Month: February 2009

The tandem un-negotiated cease-fires that Israel and Hamas announced Jan. 18 across the Gaza-Israel front line remain fragile. Local and international efforts to consolidate the truce have stalled, and officials and analysts around the world warn of a high risk of further escalation. Further complicating the truce stabilization effort, Israelis go to the polls Feb. … Continue reading “A Truce Too Big to Fail?”

RAMALLAH – Despite intensive efforts by Israel, the international community and a number of Arab leaders to weaken and destroy Hamas through economic, punitive and military action, the Islamist organization continues to be a force to reckon with. Hamas won free and fair democratic elections in January 2006. The U.S. pushed for these elections, which … Continue reading “Hamas Is Not Going Away”

Well, it appears that one of the first things the Obama-Biden Office of Management and Budget has done is to instruct the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to jointly "assess the costs and benefits of transferring budget and management" of our nuclear weapons research, development, test and production programs and associated facilities … Continue reading “Abolish Civilian Control Over Nukes?”

Now that their nemesis, George W. Bush, has left office, the mainstream media can be unbridled in their optimism about the future of Iraq. After 9/11, they chose to allow themselves to be duped by the Bush administration’s fairly lame reasons for the clearly unrelated U.S. invasion of Iraq and have been bitter about the … Continue reading “Misreading the Iraqi Election Results”

In the "Rejectionism and Accommodation" chapter of Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel & The Palestinians, Noam Chomsky recounts how Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s 1971 peace initiative has been effaced from history. Sadat’s offer of "a full peace treaty on the pre-June 1967 borders, with security guarantees, recognized borders and so on" was rejected by … Continue reading “The Rewriting, Un-rewriting and Re-rewriting of History”

"I am a creature of Congress," said Leon Panetta with a broad smile, which was returned by equally wide smiles from members of the Senate intelligence committee meeting yesterday to consider his nomination to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency. I really wish he hadn’t said that.  For that sobriquet fits the worst of … Continue reading “Panetta Too Deferential to Congress”

Updated at 10:10 p.m. EST Feb. 6, 2009At least seven Iraqis were killed and five more were wounded, as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Iraq. No Coalition deaths were announced, but the U.S. army reported a spike in suicide deaths last month; however, the trend may have gone on longer than admitted. Also, a defense … Continue reading “Friday: 7 Iraqis Killed, 5 Wounded”

HONOLULU, Hawai’i, Feb 5 (IPS) – "We are not satisfied with [U.S. President Barack] Obama’s actions since they have not been in line with claims of change – although we are not without hope either." These words, uttered Monday in a press conference by Iran’s Speaker of the Parliament, Ali Larijani, encapsulate Tehran’s wait-and-see attitude … Continue reading “Iran: The More Things Change…”

Legal experts and human rights advocates are challenging the public to remember Guantánamo’s "child soldiers" when the detainees there are characterized as "the worst of the worst." Since the iconic detention center in Cuba opened in 2002, some 22 juveniles have been imprisoned there. And contrary to the U.N.’s Rights of the Child protocol, all … Continue reading “The Children of Guantánamo”

BAGHDAD – Amidst the soaring unemployment in Iraq, the gravediggers have been busy. So busy that officials have no record of the number of graves dug; of the real death toll, that is. “I’ve been working here four years,” a gravedigger who gave his name as Ali told IPS at the largest cemetery in Baghdad, … Continue reading “No Unemployment Among Iraq’s Gravediggers”