I’m almost bored to post links to articles like this.
Yossi Melman, Obama quashed Israel military option against Iran.
IAF drill simulates all-out regional war.

Posted by: andrew | May 22 2009 10:02 utc | 3

Escobar, Slouching towards balkanization.
Engelhardt, Six ways the Af-Pak War is expanding.

Posted by: andrew | May 22 2009 10:10 utc | 5

thank you b.

Posted by: Lizard | May 22 2009 13:38 utc | 7

i am going to copy in full the press release i received this morning in my inbox as i have no link. if anyone has press contacts please pass this along as i have my doubts it will be covered sufficiently in the press over the next 10 days during which people from all over the world will be amassing on the rafah border crossing in egypt attempting to lift the blockade and enter into gaza.
Egyptian tourist police attempt to block travel by foreign nationals to border crossing with Gaza;
CODEPINK delegations say they will not turn back

Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK co-founder, 415-235-6517
Pam Rasmussen, delegation coordinator, 301-518-0199
Jean Stevens, CODEPINK national media coordinator, 508-769-2138
CAIRO, Egypt — May 21, 2009 – As more than 160 Americans and other citizens from around the world begin arriving in Cairo with the intent to cross into Gaza, the operators of Egyptian bus services say they been prohibited by the Egyptian tourist police from transporting them to the border. The groups, made up of four delegations on the Egyptian side and one on the Israeli side, are part of a CODEPINK campaign to bring humanitarian supplies and build playgrounds for the children of Gaza.
R20;We had chartered a private bus company to take us from Cairo to Al-Arish, the closest town to the Rafah crossing into Gaza,R21; explained Sandra Ruch, who is leading a delegation of Canadians on the humanitarian mission. R20;However, the operators told us that the government had prohibited them from taking us anywhere near the border. They obviously believe this tactic will keep us away, but we are determined. The Gazans are completely isolated and struggling to survive. We cannot abandon them.R21;
The 10-member Canadian delegation is scheduled to be followed by a 14-member group from New York and a contingent of 40 students. The largest of the CODEPINK delegations, numbering about 80, is scheduled to set off for the border on May 29 – just days ahead of President Barack Obama’s landmark speech to the Arab world, planned for Cairo on June 4. The CODEPINK delegations are invited to the Gaza Strip by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
The delegations plan to enter Gaza to focus attention on the need to lift the 21-month blockade and to deliver medical supplies, toys and sports equipment to the children there, who make up more than half of Gaza’s population. The groups are also bringing supplies for playgrounds, since many of the schools and playgrounds were bombed during Israel’s invasion earlier this year, which killed more than 1,400, displaced more than 50,000 people and destroyed approximately 4,000 homes.
R20;The majority of Gazans are under 18, and many of the youth are traumatized and depressed,” said delegation coordinator Pam Rasmussen. “Thousands are now living in rubble or cramped tents, while mourning the deaths of loved ones and struggling to support their families despite an unemployment rate in excess of 50 percent. ItR17;s important for us to go there to show that the international community cares about their plight.R21;
The CODEPINK delegations are not alone. Three British medics began a hunger strike at the Egyptian border crossing on May 21 to protest being refused entry into Gaza to establish a cardiac surgery unit at al-Shifa Hospital, which currently has no such facility, and to help train medical students and junior doctors there. The British medics have been denied access to the Palestinian territory at the Rafah crossing since the beginning of May.
CODEPINK delegations say they are determined to get to the border and cross into Gaza. “We call on the Egyptian government to facilitate our travel to Gaza, not create obstacles,” said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace. “President Obama is coming to Egypt on June 4 to speak to the Arab world. He claims he wants to stand for peace and justice. We need to start by lifting the blockade of Gaza.”

Posted by: annie | May 22 2009 15:44 utc | 9

@jawbone – yep – that was (and still is) the “business model” they were (are) running on.

Posted by: b | May 22 2009 19:41 utc | 11

TalkLeft’s Ethan Brown) posts on informer for the Newburgh Four, as reported in NYC’s Daily Post. The informer’s done this before.
Commenter Scribe has info on the alleged terrorists. A sad bunch of guys who could never on their own have ever gotten anywhere near doing something like this, imho.

Posted by: jawbone | May 22 2009 21:15 utc | 13

again & again we are reminded of how the elites try & succeed to criminalise the poor & the marginalised – a process which began in earnest in the 1970’s – in all western societies without exception – a disgusting descent into moral degradation & political depravity has now been exposed as the tool it was to hide the real criminals & their criminality – in which ponzi schemes & torture are part & parcel
it is the poor that have been demonised for their violence, for their supposed inherent violence – whereas the real criminals were sending death squads all over the globe massacring people, destroying communities & their organisations
capitalism has needed poverty as much as it has needed repression
again this night i am reminded of the hate, the malignant hatred that lies behind the deeds of capital – & for americans there can be no clearer expression of the elite’s hatred than its desire to refuse universal health care – it not only hates the person of the people but it detest their bodies as well & when it can not be concentrated into a bargainable unit or commodity – it is for them completely useless
these last 8 months have only served to underline the elite’s hatred
there is an old red brigade slogan which possesses its own truth ‘that when the violence of the rich is called justice – the justice of the poor will be called violence’

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 23 2009 0:15 utc | 15

rgiap,
Your post #15 is inspiring and cries out for comment. It has been obvious to me this increasing criminalization of the poor by the elite, and at all levels – local, national and international. The national and international scenes are discussed here at MOA in depth so examples are plentiful. And capitalism has been the tool of late that is being used successfully to subjugate the poor. Yet I think your hatred of capitalism may be missing the mark.
rgiap: ”capitalism has needed poverty as much as it has needed repression”
There has always existed poverty and inequality among the peoples of this world. Any economic system need not make more of it. Maybe capitalism is a system that could exist perfectly well with everyone being (sufficiently) rich in some future world. Personally, as a private laborer (that is, I do not work for a large corporation or the government) I find it easier to “make money” among the rich than among the poor. The rich can afford to pay me and the poor, that I can spare the time to help, I don’t charge.
Poverty and subjugation can exist with any economic system, especially when these systems are run by a corrupt elite. And again, this has all happened since the dawn of history. As the simplest example, is not prostitution the oldest profession? Is this not typically a subjugation/degradation of a woman by someone of more wealth/power? Well I feel that what is happening to the people of this world is not that they are begging prostitutes, no it is far worse, the poor of this world are being brutally raped. This is not a matter of economics or politics, it is just plain evil.
I see capitalism as a tool – neither good nor bad. Universal health care could exist within capitalism and I would welcome a true universal health system over what exists now. Unfortunately, I think the system President Obama is proposing will be run through corporate insurance companies, the same companies that have destroyed our health care system. Again, the elite have a strangle hold on us.

Posted by: Rick Happ | May 23 2009 3:15 utc | 17

rick
i know this hatred on an almost professional basis
i was hated as a poet when barely into my teens, not because being a communist but because of the cadence & timbre of my voice were that of the working poor
i have become inured to their hatred – in my childhood my quartier, my suburb – was the blooding zone for young cops in their training – they would get into fights with the locals to beef them up but surely to refine their hatred of us. the quartiers where i have lived in france are exactly the same. the difference being here in france there are still viable & often protective communities
the ideologues of conservatism & then neoconservatism built a hatred of the poor & welfare into the heart of the pestilential project
& where these cunts today are revealed as the apologists and/or partners for the real criminals like madoff, the cruel cretins that correspond into their collapsing media(s) do not for one moment relent & continue their hatred of the people
from just before thatcher to today i have worked with generation of generation who have rarely been in work – not out of laziness or lack of will but for equality of opportunity
‘advanced’ capitalism ought to be ashamed of itself of the inequaity it reproduced in what passed for education – as rudimentary a factory as any in charles dickens
rick, if you want my thoughts – capitalism is run by animals – by men & women with less morality than animals – they are the beasts that have wandered through our days & night
& i will fight them, to my death

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 23 2009 16:55 utc | 19