statement President Obama made yesterday in Ghana: "You have the power to hold your leaders accountable." Now two sources in the Justice Department confirm to me that Holder is preparing to appoint a special prosecutor to conduct a comprehensive investigation and, if necessary, bring charges. They caution that the final call has not been made. And senior Justice Department officials remain concerned that meddling by the White House’s political wing would undermine the appearance of the Justice Department's independence. [Read More]

White House Has Resisted Inquiry

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is leaning toward appointing a criminal prosecutor to investigate whether CIA personnel tortured terrorism suspects after Sept. 11, 2001, setting the stage for a conflict with administration officials who would prefer the issues remain in the past, according to three sources familiar with his thinking. [Read More]

Death Tolls Compare to Iraq as Number of U.S. and NATO Forces Surge; Criticism of War in U.K. Heats Up

By ANAND GOPAL in Kabul, MATTHEW ROSENBERG in New Delhi and ALISTAIR MACDONALD in London
Wall Street Journal

A series of attacks in Afghanistan has left four U.S. Marines and eight British soldiers dead in recent days, stoking concern among U.S. and allied forces over a surge in battlefield deaths, as thousands of troops pour into the country. [Read More]

By Nancy A. Youssef
McClatchy Newspapers

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Sunday that when he gives his assessment to the Obama administration next month of what is needed to defeat the Taliban, he won't be deterred by administration statements that he cannot have more U.S. troops. [Read More]

Cite threats to U.S. security

By Ben Conery
Washington Times

Several Republicans on Sunday condemned a potential Justice Department criminal investigation stemming from George W. Bush administration interrogation policies, warning that such a move could be threat to national security and one advocating a "scorched-earth policy" against the Obama administration in retaliation. [Read More]

Bush Anti-Terror Policies Get Reluctant Revisit

By Carrie Johnson and Joby Warrick
Washington Post

After trying for months to shake off the legacy of their predecessors and focus on their own priorities, Obama administration officials have begun to concede that they cannot leave the fight against terrorism unexhumed and are reluctantly moving to examine some of the most controversial and clandestine episodes. [Read More]

By SCOTT SHANE
NY Times

President Obama is facing new pressure to reverse himself and to ramp up investigations into the Bush-era security programs, despite the political risks.

Leading Democrats on Sunday demanded investigations of how a highly classified counterterrorism program was kept secret from the Congressional leadership on the orders of Vice President Dick Cheney. [Read More]

AP

By Pete Yost
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON -- Six months into Barack Obama's presidency, his Democratic allies are pushing for twin investigations into Bush-era torture and anti-terrorism policies.

Two senators including the head of the intelligence committee suggested Sunday that the prior administration broke the law by concealing a CIA counterterrorism program from Congress. [Read More]

AFRI(OIL)COM

By Antonia Juhasz
Editor: John Feffer

The number of Americans who believe that the war in Iraq was a mistake has surpassed the number who felt the same way about Vietnam during that war. At the same time, a much quieter U.S. military build-up is underway on another continent. The ultimate objective of the two efforts is the same: securing Big Oil’s access to the regions’ oil. The impact in Africa will likely be the same as in Iraq: perpetual occupation, instability, and growing anti-Americanism. [Read More]

By Thomas R. Eddlem

GuantanamoThe picture that emerges from 51 pages of recently declassified documents about detention at Guantanamo is one of persistent torture approved directly by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, combined with administrative incompetence on the ground at Guantanamo and a flagrant White House betrayal of military brass in charge of interrogations. [Read More]

By Ryan Singel
Wired

The Justice Department needs to investigate whether the secretiveness of Bush's warrantless wiretapping program tainted terrorism prosecutions by hiding exculpatory evidence from defendants, an oversight report from five inspectors general warned Friday.

The report (.pdf), mandated by Congress, also warned that President’ Bush's post-9/11 extrajudicial intelligence programs involved unprecedented collection of communications, and that the government needs to be careful about storing and using that data. [Read More]

No legal rights to investigate Taliban deaths - or Bush admin. refusal to do so, officials say

LARA JAKES
AP

Obama administration officials said Friday they had no grounds to investigate the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners of war who human rights groups allege were killed by U.S.-backed forces.

The mass deaths were brought up anew Friday in a report by The New York Times on its Web site. It quoted government and human rights officials accusing the Bush administration of failing to investigate the executions of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of prisoners. [Read More]

By Christina Lamb in Karachi
Times of London

Osama bin Laden and the top Al-Qaeda leadership are not in Pakistan, making US missile attacks against them futile, according to the country’s interior minister.

"If Osama was in Pakistan we would know, with all the thousands of troops we have sent into the tribal areas in recent months," Rehman Malik told The Sunday Times. "If he and all these four or five top people were in our area they would have been caught, the way we are searching." [Read More]

Gov't report: Bush secret surveillance program extended beyond wiretapping without warrants

PAMELA HESS
AP

The Bush administration authorized secret surveillance activities that still have not been made public, according to a new government report that questions the legal basis for the unprecedented anti-terrorism program.

It's unclear how much valuable intelligence was yielded by the surveillance program started after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, according to the unclassified summary of reports by five inspectors general. The reports mandated by Congress last year were delivered to lawmakers Friday.
[Read More]

U.S. General Sees Afghan Army, Police Insufficient
Obama Strategy May Need More Funds, U.S. Troops

By Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the newly arrived top commander in Afghanistan, has concluded that the Afghan security forces will have to be far larger than currently planned if President Obama's strategy for winning the war is to succeed, according to senior military officials.

Such an expansion would require spending billions more than the $7.5 billion the administration has budgeted annually to build up the Afghan army and police over the next several years, and the likely deployment of thousands more U.S. troops as trainers and advisers, officials said. [Read More]

By SCOTT SHANE
NY Times

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency's director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday. [Read More]

Four knowledgeable sources tell NEWSWEEK that he is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's brutal interrogation practices

By Daniel Klaidman
Newsweek

It's the morning after Independence Day, and Eric Holder Jr. is feeling the weight of history. The night before, he'd stood on the roof of the White House alongside the president of the United States, leaning over a railing to watch fireworks burst over the Mall, the monuments to Lincoln and Washington aglow at either end. "I was so struck by the fact that for the first time in history an African-American was presiding over this celebration of what our nation is all about," he says. Now, sitting at his kitchen table in jeans and a gray polo shirt, as his 11-year-old son, Buddy, dashes in and out of the room, Holder is reflecting on his own role. He doesn't dwell on the fact that he's the country's first black attorney general. He is focused instead on the tension that the best of his predecessors have confronted: how does one faithfully serve both the law and the president? [Read More]

Her father had just won agreement from the Russians to cut back on the world's stockpiles of nuclear weapons. And Barack Obama's eldest daughter was obviously keen to make her own statement on the issue - even if it was merely a fashion statement. [Read More]

By JAMES RISEN
NY Times

WASHINGTON -- After a mass killing of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Taliban prisoners of war by the forces of an American-backed warlord during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, Bush administration officials repeatedly discouraged efforts to investigate the episode, according to government officials and human rights organizations. [Read More]

By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
NY Times

WASHINGTON -- The warrantless surveillance program approved by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks received too little legal review at its inception and its ultimate effectiveness was unclear, according to an in-depth review released Friday by the inspectors general of five federal agencies. [Read More]

By Barry Grey
WSWS

The United States fired multiple missiles from pilotless drones on Wednesday in two separate attacks on insurgents in Pakistan’s South Waziristan district, killing up to 60 people. The attacks followed a US missile strike in South Waziristan on Tuesday that reportedly killed 16 people. [Read More]

Granma International

TEGUCIGALPA, July 9. -- Thousands of people marched for the tenth consecutive day today, condemning the military coup of June 28 and demanding the restoration of constitutional order.

Resistance continuesThe demonstrators came together in Loarque Plaza and then moved along the highway linking the capital to the south of the country and the city of Choluteca, the third most important.
[Read More]

By Daniel Trotta
Reuters

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Rivals for power in Honduras held to their conflicting and seemingly intractable positions on Friday as hopes faded for a quick negotiated solution to the crisis triggered by last month's coup.

The dual presidents who both claim to be the legitimate head of state failed to reach an accord or even meet face-to-face during talks in Costa Rica on Thursday, but they left behind low-level teams that were set to resume mediation on Friday. [Read More]

Press TV

The French President Nicolas Sarkozy warns that a unilateral military strike on Iran by Israel would be an "absolute catastrophe."

Sarkozy was speaking after a summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations (G8) in the central Italian city of L'Aquila on Thursday. [Read More]

88 Suicides in First Six Months of the Year

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Suicides in the US Army are on the rise with 88 suspected cases in the first six months of the year, compared to 67 in the same period in 2008, according to Pentagon figures issued. [Read More]

Netanyahu adviser raises "MAD" nuclear scenario

Reuters

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel must have "tremendously powerful" weapons to deter a nuclear attack or destroy an enemy that dares to launch an atomic strike, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted on Thursday as saying.

National security adviser Uzi Arad, in comments to Haaretz newspaper, appeared to allude to what is widely believed to be Israel's own nuclear arsenal and a standing policy of "mutually assured destruction" (MAD). He warned other countries they could bring about their own devastation if they launched an attack. [Read More]

US handed over 5 Iranian detainees to Iraq-W.House

WASHINGTON, July 9 (Reuters) - The United States has turned over five Iranian detainees held in Iraq to the government in Baghdad in compliance with the U.S.-Iraqi Security Agreement, the White House said on Thursday. [Read More]

Democrats Accuse Agency of Pattern of Withholding Information From Lawmakers

By Paul Kane and Ben Pershing
Washington Post

Four months after he was sworn in, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta learned of an intelligence program that had been hidden from Congress since 2001, a revelation that prompted him to immediately cancel the initiative and schedule a pair of closed-door meetings on Capitol Hill.

The next day, June 24, Panetta informed the House and Senate intelligence committees of the program and the action he had taken, according to Democratic and Republican members of the panels. [Read More]

Winning the ultimate battle: How humans could end war

By John Horgan
New Scientist

OPTIMISTS called the first world war "the war to end all wars". Philosopher George Santayana demurred. In its aftermath he declared: "Only the dead have seen the end of war". History has proved him right, of course. What's more, today virtually nobody believes that humankind will ever transcend the violence and bloodshed of warfare. I know this because for years I have conducted numerous surveys asking people if they think war is inevitable. Whether male or female, liberal or conservative, old or young, most people believe it is. For example, when I asked students at my university "Will humans ever stop fighting wars?" more than 90 per cent answered "No". Many justified their assertion by adding that war is "part of human nature" or "in our genes". But is it really? [Read More]

Adding up the true costs of two wars

By Joseph Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes
Madison Times

Last week the U.S. "stood down" in Iraq, finalizing the pullout of 140,000 troops from Iraqi cities and towns -- the first step on the long path home. After more than six years, most Americans are war-weary, even though a smaller percentage of us have been involved in the actual fighting than in any major conflict in U.S. history. [Read More]

Change the policy, or change the subject?

By Douglas M. Bloomfield
New Jersey Jewish News

If you can’t convince ’em, accuse ’em. That’s the advice from The Israel Project (TIP) for pro-Israel activists answering questions about settlements. Rather than try to defend Israeli settlements, change the subject. If that doesn’t work, try accusing those who advocate removing Jewish settlements of promoting “a kind of ethnic cleansing to move all Jews” from the West Bank. [Read More]

By Michael Parenti

Is President Obama innocent of the events occurring in Honduras, specifically the coup launched by the Honduran military resulting in the abduction and forced deportation of democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya? Obama has denounced the coup and demanded that the rules of democracy be honored. Still, several troubling questions remain. [Read More]

Gramma International

AFTER having been hunted down along with her family, the first lady of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, yesterday headed a mass march in Tegucigalpa for democracy, against the coup d’état and for the restoration of the Honduran constitutional president, Manuel Zelaya.

We have to go on fighting. In her speech to the population engaged in non-violent resistance, Xiomara affirmed her solidarity with the Honduran people and the families of the victims of the dictatorial coup regime installed in that country after the coup d’état. [Read More]

By Chris Driscoll

I've seen several claims in just the last few days that the imperialists of America are living their final days in power. The left has been making that claim for close to a century. Trotsky used to write in the 1930s about the 'Death Agony of Capitalism,' and Lenin two decades prior to that wrote about the imperialism having entered its 'highest' and last stage.

The fact is that, here we are, decades and decades later, and the imperialist coalition led by the U.S. ruling class is stronger than ever, richer than ever, still in control of a vast part of the world. [Read More]

By Michael Schwartz
TomDispatch

Here's how reporters Steven Lee Myers and Marc Santora of the New York Times described the highly touted American withdrawal from Iraq's cities last week:

"Much of the complicated work of dismantling and removing millions of dollars of equipment from the combat outposts in the city has been done during the dark of night. Gen. Ray Odierno, the overall American commander in Iraq, has ordered that an increasing number of basic operations -- transport and re-supply convoys, for example -- take place at night, when fewer Iraqis are likely to see that the American withdrawal is not total." [Read More]

By Amy Belasco
Congressional Research Service

Summary

In February and March 2009, the Obama Administration announced its plans to increase troop levels in Afghanistan and decrease troop levels in Iraq. In Afghanistan, 30,000 more troops are deploying this year while in Iraq, troops will gradually decline to 35,000 to 50,000 by August 31,
2011 with all troops to be out of Iraq by December 31, 2011. [Read More]

Netanyahu's paranoia extends to 'self-hating Jews' Emanuel and Axelrod

By Barak Ravid
Haaretz

At about 3:15 P.M. yesterday, the government's 100th day in office, political correspondents' beepers went off. In an unprecedented move, the Prime Minister's Bureau was inviting the correspondents to a press conference at the Knesset that was slated to begin in 15 minutes. This was the start of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's panicked, disproportionate response to the criticism senior Kadima politicians had leveled at him three hours earlier. [Read More]

Two U.S. soldiers also die in a separate bombing as violence grows in scattered areas of the nation.

By Laura King
LA Times

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan -- A powerful truck bomb killed at least 25 people today, more than half of them schoolchildren, in a province just south of Kabul. Authorities speculated that the explosives-laden vehicle might have been intended for use in an attack in the capital.

In Afghanistan's volatile south, meanwhile, two American troops were killed in a roadside bomb, the U.S. military said. [Read More]

Bombings in Baghdad, northern town of Tal Afar kill at least 41 people, authorities say

SAAD ABDUL-KADIR
AP News

Two suicide bombers on Thursday killed at least 34 people and injured 70 in an attack on the home of an anti-terrorism officer in northern Iraq, while three roadside bombs in Baghdad killed seven others, authorities said.

The attacks came one day after car bombs in two Shiite villages near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul killed 16 civilians and injured more than two dozen, in a surge of violence in Iraq's troubled north following the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from cities to bases outside urban centers at the end of June. [Read More]

Obama opposes increased briefings on covert activities

AP

WASHINGTON -- The White House is threatening to veto a bill that would require the president to dramatically increase the number of lawmakers who must be notified about covert CIA activities.

[Read More]

By SIOBHAN GORMAN
Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon E. Panetta has told lawmakers that the agency "concealed significant actions" from Congress, according to a letter released Wednesday from seven Democratic lawmakers.

The letter also contends that Mr. Panetta said CIA officials have misled Congress since 2001. [Read More]

By SCOTT SHANE
NY Times

WASHINGTON -- The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed "significant actions" from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said.

In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing his testimony, Democrats said that the agency had "misled members" of Congress for eight years about the classified matters, which the letter did not disclose. "This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods," said the letter, made public late Wednesday by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the signers. [Read More]

By PAMELA HESS
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress last month that senior CIA officials have concealed significant actions and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001, the chairman and other members of the House Intelligence Committee said in letters revealed Wednesday.

Exactly what actions Panetta disclosed to the House Intelligence Committee on June 24 is unclear, but committee chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said that the CIA outright lied in one case. [Read More]

By Phil Wilayto

The "Iranian people" have not spoken.

What's happening in Iran today is a developing conflict between two forces that each represent millions of people. There are good people on both sides and the issues are complicated. So before U.S. progressives decide to weigh in, supporting one side and condemning the other, let's take a little closer look.
[Read More]

Veterans call to break silence and end torture

By Deborah Dupre'
Los Angeles Examiner

On June 29, 2009, Iraq Veterans Against War (IVAW) members called for a release of detainee abuse photos and are petitioning to end torture.

Below is the letter to President Obama from Veterans For Peace, Veterans For Common Sense, and IVAW: [Read More]

Iraq Veterans Against the War

Active duty soldier and IVAW member, Victor Agosto, has refused to fight in Afghanistan and may face court martial for his actions. Adding your name to our support petition can help his case.

Victor returned to Ft. Hood, Texas after his deployment in Iraq and got news that his unit would be sent to Afghanistan. He had already been questioning his service in Iraq and saw parallels with Afghanistan. "Both occupations fuel the insurgencies in those countries. We are creating 'terrorists' and we are killing so many innocent people," Victor concluded. In May, he told his unit command he would not go. [Read More]

Present-day G.I. resistance to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan cannot begin to be compared with the extensive resistance movement that helped end the Vietnam War... Nevertheless, the ongoing dissent that does exist in the U.S. military, however fragmented and overlooked at the moment, should not be discounted.

By 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." [Read More]

In a letter to Congress Tuesday, 17 terrorism experts said America's super-maximum security prisons can handle detainees from Guantánamo.

By Alexandra Marks
Christian Science Monitor

With the deadline to close the Guantanamo Bay prison just six months away, Obama administration lawyers told Congress Tuesday they are still unsure about how they will deal with the remaining detainees there.

But a bipartisan group of leading homeland-security experts criticized congressional efforts to block to the administration from moving the Guantanamo detainees to the US as "unnecessary and harmful to our national security." [Read More]

Straight Talk: Revealing the Real U.S.-Africa Policy

Gerald LeMelle
Foreign Policy In Focus

It's time for some straight talk on U.S. foreign policy as it relates to Africa. While Obama administration officials and the U.S. African Command (AFRICOM) representatives insist that U.S. foreign policy towards Africa isn't being militarized, the evidence seems to suggest otherwise. While Africans condemned U.S. military policy in Africa under the Bush administration, the Obama administration has not only mirrored Bush's approach, but has in fact enhanced it. President George W. Bush established Africa as a foreign policy priority in 2003, when he announced that 25% of oil imported to the United States should come from Africa. Like the Cold War, the Global War on Terror establishes a rationale for bolstering U.S. military presence and support in Africa. Yet official pronouncement of U.S. policy is routinely presented as if neither of these two developments occurred. Unfortunately, the more evasive we are about our intentions on the continent, the more we invite not only skepticism, but even resistance.

A policy is militarized when military might is deemed the only effective way to accomplish its agenda. In a June statement on U.S. policy in Africa, U.S. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Johnny Carson said the agenda of the Obama administration is as follows: promoting and strengthening democracy and the rule of law, preventing and mitigating conflicts, encouraging sustained economic development and long-term growth, and working with African countries to face both old and new global challenges. The agenda makes no reference to the recent FY2010 budget that doubles the size of AFRICOM's funds. Nor does it mention the doubling of financial support for counterterrorism projects throughout the continent — including increasing funds for weapons, military training, and education at a time when U.S. foreign aid money is stagnating.

AFRICOM has been controversial on the continent since President Bush first announced it in February 2007. The Bush administration discussed several sites for its headquarters, but their failure to include African civil society in the discussion is widely regarded as a major mistake. Though the Western press barely reported it, the reaction on the continent was vociferous. Every country with the exception of Liberia rejected AFRICOM, and African civil society, where allowed to speak, has overwhelmingly characterized AFRICOM as a means to secure oil and nothing more.

Officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations argue that a major objective of AFRICOM is to "professionalize" security forces in key countries across the continent. However, they don't attempt to address the impact of this on minority parties or whether the U.S. is effectively propping up "friendly" dictators. These are key questions that need answering if our agenda includes democracy and rule of law.

Training and weapons programs and arms transfers for Equatorial Guinea, Chad, Ethiopia and even the beleaguered Transitional Federal Government in Somalia, clearly indicate that using the military to maintain influence in government in Africa remains the priority the foreign policy goal. Indeed, one of the counterterrorism projects that the Obama administration boosted considerably is the Counterterrorism Engagement Program, designed to "build political will at senior levels in partner nations for shared counterterrorism challenges."

The U.S. fascination with oil, the war on terrorism, and the military is further exemplified through the announcement that on July 12, Obama will visit Africa for the first time. The president has chosen Ghana as his only African destination this trip. The U.S. government itself states the purpose of the visit is "strengthening the U.S. relationship with one of our most trusted partners in sub-Saharan Africa, and to highlight the critical role that sound governance and civil society play in promoting lasting development." Indeed, Ghana's extraordinarily consistent economic growth pattern for the past seven years (registering a GDP expansion of 7.3% in 2008) offers the best evidence of the relationship between government accountability and economic development.

On top of that, on January 3rd 2009, John Atta Mills defeated Nana Akufo-Addo by less than 1% in the Ghanaian presidential election. Most believe that the election was by and large free and fair, and the transition was for the most part peaceful. There is much to be proud of in Ghana, and the burgeoning success story there is most welcome. However, there are rumblings that the real reason the administration chose Ghana is two-fold: Ghana's discovery of oil in 2008, and perhaps more importantly, the geographically, economically, and politically strategic advantage of establishing AFRICOM's headquarters there.

Could this be a litmus test for future democracy in Ghana? Could we begin providing substantial AFRICOM counterterrorism resources to build political will and promote U.S. interests instead of Ghanaian interests? It been done before. In fact, it was done in Ghana in 1966, when the CIA helped overthrow then-President Kwame Nkrumah.

These questions arise because it would be hard for Africans not to conclude that security and energy concerns under the protection and guidance of AFRICOM are driving our foreign policy, as opposed to those articulated by Carson. If this isn't the case, then the United States is failing to make clear how dramatic increases in U.S. investment in weapons financing and military training for countries, regardless of their records on human rights or democracy, are ultimately going to help us achieve the agenda.

Gerald LeMelle is a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus and executive director of Africa Action.

Source: Foreign Policy in Focus

By Nancy A. Youssef
McClatchy Newspapers

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Taliban fighters and their commanders have escaped the Marines' big offensive in Afghanistan's Helmand province and moved into areas to the west and north, prompting fears that the U.S. effort has just moved the Taliban problem elsewhere, Afghan defense officials have told McClatchy. [Read More]

By WINSLOW T. WHEELER
Counerpunch

Congress is busying itself trying to overturn Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's decision to stop producing the F-22 fighter. But President Barack Obama has threatened to veto a spending bill for the entire Defense Department if it contains a single F-22 over the 187 now authorized.

Gates has said that, without a doubt, Obama should veto a bill that includes additional F-22s. The fact that there are doubts demonstrates the mess our defenses are in. [Read More]

Member of human rights group tells committee probing Gaza offensive that Israel held detainees held with no access to food, water, restrooms; claims they were subjected to violent Shin Bet interrogations

By Daniel Edelson
YNet News

A member of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) testified in Geneva on Tuesday before a United Nations investigation team looking into the Israeli offensive in Gaza about half a year ago. [Read More]

* U.S. soldier killed in roadside bombing on a convoy in western Afghanistan
* Follows deaths of 7 Americans, 2 Canadians, 1 Briton in separate incidents
* Latest deaths come as U.S. forces ratchet up fight against Taliban

CNN

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- International troops in Afghanistan endured another deadly attack Tuesday, a day after 10 NATO-led troops were killed in that country. [Read More]

Detainees require more legal rights in court: US officials

By Dan De Luce
AFO

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- US administration officials said Tuesday that terror suspects tried before military commissions can claim some constitutional rights, including protection against evidence obtained through coercion.

The commissions, Assistant Attorney General David Kris said, should only allow evidence from detainees' voluntary statements or else risk having convictions thrown out on appeal in higher courts. [Read More]

By CAROL ROSENBERG
Miami Herald

The Obama administration prefers war on terror prosecutions in civilian courts but has not yet decided where to try those accused of involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks who are now held at Guantanamo Bay, government lawyers told a Senate committee on Tuesday.

Government lawyers also said they are still undecided on the constitutional impact of moving military trials to U.S. soil. ''Military commissions should be a viable, ready alternative for national security reasons for those who violate the laws of war,'' Pentagon General Counsel Jeh C. Johnson said. [Read More]

By JESS BRAVIN
Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration said Tuesday it could continue to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely even if they have been acquitted of terrorism charges by a U.S. military commission.

Jeh Johnson, the Defense Department's chief lawyer, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that releasing a detainee who has been tried and found not guilty was a policy decision that officials would make based on their estimate of whether the prisoner posed a future threat. [Read More]

By Tom Hayden
Progressives for Obama

Robert McNamara died the other day as seven American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan. It wasn't the deaths on the same day that made me remember McNamara's folly. It was the sense that McNamara's ghost is hovering over the new graveyard of Americas future. [Read More]

By Cynthia Papermaster and Susan Harman
ImpeachBybee.org

It's a problem that Jay Bybee is a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. How can he serve as a judge when he seriously violated the laws against inhumane treatment of detainees and gave legal approval to interrogation techniques that amount to torture. We agree with Patrick Leahy, Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that if Bybee's a decent human being, he'll resign. We agree with MoveOn and People for the American Way, who've submitted 140,000 petition signatures to John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, asking him to impeach Bybee. And we agree with the New York Times, which called for his impeachment twice in April. [Read More]

By RUSSELL MOKHIBER

Got to hand it to J. Jioni Palmer.

He’s learned the ropes of Washington well.

Palmer is the spokesperson for the Congressional Black Caucus.

Rang up Palmer on Wednesday. [Read More]

By Arshad Mohammed
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on Tuesday accepted a U.S.-backed effort by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to mediate an end to the political crisis in Honduras and said talks with his rivals would begin on Thursday.

"Our first meeting is set for Thursday, in Costa Rica," Zelaya," Zelaya told Honduran radio, speaking from Washington after talks with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, saying he would meet the "protagonists" of the June 28 coup that ousted him. [Read More]

By Tracy Phillip McLellan

The moving hand writes, and having writ moves on;
And no amount of piety or wit can change one line.

-Omar Khayyam

Even the peace activists, broiling in the merciless sun, had a fine time at the Taste of Chicago over the quasi-Independence Day weekend past. Taste of Chicago is an annual food fest in the city. [Read More]

Following is a text of President Obama's remarks delivered at the New Economic School in Moscow, as released by the White House.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you so much. Well, congratulations, Oxana. And to the entire Class of 2009, congratulations to you. I don't know if anybody else will meet their future wife or husband in class like I did, but I'm sure that you're all going to have wonderful careers.

I want to acknowledge a few people who are here. We have President Mikhail Gorbachev is here today, and I want everybody to give him a big round of applause. (Applause.) I want to thank Sergei Gurief, Director of the New Economic School. (Applause.) Max Boiko, their Chairman of the Board. (Applause.) And Arkady Dvorkovich, who is the NES board member, President of the Alumni Association and is doing an excellent job for President Medvedev, because he was in our meeting yesterday. (Applause.) [Read More]

By Arshad Mohammed
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Signaling more forceful U.S. support, President Barack Obama called for the reinstatement of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on Tuesday even while noting he has been no friend of American policies.

Zelaya, who was toppled in a June 28 coup triggered by his efforts to change presidential term limits, was scheduled to meet U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington at 1 p.m. (1700 GMT), another tangible sign of U.S. backing. [Read More]

Jailed torture victim says he was offered cash to drop collusion claim

By Ian Cobain
The Guardian

The security service MI5 is being accused of attempting to pervert the course of justice by offering a man inducements to drop his allegation that its officers colluded in his torture. [Read More]

By Harry Targ
Heartland Radical

The blogosphere is already churning up demonic imagery of former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who served Presidents Kennedy and Johnson in the era of the Vietnam War. Others are reminded of the tragic Robert McNamara, portrayed in the recent documentary of his life, "The Fog of War."

Rather than condemn or express empathy for the man, it is important for peace activists to reflect on his contributions to United States foreign policy in the context of United States imperialism. [Read More]

Obama's strategic blind spot

By Andrew J. Bacevich
LA Times

'Are there not other alternatives than sending our armies to chew barbed wire in Flanders?" During the bitter winter of 1914-15, the first lord of the Admiralty posed this urgent question to Britain's prime minister.

The eighth anniversary of 9/11, now fast approaching, invites attention to a similar question: Are there not other alternatives than sending our armies to choke on the dust of Iraq and Afghanistan? [Read More]

Bull Pulpit

By Jeff Huber
Antiwar.com

According to ABC News, Dick Cheney is worried by America's pullback in Iraq. Dick wants Americans to support the effort around one more corner, and one more after that, and a thousand more after that. But Dick needn't worry. We'll be in Iraq for a long, long time. Ditto for the Bananastans.

Ray "Desert Ox" Odierno got all the U.S. troops out of Iraqi cities by the June 30 deadline. At least that’s what the New York Times and the rest of the mainstream media tell us. The Maliki government proclaimed the birth of Iraq’s "sovereignty" from the American occupation, but like Cheney's turned corners and young Mr. Bush's "mission accomplished," the sovereignty claim has been made many times before. And oh, 130,000 American troops still occupy Iraq, the number of troops we had there in January 2007 when "King" David Petraeus began his cockamamie surge. [Read More]

Iran attacks Biden's Israel remarks

Al Jazeera

Iran will hold the US responsible for any Israeli attack against the country, Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran's parliament, has said.

His remarks came after Joe Biden, the US vice-president, said that Washington would not dictate the way Israel deals with Tehran's nuclear ambitions. [Read More]

The Jerusalem Post

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday strongly denied that the United States had given Israel an approval to strike Iran's nuclear facilities.

Asked by CNN whether Washington had given Israel a green light for such an attack, Obama answered: "Absolutely not." [Read More]

Obama Viewed Positively

WorldPublicOpinion.org

Country-by-Country Summaries (PDF)
Questionnaire/Methodology (PDF)
Full PDF Version

A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll finds that around the world US foreign policy continues to receive heavy criticism on a variety of fronts, even though in 13 of 19 nations most people say they have confidence in President Obama to do the right thing in international affairs.

The US is criticized for coercing other nations with its superior power (15 of 19 nations), failing to abide by international law (17 of 19 nations), and for how it is dealing with climate change (11 of 18 nations). Overall, views are mixed on whether the US is playing a mainly positive or mainly negative role in the world. [Read More]

Fine print of agreement shows the deal is less than meets the eye

By Josh Gerstein
Politico

MOSCOW -- President Barack Obama’s efforts to "reset" relations with Russia were in full view Monday in his joint news conference with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev -- but if their first summit is any indication, the two leaders are going to have to hit control-alt-delete a few more times. [Read More]

By Medea Benjamin
CODE PINK

The day started out full of joy, as thousands of Hondurans converged in front of the National Institute of Pedagogy, intent on marching about three miles to the airport to greet the plane that was supposed to bring deposed President Zelaya back to Honduras.

"Our president's coming home today, this is going to be a great day," said Jose Rodriguez, a campesino who came from Santa Barbara with his farmer's group to join the anti-coup movement. The military tried to stop them from getting to the capital, so they had to divide up and take local buses from town to town. "It took us two days to get here, and we slept outside in the forest last night, but we had to be here," said Rodriguez. [Read More]

By Helen Thomas
Hearst White House columnist

WASHINGTON -- The withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Baghdad and other key cities in Iraq marks the beginning of the end of the tragic war there.

While it’s not over yet, the Iraqis are celebrating and happy -- free at last from American control.

Well, almost. [Read More]

By Steve Weissman
Truthout

Between threats from hard-line ayatollahs to execute protest leaders and the media frenzy over the death of Michael Jackson, Iran's "Green Revolution" appears to have stalled. But, it's far from over. Unless President Obama or Congress cuts off their funding, our official radio and TV services, the shadowy National Endowment for Democracy and the State Department's "democracy-promoters" will all keep fighting to the last Iranian, while the CIA and Pentagon continue sending their state-sponsored terrorists into Iran. Then, as likely as not, the meddlers will hand off to the "bomb Iran" crowd, whose solidarity with the Iranian protesters extends to blowing them to smithereens. [Read More]

Washington's Wars and Occupations: Month in Review #50
June 30, 2009

By Max Elbaum
War Times/Tiempo de Guerras

For determining effective strategy and tactics, the peace movement needs hard-nosed, dispassionate analysis.

At the same time, the heart and soul of the peace movement's very existence is passionate solidarity with human beings across the globe in their battles for dignity, equality and a decent life. [Read More]

Netanyahu Calls for Regime Change as Obama Condemns Iran

By Jason Ditz
AntiWar.com

As the mass protests of the past week in Iran gave way to the comparatively tame question of legal challenges to the vote, Iran’s key rivals are ratcheting up their rhetoric, condemning the Iranian government and, in the case of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling for regime change. [Read More]

Reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The following are analysts' comments on agreements reached on Monday between U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. [Read More]

Framework signed on US president's Russia visit would leave each side with as few as 1,500 warheads capable of launch

By Luke Harding
The Guardian

The US and Russia have agreed to work towards cutting deployed nuclear warheads to as few as 1,500 each, in an agreement signed by Barack Obama on his first trip to Russia as president.

Obama and the Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, signed a framework deal aimed at cutting warheads to a maximum of 1,675 within seven years of a nuclear arms reduction treaty coming into force. [Read More]

By Sergey Balmasov
Pravda

"One should not expect any sensations. Nothing will change in world history during the two days of his visit to Russia. Achieving fundamental agreements is predetermined with the course of previous events," Anatoly Utkin, an expert with the Institute for the USA and Canada said. [Read More]

AFP

Six policemen were hurt in clashes late Saturday with demonstrators at a rally of more than 3,000 people against the 500-million-dollar enlargement of a US military base in Italy, police said.

Some 300 youths, wearing helmets and carrying plexiglass shields, pelted riot cops with rocks and bottles during the American Independence Day demo. The police replied with tear gas and baton charges, AFP photographers said. [Read More]

11Alive News

ATLANTA - Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was scheduled to return from Tel Aviv on a flight that landed in New York at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday.

McKinney and a group of 20 were detained last week by the Israeli Navy while they were trying to deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza. They were accused of violating Israel's blockade. McKinney was detained because she refused to sign a document acknowledging it. [Read More]

Big News Network.com

Troops from a US Marine company in Afghanistan have been under almost constant fire since entering the country with 4,000 other troops during the week.

Since flying in by helicopter to Mian Poshteh in Helmand province, troops from the 2/8 infantry battalion have been held down by insurgents. [Read More]

British resident says photographs are evidence of abuse at Guantánamo

By Richard Norton-Taylor
The Guardian

Former Guantánamo detainee Binyam Mohamed has launched an urgent legal attempt to prevent the US courts from destroying crucial evidence that he says proves he was abused while being held at the detention camp, the Guardian has learned. The evidence is said to consist of a photograph of Mohamed, a British resident, taken after he was severely beaten by guards at the US navy base in Cuba.

The image, now held by the Pentagon, had been put on his cell door, he says. [Read More]

Pinocchio Prize For US Media For Honduras Coverage

By Julie Webb-Pullman
Scoop NZ

And the Pinocchio Prize goes to......

The United States media, for its coverage of Honduras!! [Read More]

By Michael A. Fletcher and Philip P. Pan
Washington Post

MOSCOW, July 6 -- President Obama arrived in Moscow today for the start of a three-day summit with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that aides were hopeful would yield a framework for an agreement to replace an expiring nuclear arms control treaty.

When they met in London in April, the two presidents agreed to start negotiations for a new treaty to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. But those talks have been complicated by disagreements over U.S. missile defense plans and Russian demands for sharper cuts in weapons launchers. [Read More]

Newly released documents describe chaos, torture allegations in Gitmo facility's early months

PAMELA HESS and NEDRA PICKLER
AP

Newly released Defense Department documents and memos about the first years of operation of the jail at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, portray a chaotic and sometimes violent operation that its own commanders described as dysfunctional.

President Barack Obama has ordered the detention facility closed next year. It holds more than 200 terror suspects whose cases are undergoing review for their potential release, prosecution or continued confinement. [Read More]

By Justin Elliott
TPM

Donald Rumsfeld has finally said he's sorry. Sort of.

In an interview with biographer Bradley Graham, the former secretary of defense says he has regrets about the administration's controversial detainee policy.

The twist is that Rumsfeld doesn't regret the policy itself -- specifically the abandoning of the Geneva Conventions for detainees picked up in Afghanistan. Rather, he regrets how the policy was formulated. [Read More]

Authorities block access to the website of a pro-reform group of seminary scholars
Lawyer for British Embassy worker jailed in Iran is optimistic
The arrest of Hossein Rassam and his colleagues has boosted tension between Iran and the West over the June vote. Tehran has accused London of fomenting post-election unrest.

By Borzou Daragahi
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Beirut -- The lawyer for a British Embassy employee in Tehran arrested and under investigation for subterfuge today refuted reports that his client had been formally charged, saying he was optimistic the Iranian national would be released in the coming days.

Authorities today also blocked access to the website of a pro-reform group of seminary scholars in the holy city of Qom that has joined other reformist clergy in sharply criticizing last month's vote as authorities continued a crackdown against supporters of failed presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who has alleged massive fraud. [Read More]

By Jay Janson

June 30, 2009 "Opednews" -- -After Obama apologized for the strike which the Afghan government claimed killed well over a hundred ordinary country folk, came the report that the families of those killed, and subsequent Afghani dead falling in harms way of the US military, continuing as before, can apply to receive up to $2,000 compensation. This is the price the great United States of American puts on an Afghan or Pakistan human being, while awarding $100,000 to families of Americans who die while fighting and killing wherever. [Read More]

Tracy Wilkinson, Alex Renderos
Los Angeles Times

Tegucigalpa, Honduras -- In a scene of confusion and anger, Honduras' military prevented ousted President Manuel Zelaya from returning to this country today, a week after he was thrown into exile in a coup. [Read More]

CNN

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (CNN) -- Honduran troops used tear gas and fired shots into the air to hold back protesters at Tegucigalpa's airport Sunday evening ahead of an attempted return by deposed President Jose Manuel Zelaya, injuring at least one person, protest organizers said.
Pro-Zelaya protesters rally at a Honduran university on Saturday.

Soldiers lined barricades surrounding the airport in expectation of confrontations between Zelaya and his supporters and the provisional government that has vowed to keep him from coming back from a weeklong exile. [Read More]

Haaretz

Saudi Arabia has indicated to Israel that it would not protest use of its airspace by Israeli fighter jets in the event the government resolves to launch a military assault against Iran, according to a report which appeared in the British newspaper The Sunday Times.

The Prime Minister's office issued a statement in response Sunday morning, saying that "the Sunday Times report is fundamentally false and completely baseless." [Read More]

Admiral Mike Mullen says any military strike against Iran would be "very destabilizing."

Press TV

As Israel continues its efforts to portray Iran as a regime hell-bent on a nuclear war, top officials in the White House and the US military express contradictory stances on a potential Israeli attack on Iran. [Read More]

It's easy to be blinded by the valiant effort, as well as the acronyms and euphemisms. But the harsh truth does not change

By Matthew Parris
Times of London

It's important not to understand. It's important not to learn. In the total buggeration into which the world’s help for Afghanistan has now descended, it's important not to know too much. Accept that somebody some day may understand, but it isn't going to be you. Somebody some day may grab the Gordian knot and cut it, but it isn't going to be us. Know only that. To know more is to know less.

It so happens that my week as Nato/Isaf's guest here in Afghanistan has coincided with some big stories coming out of the country. There are battles; there are kidnappings; there came sad news of the deaths of Lieutenant-Colonel Rupert Thorneloe and Trooper Joshua Hammond. There's a presidential election campaign under way. But my argument is that news like this is a distraction from the underlying story. The battle will ebb and flow. But victory is impossible. [Read More]

US Won't Stand in the Way of a Military Strike

By Jason Ditz
Antiwar.com

In an interview today on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulus," Vice President Joe Biden said it was up to the Israeli government to decide if Iran constituted an existential threat and that the nation was "entitled" to launch a military strike against the nation if they wanted to. [Read More]

By Jason Straziuso and Fisnik Abrashi
Associated Press

NAWA, Afghanistan -- U.S. Marines moved into villages in Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan on Friday, meeting little resistance as they tried to win over local chiefs on the second day of the biggest military operation here since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001.

One Marine was killed and several others injured or wounded on Thursday, when some 4,000 Marines launched the operation in Helmand province -- a remote area that is at the center of the country's illegal opium cultivation, which helps finance the insurgency. [Read More]

By MARK MAZZETTI
New York Times

WASHINGTON -- Current and former top Central Intelligence Agency officers have appeared before a federal grand jury in Virginia as part of an 18-month investigation into the agency’s destruction of 92 videotapes depicting the brutal interrogations of two Qaeda detainees.

The witnesses recently called by the special prosecutor, former government officials said, include the agency’s top officer in London and Porter J. Goss, who was C.I.A. director when the tapes were destroyed in November 2005. [Read More]

Big News Network.com

The incoming head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says he knows of no hard evidence that Iran is trying to gain the ability to develop nuclear weapons.

Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano told the Reuters newsagency he has seen no such evidence in IAEA official documents. [Read More]

Haaretz

Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States, on Friday warned that an Iranian atomic bomb could "wipe Israel off the map in a matter of seconds," and that the Iranians could "accomplish in a matter of seconds what they denied Hitler did, and kill 6 million Jews, literally."

Oren made his comments in a conversation with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. [Read More]

Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lawyers for the first detainee transferred from Guantanamo Bay for trial in a U.S. civilian court asked a judge on Tuesday for access to CIA "black sites" where they say he was harshly interrogated.

Lawyers for Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani said they needed access to the secret detention sites, whose locations abroad have not been publicly identified, to gather evidence and inspect whether any statements the Tanzanian made under interrogation were reliable, according to court papers filed in Manhattan federal court. [Read More]

By Jamal Hashim
China Times

BAGHDAD, July 4 (Xinhua) -- The reconciliation in Iraq is pure Iraq's internal affair and the involvement of U.S. officials is not desired by Iraqis, said Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh on Saturday.

"The reconciliation issue is purely Iraqi affair and any non-Iraqi involvement would certainly have a negative impact," said Dabbagh. [Read More]

U.S. military officials say several U.S. soldiers also were wounded in the assault on the remote outpost in Paktika province. It's the same area where an American soldier went missing Tuesday.

By M. Karim Faiez and Laura King
LA Times

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Istanbul, Turkey -- Insurgents armed with rockets, mortars and a truck bomb staged an unusual frontal attack Saturday on a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan, killing two American soldiers and forcing the defenders to call in airstrikes to avoid being overrun.

The assault, which came as thousands of American troops were taking part in an anti- Taliban offensive hundreds of miles away in the south of Afghanistan, pointed up the insurgents' ability to take the fight to a location of their choosing -- in this case a remote outpost in Paktika province, which borders Pakistan's tribal areas. [Read More]

Announcing his return to Tegucigalpa this Sunday

TEGUCIGALPA, July 4 (PL).—President Manuel Zelaya sent a message to the Honduran people today assuring them that he is prepared to make any effort and any sacrifice to obtain the freedom that the country needs.

Below is President Zelaya’s proclamation prior to his return tomorrow to this Central American nation to reoccupy his post after the coup d’état on June 28. [Read More]

By Helen Thomas
Hearst White House columnist

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama had been playing his cards cautiously on the political turmoil in Iran -- until conservatives goaded him to escalate his rhetorical condemnation of the uprising.

Obama had tried to steer clear of any public comment about the disputed reelection of Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the massive protests by supporters of the opposition candidate and the government crackdown on the protesters. [Read More]

The Israeli navy stopped the activists' boat off the coast of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday

Al Jazeera

A number of foreign activists are still in detention in a Tel Aviv jail four days after the Israeli navy stopped their boat as they attempted to reach the Gaza Strip.

Mairead Maguire, a Nobel peace prize winner, told Al Jazeera on Saturday that the activists had agreed to remain in detention until Israel agreed to free all of the activists. [Read More]

By RHONDA COOK
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

With Cynthia McKinney due to appear in an Israeli court Sunday, the mother of the former congresswoman decided to skip a weekend family reunion in Alabama just in case State Department officials need any documents to get her released from jail.

McKinney has been in custody since Tuesday when she and 20 others were swept up by the Israeli Navy while allegedly trying to sail through a navy blockade. The group says it was attempting to deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza. [Read More]

Gob-smacked

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Counterpunch.org

There's no continent where the pwogwessive "left" (I have to set this exhausted noun on the crutches of gloomy quotemarks) in the United States has entertained higher hopes of Obamian change from traditional U.S. thuggery than Latin America. This was a big constituency for Obama to allure last year. Radicals here in their senior decades have been rooting for Cuba ever since they cheered Fidel's triumphant entry into Havana in 1959. Twenty-five years later in the late 70s and mid-80s the hottest issue for young people on the left in the US was the brutal and ultimately successful efforts of the US government in the Carter and Reagan years to crush revolutions in El Salvador and Nicaragua. To this day the "Hands off Central America" movement of those years remains by far the most determined mobilization of the US left in the post Vietnam era. [Read More]

By David Swanson

There are a million and one things that people can do to try to end the U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and to prevent new ones in Iran and elsewhere, as well as to close U.S. military bases in dozens of other nations around the world. Certain people are skilled at or interested in particular approaches, and nobody should be discouraged from contributing to the effort in their preferred ways. Far too often proposals to work for peace are needlessly framed as attacks on all strategies except one. But where new energy can be created or existing resources redirected, it is important that they go where most likely to succeed. [Read More]

By Erik Leaver and Daniel Atzmon
Edited by Jen Doak
Foreign Policy In Focus

On November 17, 2008, when Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker signed an agreement for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, citizens from both countries applauded. While many were disappointed about the lengthy timeline for the withdrawal of the troops, it appeared that a roadmap was set to end the war and occupation. However, the first step -- withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009 -- is full of loopholes, and tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers will remain in the cities after the "deadline" passes. [Read More]

By Reese Erlich

When I returned from covering the Iranian elections recently, I was surprised to find my email box filled with progressive authors, academics and bloggers bending themselves into knots about the current crisis in Iran. They cite the long history of US interference in Iran and conclude that the current unrest there must be sponsored or manipulated by the Empire.

That comes as quite a shock to those risking their lives daily on the streets of major Iranian cities fighting for political, social and economic justice.

Some of these authors have even cited my book, "The Iran Agenda," as a source to prove US meddling. Whoa there, pardner. Now we're getting personal.

The large majority of American people, particularly leftists and progressives, are sympathetic to the demonstrators in Iran, oppose Iranian government repression and also oppose any US military or political interference in that country. But a small and vocal number of progressives are questioning that view, including authors writing for Monthly Review online or Foreign Policy Journal, and prominent academics such as retired professor James Petras.

They mostly argue by analogy. They correctly cite numerous examples of CIA efforts to overthrow governments, sometimes by manipulating mass demonstrations. But past practice is no proof that it's happening in this particular case. Frankly, the multi-class character of the most recent demonstrations, which arose quickly and spontaneously, were beyond the control of the reformist leaders in Iran, let alone the CIA.

Let's assume for the moment that the US was trying to secretly manipulate the demonstrations for its own purposes. Did it succeed? Or were the protests reflecting 30 years of cumulative anger at a reactionary system that oppresses workers, women and ethnic minorities, indeed the vast majority of Iranians? Is President Mahmood Ahmadinejad a "nationalist-populist," as claimed by some, and therefore an ally against US domination around the world? Or is he a repressive, authoritarian leader who actually hurts the struggle against US hegemony?

Let's take a look. But first a quick note.

As far as I can tell, none of these leftist critics have actually visited Iran, at least not to report on the recent uprisings. Of course, one can have an opinion about a country without firsthand experience there. But in the case of recent events in Iran, it helps to have met people. It helps a lot.

The left-wing Doubting Thomas arguments fall into three broad categories.

1. Assertion: President Mahmood Ahmadinejad won the election, or at a minimum, the opposition hasn't proved otherwise.

Michael Veiluva, Counsel at the Western States Legal Foundation (representing his own views) wrote on the Monthly Review web site:

"[US peace groups] are quick to denounce the elections as 'massively fraudulent' and generally subscribe to the 'mad mullah' stereotype of the current political system in Iran. There is a remarkable convergence between the tone of these statements and the American right who are hypocritically beating their chests over Iran's 'stolen' election.

Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, James Petras wrote:

"[N]ot a single shred of evidence in either written or observational form has been presented either before or a week after the vote count. During the entire electoral campaign, no credible (or even dubious) charge of voter tampering was raised."

Actually, Iranians themselves were very worried about election fraud prior to the vote count. When I covered the 2005 elections, Ahmadinejad barely edged out Mehdi Karoubi in the first round of elections. Karoubi raised substantive arguments that he was robbed of his place in the runoff due to vote fraud. But under Iran's clerical system, there's no meaningful appeal. So, as he put it, he took his case to God.

On the day of the 2009 election, election officials illegally barred many opposition observers from the polls. The opposition had planned to use text messaging to communicate local vote tallies to a central location. The government shut down SMS messaging! So the vote count was entirely dependent on a government tally by officials sympathetic to the incumbent.

I heard many anecdotal accounts of voting boxes arriving pre-stuffed and of more ballots being printed than are accounted for in the official registration numbers. It seems unlikely that the Iranian government will allow meaningful appeals or investigations into the various allegations about vote rigging.

A study by two professors at Chatham House and the Institute of Iranian Studies at University of St. Andrews, Scotland, took a close look at the official election results and found some major discrepancies. For Ahmadinejad to have sustained his massive victory in one-third of Iran's provinces, he would have had to carry all his supporters, all new voters, all voters previously voting centrist and about 44 percent of previous reformist voters.

Keep in mind that Ahmadinejad's victory takes place in the context of a highly rigged system. The Guardian Council determines which candidates may run based on their Islamic qualifications. As a result, no woman has ever been allowed to campaign for president and sitting members of parliament were disqualified because they had somehow become un-Islamic.

The constitution of Iran created an authoritarian theocracy in which various elements of the ruling elite could fight out their differences, sometimes through elections and parliamentary debate, sometimes through violent repression. Iran is a classic example of how a country can have competitive elections without being democratic.

2. Assertion: The US has a long history of meddling in Iran, so it must be behind the current unrest.

Jeremy R. Hammond writes in the progressive web site Foreign Policy Journal: "[G]iven the record of US interference in the state affairs of Iran and clear policy of regime change, it certainly seems possible, even likely, that the US had a significant role to play in helping to bring about the recent turmoil in an effort to undermine the government of the Islamic Republic.

Eric Margolis, a columnist for Quebecor Media Company in Canada and a contributor to The Huffington Post, wrote:

"While the majority of protests we see in Tehran are genuine and spontaneous, Western intelligence agencies and media are playing a key role in sustaining the uprising and providing communications, including the newest electronic method, via Twitter. These are covert techniques developed by the US during recent revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia that brought pro-US governments to power."

Both authors cite numerous cases of the US using covert means to overthrow legitimate governments. The CIA engineered large demonstrations, along with assassinations and terrorist bombings, to cause confusion and overthrow the parliamentary government of Iran's Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. The US used similar methods in an effort to overthrow Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in 2002. (For more details, see my book, "Dateline Havana: The Real Story of US Policy and the Future of Cuba.")

Hammond cites my book, "The Iran Agenda" and my interview on Democracy Now to show that the Bush administration was training and funding ethnic minorities in an effort to overthrow the Iranian government in 2007.

All the arguments are by analogy and implication. Neither the above two authors, nor anyone else of whom I am aware, offers one shred of evidence that the Obama administration has engineered, or even significantly influenced, the current demonstrations.

Let's look at what actually happened on the ground. Tens of millions of Iranians went to bed on Friday, June 12, convinced that either Mousavi had won the election outright or that there would be a runoff between him and Ahmadinejad. They woke up Saturday morning and were stunned. "It was a coup d'etat," several friends told me. The anger cut across class lines and went well beyond Mousavi's core base of students, intellectuals and the well-to-do.

Within two days, hundreds of thousands of people were demonstrating peacefully in the streets of Tehran and other major cities. Could the CIA have anticipated the vote count, and on two days notice, mobilized its nefarious networks? Does the CIA even have the kind of extensive networks that would be necessary to control or even influence such a movement? That simultaneously gives the CIA too much credit and underestimates the independence of the mass movement.

As for the charge that the CIA is providing advanced technology like Twitter, pleaaaaaase. In my commentary carried on Reuters, I point out that the vast majority of Iranians have no access to Twitter and that the demonstrations were mostly organized by cell phone and word of mouth.

Many Iranians do watch foreign TV channels via satellite. A sat dish costs only about $100 with no monthly fees, so they are affordable even to the working class. Iranians watched BBC, VOA and other foreign channels in Farsi, leading to government assertions of foreign instigation of the demonstrations. By that logic, Ayatollah Khomeini received support from Britain in the 1979 revolution because of BBC radio's critical coverage of the despotic Shah.

Frankly, based on my observations, no one was leading the demonstrations. During the course of the week after the elections, the mass movement evolved from one protesting vote fraud into one calling for much broader freedoms. You could see it in the changing composition of the marches. There were not only upper middle class kids in tight jeans and designer sun glasses. There were growing numbers of workers and women in very conservative chadors.

Iranian youth particularly resented President Ahmadinejad's support for religious militia attacks on unmarried young men and women walking together and against women not covering enough hair with their hijab. Workers resented the 24 percent annual inflation that robbed them of real wage increases. Independent trade unionists were fighting for decent wages and for the right to organize.

Some demonstrators wanted a more moderate Islamic government. Others advocated a separation of mosque and state, and a return to parliamentary democracy they had before the 1953 coup. But virtually everyone believes that Iran has the right to develop nuclear power, including enriching uranium. Iranians support the Palestinians in their fight against Israeli occupation, and they want to see the US get out of Iraq.

So if the CIA was manipulating the demonstrators, it was doing a piss poor job.

Of course, the CIA would like to have influence in Iran. But that's a far cry from saying it does have influence. By proclaiming the omnipotence of US power, the leftist critics ironically join hands with Ahmadinejad and the reactionary clerics who blame all unrest on the British and US.

3. Assertion: Ahmadinejad is a nationalist-populist who opposes US imperialism. Efforts to overthrow him only help the US.

James Petras wrote: "Ahmadinejad's strong position on defense matters contrasted with the pro-Western and weak defense posture of many of the campaign propagandists of the opposition.."

"Ahmadinejad's electoral success, seen in historical comparative perspective, should not be a surprise. In similar electoral contests between nationalist-populists against pro-Western liberals, the populists have won. Past examples include Peron in Argentina and, most recently, Chavez of Venezuela, [and] Evo Morales in Bolivia."

Venezuela's Foreign Ministry wrote on its web site:

"The Bolivarian Government of Venezuela expresses its firm opposition to the vicious and unfounded campaign to discredit the institutions of the Islamic Republic of Iran, unleashed from outside, designed to roil the political climate of our brother country. From Venezuela, we denounce these acts of interference in the internal affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, while demanding an immediate halt to the maneuvers to threaten and destabilize the Islamic Revolution."

From 1953-1979, the Shah of Iran brutally repressed his own people and aligned himself with the US and Israel. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran brutally repressed its own people and broke its alliance with the US and Israel. That apparently causes confusion for some on the left.

I have written numerous articles and books criticizing US policy on Iran, including Bush administration efforts to overthrow the Islamic government. The US raises a series of phony issues, or exaggerates problems, in an effort to impose its domination on Iran. (Examples include Iran's nuclear power program, support for Hamas and Hezbollah, and support for Shiite groups in Iraq.)

During his past four years in office, Ahmadinejad has ramped up Iran's anti-imperialist rhetoric and posed himself as a leader of the Islamic world. That accounts for his fiery rhetoric against Israel and his denial of the Holocaust. (Officially, Ahmadinejad "questions" the Holocaust and says "more study is necessary." That reminds me of the creationists who say there needs to be more study because evolution is only a theory.) As pointed out by the opposition candidates, Ahmadinejad's rhetoric about Israel and Jews has only alienated people around the world and made it more difficult for the Palestinians.

But in the real world, Ahmadinejad has done nothing to support the Palestinians other than sending some funds to Hamas. Despite rhetoric from the US and Israel, Iran has little impact on a struggle that must be resolved by Palestinians and Israelis themselves.

So comparing Ahmadinejad with Chavez or Evo Morales is absurd. I have reported from both Venezuela and Bolivia numerous times. Those countries have genuine mass movements that elected and kept those leaders in power. They have implemented significant reforms that benefitted workers and farmers. Ahmadinejad has introduced 24 percent annual inflation and high unemployment.

As for the position of Venezuela and President Hugo Chavez, they are simply wrong. On a diplomatic level, Venezuela and Iran share some things in common. Both are under attack from the US, including past efforts at "regime change." Venezuela and other governments around the world will have to deal with Ahmadinejad as the de facto president, so questioning the election could cause diplomatic problems.

But that's no excuse. Chavez has got it exactly backward. The popular movement in the streets will make Iran stronger as it rejects outside interference from the US or anyone else.

This is no academic debate or simply fodder for bored bloggers. Real lives are at stake. A repressive government has killed at least 17 Iranians and injured hundreds. The mass movement may not be strong enough to topple the system today but is sowing the seeds for future struggles.

The leftist critics must answer the question: Whose side are you on? [Read More]

By CARLOTTA GALL
New York Times

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan -- The mood of the Afghan people has tipped into a popular revolt in some parts of southern Afghanistan, presenting incoming American forces with an even harder job than expected in reversing military losses to the Taliban and winning over the population.

Villagers in some districts have taken up arms against foreign troops to protect their homes or in anger after losing relatives in airstrikes, several community representatives interviewed said. Others have been moved to join the insurgents out of poverty or simply because the Taliban's influence is so pervasive here.

In Interview, Iraqi foreign minister tells US not to disengage with Iraq politically--like it did in Afghanistan.

By Jane Arraf
The Christian Science Monitor

As the US military presence in Iraq moves into the background, some Iraqi officials concerned that US preoccupation with the war in Afghanistan would prematurely leave Iraq to fend for itself are welcoming Washington's efforts to increase its political engagement here.

"My message to them is ... you lost Afghanistan in 2001, 2002, and 2003 because you turned your attention to Iraq from Afghanistan – now you are redirecting your attentions of Afghanistan and if you disengage with Iraq, it could be another failure. The situation is not that solid," says Foreign Minister Hoyshar Zebari in an interview. [Read More]

CNN

BAGHDAD, Iraq CNN -- The ongoing presence of U.S. troops in Iraq "shows that the Iraqi government and the occupation are not serious about the withdrawal," a key Shiite cleric in the country said Wednesday. [Read More]

Agencys secret detention, interrogation program under scrutiny

AP

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration said Thursday that it needs two more months to review an internal CIA report on the agencys secret detention and interrogation program before making it public.

The Justice Department had originally said it intended to release the report in June as part of a lawsuit, but department officials now say they need until the end of August. [Read More]

By Congressman Kucinich

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today made the following statement regarding the announcement that U.S. troops have left the cities and towns of Iraq and turned over formal security to Iraqi security forces.

"The withdrawal of some U.S. combat troops from Iraq’s cities is welcome and long overdue news. However, it is important to remember that this is not the same as a withdrawal of U.S. troops and contractors from Iraq. [Read More]

By David Swanson

Do they have a fourth of July in Italy? That's not a trick question. This July 4th, Italians plan to gather in Vicenza to take nonviolent action aimed at freeing Italy from U.S. occupation and opposing the proposed construction of an enormous new U.S. military base in a town already swarming with U.S. troops stationed at existing bases. [Read More]

By Faiza Virani
CBS News

The Senate Armed Services Committee is investigating the private security firm Paravant LLC which provides contracted services to the U.S. Army in Afghanistan and Iraq. Paravant is a subsidiary of Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, owned by Erik D. Prince, president of The Prince Group.

Steven McClain and Justin Cannon, two former Paravant security personnel stationed in Afghanistan, were involved in a fatal shooting incident that left one Afghan civilian dead and two others wounded in Kabul on May 5, 2009. [Read More]

By Bill Sizemore
The Virginian-Pilot

A just-amended lawsuit alleges six additional instances of unprovoked attacks on Iraqi civilians by Blackwater contractors.

Three people, including a 9-year-old boy, are said to have died. [Read More]

By Jason Leopold
Truthout

On January 17, 2003, Mary Walker, the Air Force general counsel, received an urgent memo from the Pentagon's top attorney. Attached to the classified document was a set of directives drafted two days earlier by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

"Establish a working group within the Department of Defense to assess the legal, policy and operational issues relating to the interrogations of detainees held by the US Armed Forces in the war on terrorism," the directives said. [Read More]

Did Justice Department Lawyers Violate Ethics?
By Ari Shapiro
NPR

But to get to the bottom of the case, the watchdog has to take a close look at legal ethics rules, and how they relate to torture memos.

The popular image of a lawyer is someone in a courtroom, furiously spinning a one-sided version of the facts and the law. That's what advocates are supposed to do in a trial. But that's not what they're supposed to do at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. [Read More]

By Eli Lake
Washington Times

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein told his FBI captors in 2004 that his government had condemned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and had no connection with Osama bin Laden, according to a transcript of his interviews released Wednesday.

The interviews, obtained by George Washington University's National Security Archives, quoted the now- deceased Iraqi leader as saying that he would reach out in a crisis to China or North Korea, rather than to bin Laden, whom he called a "zealot." [Read More]

Hussein Pointed to Iranian Threat
Specter of Arms Allowed Him to Appear Strong, He Told U.S.

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post

Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he was worried about appearing weak to Iran, according to declassified accounts of the interviews released yesterday. The former Iraqi president also denounced Osama bin Laden as "a zealot" and said he had no dealings with al-Qaeda.

Hussein, in fact, said he felt so vulnerable to the perceived threat from "fanatic" leaders in Tehran that he would have been prepared to seek a "security agreement with the United States to protect [Iraq] from threats in the region." [Read More]

By Nancy A. Youssef
McClatchy Newspapers

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Beginning Thursday, American soldiers in Afghanistan will be under orders to back down when they're chasing Taliban fighters whenever they think that civilians might be at risk.

Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, will issue the directive as part of an effort to cut down on civilian casualties, which have enraged the Afghan government and residents. Instead of calling in air support or firing into civilian homes where Taliban fighters have sought refuge, commanders will be instructed to reach out to tribal elders or undertake other efforts to dislodge the fighters. [Read More]

Two articles with seemingly different views of appropriate troop levels below.

Jones: No more U.S. troops to Afghanistan this year

By Steven Thomma, Margaret Talev and Warren P. Strobel
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- After hearing a "drumbeat" for more troops, White House National Security Adviser James L. Jones has told U.S. commanders in Afghanistan that they won't get any more troops this year beyond what President Barack Obama already has promised.

Just back from a trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, Jones told McClatchy in an exclusive interview Wednesday that he'd told commanders on the ground that the time for debate was over three months ago and that it's time to implement the new three-step plan with the troops already committed, plus a renewed emphasis on economic development and the rule of law. [Read More]

A Modest Proposal for Garrisoned Lands

By Chalmers Johnson
TomDispatch.com

The U.S. Empire of Bases -- at $102 billion a year already the world's costliest military enterprise -- just got a good deal more expensive. As a start, on May 27th, we learned that the State Department will build a new "embassy" in Islamabad, Pakistan, which at $736 million will be the second priciest ever constructed, only $4 million less, if cost overruns don't occur, than the Vatican-City-sized one the Bush administration put up in Baghdad. The State Department was also reportedly planning to buy the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel (complete with pool) in Peshawar, near the border with Afghanistan, to use as a consulate and living quarters for its staff there. [Read More]

By JONATHAN WEISMAN in Washington and GREGORY L. WHITE and ALAN CULLISON in Moscow
Wall Street Journal

The Obama White House on Wednesday adopted a hard line against negotiating away missile-defense sites in Eastern Europe and limiting NATO expansion in the former Soviet Union, just days ahead of a summit meeting in Moscow. [Read More]

In less than a month, the Iraqi people vote on a referendum that could lead to a quicker withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq.

By Maya Schenwar
Truthout

As US combat troops retreated from Iraqi urban centers on Tuesday, signs of an incomplete withdrawal abounded. Some soldiers remained in cities, their labels changed from "combat troops" to "trainers" or "advisers," while others relocated to bases close outside city borders. However, the US-Iraq security pact approved last December requires that every single US troop withdraw from the country by December 31, 2011, and an upcoming referendum vote in Iraq may demand an even quicker deadline. [Read More]

BY YVONNE RIDLEY

THE arrogance of Israel is nothing short of breath-taking. On the eve of one of the most damning reports ever to be published on human rights abuses and suspected war crimes, Israel committed an act of piracy. While western naval fleets are patrolling the waters off the coast of Africa, acts of piracy are being carried out routinely in the Mediterranean.

But the international community leaders couldn't care less because most of those who are kidnapped, shot at and hijacked at sea are Palestinian fishermen from Gaza. [Read More]

By Paul Craig Roberts

July 01, 2009 "Information Clearing House" --- On June 30, the government of Israel committed an act of piracy when the Israeli Navy in international waters illegally boarded the "Spirit of Humanity," kidnapped its 21-person crew from 11 countries, including former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and Nobel Laureate Mairead MaGuire, and confiscated the cargo of medical supplies, olive trees, reconstruction materials, and children's toys that were on the way to the Mediterranean coast of Gaza. The "Spirit of Humanity," along with the kidnapped 21 persons, is being towed to Israel as I write. [Read More]

By Tom Hayden

The simultaneous conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and beyond are all connected to the Pentagon strategy of "the Long War" projected to last fifty years in "the arc of crisis" that just happens to stretch across Muslim lands where there are oil reserves and plans for Western-dominated pipelines. The term "Long War" was introduced by Gen. John Abizaid in the 1990s and is the perspective of counterinsurgency experts around the Pentagon and think tanks led by the Center for New American Security. [Read More]

As I was making final preparations to announce complaints against CIA lawyers who facilitated torture, the New Yorker reported that an Iraqi was crucified to death.

He died with his ribs broken, head covered in a bag, and being held up by his two arms.

The forensic pathologist who reported the death described it as a homicide.

No one has been indicted. It is not even clear if there was any investigation to discover who was responsible for the murder.

Human Rights Watch reports that 98 people died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also note that we do not know what happened to many other people in custody. They seem to have disappeared.

Monday, at a press conference in Washington, D.C. (video here), we announced complaints against three intelligence agency lawyers who were aggressive advocates of torture, who facilitated torture with their law license. See media coverage here.

Two of these lawyers are still working in the Obama administration, CIA Acting General Counsel John Rizzo and an attorney for the National Director of Intelligence, Jonathan Fredman. Click here to urge Obama to remove these lawyers from office.

Rizzo may be known to you because the Department of Justice memos that attempted to legalize torture were written for him. He sought a legal shield from the Justice Department and after a lot of pressure from the White House was given one in these false DOJ memos. Before the DOJ memos, Rizzo had already approved the waterboarding of one suspect 83 times. Rizzo was also the General Counsel for the CIA when the agency destroyed 93 tapes that showed extremely harsh torture interrogations despite a court order to preserve them.

Fredman is known for saying, "Torture is subject to perception. If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong." He also warned interrogators for the military never to videotape torture interrogations, which he euphemistically called aggressive interrogations, because they will "look ugly."

These lawyers behaved like mob lawyers, telling their clients how to break the law and to destroy the evidence or make sure not to provide evidence of their crimes.

They are still working for President Obama. Click here to urge Obama to remove them from office.

We're staying on the torture accountability issue. The toxicity of torture in the U.S. body politic has only one antidote: apply the rule of law to torturers and their facilitators.

How do we get Washington, D.C., which is in gridlock over the torture issue, to act? There is only one way: organized and persistent citizen pressure.

Click here to write the president, congressional representatives, and the attorney general to take action: publicly investigate torture and appoint an independent counsel to gather the facts and apply the rule of law.

Please join us in our efforts to ensure torture accountability. We can only do it with your support.

-- Kevin Zeese, Executive Director

By Grant F. Smith
Online Journal

June 29, 2009 "Online Journal" -- President Barak Obama’s fiscal year 2010 budget request for $2.775 billion in military aid to Israel is proceeding smoothly through the Congress.

On June 17, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs held a "mark-up" session on the budget. The subcommittee came under pressure from an antiwar group that sought to suspend or condition foreign aid over Israel’s use of US weapons which left 3000 Palestinians dead during the Bush administration. The subcommittee held its session in a tiny Capitol room denying activists and members of the press access. The budget quickly passed and is now before the full House Appropriations Committee. [Read More]

By Art Young
AIPAC

June 24, 2009 -- The movement to call Israel to account for its crimes against the Palestinian people is growing, it is "invading the mainstream discourse, becoming part of the constant and unrelenting drumbeat against Israel." It could eventually threaten the existence of the Jewish state by undermining the support it receives from its strongest backer, the US government.

That was the message of alarm delivered by the executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Howard Kohr, to the AIPAC Policy Conference on May 3.[1] [Read More]

Aid Ship Sails for Gaza, But Will Israel's Navy Let it Through?

By Jason Ditz
AntiWar.com

The Red Cross today issued a report on the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, declaring that it had left the tiny enclave's 1.5 million residents in despair, and that import procedures were keeping even basic medical items like painkillers and X-ray film developers from entering the strip. [Read More]

Free Gaza Movement member hangs Palestinian flag on the boat
The ship left the Cypriot port of Larnaca on Monday

BBC

Israeli forces have boarded a ship trying to carry aid and pro-Palestinian activists to the Gaza Strip in defiance of Israel's blockade of the territory.

The 20 passengers include former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and Nobel Prize winner Mairead Maguire. [Read More]

By Marie Cocco
Washington Post

As the media trumpets sound for the pullback of American troops from urban areas in Iraq, the essential lesson of our involvement must be recalled: Nothing about our entanglement in Iraq has ever been as it seemed.

We did not invade because Saddam Hussein was behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as Bush administration officials repeatedly suggested, or even because Iraq threatened the United States with stores of chemical and biological weapons. The 2005 Iraqi election symbolized with images of purple ink stains on voters’ fingertips—an anti-fraud measure later promoted by House Republicans, who stained their own fingers purple in support of President George Bush’s State of the Union address delivered soon afterward—did not result in a flourishing democracy or an end to the U.S. military occupation. The bloody insurgency intensified and Bush belatedly deployed additional troops to quell it. [Read More]

By Justin Elliott
TPM

Here's an intriguing detail from the new 685-page tome on Donald Rumsfeld, Bradley Graham's By His Own Rules: The Ambitions, Successes, and Ultimate Failures of Donald Rumsfeld: Several Rumsfeld associates say the defense secretary didn't order any cuts of major weapons programs early in his tenure because of financial stakes he held in the defense business. [Read More]

By Nicholas Kralev
Washington Times

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged President Obama for two days to toughen his language on Iran before he did so, and then was surprised when he condemned Iran's crackdown on demonstrators last week, administration officials say.

At his June 23 news conference, Mr. Obama said he was "appalled and outraged" by Iranian behavior and "strongly condemned" the violence against anti-government demonstrators. Up until then, Mr. Obama and other administration officials had taken a softer line, expressing "deep concern" about the situation and calling on Iran to "respect the dignity of its own people." [Read More]

By Max Elbaum
War Times/Tiempo de Guerras

June 29, 2009 - For determining effective strategy and tactics, the peace movement needs hard-nosed, dispassionate analysis.

At the same time, the heart and soul of the peace movement's very existence is passionate solidarity with human beings across the globe in their battles for dignity, equality and a decent life.

Watching Iran this last month it's the passion that has come to the fore. [Read More]

By Tom Bergin
Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - Iraq's first auction of contracts to develop its oil fields since the U.S.-led invasion was not the bonanza for the oil industry that executives hoped, and has tempered eagerness to participate in future bid rounds.

Iraq closed the oil auction on Tuesday after awarding just one of the eight fee-paying contracts on offer, to a consortium led by British oil major BP (BP.L). [Read More]

By David R. Baker
SF Chronicle

(06-30) 17:49 PDT -- Iraq's fledgling government opened its vast oil reserves to foreign companies Tuesday for the first time in decades, auctioning contracts to increase production in the war-torn country's sprawling oil fields.
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But the Iraqis drove a harder bargain than most oil companies - including San Ramon's Chevron Corp. - were willing to accept. [Read More]

US Iraq commander loses cool over troop numbers

By Andrew Gray
Reuters

WASHINGTON, June 30 (Reuters) - Tuesday was a day of celebration in Iraq as U.S. forces handed control of the cities to Iraqi authorities, but the top U.S. commander was less than joyous when pressed on how many of his troops would remain.

Speaking via satellite from Baghdad, U.S. Army General Ray Odierno lost his cool at a briefing for Pentagon reporters when he was repeatedly questioned about the number of U.S. troops that would remain in the cities as advisers to Iraqi forces. [Read More]