December 2008 Links

December 2008 Links

Afghanistan

• Afghan Farmer's Undercover Work Helps Convict Taliban Member in U.S. Court


• Afghan warlord Dostum is 'everyone's friend'


• Afghan women fear a retreat to dark days


• Afghanistan: Soviet failures echo for U.S.


• Afghans torn over family size


• As Taliban nears Kabul, shadow government takes hold


• In the lair of the Taliban


• Kabul residents have more fear of gangs than of Taliban


• Khyber Pass: Crucial for trade and invasion


• NATO's new supply line plans undermine human rights in Central Asia


• NATO reviews Afghan supply route


• Obama's Afghan Dilemma


• Obama's Afghan Escalation


• Pleas of Afghan ex-poppy farmers


• The Other Front


• Think Tank: Taliban has Permanent Presence in 72 Percent of Afghanistan


• Tribal leaders threaten to sabotage West's assault on Taliban


• U.S., NATO Seek Afghan Supply Routes Other Than Pakistan


• U.S. at disadvantage in Afghan insurgent hotbed


• West's Role in Afghanistan Needs Re-Examining


• What We Need to Do Now in Afghanistan


• Where the Taliban Get Their Money


• Who Are the Taliban?

Africa

• A Radical Islamist Takeover Drives the Young From Somalia


• As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God


• Rwanda: No Conspiracy, No Genocide Planning… No Genocide?


• Situation in Somalia Seems About to Get Worse


• Somali security forces desert, government vanishing: U.N.


• Somalis may be leaving Minnesota for jihad


• Somalia’s fractured government slides into chaos

Balkans

• Fears of New Ethnic Conflict in Bosnia


• Islamic Revival Tests Bosnia's Secular Cast

Canada

• Canada's Speech Impediment


• FGM in Canada


• Some tested Tasers fire stronger current than company says: CBC/Radio-Canada probe

Guantanamo Bay

• Guantanamo: the answer is easy


• Move May Help Shut Guantánamo Camp


• Torture, Preventive Detention, and the Terrorism Trials at Guantanamo

Iran

• 'Worst of Times for Iran': A Debate About the Claimed Threat Posed by Iran


• Iran: Past the Paranoia


• Iran Confronts an 'Economic Evolution': Ahmadinejad's Plan to Curb Government Subsidies Threatens to Alienate Recipients


• The Folly of Attacking Iran: Lessons from History (YouTube video)


• The Last of the Zoroastrians


• With oil prices falling, Iran's good times are almost over

Iraq

• 'Message Force Multipliers' and the Handmaidens of Hell


• A Hero of Our Time: Muntazar al-Zaidi


• Al-Zaidi may have been beaten for his outburst at George Bush, but Iraqi journalists are entitled to righteous indignation


• Babylon's history swept away in U.S. army sandbags


• Campaign Promises on Ending the War in Iraq Now Abandoned


• Christians crowd Baghdad church, but many families are divided


• Did the Shoe Thrower Hate America for Its Freedom and Values?


• Ethnic Divide in Iraqi City a Test for Nation


• I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq


• In Iraq, 'a Prison Full of Innocent Men'


• Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at Bush was then viciously beaten


• Iraqi Reporter Was Beaten After Throwing Shoes, Judge Admits


• Iraqi Women, Fighting for a Voice


• Maliki’s Secret Crackdown


• NBC and McCaffrey's coordinated responses to the New York Times story


• On Christmas, Iraq Christians eye uncertain future


• One Small Shoe for Man…


• Panel: Congress was misled on Iraq uranium issue


• President Bush and the Flying Shoes: A Cautionary Tale


• Songs for the Mahdi Army


• The Long Road Out of Iraq


• The Ongoing Disgrace of NBC News and Brian Williams


• They Lied About Iraq in 2003, and They're Still Lying Now


• Total Defeat for U.S. in Iraq


• U.S. group blasts Iraq over religious minorities


• U.S. worried about need for warrants in Iraq


• What are 'combat troops'? Iraq withdrawal depends on answer


• Widespread Female Circumcision Highlights the Plight of Kurdish Women

Islam

• Do Muslims Have More Children Than Other Women in Western Europe?


• From the left, a call to end the current Dutch notion of tolerance


• How to Understand Islam


• Islam's Challenges to 'Universal Human Rights'


• Lost in Translation: The two minds of Bernard Lewis


• Our followers 'must live in peace until strong enough to wage jihad'


• Spotlight on Egypt's marriage crisis


• Stop pandering to Muslims, says 'silent majority'


• Terrorism adviser to Scotland Yard is on wanted list


• The Defamation of Human Rights


• The Guidebook for Taking a Life


• The Jizyah Tax


• The Role of Consensus in the Contemporary Struggle for Islam


• The Zarqawi Generation


• What Is the Koran?


• Who Wrote the Koran?

Israel-Palestine

• Bush, Obama, and the Gaza Blitz


• Catastrophe for Gaza


• Did Israel Use 'Disproportionate Force' in Gaza?


• Gaza raids expose Israeli failure


• Israel's coming test for Obama


• Israel changed the rules forever with Gaza airstrike


• Israeli Settler Pogrom Against Palestinians


• Making Enemies: How Israel helped to create Hamas


• The far-right rises in Israeli politics


• Where are the rockets?

Lebanon

• Lebanon military weak despite gift of MiG 29s


• The London Review of Hezbollah

Pakistan-India

• Amid Taliban Rule, a NATO Supply Line Is Choked


• Are Mumbai attacks a chance for peace?


• Attacks increase fears of Peshawar’s fall to Taliban


• Best ways to react to India's 9/11


• Dancing girls of Lahore strike over 'Taliban' law


• Does Obama understand his biggest foreign-policy challenge?


• End of the Line for Islamabad


• Hoax phone call 'almost took Pakistan to war'


• India's options on Pakistan still open


• Jahiliyya Versus Jihad: Cusp of the Inferno


• Mumbai's Jews remain at one with Muslims despite anti-Semitic attack


• Mumbai Massacre May Sink Bush-Obama Strategy


• Mumbai Wake-Up Call


• Muslims in India Put Aside Grievances to Repudiate Terrorism


• Pakistan militants kill rival, bring fear to valley


• Pakistan police losing anti-militant fight


• Pakistan militant group builds web of Western recruits


• Schooling of a mountain jihadist


• The Meaning of Mumbai


• The Mumbai Terrorist Attacks: Is Pakistan to Blame?


• The Rationale of Terrorism


• This Fire Needs to Be Put Out


• Truckers stop NATO supplies


• Villagers confirm arrested Mumbai attacker is Pakistani


• War With India Would Unite Taliban, Pakistan


• What Happened in Mumbai


• Why Pakistan's military is gun shy

Russia and Its Neighbours

Estonia Spy Case Rattles Nerves at NATO

Syria

Syria's own 'war on terror'

U.S. Elections

• Clinton builds loyalist empire


• Gen. Hayden and The Claimed Irrelevance of Presidential Appointments


• Ron Paul, if only we listened

Illegal and Questionable U.S. Government Policies

• Cheney claims power to decide his public records


• Court sides with New York Times in anthrax libel case


• Dick Cheney's unique gift for making hard questions easy and vice versa


• Habeas Corpus Barely Saved


• Homeland Security: a multi-agency behemoth


• New York Times Wiretapping Source Revealed


• Obama should prosecute Bush officials who designed torture policy


• Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security


• Rumsfeld Responsible for Torture, Report Says


• Senate report links Bush to detainee homicides; media yawns


• Shoehorning the Bush Legacy


• Spying on Pacifists, Environmentalists, and Nuns


• The Fed Who Blew the Whistle


• The Nullification of the Bill of Rights


• What about the ghost prisoners?


• What Motivates the Torture Enablers?


• Why Do Feinstein and Wyden Sound Much Different on the Torture Issue Now?


• Will Obama Buy Torture-Lite?

War and Intervention

• A Team in Need of a Game Plan


• Humanitarian Imperialism: Obama and the Genocide Task Force


• Interview with Bill Barnwell: The merit of the 'Obama is the Antichrist' rumours, how American dispensationalists influence Middle East policy, the havoc created if a Third Temple were rebuilt in Israel, the wisdom of a historical-contextual reading of the Bible, and the conflict between militarist theology and Biblical scripture.


• Nuke Umbrellas


• Obama’s Choice of Hillary Clinton Signals He’s Not Anti-War


• Obama Chooses to Stay the Course on Foreign Policy


• One Thriving Sector: The Business of War


• Peace on Earth: Once a Year?


• Pentagon May Have Wrongly Mixed Propaganda With PR, Inspector General Says


• Right-Wingers and Neocons Love Obama's Cabinet Appointments


• Secret of the Lusitania: Arms find challenges Allied claims it was solely a passenger ship


• The Truce of God


• Where Have All the Neocons Gone?

Uncategorized

• Interview with Glenn Greenwald: Noam Chomsky’s theory of "concision" in the context of the limited parameters of discussion on television, the ease of spouting platitudes and the difficulty of challenging conventional wisdom by that medium, how the Georgian conflict highlighted the unwillingness of the mainstream media to challenge a false premise that has bipartisan support, and how Obama’s cabinet appointments were foreshadowed by his support for Joe Lieberman’s Senate candidacy.


• No Babies?


• War of the Babies--When Modern Warfare and Demography Square Off, Demography Wins