…Since Sept. 11, private advocacy groups that promote U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and the war on terror have targeted professional academics who disagree with right-wing agendas. Although the assault on academic professionals who disagree with U.S. foreign policy is not new, the right-wing thought police have been churning the political rhetoric against professors who express “patriotic incorrectness.”

“The neoconservatives have a knee-jerk understanding of Israel and the Middle East,” Beinin said. “They can’t win in a fair intellectual fight; their ideas are passé.”

Beinin explained that right-wing advocacy groups, such as Campus Watch and The David Project compile offensive dossiers on people that contain selective quotes from professors taken out of context.

On their web site Campus Watch states their campaign “supports the unencumbered freedom of speech of all scholars regardless of their views” but that “academic freedom does not mean freedom from criticism, to the contrary no one enjoys privileges in the free marketplace ideas.” The campaign established “The Columbia Project,” which will provide detailed studies of what they believe are “problems with Columbia University’s Middle East Studies faculty.” In the coming months they will be publishing these studies.
dissidentvoice.org

Escalating Israeli declarations around “final borders” are alarming, particularly in the face of ongoing Occupation pursuits to devour more Palestinian land, control the West Bank, and contain the Palestinian Struggle. Recent announcements, launched during the Herzliya policy conference that ended the day before the Palestinian Legislative Council elections, were not a surprise in the face of the near completion of the Apartheid Wall, confirming Israeli plans to permanently control approximately half the West Bank by imprisoning the majority of Palestinians in walled ghettos. In continuing its current policy and measures, the Occupation seeks to deepen and make official, preferably through negotiations, its de facto annexation of lands between the Wall and the Green Line as well as the Jordan Valley, thus demarcating a Palestinian “state” more accurately referred to as bantustans, ghettos, or reservations.
zmag.org

Update on Balata refugee Camp
February 21st, 2006 | Posted in Press Releases, Nablus Region
Sixteen year old Kamal Khalili was shot in his chest with live ammunition at 11:00 this morning in Balata Camp while throwing a stone at Israeli soldiers. He is now brain dead. According to Dr. Ghassan Hamdan head of the Nablus UPMRC nine other youths were injured today, at least four of them with live ammunition. Dr. Hamdan Says that this brings the total of injured people to 64.

This is third Day of the military operation in Balata Camp, The camp has been under continues curfew and people are suffering from lack of food medicine and milk formula for babies.

The military has occupied over sixty homes. Families in these homes are completely isolated. When a medical team tried to see 64 year old Im Imad Mashi who has high blood pressure and has recently undergone a heart operation they were denied acsess. “the soilders told us she can die” said Clara a volunteer from Germany .

…In August, the bureau announced that 12.7 percent of Americans lived in poverty in 2004, making it the official poverty rate. Last week, the bureau said the rate might be as high as 19.4 percent, or as low as 8.3 percent, depending on how income and basic living costs were defined.

One outside analyst said he could cut the poverty rate in half using census data and a pocket calculator. But his exercise would change only the definition of poverty. It wouldn’t make anyone richer.

“I know virtually no one who thinks the current poverty line is an accurate measure of poverty,” said Rebecca Blank, co-director of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan.
commondreams.org

WASHINGTON – A small branch of a South American religious sect may use hallucinogenic tea as part of a ritual intended to connect with God, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

In its first religious freedom decision under Chief Justice John Roberts, the court said the government cannot hinder religious practices without proof of a “compelling” need to do so.

“This is a very important decision for minority religious freedom in this country,” said lawyer John Boyd, who represents about 130 U.S. members of O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal who live in New Mexico, California and Colorado.
news.yahoo.com

Cassandra had a curse put on her to make sure no one would believe her predictions. Two people who know how she must have felt are the economics professors Paul Krugman of Princeton and Wynne Godley of Cambridge. The two have been predicting the demise of the the US and UK economies respectively (and in Professor Godley’s case, both) for years without, as yet, their predictions coming true.

Both were back in the fray last week. In one of his New York Times columns, Professor Krugman reminded us that last year America’s imports were 57% larger than her exports, that her borrowing binge was unsustainable and that, since a “soft landing” was unlikely, there could be a 30% fall in the value of the dollar in order to eliminate the trade deficit. Professor Godley (writing with a colleague in the Financial Times) warned that excessively high trade deficits in the US (6.5% of GDP) and in the UK (4.5%), buoyed up by budget deficits and personal borrowing, were unsustainable. If personal borrowing and spending slow down, they argue, neither government has a policy to avert a “prolonged deficiency in total demand”, which implies a serious economic recession. The professors are not alone. Among others, the venerable JK Galbraith, who has been right about so many things, has been predicting a stock market crash and high unemployment for well over 10 years.
guardian.co.uk

Robert Mugabe marks his 82nd birthday today by urging other African leaders to defy former colonial powers. “What one notices is lack of courage … a kind of surrender to European authority, I suppose it’s because of poverty,” he said. “None of them will stand up and say to them, ‘go to hell’. We shrink in asserting our rights. We need much more courage in the African Union.”

In the 90-minute interview on state television and radio, Mr Mugabe also denounced the British government. “Our erstwhile former coloniser still wants to govern us by remote control,” he said, repeating charges denied by Britain that it was sponsoring the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
guardian.co.uk

Militants in the Niger delta mounted fresh attacks on oil installations yesterday, extending a wave of sabotage which has crippled exports from Africa’s leading oil producer. The guerrillas seized a Nigerian army post in waterways east of the city of Warri after soldiers fled, allowing them to dynamite a floating barracks block and an oil pipeline operated by Royal Dutch Shell.

A Shell spokeswoman confirmed the oil pipeline attack, and said the boat was abandoned when the attackers blew it up. It was unclear who owned the boat. The Anglo-Dutch multinational, the biggest foreign operator in Nigeria, has evacuated all its facilities in the immediate area, a stretch of creeks and swamps which normally produces 500,000 barrels a day.
guardian.co.uk

The Marines may be the most celebrated of the American armed forces, but it’s the Army that does most of the heavy lifting, as it is doing in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the process, the Army is being battered and shattered in the same way that it was in Vietnam.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says that isn’t the case; everything’s fine. But a recent authoritative study says he is wrong. Commissioned by the Pentagon, the study was done by Andrew Krepinevich of the independent Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. He’s a West Point graduate who served in a variety of Army roles, including a stint on the strategic plans and policy division, before retiring. He holds a doctorate from Harvard University.

Krepinevich says that coming out of Vietnam, military leaders were determined never again to get bogged down in prolonged small-unit combat. If the Army must fight, it would hit with overwhelming force, achieve its objectives and get out. The need to behave that way was reinforced by the end of the draft late in the Vietnam War. U.S. military forces now needed to focus on their ability to attract new recruits and retain experienced personnel.

That doctrine dictated how the Army was organized for Afghanistan and Iraq. It was totally unprepared to cope with extended battles against insurgencies; the Bush administration’s strategy didn’t take them into account.

Krepinevich says the Army can deploy no more than 13 brigades to hardship tours at one time. It now has 19 brigades deployed. To fill the gap, two Marine brigades have been sent to Iraq. “Stop loss” and “stop move” orders have been implemented. The reserves have been well tapped out. Active duty personnel now are commonly on their third rotation into Iraq.

The effects of this flawed strategy have been dramatic. The Army has no strategic reserve to call on if another threat were to develop. Divorce rates, domestic abuse and all kinds of mental and physical problems are on the rise among active duty soldiers. In sum, the Army is headed for a “catastrophic decline in recruitment and retention” unless something is done. The “thin green line,” Krepinevich says, will break. And don’t look to NATO, the United Nations or private contractors for more help, or expect Iraqi forces to develop without many years of effort.
shns.com

…The riot that consumed this normally peaceful city near the Iranian border on Feb. 9, leaving four people dead and at least 120 injured, appeared at first to be a sectarian religious conflict. But residents said there was much more to it than that.

“This is not the work of Sunnis or Shias,” said Ghulam Hussain, 35, a car dealer, as he surveyed the damaged Shiite mosque. “This is the work of people who have lost power and want to get it back.”

Many fingers pointed to Ismail Khan, the former provincial governor and militia commander who once ruled Herat as his private fiefdom. Local officials and international observers said the violence was probably orchestrated by Khan in a possible move to return to power — less than 18 months after he agreed to leave office in a well-publicized deal brokered by U.S. diplomats.

Equally worrisome, observers said, is the apparent unwillingness of the U.S.-backed president, Hamid Karzai, to challenge Khan. When Khan was forced from Herat and given a second-tier cabinet post in late 2004, the move was touted as proof of the democratic government’s ability to stand up to regional strongmen. Since then, Karzai has sidelined a number of local militia leaders.

But now, Karzai seems to be ceding control back to one of Afghanistan’s most formidable warlords, asking him to head a commission investigating the Feb. 9 incident. After rushing here from Kabul, Khan — a Sunni with a majestic white beard — spent a week in an ornate hilltop mansion, receiving delegations of notables and informants.
washingtonpost.com

Before the US House of Representatives, February 16, 2006

By Ron Paul

02/20/06 “ICH” — — Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this very dangerous legislation. My colleagues would do well to understand that this legislation is leading us toward war against Iran.

Those reading this bill may find themselves feeling a sense of déjà vu. In many cases one can just substitute “Iraq” for “Iran” in this bill and we could be back in the pre-2003 run up to war with Iraq. And the logic of this current push for war is much the same as was the logic used in the argument for war on Iraq. As earlier with Iraq, this resolution demands that Iran perform the impossible task of proving a negative – in this case that Iran does not have plans to build a nuclear weapon.

There are a few things we need to remember when thinking about Iran and this legislation. First, Iran has never been ruled in violation of its international nuclear non-proliferation obligations.

Second, Iran concluded a Safeguards Agreement more than 30 years ago that provides for the verification of Iran’s fulfillment of its obligation to not divert nuclear energy programs to nuclear weapons development. Since this agreement was reached, the International Atomic Energy Agency has never found any indication that Iran has diverted or attempted to divert source or special nuclear materials from a peaceful purpose to a military purpose.

But, this does not stop those eager for conflict with Iran from stating otherwise. As the Washington Post reported last year, “U.S. officials, eager to move the Iran issue to the U.N. Security Council – which has the authority to impose sanctions – have begun a new round of briefings for allies designed to convince them that Iran’s real intention is to use its energy program as a cover for bomb building. The briefings will focus on the White House’s belief that a country with as much oil as Iran would not need an energy program on the scale it is planning, according to two officials.”

This reminds us of the quick move to justify the invasion of Iraq by citing Iraq’s “intentions” when actual weapons of mass destruction could not be found.

The resolution’s second resolved clause is a real misrepresentation of the Iran/EU3 talks. The “efforts of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom” were not “to seek…suspension of enrichment and reprocessing related activities…” As the EU3-Iran Paris Agreement makes very clear, the suspension of enrichment is a purely voluntary measure taken by Iran and is “not a legal obligation.”

This is similar to the situation with Iran’s voluntarily observation of the Additional Protocols (allowing unannounced inspections) without legally being bound to do so. Suspending voluntary observance of the Additional Protocols is not a violation of the NPT. But, those seeking to push us toward war with Iran are purposely trying to connect the two – to confuse voluntary “confidence building” measures taken by Iran with the legally-binding Treaty itself.

Resolved clause four of this legislation is the most inflammatory and objectionable part of the legislation. It lowers the bar to initiating war on Iran. This clause anticipates that the US may not be successful in getting the Security Council to pass a Resolution because of the potential of a Russian or Chinese veto, so it “calls upon” Russia and China to “take action” in response to “any report” of “Iran’s noncompliance. That is right: any report.
informationclearinghouse.info