by Dahr Jamail
….From Iraq, I had reported on how the US military regularly blockaded cities during military operations, disconnecting power, food, water and medical supplies. Let us not forget the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq followed 12 and a half years of genocidal sanctions against that country, which claimed the lives of half a million children. The people of Iraq, like the people of Gaza, had been placed on a “diet.”

Back in Gaza, the International Committee for the Red Cross said on Sunday its medical emergency team had been prevented by the Israeli military for a third day from entering the territory. Here again, is an uncanny similarity with the situation in Iraq, particularly during the two US sieges of Fallujah during 2004, when medical and aid teams were not allowed into the city, and teams already inside were regularly targeted by the military when they attempted to rescue the wounded….

By DR FAROOQ HASSAN
Every morning at my Harvard’s library desk I go through press reports on Pakistan. I regret to say that no country in the World has as bad things written about it as Pakistan does. While some of these critiques, ridicules or even sarcasm could be arguably attributed to antagonism that may conceivably exist against an Islamic country which has the nuclear capacity, I am afraid still a lot of what is said about Pakistan is usually true. Read more »

Do they have anything else to do in the occupied, war raveged, under developed country with millions living under the poverty lin with no access to basic facilities, education, food and shelter?

“Fighting terrorism ” is not their resolve or agreement. It is their job. It is their assignment from their masters, who put them in the place where they are.

In fact, they are not fighting terrorism. They are perpetuating terrorism of their masters. There are stooges to facilitate the war of terrorism on their occupied countries. There is no terrorism in these countries for them to combat. All that we have is a reaction to terrorism. So what Karzai and Zardari are doing for their masters is carrying out state terrorism, terrorizing and oppressing their nations, so as to generate more reaction and retaliation for sustaining the war of terrorism. Don’t believe these words? See here for yourself  that how far away these puppet are from the masses and the reality.

by Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

Venezuela expels Israeli ambassador
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:09:22 GMT Press TV

Venezuela has expelled the Israeli ambassador to the Latin American country in protest at the ongoing onslaught in the Gaza Strip.
In a statement, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said that Caracas had expelled the Israeli envoy to protest the Israeli invasion of Gaza which had killed at least 500 Palestinians.

Next time you’re engaged in a nasty debate with someone who seems to have unlimited amounts of time to rebut your every point in the most scathing way possible, you might just be arguing with a member of one of these paid blog armies.

Tzipi Livni shrugged off the criticism of Israel’s bombing of structures near the Islamic College in Gaza, being heard throughout the academic world.

As easily as she dismisses criticism of the destruction of a Palestinian school, she also dismisses the creation of a Palestinian state, the Palestinian right of return, international calls to stop settlement building and Olmert’s call for return to 1967 borders. And the above shrug was followed by this swift kick:

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Israelis, sipping Pepsi, watch bombardment of Gaza town - Avi Pilchick took a long swig of Pepsi and propped a foot on the plastic patio chair he’d carried up the hillside to watch the fighting. “They are doing good,” Pilchick, 20, said of Israeli forces battling Palestinian militants in Gaza, “but they can do more.”

Let’s not forget that they are watching refugee camps in Gaza from the safe distance of a land which they have cleansed off the same Palestinians who are dying in Gaza today. According to Rober Fisk:

That is why Gaza exists: because the Palestinians who lived in Ashkelon and the fields around it – Askalaan in Arabic – were dispossessed from their lands in 1948 when Israel was created and ended up on the beaches of Gaza. They – or their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren – are among the one and a half million Palestinian refugees crammed into the cesspool of Gaza, 80 per cent of whose families once lived in what is now Israel. This, historically, is the real story: most of the people of Gaza don’t come from Gaza.

Also read this piece from Chris Floyd - Gazing at Gaza’s Destruction: Israeli’s Sip Pepsi, US Progressives See ‘Silver Lining’

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When Muhammad Saad Iqbal arrived home here in August after more than six years in American custody, including five at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he had difficulty walking, his left ear was severely infected, and he was dependent on a cocktail of antibiotics and antidepressants…..

In Lahore, Mr. Iqbal wants to return to teaching the Koran. “It’s easy for the United States to say no charges were found,” he said. “But who is responsible for the seven years of my life?”

30 December 2008 - Gazans Unsure Where to Flee Violence

Abu Zayd, the U.N. official, said the agency is preparing to turn U.N.-run schools in Gaza into shelters. Already, 200 residents slept at a U.N. school close to Gaza’s border with Egypt on Sunday after Israel bombed nearby tunnels.

She said the U.N. had informed Israeli officials of their locations and did not expect them to be targeted.

But residents aren’t so confident. “They have shelled mosques, all sorts of places. We can’t distance any possibility,” Azayzeh said.

6 January 2008 - At Least 40 Killed At UN School in Gaza

Israeli tank shells killed at least 40 Palestinians today at a UN school where civilians had taken shelter, medical officials said, in carnage likely to boost international calls for a halt to Israel’s Gaza offensive.

In a separate attack earlier in the day, three Palestinians were killed in an airstrike on another school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

From another report - “There’s nowhere safe in Gaza. Everyone here is terrorized and traumatized,” John Ging, the top U.N. official in Gaza, said after the first strike on the compound of a U.N. school killed three people.

U.N. officials say they provided their location coordinates to Israel’s army to ensure that their buildings in Gaza are not targeted.

The army declined comment, but said Hamas often uses schools, mosques and civilian areas for cover. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev also refused to react, saying he was waiting for the military to comment.

The international Red Cross said an ambulance post was hit as well on Tuesday, injuring one medical worker.

At the moment, US at the security council of the colonial organ (the so-called united nations) has blocked the way for a cease fire. Is this not enough carnage and dead bodies to force US to say yes to a ceasefire resolution at the SC?

We think so high and expect too much from the US. One reason, of course, is that it is actually blocking the way to peace and peaceful resolution of the issue. In fact, a ceasefire for sure is a very big deal because how can a carnage force the US to favour ceasefire when it is not enough to open Obama’s mouth so far.

Forget about pre-presidential statement, which he could quickly give int eh case of Mumbai attack, he could not event provide some evidence that Americans elected a man with some sense of humanity too.

The current uproar in Arab streets might not be of any direct help to Gazans but it draws battle lines between the masses and their regimes, notes Sherine Bahaa.

Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor in Gaza, tells Sky News that the number of civilians injured and killed in Gaza proves that Israel is deliberately attacking the population. “Its like hell here now…50% casualties are children and women….There are kind of injuries that your do not want to see in this world…. the only crime they have is they are civilians. They are Palestinains. They are living in Gaza….This is an all out war against innocent civilians…. they are bombing one millions people in a cage.”

Remember the following words from Bush’s 2001 address:

Americans are asking, why do they hate us?  They hate what we see right here in this chamber — a democratically elected government.  Their leaders are self-appointed.  They hate our freedoms — our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.

They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.  They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East.  They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa.

These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life.  With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends.  They stand against us, because we stand in their way.

Who is doing what to whom and who says one thing but does exactly the opposit is right before our eyes. No need for comments. No need for description. Its transparent.

The mantra of ‘they hate our freedom and way of life’ is an inane concoction to deflect the blame from the aggressors and occupiers to the victims and occupied. As Charles Reese put it, “It is absurd to suppose that a human being sitting around suddenly stands up and says: “You know, I hate freedom. I think I’ll go blow myself up.”

The resistance in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will not come to an end if United States turns into a fascist state but continue occupations and support tyranny and oppression. Would the course of this resistance be any different if we could replace the colonial-settler Jews in Palestine and the US and UK occupation forces in Iraq with colonial-settler Germans in Palestine, Chinese occupation forces in Iraq? Didn’t we witness bloody resistance in East Paksitan due to the domination of forces from West Pakistan. Human resistance does not stem from differences of race or religion. It is a response to unjust treatment, violence, tyranny and usruption of the occupied peoples’ right to self determination and self-rule. Read more »

Jihad will be mandatory for the Pakistani nation in case India attacks the country, a joint communiqué issued in an all parties’ conference said on Monday. The conference, held at Jamia Naeemia, was attended by a number of noted religious scholars and heads of various religious and political parties, including the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the Tehreek-e-Insaaf, the Sunni Tehrik, the Mustafai Tehrik, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan, the Minhajul Quran, the Nizam-e-Mustafa Party and the Jamaat Ahle Sunnat.

This is really funny indeed.

It is the kind wait and see approach on the one hand and jumping to the conclusions on the other. It sounds like, we’re waiting. If India attacked we’ll do Jihad. Whether you call it Jihad or not, whether you make statements liek these – that can be turned into “Islamist terrorist war mongering” by the propaganda machine — when you are pushed against the wall, you have to defend yourself anyway. Let’s not forget there is a lot that Pakistan can do in the interim before it is turned into another Palestine or ira, because there are all indications that India will be used to exapnd the war already waged on Pakistan in a way that all this rhetoric about Jihad will become meaningless.

The war on Pakistan is on already. Pakistan is under sustained attacks. Did anyone mention the routine US attacks on Pakistan and killing of scores of civilians as well as Pakistani security forces?

Did the participants of this all party conference consider the US attacks as “attack on Pakistan”? How can they consider Indian attacks as “attack on Pakistan” because India has started framing its argument in the US tones: we’ll conduct “surgical strikes” to “eliminate terrorists” and “militant hideouts.” Isn’t Israel making the same argument. Unfortunately, we get a count of women and children died in Gaza but all the women and children who die in Pakistan immediately become “terrorist.” See here and here.

The point is that it is always effective to apply principles across the board. Selective application of law, principles, international norms and value of sovereignty and independence simply weaken the case. Either tell the US, no more incursion, violations of sovereignty and killing of our citizens, because we are doing the job and dying in greater numbers than the occupation forces in Afghanistan. Or, let Indian bomb you just as the US is doing because India is, rightly or wrongly, using the same tactics, the same argument and the same ruses for attacking Pakistan as is the US.

India can see how Pakistan has bent backwards to accommodate every illegal demand from the US from day one. It doesn’t make much sense to ask US for evidence when Pakistan didn’t ask for evidence when it decided to help the US in a pre-planned and illegal war of aggression on Afghanistan. How come evidence didn’t matter then but it counts now?

The pressure on Zardari regime should not be for selective stand against foreign aggression. The pressure should be for across the board actions to defend Pakistanis, Pakistan and its sovereignty.

What is illegal, is illegal for all. What is against the international law for India is against the international law for the US as well. If the spineless Pakistan leadership think that they cannot stop the US aggression militarily, fine. No one has asked them to do so. It should at least take a stand, condemn the aggression. Raise the issue on international level. Fight it out in the International Court of Justice  or whatever possible options there might be other than the UN Security Council - the helpless colonial tool used for sustaining de-facto colonization. If Syria could call attack on its soil “international terrorism,” why can’t Pakistan.

One of the steps could be removing the leaders and ambassadors who are justifying the ongoing attacks on Pakistan because this is becoming a precedent and ruse for further aggression on the same basis.

The bottom-line: Read more »

The report noted that US officials credited the turnaround in part to army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani, who had come to believe that militants posed an extreme threat.

“Gen Kayani replaced the head of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence, which has long maintained covert ties to the Taliban and other armed groups, and has devoted significant military resources towards the fight in the border regions,” the report added.

It noted that Pakistan’s fragile civilian government has also taken a harder line towards the militants than many US officials expected.

William Wood, the US Ambassador in Kabul, said in a recent interview that Pakistan was “unquestionably taking more effective action” against militants….

The report described a small base at Torkham as the focal point of the US-Pakistani military cooperation. The American-built base here opened in the spring, and was meant to house military personnel from the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

What the report doesn’t say is that Pakistan is treated like Afghanistan - just another occupied land where the occupation forces can establish bases and launch attacks anywhere at any time they may like. The only difference is that in Afghanistan it is investing more than Pakistan because in Paksitan, the mercenary army is doing the job which the occupation forces are doing in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Another point is the total absence of any refernce to the mythical al-Qaeda. That was the prime objective for which the pre-planned war of agression on Afghanistan was justified in the first place. Now evrything has been reduced to fighting ”militants” and “taliban.” The distinction between them is as vague as the distinction between an innocent civilian Pakistan resident and the Taliban. Anyone who dies as a result of aggression of the state or occupation forces in Afghanistan is immediately labelled as “militant” or “taliban” and the chapter closes on the story. No investigations. No confirmation of the lies and truth. No follow up after any of the massacres over the last few years.

Lastly, the much appreciated cooperation and collaboration of Pakistan army and civilian government is nothing new. It is just a little more benidng down after new demands to “do more.”