“After enduring the CIA’s harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency’s secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called ‘terrorist tutorials.’…
These scenes provide previously unpublicized details about the transformation of the man known to U.S. officials as KSM from an avowed and truculent enemy of the United States into what the CIA called its ‘preeminent source’ on al-Qaeda. This reversal occurred after Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning and prolonged sleep deprivation, among other harsh interrogation techniques….
[F]or for defenders of waterboarding, the evidence is clear: Mohammed cooperated, and to an extraordinary extent, only when his spirit was broken in the month after his capture March 1, 2003, as the inspector general’s report and other documents released this week indicate.”
I thought this was a very interesting and important talk by John Pilger at the Socialism 2009 Conference in San Francisco on July 4, 2009. I spoke at the conference on July 3 about student activism and social change. Unfortunately, I didn’t stay for the entire conference (didn’t have the bucks) so I missed this talk (and others). Good thing this was posted on YouTube!
[NOTE: I’ll put the main argument I gave at the talk in a blog that will be posted soon, along with blogs on other topics.]
A recent Al-Jazeera-Gallup survey in Pakistan (released Sunday, August 9, 2009) revealed that a large majority of the Pakistani public views the United States as the biggest threat to Pakistan. According to the poll, 59% see the U.S. as the greatest threat to Pakistan, while 18% considered India and 11% considered the Taliban to pose the greatest threat. This could be a result of the U.S.’s drone attacks in Pakistan, which have massive civilian casualties, and are opposed by 67% of the Pakistani public.
This past Sunday, August 2, 2009, Israeli security forces evicted two families from their homes in East Jerusalem after a court rejected their appeal against the eviction [NOTE: For those who are unaware, Jerusalem is split between East and West. Israeli Jews live in the West, while Palestinian Arabs live in the East, however, Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the 1967 Six Day War, even though this annexation is seen as illegitimate in the eyes of the international community.]. The al-Ghawi and al-Hanoun families have been living in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood since 1956. Even though Israel has no legal ownership over the land, it plans on using the land the houses were built on to build a new hotel project. And the al-Ghawi and al-Hanoun families aren’t the only ones who are suffering from this. According to al-Jazeera,
“Despite pending appeals and the lack of legal ownership of land in the neighbourhood, the settler organisations sold their property claim in 2008 to an investment company that plans to demolish the 28 Palestinian homes and build 200 settlement units for new Jewish immigrants. Further reports state that two additional construction plans being currently reviewed by the Jerusalem municipality would create an additional 150 housing units, for a total of 350 new housing units for Israelis, as well as a synagogue in Sheikh Jarrah.”
Israeli settlement expansion onto Palestinian land has been going on for over 30 years. According to the Foundation for Middle East Peace, the total number of settlements has increased from 10,608 in 1972 to 484,862 in 2007. In East Jerusalem, those numbers are 8,649 in 1972 to 189,708 in 2007. These settlements are a clear violation of international law, particularly Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states:
“Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.”
It is also important to note that the right to housing is an established human right in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, a treaty that Israel has signed and ratified. Article 11(1) says:
“The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right, recognizing to this effect the essential importance of international co-operation based on free consent.”
The actions of the Israeli government in evicting these two families from their homes and building more illegal settlements is a violation of the fundamental human rights of the Palestinian people. It is up to citizens across the world to build a movement that advances the human rights of the Palestinians and pressures governments such as the United States to stop providing $3 billion of aid every year to governments like Israel that violate fundamental human rights.
I thought I would post a few articles about Israel’s war on Gaza that occurred a couple months ago.
“Tracing Gaza’s chaos to 1948” by Mark LeVine (Al-Jazeera, July 13, 2009). LeVine does a great job of tracing the roots of Gaza’s suffering.
“How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe” by Avi Shlaim (The Guardian, January 7, 2009). Avi, an Iraqi Jew, is a professor of international relations at the University of Oxford. He served in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and never questioned the legitimacy of Israeli’s policies. However, Israel’s actions in Gaza led him to rethink his view of Israel. This is a very insightful piece and provides a useful background to the Gaza attack. Read the rest of this entry »
Blues African 