Antiwar.com Blog

“You seem surprised to find us here,” the man said. “I am,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting to find anyone.”

“We are everywhere,” the man said. “We are all over the country.”

“Forgive me,” I said, “but I don’t understand. Who do you mean by we?”

“Jewish refugees.”

I really didn’t know what he was talking about. I had been living in East Africa for the pasts two years and in those times the British colonies were parochial and isolated. The local newspaper, which was all we got to read, had not mentioned anything about Hitler’s persecution of the Jews in 1938 and 1939. Nor did I have the faintest idea that the greatest mass murder in the history of the world was actually taking place in Germany at that moment.

“Is this your land?” I asked him.

“Not yet,” he said.

“You mean you are hoping to buy it?”

He looked at me in silence for a while. Then he said, “The land is at present owned by a Palestinian farmer but he as given us permission to live here. He has also allowed us some fields so that we can grow our own food.”

“So where do you go from here?” I asked him. “You and all your orphans?”

“We don’t go anywhere,” he said, smiling through his black beard. “We stay here.”

“Then you will all become Palestinians,” I said. “Or perhaps you are that already.”

He smiled again, presumably at the naivety of my questions.

“No,” the man said, “I do not think we will become Palestinians.”

“Then what will you do?” Continue reading “Roald Dahl in Palestine”

Edit: Mashaan al-Juburi, Youssef Kashmola or Usama Kashmula (depending on which account you rely – picture here)governor of Mosul, was assassinated today as he drove toward Baghdad in a convoy.

Also assassinated today was Sabir Karim, an auditor for the Industry Ministry, as he left his office in Baghdad.

UPDATE: AP is naming the assassinated governor of Mosul as Youssef Kashmola. However, googling the name Youssef Kashmola or Youssef Kashmala produces no results. I can document al-Juburi as being the governor of Mosul up to June 17, 2004, so I’m not sure what’s going on at this time. I’ll update this post if I find the name verified or an explanation for this confusion.

The consensus seems to be some version of the Kashmola name. This picture identifies him as governor of Mosul province, not the city.

Democracy Now! is reporting that a deal has been struck between Dennis Kucinich and John Kerry’s warmongering delegates, brokered by political hack Sandy Berger, concerning the anti-war stance of the Democrat Party. Kucinich’s demand for an early withdrawal of US troops from Iraq has been quashed. Interviewed by Amy Goodman, Kucinich said:

“Amy, I have not changed my position one iota. I think it’s important to understand that. At the same time, what we’re able to achieve inside the Democratic Platform Committee is an altogether different thing. So, you know, I know that there’s still a great distance to go before the Democratic Party and John Kerry will have policies that are going to be satisfactory to me. But I also know that there comes a time where we have to realize the implications of what happens if we continue to say that, you know, if you don’t adopt a withdrawal strategy, you are not going to have our support. I think that’s, you know, that’s a very dangerous proposition in terms of the fact that we have an administration that lied to get us into a war, and you can’t — you know, you can’t pin that war on the Democrats. This was a — you know, there are Democrats who voted for it. That’s true. And John Kerry was one of them. And I’m going to do everything I can to keep trying to influence a new direction for the Party. But we didn’t have the votes inside the platform. So, the question is, do we — you know, do we create a fight that there’s just no support for winning inside the Party?” Continue reading “Did Kucinich Sell Out Anti-War Democrats?”

American Ambassador Robert Beecroft finished his mandate as head of the OSCE mission in Bosnia in early July. In his open farewell address, published by the Imperial propaganda outfit IWPR, and reposted by NATO propaganda outfit ISN, he offers an interesting assessment of Bosnia’s problems. While honest, his proposed solution shows a fundamental lack of understanding of Bosnia and its people.
Continue reading “More Mythical Bosnia”

Last Thursday’s issue of NIN, the foremost Serbian news weekly, carried an interview with Morton Abramowitz, the eminence grise of the Washington foreign policy establishment and founder of the International Crisis Group. Abramowitz has been one of the leaders of the interventionist camp in the Balkans, even to the point of actually advising the KLA delegation at the farcical Rambouillet talks in 1999.
The interview reveals that Abramowitz, and the establishment he represents, live in a dream world not unlike the one inhabited by the Bush regime – with one important difference: they favor the Democrats. So, here is what Abramowitz had to say… Continue reading ““Aggressive” Balkans solutions”

Yet more evidence makes it clearer still that the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan has had less than a desirable outcome to date for the inhabitants of that country, especially the women. In that benighted country, branding someone a communist is enough to invite a death sentence by the warlords. Especially if you’re an uppity woman, such as Malalai Joya, who continues to defy the Afghan warlords.

Nevertheless, the women of Afghanistan continue to amaze with their fortitude and guts: “I have seen too many sorrows and I have no fear in my soul anymore,” Joya is quoted. “…I’m sleeping in a different house every night and I have cars with blacked out windows following me everywhere.”

Another article spells out reasons for attacking women in a recent bus bombing attack:

Fawzia Mohamadi, 30, a victim of the bombing, said male passers-by shouted as the bus burned. “They were saying, ‘Let them die,'” she said from her hospital bed, where she is recovering from burns to her left leg. “They were shouting, ‘These are women begging for America’s dollars. Don’t help them.’ They were holding up our burning sandals and clothes and shouting.”

Or, succinctly, as the article title puts it: “Use your vote and you’ll die, Taliban tell Afghan women.”