Despite the complete political silence of Fatah al-Islam indicating its purpose or vision of the world—save for a few empty and hastily composed statements—its fighters’ willingness to die so readily has become well known. Hence, they can be described as those affiliated to a jihadi movement a la al-Qaeda. (more…)
A second sign-on statement on the events in Nahr al-Bared
initiated by As’ad Abu Khalil and Samah Idriss (see first statement)
Palestinians fleeing the Nakba, 1948
Note: See below for details on how to sign on.
WE, THE UNDERSIGNED:
Accuse the majority of our Lebanese leaders of using the Palestinian people and its resistance for their sectarian and petty agendas. We accuse them of attempting to justify the attack on an over-populated Palestinian-Lebanese camp by using the slogan of ‘sovereignty,” that is often employed in Lebanon against the weak and the poor. We accuse them of adhering to a fascist ideology similar to the one that justified the siege of Tal Al-Zaatar and Dbayyeh camps in the mid-seventies, and of adopting Bush’s discourse on terrorism, as if the Palestinian people as a whole are responsible for a gang that Lebanese authorities themselves admit has no popular base in the camp. We accuse them of concealing the creation of a security apparatus that is not subject to the jurisdiction and monitoring of the people and their representatives; just like those, who falsely claim sovereignty today, covered up the security apparatus during the period of the Syrian-regime’s control in Lebanon. (more…)
I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this – allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world – have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God’s sake, what’s wrong with putting a bag over her head? That’s what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it’s hard to breathe. Then it’s perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can’t be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.
In the so-called war on “terror” the most powerful weapon being deployed is the word itself. In the post-9/11 geo-political climate, throwing in the word “terrorist” automatically mutes coherent and critical debate. Any valid and necessary criticisms of North American governments and their foreign policy are silenced and demonized with the use of that one word, while opposition to foreign invasion and imperialist plundering can be at once quelled and criminalized by deeming it terrorist.
Canada’s anti-terrorist list is being used in this very way-as a vehicle for stifling, demonizing and criminalizing resistance to the North American imperialist project and Canada’s role in it. At the same time the word acts as subterfuge from the mass terror perpetrated by the US and its imperialist baby brother-Canada. What Canadian citizens need to ask is just who does this labeling protect? Does it protect the Canadian population who has never suffered at the hands of Hezbollah, or does is protect the Canadian government and business elite who are part of a North American project to ransack the world’s resources while discrediting and eliminating any parties that stand in the way? To understand the distinction we need to understand imperialism, as well as the one-sided and suspect way in which “terrorism” is currently defined.
Aboriginal leader decries military draft as ‘complete attack on our political rights’
OTTAWA: Radical natives are listed in the Canadian army’s counterinsurgency manual as a potential military opponent, lumping aboriginals in with the Tamil Tigers, Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad.
The military is putting the finishing touches on the manual, but a draft version of the document obtained by The Globe and Mail outlines a host of measures the military might use to fight insurgents at home and abroad. The measures include ambushes, deception and killing.
NATO soldiers at the at the Kandahar Techers’ College. [Combat Camera]
EDMONTON: The commander of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan says his troops aren’t likely to face another summer of pitched battle against hundreds of Taliban.
Brig.-Gen. Tim Grant suggested yesterday that NATO troops will have to fight smarter — using both intelligence and development assistance – as insurgents may well turn to tactics such as kidnapping.
COMPARES TO OKA
In a wide-ranging interview with The Canadian Press, Grant also compared the difficulty Afghanistan and Pakistan have policing their Taliban-friendly border areas to the trouble Canada had on the Kanesatake reserve during the Oka crisis in 1990.
Al-Haq takes the occasion of Land Day to highlight the intrinsic link between land and the exercise of the right to self-determination. Over nearly 40 years of occupation, Israel’s pervasive policies of land expropriation and confiscation, settlement construction and movement restrictions have severely damaged the access of the Palestinian people to their land in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), thereby rendering the meaningful exercise of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination all but impossible.
GILBERT ACHCAR: a Lebanese-French academic and activist, is the author of Clash of Barbarisms: September 11 and the Making of the New World Disorder [2006], and more recently, with Noam Chomsky, Perilous Power: The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy [2007]. His latest book, with Michel Warschawski, is 33-day War: Israel’s War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and its Consequences [2007].
THE PRESS here is portraying the opposition movement headed by Hezbollah in Lebanon, that is attempting to challenge the Siniora government, as a movement that is provoking sectarian conflict. What is your take on that? What is the character of the opposition, and what is it trying to achieve? (more…)
On the anniversary of the Six Nations Land Reclamation we express our solidarity to you and to all those that are defending today their land and livelihoods against theft and colonization.
Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The “redirection,” as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
