be just

ei: Israel finds allies in Europe's Christian fundamentalists Flip through any issue of a major newspaper from the past decade and it is a safe bet you will be confronted with a warning about the dangers of religious extremism. So how could the mainstream media have failed to notice the growing influence of fundamentalists on the European Union's relations with one of its nearest neighbors: Israel? The explanation might lie in how the zealots in question are not Islamic but Christian.

Al Jazeera English - Africa - Somalia clashes leave many dead At least 14 civilians have been killed during a battle between government soldiers and al-Qaeda-linked fighters, witnesses say. Tuesday's clashes followed a separate suicide car bomb attack in Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, by al-Shabab fighters on the base of African Union peacekeepers. The peacekeepers fired on the explosives-laden vehicle, killing its three occupants.

Why Soldiers Get A Kick Out Of Killing : Information Clearing House - ICH The reluctance of ordinary men to kill can be overcome by intensified training, direct commands from officers, long-range weapons and propaganda that glorifies the soldier's cause and dehumanizes the enemy. "With the proper conditioning and the proper circumstances, it appears that almost anyone can and will kill," Grossman writes. Many soldiers who kill enemies in battle are initially exhilarated, Grossman says, but later they often feel profound revulsion and remorse, which may transmute into post-traumatic stress disorder and other ailments. Indeed, Grossman believes that the troubles experienced by many combat veterans are evidence of a "powerful, innate human resistance toward killing one's own species." In other words, the Schrumpf effect is usually a product less of nature than of nurture—although "nurture...

Has Chuck Schumer EVER Criticized Israel or its Leadership in the Way He Just Unloaded on Obama? - The Washington Note : "Senator Chuck Schumer may have just lost any shot at succeeding Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader if the Nevada Senator stumbles in the upcoming tough 2010 challenge he is facing. Politico's Ben Smith shares word of a very harsh critique that Schumer publicly shared with a conservative Jewish show today of Obama's Middle East policy. Schumer's screed gets to the edge of sounding as if he is more a Senator working in the Knesset than working in the United States Senate. This is the 2nd time I know of that Schumer has publicly crossed the line when it came to zealously blaming his own government and colleagues in delicate matters of US-Israel-Palestine policy. During the third of three major efforts of the George W. Bush administration to get the recess appointed US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton confirmed in the US Senate, Senator Sc...

Anat Kam: I stole IDF documents to expose West Bank war crimes - Haaretz - Israel News Classified documents reveal that the Israel Defense Forces had committed war crimes in the West Bank, Anat Kam, the former soldier indicted for espionage over an alleged theft of top secret material, told the court earlier in the year, according to police documents released allowed for publication Monday at the request of Haaretz. In the newly released material documenting court hearings surrounding Kam's arrest, the journalist and former IDF soldier said that the motivation behind her removal of sensitive military material was to expose "certain aspects of the IDF's conduct in the West Bank that I thought were of interest to the public."

US Troops Attack Civilian Bus in Kandahar, Killing Five -- News from Antiwar.com : "The battle for the “hearts and minds” of the people of Kandahar took another major hit today as hundreds of Afghans took to the streets to protest an attack earlier in the day by US forces on a passenger bus. According to the driver of the bus, Mohammed Nabi, they were traveling along a highway in the southern province when they noticed a convoy ahead of them. As the driver attempted to pull off the road the troops began to spray the bus with machine gun fire."

The president's real goal in Iraq : "The official story on Iraq has never made sense. The connection that the Bush administration has tried to draw between Iraq and al-Qaida has always seemed contrived and artificial. In fact, it was hard to believe that smart people in the Bush administration would start a major war based on such flimsy evidence. The pieces just didn't fit. Something else had to be going on; something was missing. In recent days, those missing pieces have finally begun to fall into place. As it turns out, this is not really about Iraq. It is not about weapons of mass destruction, or terrorism, or Saddam, or U.N. resolutions. This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan 10 years or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the United States must seize the opportunity...

Once-Banned Muslim Scholar Tariq Ramadan on His First Visit to US in Six Years, President Obama and Why Muslims Should Make Their Voices Heard : "Once-Banned Muslim Scholar Tariq Ramadan on His First Visit to US in Six Years, President Obama and Why Muslims Should Make Their Voices Heard"

Ogaden Today Media and News Information Journal-Daily News From Ogaden ,Ethiopia and Somalia.. - News: Ethiopian rebel group agrees to lay down arms Leaders of the United Western Somali Liberation Front (UWSLF) had, after talks with the government, "accepted totally to abide by the constitution of Ethiopia and operate legally and abandon the armed struggle," Bereket told a press conference.

The WikiLeaks Video and Terrorist Blowback by Jacob G. Hornberger I can’t improve on Glenn Greenwald’s analysis of the WikiLeaks video depicting the slaughter of Iraqi citizens. See here and here and here . However, there is one part of the WikiLeaks video that I wish to address — the reaction of the helicopter pilots upon learning that there were two children who were shot and injured during the melee. Their reaction, in fact, perfectly exemplifies the mindset that has long characterized U.S. officials, including those in the Pentagon. When the pilots discovered that they had shot the two Iraqi kids, here was their exchange: “Well it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.” “That’s right.” No remorse, no anguish, no regret, no concern. Just callous indifference to the possibility that the lives of two innocent children might have just been snuffed out.

Doug Bandow: Blowback: The Lessons of the Moscow Bombings for America The horrid attacks of 9/11 led to the cry: Why do they hate us? The recent bombings in the Moscow subway remind us that terrorism is most often a political tool used to advance political ends. Of course, after 9/11 President George W. Bush and his neoconservative supporters reassured Americans: we were attacked because we are beautiful. Evil, nasty, mean foreigners hate Americans because we are free, fabulous, nice, selfless, and all-around good guys, busily spreading freedom, liberty, capitalism, democracy, and the hallowed American way around the world. Many Americans preferred to accept this explanation than to reflect on the sometimes less beautiful actions of our government. To seek an explanation was not to excuse the inexcusable: monstrous, murderous attacks on civilians. But understanding what motivated people to kill could help prevent future killing.

Shamed Abu Ghraib Military Police Unit to Be Sent Back to Iraq -- News from Antiwar.com Six years after the scandal that shocked the nation and left seven members of the group convicted of mistreatment of Abu Ghraib detainees , the 372nd Military Police Company will soon be sent back to Iraq.

Behind the Afghan Fraud by Conn Hallinan -- Antiwar.com Certainly our allies seem to have concluded that the Americans are on an exit path. Talking with the Taliban The Hamid Karzai government and the United Nations have opened talks with some of the Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Islamic Party. Pakistan — correctly concluding it was being cut out of the peace talks — swept up 14 senior Taliban officials, including the organization’s number-two man, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar . The Pakistanis claim they’re simply aiding the U.S. war effort. But the former head of the UN mission to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, bitterly denounced the arrests as nothing more than effort to derail the ongoing negotiations.

The War Profiteers - Judge Rules Marine Must Stand Trial Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the sole remaining defendant in the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians during the height of the Iraq war, was ordered to court-martial Friday on manslaughter, aggravated assault and related charges. The order came from Lt. Col. David Jones, a military judge who turned aside an effort by Wuterich's attorneys to dismiss the charges because of unlawful command influence. Wuterich, 30, said he was upset and disappointed, but "happy to see a trial date and that this will be over soon." "These past five years have been a long five years," he said of the Nov. 19, 2005, slayings that occurred in the city of Haditha after a roadside bomb destroyed a Humvee, killing one Marine and injuring two others. "It's tough being the last guy going through this, but I'm confident everything will turn out how it should."

Confirmed: Obama Authorizes Assassination of U.S. Citizen : Information Clearing House - ICH Instead, in Barack Obama's America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens -- and a death penalty imposed -- is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone's guilt as a Terrorist. He then dispatches his aides to run to America's newspapers -- cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they're granted -- to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist. It is simply asserted that Awlaki has converted from a cleric who expresses anti-American views and advocates attacks on American military targets ( advocacy which happens to be Constitutionally protected ) to Actual Terrorist "involved in plots." These newspapers then print this Executive Verdict with no questioning, no opposition, no investigation, no refutation as to its truth. And th...

Al Jazeera English - Americas - Website 'shows video of US attack' : "One of the internet's biggest sources of classified government information has released video of what it says is a US helicopter firing at civilians in Iraq. WikiLeaks, a website that publishes anonymously sourced documents, released what it called previously unseen footage on Monday. It said the footage filmed from a helicopter cockpit shows a missile strike on a crowded square in a Baghdad neighbourhood in July 2007."

Secrets of the Tea Party -- In These Times : "As the Tea Party movement has gained momentum during the last 12 months, it seems few Tea Partiers have caught on to the troubling past of the man at the center of their movement: FreedomWorks chairman, former House Majority Leader and recently-retired lobbyist extraordinaire, Dick Armey. As chairman of FreedomWorks, the group credited with mobilizing the Tea Party movement, Armey is the movement’s de facto leader. Yet Armey’s years spent lobbying for a group recognized by the State Department as being a terrorist organization—should give Tea Partiers pause."

Globalization Marches On -- In These Times : "In one dimension—military power—the United States stands alone. And Obama is setting new records with his 2011 military budget. Almost half the U.S. deficit is due to military spending, which is untouchable in the political system. When considering the U.S. economy’s other sectors, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and other economists warn that we should beware of “deficit fetishism.” A deficit is a stimulus to recovery, and it can be overcome with a growing economy, as after World War II, when the deficit was far worse. And the deficit is expected to grow, largely because of the hopelessly inefficient privatized health care system—also virtually untouchable, thanks to business’s ability to overpower the public will."