ACTION: Tell the US Consulate in Jerusalem about Mohammad Othman
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- Written by Jewish Voice for Peace Jewish Voice for Peace
- Published: 24 November 2009 24 November 2009
- Hits: 3314 3314
On November 23, 2009, after 61 days in jail, Mohammad Othman has received his first administrative detention order for a three month period -- a period where Mohammad will be held without charge or trial. The judicial review of the order is scheduled to take place tomorrow, November 25th, at the Military Court of Administrative Detainees in Ofer Military Base, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, and we need you to take action right now. Tell the US Consul General in Jerusalem to send a representative to the hearing. His harassment must stop. He should either be tried in a court of law where he can defend himself or he should be released.
Take action here: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/301/t/9047/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1785
Obama poised to announce decision on Afghanistan: 35,000 more troops
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- Written by Ed Pilkington in New York Ed Pilkington in New York
- Published: 24 November 2009 24 November 2009
- Hits: 3020 3020
US president set to make official announcement on US troop levels early next week
Barack Obama said today that he intended to "finish the job" in Afghanistan, as it became clear that he is poised to announce early next week the deployment of up to 35,000 more troops to the troubled region in one of the most crucial decisions of his young presidency.
Obama told reporters at a White House press conference for his meeting with the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh that his prolonged review into the next phase of the Afghan war, which will end with an address to the nation probably next Tuesday, had been "comprehensive and extremely useful".
He said: "After eight years, some of those years in which we did not have either the resources or the strategy to get the job done, it is my intention to finish the job. I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we're doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals, they will be supportive."
The president is expected to make a prime-time speech, possibly his first to be made in the symbolically weighty Oval Office. The contents of the announcement will be crucial not only to the next phase of the eight-year war in Afghanistan, but also to Obama's own sliding popularity figures with US voters.
Anonymous briefings with several American news outlets all placed the outcome of Obama's prolonged deliberations on what to do with Afghanistan in the same rough area.
If those reports prove correct, he has decided to send between 30,000 and 35,000 more troops to the war zone, focusing their firepower largely on the politically crucial regions of eastern and southern Afghanistan.
Significantly, though, he is also likely to build into the plan an exit strategy that will allow for a staged withdrawal of American troops if the prospects of the US-led military operation fails to improve.
The likely outcome brings the president's position closely in line with the views of Stanley McChrystal, the top US military commander in Afghanistan, who incurred White House criticism by going public with his preferred option of around 40,000 extra troops.
McChrystal will be among leading military and administration figures who will face questioning from the House of Representatives and Senate immediately after Obama's address.
Others who will answer for the new policy to congressional committees include the secretary of state Hillary Clinton; defence secretary Robert Gates; and Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Afghanistan who has put forward a contrasting opinion to McChrystal's, that there should be no more troops sent to Afghanistan unless the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai can show it is standing up to corruption.
The congressional hearings will be important in rallying political support behind the troop deployment. As the military operation against a resurgent Taliban has faced setbacks, and US casualties grown, popular backing for the war in Afghanistan has diminished as has been reflected in growing unease among Democratic politicians in Congress.
In a recent ABC News poll, confidence in the Obama administration's handling of Afghanistan had fallen by 10 percentage points in just a month, to 45%, while disapproval had risen to 47%.
The president will hope to assuage some of the anxieties on the Democratic side about the progress of the war by including a clear statement that he does not intend the military engagement to be bottomless and endless. His spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the strategy was "not just how we get people there, but what's the strategy for getting them out".
In his final meeting with the war council last night - the last of nine such meetings - Obama requested a briefing from military leaders on how an exit strategy might work.
To present the American people with a double-headed policy in which a surge in troop numbers is coupled with talk of exiting Afghanistan is likely to test Obama's political skills to the full. However, foreign policy experts said that if he delivered the announcement with confidence he would be able to get the message across.
"No war is intended to last forever, so it makes logical sense to put in enough troops to make sure we can get the job done and then get the hell out of there," said Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
O'Hanlon said that Obama would also be under pressure to clarify his attitude towards the widely discredited Afghan regime which was implicated in electoral fraud at last month's presidential elections. "It will be fascinating to see how he describes Karzai."
‘Administrative detention’– cruel practice, cruel euphemism
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- Written by Susie Kneedler Susie Kneedler
- Published: 24 November 2009 24 November 2009
- Hits: 8356 8356
Deeply disturbing news from Israel: Mohammad Othman, human rights activist, who has been detained for two months by Israelis after a trip to Europe on which he detailed abuses of Palestinians, faces three months more detention without any allegations lodged against him. What is "administrative detention." Here is Susie Kneedler’s report from an Ohio event:
Read more: ‘Administrative detention’– cruel practice, cruel euphemism
Motorola Droid "Stealth" Ad attacks civilians
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- Written by AUPHR AUPHR
- Published: 23 November 2009 23 November 2009
- Hits: 3249 3249
This militaristic sales pitch is yet another reason to boycott Motorola because of its war profiteering ways
Click here to be assaulted.
Sabeel Conference in Seattle, February 19-20, 2010
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- Written by Friends of Sabeel--North America Friends of Sabeel--North America
- Published: 19 November 2009 19 November 2009
- Hits: 3387 3387
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