New York City Labor Against the War (NYCLAW)
NYCLAW Antiwar Digest
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Contents
*Overview
*Afghanistan
*Pakistan
*Iraq
*Palestine
*Latin America
*GI Resistance
*Cash for Trash
*Domestic Repression
*Antiwar Movement
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OVERVIEW
Choreographing permanent war
[B]oth Messrs. Obama and McCain are reiterating their commitment to good, old-fashioned American-style war making. . . . Rather than offering relief, the new entrant to the White House come January is likely to simply exacerbate the mayhem.
AFGHANISTAN
Occupation at highest level to date --
An unprecedented number of U.S. troops -- about 32,000 -- are in Afghanistan today, and the Pentagon plans to send several thousand more forces in the coming months. At least 131 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan this year, as have 100 troops from other NATO nations.
-- And U.S. aims to double it
The Pentagon chief also emphasized the need to build up the Afghanistan army, which the United States would like to see double in size to more than 130,000 troops.
Petraeus predicts years of occupation
The effort in Afghanistan is going to be the longest campaign of the long war."
British ambassador predicts U.S. failure
The American strategy, he is quoted as saying, "is destined to fail."
Joint chiefs chairman gloomy
"The trends across the board are not going in the right direction."
After denials, U.S. now admits killing civilians
While American commanders in Afghanistan have contended that 30 to 35 militants were killed in the raid, the new report concludes that many among that group were in fact civilians.
And yet another airstrike kills civilians
[A]t least 18 bodies, all women and children -- including one 6-month-old -- were pulled from the rubble and taken to the provincial governor's compound in protest.
Airstrikes' rising 2008 death toll
The number of civilians killed by U.S.- and NATO-led airstrikes has risen by 21 percent this year.
Occupation has generated rising violence
"Seven years ago most of the population felt safe. Now they don't."
PAKISTAN
New intelligence report says Pakistan is 'on the edge'
A U.S. official who participated in drafting the top secret National Intelligence Estimate said it portrays the situation in Pakistan as "very bad." Another official called the draft "very bleak," and said it describes Pakistan as being "on the edge."
Villagers bury 'US strike' dead
Pakistani villagers have collected the corpses and body parts of at least 20 people killed by a reported US strike.
IRAQ
Obama's illusory "withdrawal"
Mr. Obama said that such a residual force would probably include Special Operations forces, teams of military advisers, combat planes, attack helicopters, medical helicopters and perhaps some smaller-scale combat units to protect the advisers. . . . [I]t could number from 30,000 to 55,000 troops.
For Iraqis, U.S election smells of 'honey promises'
"Bush, McCain or Obama, they are merely faces to be changed. But the policy is the same and the non-actions and honey promises will be the same."
Iraqi people indifferent to Obama
"Whoever wins would be representing the US and the fact is that we are an occupied country. Our demand is to withdraw troops."
Iraqi government fuels 'war for oil' theories
There is no precedent for proven oil reserves of this magnitude being offered up for sale.
Iraq opens bidding on oil field contracts
Iraq is a rare prize for oil companies.
New U.S. intelligence report warns 'victory' not certain
The findings seem to cast doubts on McCain's frequent assertions that the United States is "on a path to victory" in Iraq by underscoring the deep uncertainties of the situation despite the 30,000-strong U.S. troop surge for which he was the leading congressional advocate.
Use of 'sticky IEDs' rising
The magnetic bombs "are very dangerous and very difficult to discover. It's stuck on in one place, and it blows up in another place."
Muslim Scholars issues fatwa prohibiting long-term pact
"The long-term security pact between Iraq and the U.S. administration occupying the country, if it is signed, is considered religiously prohibited and obsolete, and creates no commitments that Iraqis should abide by."
Soldiers abroad must now worry about the home front
Imagine the fear. The double whammy. To be sent to Iraq where people aim to kill you -- at a time when grim faces on televisions and laptop screens are talking about the collapse of the American economy and the possibility of a second Great Depression.
PALESTINE
U.S. candidates refuse to recognize Palestinians
Those bold contenders of the US vice-presidency, so keen to prove their mettle when it comes to "defence", hid like rabbits from the epicentre of the Middle East earthquake: the existence of a Palestinian people.
The U.S. left, Obama, and Palestine
Over the past six decades, 'left' or 'progressive' forces in the West have established a dismal track-record on the question of Palestine. . . . Within the United States, silence on the Obama-Biden campaign's extraordinarily dangerous positions on this question threaten to extend this disgrace.
Arab driver held in Akka
"I am sure some Jews also drove on Yom Kippur. Will the police arrest them?"
Akka pogrom is practical translation of Annapolis
[T]he events in Akka were "real and practical translation to the Annapolis conference that considered Israel as a homeland for the Jews, which mean that everything not Jewish must be uprooted and destroyed."
Settlers seek to complete Palestinian expulsion
"Expelling them is the solution."
Pogroms motivated by ethnic cleansing
[T]he latest disturbances have brought to the fore a deeper issue: the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from inside Israel by Israeli Jewish extremists.
'The Arabs are a filter through which we find our way to land'
"[The Palestinians] are a sort of -- I am going to use a very, very dangerous word -- a sort of filter through which our nation finds its way towards the land."
W. Bank pogroms go unpunished
'Had these people been Palestinians, they would all have been behind bars by now.'
Palestinians demand justice for 2000 massacre --
"The policemen who murdered our sons will be brought to justice, just like the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic and Nazi officers were."
-- Olmert refuses
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Arab Israelis have been discriminated against for years, [but said] "I will not reconsider the attorney general's decisions not to indict those involved in the October 2000 riots, which left 13 Arab Israelis dead."
Israeli occupation vets break silence over Hebron
[F]ormer members of the Israeli Army, many of whom served in Hebron, are determined to expose what is being done in their name and in the name of Israel's security.
Nilin village resists Israel's land confiscation
Nilin has also paid a price. Two children, aged 10 and 17, have been killed by Israeli soldiers since May. Several others have suffered serious injuries, such as losing an eye.
Military kills more civilians
''He was just standing here. A bullet hit him in the chest.''
LATIN AMERICA
McCain linked to group in Iran-Contra affair
In the 1980s, McCain served on the advisory board to the U.S. chapter of an international group linked to ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America.
Killings go on -- Targeting unions in Colombia
There is an unholy trinity between the government, the Colombian military, and multi-national organizations that has reduced the number of trade unionists from more than three million in 1993 to fewer than 800,000 today.
March marks 1968 Mexico killings
Thousands of Mexicans marched across their nation's capital Thursday to demand justice for victims of a 1968 massacre of students by government troops -- contemporary Mexico's most traumatic atrocity and one that remains unresolved.
CIA behind Mexico's '68 massacres
As always in Latin America, when there is any kind of political disaster or social tragedy, the CIA can be found hidden nearby, in some hole or other, or in Mexico's case, in the offices of the nation's highest leaders.
GI RESISTANCE
IVAW to Obama: Out Now
"My question is, as President of the United States of America, are you prepared to back up your own words [about the illegality of the Iraq War] and the U.S. Constitution by supporting service members refusing to participate in what you describe as an illegal occupation?"
More troops refuse to deploy
[A] growing number of U.S. troops are refusing to fight in the so-called "war on terror". . . . Meanwhile, an increasing number of active duty G.I.s have been joining Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW).
Military families speak out at Boston Common
"We're starting to meet more and more soldiers who are willing to speak out."
Winter Soldier heads to the northeast
Marchers carried signs that read "No Iraqi ever gambled away my life savings," "Bail out our troops," "Banks are open, but the VA is closed" and "No Afghani ever denied me health care."
Antiwar vet speaks on Common
"I'm not relying on my vote November 4th to make change."
CASH-FOR-TRASH
Obama was key to pro-bailout vote
Several Democrats in the Congressional Black Caucus said they were persuaded to support the bill by Mr. Obama.
Kucinich on Democrats' bailout betrayal
Obama has always served his corporate masters. . . . Obama's support for the bailout, however, is his most egregious betrayal.
DOMESTIC REPRESSION
'Muslim' shouldn't be a slur
Is it really too difficult for Obama to respond: "For the hundredth time, I am a Christian, and if you are suggesting that there is something wrong with Islam or being a Muslim, you are wrong"?
The anti-Muslim smear machine strikes again
"I cannot believe that I was sent the hate-inflaming, fear-mongering video disk Obsession in my newspaper! What will you enclose next? KKK robes?"
Troops deployed on U.S. streets
[T]he First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, three to four thousand soldiers, has been deployed in the United States as of October 1. Their stated mission is the form of crowd control they practiced in Iraq, subduing "unruly individuals," and the management of a national emergency.
Waterboarding got White House nod
The Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects.
Terrorism convictions overturned
Finding that a Yemeni cleric and his assistant had been deprived of a fair trial because of errors by the presiding judge, a federal appeals panel in New York on Thursday overturned their convictions in a prominent terrorism case once hailed by the Bush administration as a significant blow to Al Qaeda.
Supreme Court rejects Troy Davis execution appeal
"Even if they succeed in killing me, it will dismantle the death penalty system in Georgia because people are tired of injustice."
ANTIWAR MOVEMENT
10,000 in Germany protest Afghanistan war
More than 10,000 protesters took to the streets of Germany's capital Berlin and the southern metropolis Stuttgart on Sept. 17 to demand the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan.
Protests mark date of Iraq war vote
One of the largest protests was in Boston, where 1,000 people turned out in the first citywide demonstration against the war in nearly a year. The October 11th Mobilizing Committee, a grassroots coalition of Iraq Veterans Against the War members, students and activists from antiwar coalitions around the city, organized the protest.
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