Warning
This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.
TheRealNews
July 06, 2009
Sandra Cuffe: Military resorts to killing protesters as increasing numbers take to the streets
PressTV
Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:16:29 GMT
In another attempt to break the crippling Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, a group of ‘Viva Palestina’ activists has arrived in Egypt on a humanitarian mission.
About 100 US activists with tons of medical supplies arrived in Egypt on Sunday on their way to Gaza, hoping to break the deadly Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the territory –home to 1.5 million Palestinians.
The activists are part of a convoy of at least 200 people – all Americans – planned to be in Gaza by July 13. The convoy will head to the border after the rest of the group and supplies arrive.
[…]
see
George Galloway: We Have To Break That Siege
Viva Palestina: A Lifeline From The United States To Gaza by George Galloway
PressTV
Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:13:08 GMT
Tel Aviv has denied reports that suggest Israeli bombers have been allowed to use Saudi airspace for an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.
The denial came after unnamed Israeli diplomatic sources told The Sunday Times that Saudi officials have secretly agreed to allow Israeli fighter jets to fly over the kingdom to strike Iran’s nuclear sites.
“The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia,” the The Sunday Times quoted an Israeli diplomatic source as saying.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to deny the report on Monday, claiming it to be “completely false and baseless.”
[…]
see
Israel: S. Arabia’s airspace ready for Iran attack
Biden: US won’t stop Israel attack on Iran + transcript
Israeli ambassador to US: Iranian nuke could wipe off Israel in seconds
By Gideon Levy
http://www.haaretz.com
July 6, 2009
Combat is the best, my brother, as the famous bumper sticker reads. It’s a good thing we have Shayetet 13. Operating at the crack of dawn – or was it before nightfall? – the daring naval commandos fearlessly took control of a rusty, rickety, unarmed boat bobbing in the middle of the sea. That’s exactly why we have a naval commando force – to take control of ships offering humanitarian aid. Behold, the guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. The military correspondents reported on the incident with an amazement that only they can muster. But even they could not provide a fig leaf for the operation: The Israel Defense Forces has once again used its power to overcome the weak; the navy has once again acted like pirates. The Arion was abducted in the framework of protecting Israel’s security for all eternity, blah, blah, blah.
Soldiers, journalists and news consumers automatically refrain from asking questions. The navy captured another ship carrying symbolic aid, as if its passengers were Somali pirates. These were people of conscience from various countries carrying toys and medicine.
This was not the navy’s first daring operation of this kind, nor will it be the last. When there are no hostile aid ships on the horizon, the navy takes control of wretched Gazan boats, using water hoses or firing at its passengers – poor fishermen who only want to make a living at sea. This is the main activity unfolding off Gaza’s shores. A navy outfitted with the best arsenal in the world is hunting surfboards. One of the best-armed forces in the world is chasing children, examining old people’s documents and entering bedrooms to make arrests.
[…]
h/t: Freegaza
***
It’s Been a Bad Week for Israel
by Michael Jansen
Written by Free Gaza Team
Freegaza
Monday, 06 July 2009 13:54
From Gulf Today, Michael Jansen:
This past week has been a bad one for Israel. Its bad behaviour was manifested in the seizure of a ferry boat carrying medical supplies and activists to Gaza, the impounding of the vessel and humanitarian cargo, and the imprisonment of crew and passengers. What is more, Israel’s vio- lations of human rights and international law were documented in detail in important studies issued by the International Committee of the Red Cross, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The vessel, the Spirit of Humanity, a Greek-registered island ferry with 21 crew and peace activists and three tonnes of medical supplies on board, set sail from the Cypriot port of Larnaca on Monday morning, ex- pecting to reach Gaza’s fishing port on Tuesday afternoon.
PressTV
Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:22:40 GMT
Former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the main engineer of the US war in Vietnam, has died at the age of 93, his family says.
McNamara died in his sleep at his home in Washington on Monday after a period of ill health, his wife, Diana, told the Associated Press.
[…]
***
Commentary: Galloway on McNamara: Reading an obit with great pleasure
By Joseph L. Galloway
McClatchy Newspapers
06 Jul 2009
“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.” —Clarence Darrow 1857–1938
Well, the aptly named Robert Strange McNamara has finally shuffled off to join LBJ and Dick Nixon in the 7th level of Hell.
McNamara was the original bean-counter — a man who knew the cost of everything but the worth of nothing.
Back in 1990 I had a series of strange phone conversations with McMamara while doing research for my book We Were Soldiers Once And Young. McNamara prefaced every conversation with this: “I do not want to comment on the record for fear that I might distort history in the process.” Then he would proceed to talk for an hour, doing precisely that with answers that were disingenuous in the extreme — when they were not bald-faced lies.
[…]
via Commentary: Galloway on McNamara: Reading an obit with great pleasure | McClatchy.
by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
6 July 2009
In a depressing if predictable decision last Monday, District Court Judge John D. Bates ruled that Haji Wazir, an Afghan businessman seized in the United Arab Emirates in 2002 and rendered to the US prison at Bagram airbase, can continue to be held as a prisoner without rights, even though he has never had an adequate opportunity to test whatever allegations the US military is using to justify his detention, and even though he has been given no sign of when, if ever, his detention will come to an end.
In a heroic ruling three months ago, Judge Bates demolished the position taken by the Bush administration — and slavishly followed by the Justice Department under President Obama — which maintained that all prisoners held at Bagram were beyond the reach of the US courts, and, specifically, beyond the reach of Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court ruling that granted habeas corpus rights to the Guantánamo prisoners in June 2008.
By Mike Whitney
July 03, 2009 “Information Clearing House”
There’s a big difference between inventory-driven recessions and credit-driven recessions. An inventory recession is caused by a mismatch between supply and demand. It’s the result of overcapacity and under-utilization which can only work itself out over time as inventories are pared back and demand builds. Credit-driven recessions are a different story altogether. They typically last twice as long as and can precipitate financial crises. The current recession is a severe credit bust of Depression-era magnitude. The financial system has effectively melted down. The wholesale credit system (securitization) is frozen, the banking system is dysfunctional and insolvent, and consumer spending has tanked. The Fed’s multi-trillion dollar lending facilities and monetary stimulus have kept the financial system from grinding to a halt, but the underlying problems still persist. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has chosen to avoid the hard decisions and keep the price of toxic assets artificially high with the help of a $12.8 trillion liquidity backstop. That’s why stocks have rallied for the last 4 months while conditions in the real economy have steadily deteriorated. Bernanke is using all the tools at his disposal to keep the market from clearing and prevent the mountain of debt that has built up over decades from being purged from the system. Unfortunately, as Ludwig von Mises said, “There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought on by credit expansion.”
Updated: July 8, 2009 added Part 2
TheRealNews
July 05, 2009
Pt 1 William Engdahl on his book Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order
by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
July 6, 2009
Tearyan Brown became a father when he was 16. He did what a lot of inner-city kids desperate to make money do. He sold drugs. He was arrested and sent to jail three years later for dealing marijuana and PCP on the streets of Trenton, N.J., mostly to white kids driving in from the suburbs. It was a job which saw him robbed at gunpoint and stabbed in the chest. But it made him about $1,400 a week.
Updated
PressTV
Mon, 06 Jul 2009 P06:58:07 GMT
At least one person has been killed and several others injured in clashes between Honduran soldiers and supporters of deposed President Manuel Zelaya.
Thousands of pro-Zelaya supporters gathered outside Tegucigalpa’s airport to welcome the ousted leader while the military did not allow his jet to land in Honduras.
After a short landing in Nicaragua, Zelaya went to El Salvador late Sunday for talks with the head of the Organization of American States and other regional leaders.
[…]
Updated
By RHONDA COOK, LARRY HARTSTEIN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Cynthia McKinney’s mom said she’s learned that her daughter is on the way home.
Leola McKinney said a friend who contacted the U.S. Embassy in Israel reported that the former congresswoman was released from Israeli custody and taken to Ben Gurion International Airport.
“We finally got word that she was released,” Leola McKinney said late Sunday afternoon. “We don’t know what time she is supposed to fly out. All we know is that they took her to the airport.
“I would be more relieved when I know she’s on the flight,” Leola McKinney added. “But I am relieved that she’s away from there.”
[…]
via McKinney released, returning to United States | ajc.com.
***
Palestine, the world’s largest open air prison
Full text translation to English of the Statement of President Manuel Zelaya, issued July 4
July 04, 2009 “Information Clearing House”
Compañeros and compañeras, fellow Hondurans, your president, Manuel Zelaya Rosales, speaks to you. I want to tell you that my destiny is tied to the destiny of the Honduran people. On the morning of June 28, while I was preparing to exercise my vote in a nationwide survey, I was the victim of assaults, abuses, violations and kidnapping, I was taken captive and expelled from my country by Honduran military forces. By these military forces that today have put themselves in the service of and in complicity with the voracious elite that squeezes and asphyxiates our people, obeying their orders and not defending our nation or our democracy. This is a blow to the Honduran nation and has made clear to the world that in Honduras there is still a kind of barbarity, and people who are unaware of the harm they cause to our country and to future generations.
Through these means of communication, I call for you to continue the participation of the people. The people are the principle actors of our democracy and of the solutions that must be found to the grave problems of poverty and inequality in our country.
Updated
Propaganda Alert!
July 05, 2009
Vice-President Joe Biden told ABCs This Week on Sunday that the US wouldn’t stand in the way of Israel if they decided Iran was an existential threat.
Dandelion Salad 