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May 30, 2009
Links May 30 09
  • More and worse pictures – The Bogus Torture Coverup – (Daily Beast)
  • Pakistan – Number of displaced persons exceeds three million – (Dawn)
  • Saudi and Kuwaiti money – Taliban's Foreign Support Vexes U.S. – (WSJ)
  • Israeli police shut Palestinian literature festival in East Jerusalem – (Haaretz)
  • Hill writer uncovered as redneck Netanjahu fan – 'The Hill' covers Obama-Abbas meeting with a Likudnik spin – (Mondoweiss)
  • U.S. soft on (some) crimes – US fines Israeli agent in spy case – (AlJazeera)
  • Richard Silverstein is optimistic – Putting the squeeze on Israel's settlements – (Guardian)
  • He has some reason for it – Frank and Filner Refuse to Sign Aipac Letter – (Tikun Olam)
  • McChrystal's troops or the CIA? – Gunmen attack Ahmadinejad election office – (AFP)
  • Same question – Iran official blames U.S. in deadly mosque bombing – (Reuters)
  • Oil records fifth consecutive gains as dollar drops – (Xinhua)

Please add your links, views and news in the comments.

Posted by b on May 30, 2009 at 05:46 UTC | Permalink
Comments

Pakistan: With 3M refugees in Pakistan and 2.3M refugees in Afghanistan, the AfPak War threatens to break a world record held by the Jews from the WW2 era, since the record of Pol Pot’s regime was never officially certified by the Holocaust Museum.
Bnai Brith leaders have called for an urgent UN Special Assembly to prevent further displacement of civilians in AfPak, which might threaten their Holocaust franchise.
A Guiness Book of World Records spokesman said by phone, “We … know … nu-think!”

Posted by: Clarence Thames | May 30 2009 6:24 utc | 1

About the Iran accusation – I’m reminded of the Sy Hersh New Yorker articles about covert wars in Iran and secret support for groups like Jundullah.

Posted by: Anthony | May 30 2009 9:14 utc | 2

@Anthony – yep – and that is the reason why the Iranians said that a change of tone and words would not do. If Obama would publicly cancel that program it would be a real step. But it seems to continue at full pace.

Posted by: b | May 30 2009 9:24 utc | 3

Putting the squeeze on Israel’s settlements
“Brusque” language isn’t enough; I’ll believe it when the Obama administration acts on its words, such as requesting that Congress suspend loan guarantees to Israel, as former Sec. of State James Baker did under Bush I.

Posted by: Colin | May 30 2009 10:15 utc | 4

Anthony and b, I bet the Iranians would respond favorably to Obama just stopping the US actions inside Iran — and speaking privately to the Iranians about such cessation.
Obama still has some shred of plausible deniability, as in he hadn’t been fully briefed on what was being done, regrets it (or whatever wording is diplomatically acceptable), and wants to go forward with respect for Iranian sovereignty.
Obama could do that, but probably won’t.

Posted by: jawbone | May 30 2009 13:56 utc | 5

PR Stunt for the Empire Brown sending a plane flown 47 years ago is sure to frighten the little Kim in Korea.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | May 30 2009 14:19 utc | 6

This is interesting: LATimes reports Azerbaijan arrested two Hezbollah agents allegedly in the country to blow up Israeli embassy–a year ago.

Police intercepted a fleeing car [in Baku] and captured two suspected Hezbollah militants from Lebanon. The car contained explosives, binoculars, cameras, pistols with silencers and reconnaissance photos. Raiding alleged safe houses, police foiled what authorities say was a plot to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic that borders Iran.
Western anti-terrorism officials say the arrests a year ago thwarted swift retaliation by Hezbollah and Iran for the slaying of Imad Mughniyah, the legendary warlord of the Shiite Muslim militia based in Lebanon whose death was widely blamed on Israel.
The prosecution remained largely a secret until this week, when closed court proceedings began for two Lebanese and four Azeris charged with terrorism, espionage and other crimes.
The case offers an inside look at one of the stealthy duels being fought by Israel on one side and Hezbollah and Iran on the other in remote locales, from Latin America to Central Asia.
The case offers an inside look at one of the stealthy duels being fought by Israel on one side and Hezbollah and Iran on the other in remote locales, from Latin America to Central Asia.
“They had reached the stage where they had a network in place to do an operation,” said an Israeli security official, who requested anonymity for safety reasons. “We are seeing it all over the world. They are working very hard at it.”

Is this part of an intensifying PR push against Hezbollah, with the Der Spiegal article marking the launch? Note that it’s Hezbollah and Iran, so that makes it a twofer in terms of building a case against “bad guys.”
Just Israel doing it? US?
Via Tina at The Agonist.

Posted by: jawbone | May 30 2009 14:41 utc | 7

The problem I have with all this “news” is that it’s effectively a spectator sport. I don’t even read these links anymore. I look at the title and it’s like looking at the box score in the sporting page. The game is Civilization, and we celebrate it everyday by immersing ourselves in the gory details and statistics. We purchase the tickets and buy the products that help fund the sport, and then we argue over the fine points of last night’s game, or last week’s game, or last year’s game. The Game Must Go On.

Posted by: Obamageddon | May 30 2009 14:55 utc | 8

More and Worse Pictures:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/05/30/vercammen.hidden.underworld.cnn
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/05/29/minnesota.forced.chemo/index.html
Here’s the picture: The pentacostal fundamentalist USA Right is backed into a corner.
They are fighting back with everything they have against the tide of Technocracy and
Socialism which an Obama-Clinton regime represents. I-Thou has morphed into Me-Other.
All it will take is a trigger; an expanded war, an economy implosion, a hot summer.
We are all Queequeg’s now, rolling Yojo’s bones, looking through the glass, darkly.

Posted by: Pierre Michaels | May 30 2009 16:35 utc | 9

that cnn torture link doesn’t work

Posted by: slothrop | May 30 2009 16:41 utc | 10

@jawbone – yes, likely propaganda. The only sources are “western officials” and the piece was written in Paris. Not even one quote form Azerbaijan in there.

Posted by: b | May 30 2009 17:14 utc | 11

Pakistan: With 3M refugees in Pakistan and 2.3M refugees in Afghanistan, the AfPak War threatens to break a world record..
Add in 4M about in Iraq internal and external displaced.
Those numbers are huge – call it ethnic or territorial cleansing. Generally ignored.
Now Obama with the stop the settlements discourse does seem to be cutting to the heart of the matter, Bush let it slide. The stiffness is welcome, and probably a shock to the dreadful Bibi, etc. The question or difficulty is, how are settlements to be stopped or reversed in occupied territories? Can’t be, until Palestine is a State with full sovereign rights, the control of its borders, a seat at the UN, the leisure to make its own laws. That is of course what the Israelis will resist. So it is a bit of a chicken and egg problem…
Obiman seems very much to be, again, how can I put it, very conventional, conservative left, like about 40 years out of date. He would do great in Cuba, provided he was a Fidel side-kick or friends with brother Raul. (Not knocking Cuba, I guess all get the picture.)
Also, his recent actions, more alarmingly, seem to show a bent or a willingness, begun long ago by others, to distinguish between good “Pals” (Fatah, Abbas) and bad ones (Hamas, supposedly linked to AlQ, and so on and on and on) to forever split Palestinian claims or resistance, in favor of the global war ‘on terror’, thereby weakening them beyond hope or repair.

Posted by: Tangerine | May 30 2009 17:21 utc | 12

On the Iran front, I heard an interview on the BBC last night, with a politics professor from Tehran, who said that Moussavi is gaining on Ahmedinejad in the polls, and that A. has lost ground.
Perhaps Parviz could comment on this.
The consequences of Moussavi winning seem to me very considerable for the rest of the world, if it happened. The trouble for Israel, for example, if they didn’t have a bête noire in Ahmedinejad. Nothing for Netanyahu to cover up domestic policy.
That’s not to say of course that Iranian policy would really change.

Posted by: alex_no | May 30 2009 18:36 utc | 13

McChrystal’s troops or the CIA? – Gunmen attack Ahmadinejad election office
Actually it could be the people of Ahmedinejad himself, if there’s any truth in the report I mentioned above (13).
Still Zahedan is a long way away from the main centres of Iran (on the Baluch frontier). My ex-student who teaches at the university there told me the countryside is crawling with drug-runners (though he told me that a few years ago, and things may have changed now.)

Posted by: alex_no | May 30 2009 18:56 utc | 14

Jesus killed Mohammed:
The crusade for a Christian military
Also see…this… for more links and comments.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 31 2009 0:53 utc | 15

Three of the last four US presidents have had positions that were relatively even handed on the Israel/Palestine issue at some point during their reign. Bush Senior was the one that kicked off the whole middle east peace process that Israel then had to spend 15 years unwinding. He did not last long after the process was initiated, although I don’t think that had much to do with AIPAC. Clinton took a relatively naive few into managing the peace process until he saw that was politically difficult when AIPAC started firing the big guns.
Obama has what appears to be a set of strong words for Netanyahu at the moment. We’ll see how long it lasts when the domestic political costs of that become apparent. I doubt that AIPAC is going to limit itself to letters and policy positions. If AIPAC feels that the letters are not working they can start holding his domestic agenda to ransom and then Obama will realise what Clinton did. There is a lot to lose fighting and AIPAC and almost nothing (politically) to gain from it. Its not like any serious power base in America will care if he abandons the Palestinians.
It will be interesting to see what happens when an Israeli administration that believes it does not even need the sham of a peace process starts to do once the Obamga administration’s objections are overcome by AIPAC. One step closer to a genocide of the Palestinians.

Posted by: swio | May 31 2009 2:54 utc | 16

CT 1) If you are moved to help this imminent refugee holocaust in Afghanistan-Pakistan, instead of joking about it, go here:
http://www.saharnetwork.org/
5.3M people cannot live in tents in arid, high altitude 120ºF weather, standing in endless lines waiting for a piece of stale bread, or to use a foul pit toilet. Many will die. The harvest is being lost. Livestock, after one of the harshest winters in 30 years, is being lost. This is genocidal depopulation on a holocaust scale.
US:ISAF:ISI is creating a generation of slum dog paupers in the slums of Karachi and Islamabad, in a culture and economy which cannot assimilate them.
Meanwhile, the Obama’s are off to the cabaret, the Hillbillary’s are shopping on Madison Avenue for thigh-length stiletto-heel black patent leather jackboots, and Zarkari is holed up in his 80-room mansion with a bevy of import English beauties.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NE-72ZXux-g/SUKz8t7nNzI/AAAAAAAAHHI/f7cjsta3Gjk/s400/Bilawal+Zardari,+son+of+Pakistan%27s+leader.jpg
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/22/pakistan
For all their Torah-thumping talk of Afghans being the Lost Tribe of Israel, Bibi and his Zionist cabal are strangely silent at this Holocaust2, maybe because they can get their domestic servants closer at hand, and for fewer shekels in Ethiopia.

Posted by: shah loam | May 31 2009 2:58 utc | 17

@Tangerine @swio –
It seems to me that Obama is successfully including congress to press Netanjahu. That was different under Bush I. Jewish senators NOT signing an AIPAC letter is huge. See Tikun Olam link above. How this might go those is still a big question.

Posted by: b | May 31 2009 6:12 utc | 18

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