By Reidar Visser (www.historiae.org)

27 November 2008

Today’s vote in the Iraqi parliament related to the bilateral relationship between the United States and Iraq is likely to be reported in the Western media as a case of “Shiites” giving certain concessions to “Sunnis” in exchange for their support for a deal on the withdrawal of US forces. That is not an accurate account of what has been going on in the Iraqi parliament over the past few days.

What has taken place is that various Iraqi opposition forces inside the parliament have discovered the concept of leverage. Since 25 November there have been persistent reports that groups often critical of the Maliki government such as Tawafuq (Sunni Islamist), al-Hiwar al-Watani, al-Iraqiyya (secularist) and Fadila  (Shiite Islamist) were demanding a “reform charter ” (wathiqat al-islah) in return for their support of the government regarding the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the US. Among the key demands was a pledge by the government to work to reform the constitution and the political system of the country more generally, as well as committing to revisit the laws relating to the general amnesty law and the treatment of former Baathists and to work for the reintegration of the awakening councils (al-sahwat) in the Iraqi security forces.

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By Ruth, cab drollery, 25 November 2008

The prosecution succeeded, and that is the only way I can lead off on this embarrassing report. A jury of twelve Dallas residents believed a prosecution that I also witnessed, and handed down a conviction on all counts – of Muslim charities being directly supportive of Hamas after that group was declared a terrorist operation. I cannot say the defendants, including the Holy Land Foundation itself, were found guilty.

As I have reported, the courtroom procedure included allowing witnesses to testify without being identified because they were Israeli agents, allowing hearsay testimony in addition to both testimony and redirect that ranged into the territory of phantasmagorical, and a prosecution wrap-up that told jurors that they should rely on their memories instead of testimony and evidence, and that freedom of speech wasn’t allowed if that speech showed bad feelings. Demonstrations against Israeli occupation were the main focus of the U.S. prosecution.

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Gideon Spiro

Red Rag. Weekly Column, 14 November 2008

In besieged Gaza (end October 2008). Journal of a voyage.

Translated for Occupation Magazine by George Malent

Original Hebrew: LINK

27 October 2008

When Mairead Maguire, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Northern Ireland, called me and asked me to join the sea-voyage of the humanitarian delegation from Larnaca (Cyprus) to Gaza to break the Israeli closure and to bring medicine to the besieged city, I answered positively without hesitation. It was to be the second sea-voyage to Gaza, the first having arrived in August.

I oppose the closure of Gaza because it is a collective punishment of a million and a half residents, including babies, children, women and old people, not to speak of sick people whom the siege prevents from getting medicine; a completely innocent population that is suffering because of no crime it has committed. Therefore I had no difficulty in agreeing to the invitation to be part of the international delegation. I also considered my participation to be important because I am a journalist, whose duty is to report from places to which most people do not have access.

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A man sleeps inside the ruins of a Mogadishu building. The depopulated Somali capital is awash in threats, intimidation and political assassinations. (Tribune photo by Kuni Takahashi / October 7, 2007)

America’s hidden war in Somalia
By Paul Salopek, Chicago Tribune, 24 November 2008

BERBERA, Somalia – To glimpse America’s secret war in Africa, you must bang with a rock on the iron gate of the prison in this remote port in northern Somalia. A sleepy guard will yank open a rusty deadbolt. Then, you ask to speak to an inmate named Mohamed Ali Isse.

Isse, 36, is a convicted murderer and jihadist. He is known among his fellow prisoners, with grudging awe, as “The Man with the American Thing in His Leg.”

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Related:
Somali rebels warn pirates to free Saudi ship – or else

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, The Independent, 24 November 2008

Four cheers for the feisty Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of our special Middle East envoy, Tony Blair. But what exactly is he doing? Desperately searching for his legacy I suppose, like the weapons of mass destruction hidden in the sands somewhere, waiting to be unearthed.

Meanwhile Booth is emerging as one of the few voices in the wilderness bringing up the plight of Gaza as Israel efficiently chokes and suffocates the tiny strip of land, the hellish home to Palestinians, of which 60 per cent of its inhabitants are children. This summer Booth joined activists on a ship – including an 80-year-old Catholic nun from the United States and an Israeli peacenik – to take aid to these sick and hungry. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused them of “supporting the regime of a terrorist organisation in Gaza”. This week, Booth has been once again speaking passionately in public about what she witnessed.

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