Archive for April 8, 2008

“A confidential draft agreement covering the future of US forces in Iraq, passed to the Guardian, shows that provision is being made for an open-ended military presence in the country.”

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

““McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they (the missiles) get to the ground? He doesn’t know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues,” Rockefeller said.”

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

It is not clear how the Hairri assassination “witness”, Muhammad Zuhayr As-Siddiq, managed to escape from France and land in UAE. But it is most likely that Saudi intelligence was behind it. Let us not forget that Siddiq, admitted in his few interviews, that he first landed in Saudi Arabia after fleeing Syria.

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

The Hariri government is about to destroy the historic synagogue in Wadi Abu Jamil in Beirut.

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

Nostalgia for colonial times: Ryan Crocker. One of the precious pearls today in the testimony of Ryan Crocker was his crocodile tears over the “sufferings” of Iraqis. He said that the Iraqi people suffered even before Saddam: since 1958, he added. All was well under colonialism, he wanted to say.

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

Zionist conspiracy? What Zionist conspiracy? “On February 25, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), a rebel group from Darfur led by Abdel Wahid Al Nur, announced it was opening an office in Tel Aviv.”

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

Zionist Conspiracy? What Zionist Conspiracy? I have been reading Hillel Cohen’s Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948, which just came out in the English edition. This item stood out. In the spring of 1920, Chaim Weizmann visited Palestine and asked the intelligence office of the Zionist movement “to draw up a comprehensive plan [...]

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

When the commanders of the US military parrot the views of the administration, White House propagandists feign innocence and assert that the president is merely listening to commanders on the ground. And when US commanders express views contrary to the views of the administration, the same White House propagandists remind people of the civilian control [...]

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

“The Jerusalem office of the Ramallah-based English-language radio station RAM-FM was raided by Jerusalem Police and officials of the Israeli Ministry of Communications on Monday afternoon, and its staff members were detained, and equipment confiscated, on charges that it has been operating a small transmitter in Jerusalem “without the necessary broadcasting permit in Jerusalem”.” (thanks [...]

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

“Professor Falk said he drew the comparison between the treatment of Palestinians with the Nazi record of collective atrocity, because of what he described as the massive Israeli punishment directed at the entire population of Gaza. He said he understood that it was a provocative thing to say, but at the time, last summer, he [...]

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

Why is Saudi Arabia warning citizens against going to Lebanon this summer? (thanks Paul)

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

Middle East Reforms of the Bush Doctrine: “From 2001 until at least 2004, Jordan’s General Intelligence Department (GID) served as a proxy jailer for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), holding prisoners that the CIA apparently wanted kept out of circulation, and later handing some of them back to the CIA. More than just warehousing [...]

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

“Tens of thousands of Bedouin Arabs are being forced by discriminatory Israeli laws to live in “unrecognised” shanty towns in constant fear of having their homes demolished and their communities torn apart, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.”

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

My colleague Fred Lawson sent me this (I use with his permission): “This afternoon I found in my mailbox a glossy flyer announcing the inauguration of a new scholarly periodical from the prominent London publisher Routledge: the Journal of Muslim Mental Health. Among the issues that the journal intends to address is “What is the [...]

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

“An aide to Zimbabwean opposition leader Simba Makoni alleged ahead of Saturday’s election that the Mossad had been hired by President Robert Mugabe to ensure he won by computerized rigging of the vote.” (thanks Kamal)

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

“This righteous indignation was entirely predictable but more than a little odd nevertheless. On March 30, the Swiss newspaper Sonntag retaliated with the revelation that Israel, supposedly observing an ironclad boycott of all things Iranian, has been buying Iranian oil for years.” (thanks Sellam)

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

Rice and flowers of “liberation.” “An Iraqi army soldier looks on as a woman picks up rice at a checkpoint in Sadr City, Baghdad. The Shia suburb is suffering food shortages as troops clash with the Mehdi Army militia.” (thanks Molly)

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

He must have received orders from Iran: “Moqtada al-Sadr today called off a planned mass rally against the US occupation of Iraq on the fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, his aides said.”

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad

“I wanted to write about his cruelty to his wife, his crazed domination of his mistress that lasted almost 25 years, his screaming fits, his depressions, his absurd contention that he was the greatest writer in the English language (he first made this claim in Mombasa at the age of 34). “I am a new [...]

Posted on April 8, 2008 by As'ad