be just

Dignity boat sails to Gaza - International Middle East Media Center - IMEMC : "The Popular Committee Against the Siege (PCAS) reported on Friday evening that “Dignity Ship” left Cyprus approximately at 6 P.M heading to Gaza. The ship carries on board 23 persons, including 12 parliamentarians, reporters, peace activists and Nazir Ahmad, a Labour member of the House of Lords in the UK. Independent Palestinian Legislator, Jamal AL Khodary, head of the PCAS, stated that Clare Short, secretary of State for International Development from 1997 to May 2003, is also onboard the ship. “Clare resigned from the government and from the Labour whip over the Iraq war and in 2006 and became an independent”, the PCAS reported. EL Khodary added that the ship is expected to arrive at the Gaza port on Saturday morning. It carries onboard medical and surgical equipment. He said that the previous three ships came to stress on the importance of breaking the unjust Israeli siege and in solidarity with G...

Robert Fisk: Obama has to pay for eight years of Bush's delusions - Robert Fisk, Commentators - The Independent : "But Obama's not going to be able to make the break. He wants to draw down in Iraq in order to concentrate more firepower in Afghanistan. He's not going to take on the lobby in Washington and he's not going to stop further Jewish colonisation of the occupied territories or talk to Israel's enemies. With AIPAC supporter Rahm Emanuel as his new chief of staff – 'our man in the White House', as the Israeli daily Maariv called him this week – Obama will toe the line. And of course, there's the terrible thought that bin Laden – when he's not shopping at US military post offices – may be planning another atrocity to welcome the Obama presidency. There is just one little problem, though, and that's the 'missing' prisoners. Not the victimswho have been (still are being?) tortured in Guantanamo, but the thousands who have simply d...

The National Interest Although it is hard to imagine, Obama’s foreign policy could prove even worse than that of the Bush administration. He flirts with the notion that the guiding principal of U.S. foreign policy should be to promote, defend and enforce respect for “human dignity” in the world. As an operational concept, such a standard would have to improve several notches just to reach vacuous. At best, it would entail Washington becoming the nag of the planet, constantly hectoring other governments to improve their behavior. At worst, it could become an excuse for lavish foreign-aid expenditures and military interventions to protect the downtrodden in failed states or even in functioning countries with repressive regimes. Yet most of the probable arenas for such interventions entail little or no connection to America’s tangible interests. Instead, this country would embark on expensive and potentially dangerous humanitarian crusades that would bleed America’s armed forces and drain...