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Archives: May 2010
Israeli Commandos Kill as Many as 10-16 Aid Activists,
wound over 50 as they Board, Capture Gaza Aid Flotilla
Wire services are reporting that Israeli commandos killed as many as 16 peace activists and wounded over 50 others as they boarded and commandeered the six ships of the Gaza aid flotilla.…
McCain on Offshore Drilling, 2008
The Republican plan for expanded offshore drilling: Drill Here, Drill Now": August 4, 2008:“This Scares Everybody” says BP:
Top Kill Fails, Imperils Gulf;
“There are no Solar Spills”
British Petroleum's attempt to plug the petroleum gusher a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico through a "top kill," pumping mud into the oil pipeline in hopes of plugging it up, has…
Kirchner: Bush angrily said War would Grow US Economy
Néstor Kirchner, former president of Argentina, revealed in an interview with Oliver Stone for the director's documentary "South of the Border" that former US president George W. Bush was convinced that war…
Why Pakistan needs the Separation of Religion and State;
Atrocities by Taliban against Ahmadis
The attack by ten armed and trained militants on two Ahmadi places of worship resembled in its techniques the assault on Mumbai (Bombay) in fall of 2008 (see this Federation of American…
80 Dead in Twin Ahmadi Mosque Bombings
Taliban in Pakistan launched horrific suicide bombings at two mosques in Lahore on Friday, killing at least 80 persons and wounding dozens. The mosques belonged to the minority Ahmadiyah community, widely considered…
Taliban Commander Maulvi Fazlullah Said Killed in Nuristan
Conflicting reports are emerging from the province of Nuristan in Afghanistan, some alleging that Maulvi Fazlullah, a.k.a. 'Mulla Radio,' has been killed in fierce fighting along with six companions. On Thursday, a…Ahmadinejad Blasts Medvedev over UNSC Sanctions;
Brazil still Reaching out to Obama on Nuclear Deal
The Iranian newspaper Tabnak reports that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a speech on Wednesday, took a hard line with Russia and also pressured the US to accept the deal brokered by…Mercy Flotilla for Gaza About to Set Off
Israelis Threaten to Block it with War Ships
An 8-ship aid flotilla will likely set sail from Turkish ports on Wednesday in an attempt to reach the Occupied Gaza Strip Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu called on the Israelis to…Petraeus Memo Widens scope of US Military Covert Operations in ME
The 7-page memo seen by the NYT and signed by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus authorizes US troops to engage in clandestine intelligence-gathering in the greater Middle East. The article implies that…
Israel offered Nukes to Racist South Africa for Use on Black Neighbors
A suppressed historical episode has emerged into the light of day in such a way as to deeply embarrass Israel and the United States in their campaign against Iran's peaceful nuclear enrichment…
Taliban Attack Qandahar Airfield; Parliament goes on Strike
Guerrillas fired mortar shells and used small arms to attack the major US military base in south Afghanistan, Qandahar Airfield, on Saturday. The operation was the third major attack by insurgents during…
Pakistan’s Social Media Ban Endangers Economic Growth
The Lahore High Court's ban on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and some other social media sites was supported on Friday in Pakistan by rallies of students, attorneys and fundamentalists. Blackberry services have also…Iran Threatens to Pull out of Nuclear Deal over new UN Sanctions
Iranian member of parliament Mohammad Reza Bahonar warned Thursday that "If (the West) issues a new resolution against Iran, we will not be committed to Tehran's statement and dispatching fuel outside Iran…Top Ten Other Gratuitously Offensive Draw-a-Cartoon Days
The juvenile "draw Muhammad" day has generally been avoided by professional editorial cartoonists. One Islamophobic theme apparent in the writing on it is that Muslims are peculiar in their thin-skinned responses to…Angry Tea Partiers are not the Moral Equivalent of Compassionate Democrats
Just to enter an objection to the increasing tendency of the mainstream media to equate the Tea Party on the American right wing with supposedly "angry" activists on the left wing of…
Apartheid Israel, Bunker Israel: Elvis Costello and Noam Chomsky
The repercussions of the brutal shooting-fish-in-a-barrel Gaza War, of the continued Israeli siege and boycott of the Gaza Strip, and of the vigorous colonization of the Palestinian West Bank by militant Israelis,…
Kabul Blast Kills 19, Wounds 52; 5 US Troops Dead
The BBC is reporting that Afghan guerrillas deployed a suicide car bomb against a NATO military convoy in west Kabul near the parliament building Tuesday morning, killing at least 19 persons and…Iran Announces Breakthrough Nuclear Exchange Deal
Veteran Iran observer Borzou Daragahi reports on the agreement just announced by Iran and Turkey on the disposition of Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium. Under the deal, according to the Iranian spokesman,…
Palestinians Observe Nakbah or Catastrophe Day, raise Hopes of Unity
Thousands of Palestinians rallied in Gaza on Saturday to commemorate the Nakbah or national catastrophe of 1948, when European Jewish settlers brought into the Mandate of Palestine by imperial British policy expelled…
BP Trashes Apollo Astronauts, Parrots Sarah Palin; Oil Godzilla heads for Coast
In a BBC interview British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward said Friday that the massive petroleum gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, the greatest oil-based environmental catastrophe in recorded history with the exception…US Troop Withdrawal in Iraq on Track
WaPo says that the Obama administration is still on track to draw down to 50,000 troops in Iraq by September 1, despite press speculation to the contrary in the past couple of…
Karzai Defeats Obama 2-1
Afghanistan is already beginning to defeat Barack Obama. He came into office last year clearly hoping to find a way to move Hamid Karzai, the mercurial and ineffectual president of Afghanistan who…Police: Shahzad has no Links to Taliban; Clinton Remarks Produce Firestorm in Pakistan
Pakistani authorities doing the hard police work in Karachi of attempting to trace the network of friends and contacts of attempted Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad have come up empty-handed. There is…Follow IC at Twitter, Facebook
Facebook keeps promising to lift the 5000-friend limit, but has not done it. So my account over there is more or less full. Just to let readers who are interested know that…
Iraq Death Toll from Attacks rises to 119, Biggest since Start of Year
AP is reporting that the wave of bombings and attacks throughout Iraq on Monday is now estimated to have killed 119 persons. Although some analysts are attempting to tie the attacks to…Guerrilla War Continues: 31 Killed in Iraq Attacks; Allawi, Maliki to Meet
A series of coordinated attacks on checkpoints and a Shiite mosque on Monday in Iraq demonstrated that the guerrilla opposition to the US-imposed new order in that country continues to be active…
Salisbury: Times Square Rorschach Test
Stephan Salisbury of the Philadelphia Inquirer and author of Mohamed's Ghosts writes in a guest essay for Informed Comment: In the smoke roiling up from the street of a busy Saturday night…Afghanistan: 57 Insurgent Attacks a Day; Taliban Vow Major Campaign; Karzai to Visit Washington
The guerrilla forces in Afghanistan had launched new attacks on NATO and Afghanistan National Army targets in the past few days, after weeks in which they were busy making sure to get…Feds still Granting Environmental Waivers to Big Oil in Gulf after Spill
McClatchy gets the story: Since the BP oil leak began on April 20, the Federal government has granted 22 waivers to oil companies allowing them to avoid doing environmental impact studies on…
Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: Niass & Shahzad
I received some snarky message after the Shahzad attempted bombing in Times Square, asking if I were still standing behind the idea of Islam as a religion of peace. It was a…Lieberman’s Modest Gulag Proposal
In order to prevail in his attempt to have the US citizenship of 'obvious terrorists' revoked, Sen Joe Lieberman would have to overturn the Fourteenth Amendment, which says, "All persons born or…Parliament as a whole may have to Choose Iraqi Prime Minister
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that despite their announced coalition, the religious Shiite State of Law and National Iraqi Alliance lists will probably have to resort to an up and down vote in…
Shiite Parties Form Largest Coalition in Iraq; Ayatollahs to choose PM; Win for Iran
The pan-Arab London daily al-Hayat [Life] reports in Arabic that sources close to the two major Shiite coalitions have revealed that they will form a 10-person committee of "wise men" to choose…Israeli Settler Terrorists Plan more Mosque Burnings
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas charged that a fire that damaged a Palestinian mosque in the Israeli-Occupied Palestinian West Bank was set by Israeli terrorists among militant colonists of the territory. Israeli…
Suspect Arrested in Times Square Bomb Plot; Afghan anger at NATO Grows
As US authorities arrested Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American recently returned from Peshawar, on suspicion of ties to the Pakistani Taliban and involvement in the Times Square bomb plot, bad news is coming…
From Waziristan to New York
It is a measure of the inter-connected character of our globalized world that the security of New York may be tied to events in distant, rugged and mysterious South Waziristan, Pakistan-- a…I want My Country back from Big Oil
I want my country back. I want back the country of Teddy Roosevelt, who cared about our natural environment. I want back the country of Harry Truman, who wasn't afraid to give…