Israeli air strikes for the past 6 days have killed over 100 Palestinians in Gaza, many of them women and children; one strike deliberately targeted a media building that Israeli government knew to house journalists. Medics announced Monday that they are running out of key medicines (Gaza is under Israeli blockade). Military strikes are also […]
Archives for November 2012
Live report from Gaza, attacks on Journalists (Democracy Now!)
From Democracy Now! – a live report from a Gaza hospital The blurb for the show: We get a live report from independent journalist Mohammed Omer from a hospital in Gaza City, where injured journalists, medical workers and civilians — including children — are arriving for treatment. An award-winning journalist based in Gaza, Omer has […]
Could a Gaza Land War lose the Middle East for America?
Abd al-Ra’uf Arna’ut writes in the PLO newspaper al-Ayyam (The Days) that behind the scenes, the Obama administration and its European allies are exerting enormous pressure on Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to refrain from launching a land invasion of Gaza. He maintains that the air war against Gaza, which might attrite Hamas’s stock of […]
Blaming Gen. Petraeus for the Wrong Mistakes: Remembering Afghanistan (Cook)
Regular readers know that I have been critical of Gen. Petraeus’s counterinsurgency doctrine because I found it unrealistic, and I wish the US had just withdrawn militarily from Afghanistan in 2002. Lt. Col. John L. Cook, Ret., argues in his new book that the counterinsurgency doctrine made for bad military tactics and strategy on the battlefield. […]
Winning the war on Fracking would be the biggest Victory of All (Cantarow)
Ellen Cantarow writes at Tomdispatch: There’s a war going on that you know nothing about between a coalition of great powers and a small insurgent movement. It’s a secret war being waged in the shadows while you go about your everyday life. In the end, this conflict may matter more than those in Iraq and […]
Palestinians say Israel trying to Silence Media, by Attacking Journalists
The USG Open Source Center translates articles from the Arabic on the Israeli attack on newspapers and journalists in the Gaza Strip. Palestinians Say Israel Trying To Silence Media Following Attack on Journalists West Bank and Gaza Strip — OSC Summary Sunday, November 18, 2012 … Document Type: OSC Summary… The Bethlehem-based independent Ma’an News […]
Iran Sanctions may be ‘Crippling,’ but they are not ‘Working’ (Cher)
Ladan Cher writes in a guest column for Informed Comment On Iran and sanctions, a necessary clarification: “Crippling” is not synonymous for “working” In the tug-of-war between Iran and the United States, sanctions remain the Hail Mary approach to an ever-present picture in international politics: a nation wants to avoid military force but needs to […]
Top Ten Myths about Israeli Attack on Gaza
1. Israeli hawks represent themselves as engaged in a ‘peace process’ with the Palestinians in which Hamas refuses to join. In fact, Israel has refused to cease colonizing and stealing Palestinian land long enough to engage in fruitful negotiations with them. Tel Aviv routinely announces new, unilateral house-building on the Palestinian West Bank. There is […]
If You are 27 or younger, you’ve never lived through a colder than average month (Bump)
Paul Bump at Grist points out that The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported on global temperatures in October 2012 as follows: “The average temperature across land and ocean surfaces during October was 14.63°C (58.23°F). This is 0.63°C (1.13°F) above the 20th century average and ties with 2008 as the fifth warmest October on record. […]