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Ill-Treatment and Torture of Palestinian Children
from South Lebanon
[RAMALLAH, 11 June 2009] – Today, DCI-Palestine is releasing a report which documents the widespread ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children at the hands of the Israeli army and police force – Palestinian Child Prisoners: The systematic and institutionalised ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities.
The release of the report comes just days after an article was published in The Independent newspaper reporting the testimonies of two Israeli soldiers which detail the deliberate abuse of Palestinian children. One soldier is reported as saying that in an incident that occurred in a Palestinian village in March, he saw a lot of soldiers ‘just knee (Palestinians) because it's boring, because you stand there for 10 hours, you’re not doing anything, so they beat people up.’
The report published today contains the testimonies of 33 children, one as young as 10 years old, who bear witness to the abuse they received at the hands of soldiers from the moment of arrest through to an often violent interrogation. Most of these children were arrested from villages near the Wall and illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. There is evidence that many children are painfully shackled for hours on end, kicked, beaten and threatened, some with death, until they provide confessions, some written in Hebrew, a language they do not speak or understand.
The Preacher from Plains and the Grand Ayatollah from Najaf
Franklin Lamb, Dahiyeh
Jimmy Carter and Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah meet on Hezbollah turf for dialogue
“I will try to get you off the US Terrorism list if you can arrange a meeting for me with Hassan Nasrallah”
Jimmy Carter reportedly joking to Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah at their 6/9/09 meeting
Some readers may recall a December 15, 2008 Report in Counterpunch entitled “Why Hezbollah Stiffed Carter.. The former American President was in Beirut at the time to announce the Carter Center’s Election Monitoring project and was disappointed when Hezbollah’s Mohammad Raad told the media that the National Lebanese Resistance would not be meeting with him. Carter wrote in his December 19, 2008 Report to the Carter Center: “This (recent trip to Lebanon-ed.) was something like a presidential visit in that we had long conversations with top officials, cabinet members and delegations of the many political parties. Hezbollah refrained from meeting with us but expressed approval of our election monitoring”
Israeli War Crimes Against Children During Operation Cast Lead
by Stephen Lendman
Following Israel's Operation Cast Lead, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) documented the toll on Gaza's children and published it in May. It did so "in response to the unprecedented number of children who were killed (and injured) by (the Israeli Defense Forces) during the offensive on Gaza." According to international standards, the Convention on the Rights of the Child's (CRC) definition was used to apply to anyone under age 18.
A Boy and an Artificial Leg: A Gaza Story
By Ramzy Baroud
His room is ready; the walls have fresh paint and my kids prepared a basket of chocolates and other treats to place beside his bed. They hung a poster on his door that has been decorated with colored pens and glitter that says “Welcome Shobhi!” I have taught them that “Sobhi” actually means the “morning light”, and that during his visit, he will not be treated as a visitor, but as a brother. They have compiled a list of fun places to visit, parks, the beach and maybe a ferry ride.
Minefields in Obama's Cairo Speech A Palestinian View
By Khalid Amayreh
Journalist — Occupied Palestine
Obama ignored mentioning Israeli atrocities and occupation, more ominously, without even remembering international law, (Reuters photo)
It is hard to treat with indifference President Obama's speech in Cairo on 4 June, 2009.The speech itself seemed to represent an ostensible departure from the virulent anti-Islam rhetoric which very much characterized the general discourse of the former Bush administration.
Needless to say, the calumnies and canards concocted by Bush against the world's 1.5 billion Muslims; using the term "Islamofascists" and claiming that Muslims "hate our freedoms" effectively put the United States and Islam on a virtual collision course.
Fear Is Eroding American Rights
Paul Craig Roberts
The power of irrational fear in the US is extraordinary. It ranks up there with the Israel Lobby, the military/security complex, and the financial gangsters. Indeed, fear might be the most powerful force in America.
Americans are at ease with their country’s aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, which has resulted in a million dead Muslim civilians and several million refugees, because the US government has filled Americans with fear of terrorists. "We have to kill them over there before they come over here."
Fearful of American citizens, the US government is building concentration camps apparently all over the country. According to news reports, a $385 million US government contract was given by the Bush/Cheney Regime to Cheney’s company, Halliburton, to build "detention centers" in the US. The corporate media never explained for whom the detention centers are intended.
Most Americans dismiss such reports. "It can’t happen here." However, in north-eastern Florida not far from Tallahassee, I have seen what might be one of these camps. There is a building inside a huge open area fenced with razor wire. There is no one there and no signs. The facility appears new and unused and does not look like an abandoned prisoner work camp. What is it for? Who spent all that money for what?
The Case for Disbarment of Lawyers Who Facilitated Torture Grows
By Kevin Zeese
Lawyers were the lynchpin if they had given real legal advice: torture is illegal under domestic and international law; there would have been no torture program.
Since filing complaints against 12 Bush-Cheney lawyers the case for disbarment has gotten stronger. More information is leaking out. And, more and more Americans from citizens to generals to a former president are speaking out. On June 10th, a coalition of hundreds of organizations filled an addendum to the complaints against these lawyers to highlight the new information.
The addendum included statements by two generals with first hand knowledge of what occurred in U.S. detention centers in Iraq and Afghanistan. General David Patraeus said on May 29th that the U.S. violated the Geneva Conventions in carrying out “enhanced interrogations.” On FOX TV, in response to a question about the controversial interrogation practices, Patraeus said:
The CIA 500
Friends of Liberty
The following is a list of alledged and/or suspected C.I.A. "front" companies, corporations, or organizations. The list was compiled by Dr. Julius Mader of East Berlin. Although Dr. Mader claims to be an independant researcher, there is reason to belive he is employed by the Soviet intelligence service, i.e., the K.G.B. Mader's work is printed in many expected Communist bloc intelligence journals and when he lists a group or corporation there is good reason to check them out...which is what everyone reading this list should do in the various localities. Because an organization is listed doesn't necessarily mean everyone in the organi- zation is Agency...but they may have been influenced, supported or indi- rectly controlled by the C.I.A. For example, CBS-TV is listed...CBS once had interlocking directorates with the Rand Corporation. For the first time anywhere in the world, a documented list (alphabetically arranged) provides information on over 500 camouflaged or subsidised organizations of the U.S. secret intelligence network on five continents. The following documentation contains, in particular:
Clearing up myths about the EFCA
Mary Shaw
I was talking with a friend recently, and the subject of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) came up. This friend says he is pro-union, but opposes the EFCA because, he said, it would require workers to openly sign a petition for a union prior to a secret ballot election.
A minimum number of petition signatures would be required first, he said, to move the union possibility forward to the secret ballot election. He thought this additional step was unnecessary and not a good idea. He was pro-secret-ballot, but not for open signatures.
Obama’s Doublespeak on Iran
Ismael Hossein-zadeh
On the US-Iran relationship, President Obama seems to be talking from both sides of his mouth. From one side we hear promising messages of dialogue and a “new beginning” with Iran; from the other side provocative words that seems to be coming right out of the mouth of his predecessor, George W. Bush.
For example, on the occasion of the Iranian New Year in March, while the President expressed willingness for “engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect" he also warned Iran that it cannot "take its rightful place in the community of nations … through terror or arms.”
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