Middle East Peace

1. Over 112 Palestinians Killed in Five-Day Israeli Attack, Mohammed Omer Reports from Gaza Amy Goodman, Mohammed Omer and Amira Hass, Democracy Now! March 3rd, 2008. As Israel pulls ground troops from Gaza, Israeli aircraft continues to carry out bombing raids. On Sunday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas formally suspended contacts with Israel to protest what he called a criminal war on the Palestinian people. The clashes reached a peak on Saturday, after Israel sent in a regiment of ground troops in an operation dubbed "Hot Winter" that killed seventy-seven Palestinians in two days. According to Gaza health ministry statistics, twenty-two children were killed. More than 350 people were wounded. Since last week, three Israelis have died: one civilian and two soldiers. A senior Israeli official told Reuters, "This very limited (Gaza) operation was intended to show Hamas what could happen, what you may call a 'prequel.'" He went on to say, "If they continue to fire the rockets, then there will be more operations like this one or worse." (see also: Witness accounts from Gaza)

2. The Gaza Bombshell David Rose, Vanity Fair, April 2008 Issue After failing to anticipate Hamas's victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current US officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever. (see also: On Eve of Rice Visit, APN Calls on Bush to Back Ceasefire Efforts) *** See the Michigan Peaceworks' Community Calendar for one of several talks this weekend on "Is an Israeli - Palestinian Peace Agreement Possible Within a Year?" Bringing Home the Troops

3. Senate Shelves Iraq U.S. Troop Withdrawal Bill Richard Cowan, Reuters, February 28th, 2008 The Senate spent much of this week debating a plan by Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to begin withdrawing most American troops from Iraq by July. His effort, like one last December, faced deep opposition in the chamber, where members have repeatedly blocked steps to impose timetables for winding down a war that is entering its sixth year. His effort, like one last December, faced deep opposition in the chamber, where members have repeatedly blocked steps to impose timetables for winding down a war that is entering its sixth year. Democrats, who control the Senate, increasingly are tying the war to domestic economic problems, which are high on voters' minds this year. Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, a Columbia University economics professor and former advisor to President Bill Clinton, told a congressional panel on Thursday that the war has contributed to substantially higher oil prices and required more foreign borrowing by the United States since Bush and the Congress have not raised taxes or cut spending to pay for the combat. Our America? 4. Exclusive: I Was Kidnapped by the CIA Peter Bergen, Mother Jones, march 3rd, 2008 First introduced during the Clinton administration, extraordinary renditions-in which suspected terrorists are turned over to countries known to use torture, usually for the purpose of extracting information from them-have been one of the CIA's most controversial tools in the war on terror. According to legal experts, the practice has no justification in United States law and flagrantly violates the Convention Against Torture, an international treaty that Congress ratified in 1994. The extraordinary rendition program was not primarily intended to yield information, according to Michael Scheuer, the CIA official whom the Clinton White House tasked with implementing it. "It came from an improvisation to dismantle these terrorist cells overseas. We wanted to get suspects off the streets and grab their papers," Scheuer explains. "The interrogation part wasn't important." He also claims that the program was overseen by congressional committees and "was lawyered to death." After 9/11, the rendition program quickly expanded because holding any but the most important Al Qaeda prisoners was a "burdensome proposition" for the Agency. "Before 9/11 we never asked for some guarantee that prisoners would not be tortured or coerced," says Scheuer. The Bush administration says it has since sought such assurances, but Garrett, the interrogator, thinks those promises are worthless in any case. "In my view it is a shell game and a legal CYA to say that the other country (Egypt- give me a break) will not use torture," he wrote. "We are unfortunately promoting terrorism by using these abhorrent approaches. Shame on us." 5. Soldiers and Democracy: Know Your Rights! Jonathan W. Hutto, Sr., CommonDreams/Nation Books, March 5th, 2008 We wanted to build a movement where service members could express their dissent in a legal, constructive way. I began researching the rights and responsibilities of active-duty service members. The most comprehensive source I found was the website for the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, which was very helpful in determining the limits for GIs in petitioning their government for redress of grievances. 6. Do You Want the Military Industrial Complex Counting Your Votes? Kevin Zeese, Dissident Voice, March 5th, 2008 For the last two years United Technologies has been seeking to purchase the Diebold Corporation. Diebold's main business is ATM machines but, it is the manufacturer of election equipment under the name Premier Election Solutions. Its software is responsible for counting votes throughout the United States. United Technologies, a major multinational conglomerate with a range of technology interests, receives approximately $5 billion in military contracts from the United States annually. The former CEO of Diebold, Walden O'Dell raised distrust about Diebold as an honest vote counter by announcing before the 2004 election in a fundraising letter for President Bush that he would do all in his power to deliver Ohio for Bush. He was forced to resign in 2005 as security fraud and insider trading charges loomed. The problem of a military contractor counting the votes is really a symptom of a bigger problem of corporate-government. Across the country election administrators have outsourced vote counting to private corporations. In fact, Diebold's central tabulator software counted most of the votes in the last presidential election and 80% of the votes were counted by two corporations: Diebold and ES&S. World 7. What the World Is Hearing Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, March 10th issue The rest of the world...really wants for the United States to continue its historic role in opening up the world economy. For a struggling farmer in Kenya, access to world markets is far more important than foreign aid or U.N. programs. What is said in [the Ohio primary] is heard in Ghana and Bangladesh and Colombia as well. And isn't the point of leadership to educate and elevate people, not to pander and drag them into the swamp of ignorance and fear? There is a way to speak about the pain of globalization - and about the need for investments in retraining, education, health care and infrastructure - so that we can both compete but also absorb the shocks of a changing global economy. Unfortunately that is not what the Democratic candidates are talking about. 8. UN: Rights Council Should Tackle Somalia Crisis Humane Rights Watch, March 3rd, 2008 The UN Human Rights Council should draw attention to the neglected human rights crisis in Somalia, [and] should also intensify its engagement on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sri Lanka and Burma. "The Human Rights Council has a unique responsibility to address the desperate situations in countries like Somalia, Burma, DRC, and Sri Lanka. Otherwise the council will be complicit in the neglect of human rights crises across the globe." FISA 9. Democrats Prepare to Grant Telecoms Immunity for Illegal Spying Amy Goodman and Glenn Greenwald, Democracy Now! March 5th, 2008 House and Senate Democratic leaders are reportedly preparing to cave in to threats by President Bush and grant some form of immunity to the telecommunication companies that helped the government spy on Americans. [If the bill is passed] it'll mean that all of the lawsuits that exist now against the telecommunications company that the customers have been winning in court, on the grounds that what the telecoms did was legal, will all disappear. They'll just go away forever. And because Congress hasn't investigated what the President has done, and because the media has been virtually inactive in doing so, that'll mean that the last hope for finding out how the Bush administration spied on us for all those years will be completely abolished, and we'll lose the ability to find out what our government did for all those years in breaking the law and in spying on us. Environment 10. EPA Chief Under Fire for Ignoring Scientists Aaron Glants, OneWorld US, March 4th, 2008 The vast majority of scientists and other specialists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have withdrawn from a key labor-management partnership, citing rising distrust of the agency's chief Stephen Johnson. Johnson has faced mounting criticism from within his own agency and a Congressional investigatory panel for allegedly ignoring scientific findings when they have contradicted the Bush administration's political aims. "You have to find a way to get this done," [an e-mail from the office of Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) concludes.] "If you cannot, you will face a pretty big personal decision about whether you are able to stay in the job under those circumstances. This is a choice only you can make, but I ask you to think about the history and the future of the agency in making it. If you are asked to deny this waiver, I fear the credibility of the agency that we both love will be irreparably damaged." 11. The Mental Environment Movement Adbusters, March 2008 When will we reach the breaking point? Our minds have become a virtual dumping ground of pollutants: manipulative ads, distorted news, untold violence, spin and hype. We can cope with the media onslaught to a degree. But all signs suggest that the cumulative effects of this toxic culture - on our stress levels, our moods, our relationships, our worldviews, even our mental health - could become one the most pressing issues of our generation. TAKE ACTION Bury the War, Pledge Peace! Sign the signature ad for the Anniversary of the Iraq War! Attend events for the 5th anniversary of the Iraq War Funeral March to the Federal Building-- wear black! Support the Palestinian-Israeli call for Ceasefire- sign the petition Sign the petition against telecom immunity and watch the video. Contact your Representative to demand that they do not vote for any FISA bill that includes immunity for telecom companies. (We haven't yet even been told what they have done)

Report: 1 in every 99 Americans behind bars Read this on the web at: michiganpeaceworks.org/wr-2008Mar06.html

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