Wednesday, June 20, 2007

BAUAW NEWSLETTER - WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2007

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Close the School of the Americas

1. Complete the form with your information.
2. Personalize the message text on the right with your own words, if you wish.
3. Click the Send Your Message button to send your letter to these decision makers:
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?JServSessionIdr010=useymx13a1.app2a&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=199

HERE'S WHAT I WROTE:

To Members of Congress and the Senate--both Democrats
and Republicans--and our President

At least wipe some of the blood off your guilty hands.
Show some remorse! Stop funding the outright training
of paid murderers!

End the "School of the Americas." Stop the War on Iraq
and Afghanistan! End all aid to Israel! Bring all the
troops home immediately!

Through corporate plunder of the world's natural resources
and outright war against any who stand up for themselves,
you, who sit in our government; who have been paid by
the corporations--your corporations--are wrecking
havoc bringing nothing but death and destruction across
this planet--anything to make a buck for yourselves!

Meanwhile, our children die from fever while private
HMOs battle over who is responsible for the antibiotics
necessary to save the child and our husbands must choose
which finger to save after an accident!

You are a bunch of sicko's! Do something to redeem
yourselves under your God because no God approves
of such ruthless behavior!

Most sincerely yours,

Bonnie Weinstein

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IraqMoratorium.org
Demanding an end to the war
through an escalating series of actions
on the
THIRD FRIDAY
of every month
beginning Friday September 21st
http://iraqmoratorium.org/

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Michael Moore's Sicko - he has outdone himself.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6703482849079349175

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Free Mumia Abu-Jamal

"JR" interviewed William Singletary on Dennis Bernstein's KPFA Flashpoints program Thursday 7 June at 5 P.M. You can listen to the audio archive of the program on the url above. The Singletary interview is about 22 minutes into the program.

William Singletary insisted that he is the "only" witness to the events that night when police officer Daniel Faulkner was shot. He states that Mumia Abu-Jamal did not arrive on the scene until about 4 or 5 minutes after Faulkner was shot.
http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=20627

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PUT AN END TO WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS.
http://www.facesofwrongfulconviction.org/action.htm

Check it out!
http://www.deathpenalty.org/index.php?pid=Act&menu=1"

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Stop the poison, heal the people: Come to the town hall meetings every Thursday, 6pm, Grace Tabernacle Church, Oakdale & Ingalls, editorial by Willie Ratcliff, http://www.sfbayview.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=194&Itemid=14

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ARTICLES IN FULL:

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Note: Because of the importance of this call, I am keeping
it on the list as number 1 for the next couple of weeks...bw

1) What Should the Anti-War Movement Do Now?
A Proposal from the ANSWER Coalition
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.actionsf.org
sf@internationalanswer.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545

2) Habitat for Humanity’s Homes Faulted in Florida
By JOHN LELAND
June 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/us/17habitat.html?hp

3) Abbas Swears In Emergency Cabinet
By ISABEL KERSHNER and IAN FISHER
June 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/world/middleeast/17cnd-mideast.html?hp

4) Palestinian Split Poses a Policy Quandary for U.S.
By STEVEN ERLANGER
June 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/world/middleeast/17assess.html?ref=world

5) Olmert Assails Hamas and Vows Cooperation With Abbas
By STEVEN ERLANGER and ISABEL KERSHNER
June 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/world/middleeast/17olmert.html?ref=world

6) The Situation in Gaza
Audio/Transcript: Ali Abunimah and Laila El-Haddad
Audio, Democracy Now!
June 15, 2007
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7033.shtml

7) U.S. Losing Ground Through Tribal Allies
Inter Press Service*
By Ali al-Fadhily*
Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches
http://dahrjamailiraq.com

8) School, military skirmish over data on students
Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
BERKELEY
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/12/BAGFJQDKCM1.DTL

9) At Least 7 Afghan Children Killed in U.S. Airstrike
By BARRY BEARAK and GRAHAM BOWLEY
June 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/world/asia/18cnd-afghan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

10) June 18, 2007
U.S. and Iraqi Troops Begin Big Offensive
By DAMIEN CAVE
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/world/middleeast/18cnd-Iraq.html?hp

11) Comparing the Two Territories
By CRAIG S. SMITH and GREG MYRE
June 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/weekinreview/17smith.1.html

12) Behind the Che Bandannas, Shades of Potential Militias
By SIMON ROMERO
June 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/world/americas/18venezuela.html?ref=world

13) In Ethiopia, Fear and Cries of Army Brutality
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
June 18, 2007
[This page also has an excellent video interview with Ogaden rebels...bw]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/world/africa/18ethiopia.html?ref=world

14) U.S. and Europe Offer Support for Abbas Government
By CHRISTINE HAUSER and STEPHEN CASTLE
June 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/world/middleeast/18cnd-union.html?hp

15) U.S. Seeks to Block Exits for Iraq Insurgents
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
June 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/world/middleeast/20military.html?ref=world

16) Some Texans Say Border Fence Will Sever Routine
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
June 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/us/20border.html?ref=us

17) Fierce Battles Near Baghdad in Push Against Insurgents
By JON ELSEN
June 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/world/middleeast/20cnd-Iraq.html?hp

18) What Hamas Wants
By AHMED YOUSEF
Op-Ed Contributor
Gaza City
June 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/opinion/20yousef.html

19) U.S. needs to exit Iraq: Gorbachev TheStar.com - comment - U.S. needs to exit Iraq: Gorbachev
Developing a strategy to withdraw troops is the only real aid Bush can give Iraq, ex-Soviet leader says
June 17, 2007
Mikhail Gorbachev
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/225995

20) Passport rule delayed for U.S. border crossings TheStar.com - News - Passport rule delayed for U.S. border crossings
June 20, 2007
Tim Harper
WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/227491

21) Israeli troops raid Gaza TheStar.com - News - Israeli troops raid Gaza
Four militants shot in pre-dawn incursion
June 20, 2007
Reuters
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/227467

22) Paris Crying
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
prisonradio.org

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1) What Should the Anti-War Movement Do Now?
A Proposal from the ANSWER Coalition
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.actionsf.org
sf@internationalanswer.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545

[Please note: I endorse this call wholeheartedly and
encourage everyone to sign on! --Bonnie Weinstein, www.bauaw.org]

It is an absolute responsibility of the anti-war movement
to make an honest and straightforward assessment of the
current situation and to craft a strategy that can really
make a difference. Every serious organization, and especially
those with the greatest mobilizing reach, must be asked
to avoid posturing, make an assessment and develop an
action plan that will change the political landscape
in a decisive way.

This document does not seek to address or detail the
political differences between organizations and groups.
They exist and they have been detailed often. At this
moment, there needs to be an effort at clear perspective
that focuses on one simple question: What will end the
war and occupation of Iraq and what should the US anti-
war movement do?

It is clear that the anti-war movement is not sufficiently
strong at the moment to bring this criminal and despised
war to an end. Every organization must ask why is this
so and most importantly what can be done to change the
situation immediately.

The first question to ask and answer is: Can a people's
movement in the United States overcome the commitment
of the White House, Congress and the Pentagon to authorize,
extend and finance the war and occupation in Iraq?

If you or your organization answers the question negatively
then the rest doesn’t really matter. Perhaps, individuals
can bear witness and continue to protest, but it will
be little more than an individual statement.

If the answer to the question is yes, however, we must
assess various factors and craft a strategy that will be
fundamentally different from the current path of the
anti-war movement.

Historically, wars come to an end either because one side
wins and one side loses, or the people rise in revolution
(usually as a result of a military defeat or pending defeat),
or both sides exhaust each other over a protracted period.

What is the military situation in Iraq? The US cannot
achieve military victory in Iraq. Its multiple opponents
in Iraq are not militarily strong enough to decisively
defeat the US military in the short term. If the Iraqi
population, however, were able to overcome sectarian
divisions introduced with the US occupation it is possible
that Iraq could witness a repeat of a nationwide uprising
such as the 1958 Revolution that drove the British military
out of Iraq. But the flames of division are being whipped
up every day and function as a deterrent to such a spontaneous
national uprising against the occupiers. Finally, the
US military is stretched thin but is clearly able to
continue the occupation for some time, and the anti-U.S.
opponents in Iraq are not exhausted yet by the protracted
conflict. If anything they are gathering strength and
energy as the occupation forces cannot take the strategic
initiative away from guerrilla forces.

Given this complex reality, or realities, we believe that
the U.S. antiwar movement must take strategic and bold
initiatives that change the political climate in this
country. To succeed, these initiatives must be based
on a correct assessment of where we are.

The ANSWER Coalition wants to offer its own brief assessment
of the political equation in the United States. We are
also offering a proposal to all of the major anti-war
coalitions and groups and to all of those organizations
that function on a local level

Assessment of the political situation as it regards
the Iraq war

1) The people of the country have turned decisively against
the continuation of the war. Most recognize that the war was
based on lies and most no longer believe the president and
the generals when they assure them that victory is still
possible.

2) The military situation is worsening rather than improving
in light of the so-called surge. The number of US war dead
in May 2007 spiked to the third highest month since the
initial invasion in 2003. The numbers of Iraqi dead is about
3,000 each month. Two million Iraqis have fled the country
and another two million are internal refugees.

3) The US is unable to secure its political control over
the region as is evident by what is happening in Lebanon,
Iran and Syria and its intensified destabilization campaign
towards the Palestinian people.

4) The Bush administration is increasingly isolated, at home
and abroad, because of its failure in Iraq and its inability
to regain the military initiative even with tens of thousands
of more troops. The Pentagon anticipates occupying Iraq for
decades, as it has Korea and other countries.

5) More and more U.S. soldiers, marines, veterans and the
families of service members are either disillusioned or
completely opposed to the continuation of the war and
occupation.

6) The Democratic-controlled Congress voted overwhelmingly
to extend and finance the war and occupation. The calculation
of the Democratic Party leadership and the vast majority
of its elected officials in Congress is based on avoiding
at all costs taking responsibility for a pullout from Iraq
which will be perceived as a defeat for the United States
in this strategic oil-rich region. They believe that they
can secure an electoral advantage in 2008 by having the war
drag on and have the public hold the Republicans responsible
for the war. Moreover, the Democratic Party is feeding from
the same corporate financing trough as the Republicans and
they share the Bush government’s broad objective of U.S.
domination in the Middle East. Congress, under the current
circumstances, is completely committed to not ending the war
in Iraq in the next two years and probably for much longer
than that.

Assessment of the weakness and strength of the antiwar
movement:

1) There have been a growing number of anti-war protests
on the national, regional and local level during the past
six months.

2) The antiwar protests are being joined and, in some
cases, initiated by the people who have not been involved
in past demonstrations.

3) A growing sentiment of opposition and disgust to the war,
occupation (and the politicians) is building among rank and
file service members and some officers.

4) A large amount of energy and activity was directed at
Congress with the hope that the Congress would heed their
constituents' desire to end the war. When the Congress
instead voted against its constituents and with Bush
to extend the war there was a huge wave of anger, frustration
and desperation but with few available or recognized channels
for effective action.

5) Although the antiwar sentiment is growing among the
general population, the size and intensity of the
demonstrations, protests and acts of resistance does
not at all measure up to the vast magnitude of feelings
against the Iraq war among the general population.

6) The single biggest reason for this dichotomy is the
fact that the anti-war movement is badly splintered rather
than working together or in a united fashion so as to marshal,
stimulate and mobilize a truly massive outpouring of the people.

Proposal to build a truly mass outpouring of the people

If every anti-war coalition and organization came together
on a particular day, and with enough advance notice, under
the simple demand End the War Now it would be easily possible
to mobilize one million people. The political mood in the
country exists to make this happen.

So as to facilitate the greatest degree of coordination between
organizations to build a massive outpouring, the ANSWER Coalition
is not unilaterally setting a date for this potentially million-
strong march and rally. However, we recommend holding it sometime
in November of 2007, or on March 22, 2008--the fifth anniversary
of the war." In order to have such a huge demonstration, enough
time must be given to allow the organizations and coalitions
to come together and for intensive national outreach and
organizing.

This period of time between now and the demonstration would
not be a period of quiet, it would be a time of intensifying
anti-war activity and education at the local and regional level
culminating in this mass action. Unfortunately, unless the
political relationship of forces changes inside the United
States or in Iraq, the war and occupation will continue
through November and beyond. We are proposing a specific
tactic that can contribute to shifting the equation.

The aim is not just one more demonstration but the largest
antiwar demonstration in US history.

A mobilization of one million people marching on Washington
DC would be the best possible trigger for an avalanche
of grassroots organizing throughout the country and among
service members and their families and veterans. It is time
for something bold and broad. Something that sends an
unmistakable message to the powers that be that the people
of the United States have entered the field of politics in
such a way as to become an irresistible force.

Each group and movement should maintain its political
independence. Each group can inscribe on its banners
a variety of slogans or ideas or demands but what will allow
us to unite for the largest mobilization of all the people
is the simple unifying demand. Whatever differences that
exist between groups, and there are many and they are important,
are not sufficient justification for preventing us from coming
together in a show of force that will change the direction
of this country. The lives of too many people, all victims
of a criminal war, are too precious for our movement to tolerate
anything that prevents us from reaching our potential
to end the war in Iraq. With determination, maturity and mutual
respect our diverse anti-war movement can unite.

We would like to hear from everyone in consideration of this
proposal. If you, your friends, or your organization support
the proposal for a unified mass demonstration aiming to bring
1 million people onto the streets of Washington DC, please
join with us and sign on, which you can do by clicking
this link or visiting http://www.answercoalition.org/.
This movement has grown strong because of its grassroots
base. Let’s hear from everyone who supports this exciting
possibility.

During the next week, people like you and thousands of others
can circulate this proposal, discuss it with your organization,
family and friends, and be part of the effort to make it
a reality. We look forward to hearing from you and working
together.

Proposal by the A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism)
Coalition, May 31, 2007

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2) Habitat for Humanity’s Homes Faulted in Florida
By JOHN LELAND
June 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/us/17habitat.html?hp

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — When Habitat for Humanity built the Fairway Oaks development here seven years ago, Mary Zeigler thought, “This is a blessing.” In just 17 days, an army of 10,000 volunteers, including former President Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter, built 85 low-cost houses, one of the nonprofit group’s biggest “blitz build” projects.

“I could have something to call mine,” recalled Ms. Zeigler, now 63, sitting in the coolness of her house’s central air conditioning. In a lifetime of work, she had never been able to afford her own home.

Seven years later, Ms. Zeigler is one of more than 50 Fairway Oaks homeowners who have problems with their houses and say they fear that the blitz construction was shoddy and that their land, adjacent to two former town dumps, is unstable or contaminated.

“My pride is gone,” Ms. Zeigler said, pointing to cracks in her house’s ceiling and its concrete slab foundation. “I’ve got a 25-year mortgage, and I’ve got stuff that needs to be addressed or I’m just paying my mortgage in vain, because I won’t have a house in 25 years because it will be falling apart.”

The Fairway Oaks owners took their complaints to Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, and of 56 who answered a survey for Legal Aid, 41 reported cracked concrete slabs, 22 had cracked walls and 48 said their houses were infested with insects or rodents, presumably because of the cracks. Others reported mold or mildew, nails popping out of plasterboard and other problems. The Habitat for Humanity local affiliate, HabiJax, maintains that the land at Fairway Oaks is stable and that most problems there are housekeeping issues, not structural. City inspectors this month examined six houses and found no violations. But in a vulnerable population, the perceptions have a life of their own. A project built with sweat equity and good will has had unintended consequences, and costs.

Jacksonville, in the northeast corner of the state, is a struggling former paper-mill town with one of the nation’s highest rates of home foreclosures. Rumors about contamination at the Fairway Oaks property began long before HabiJax got involved.

In the early 1990s the land held a blighted public housing complex, built on land that had been used, in isolated pockets, as a dump. After complaints by residents, the Environmental Protection Agency tested the soil for contamination. The E.P.A. concluded that the land was safe but noted that two buildings had been demolished because of soil settling, possibly caused by debris decomposing under the soil. A later soil test found elevated levels of arsenic, but the Florida Department of Health determined there was no significant health risk.

Ronnie A. Ferguson, president of the Jacksonville Housing Authority, said the two buildings had been damaged by water runoff, not because of soil instability associated with buried debris.

As the complex deteriorated, the housing authority offered the land to HabiJax for one dollar. For HabiJax, the land fit their mission, said Mary Kay O’Rourke, the HabiJax president. The project would remove a public blight and replace tax-subsidized housing with homes for people who could not otherwise afford them.

The first residents, mostly single women who had never owned homes, bought in for $500 down, 300 hours of sweat equity, and no-interest mortgages of around $45,000 to $61,000. Monthly payments, including insurance, are generally less than $300. HabiJax ran bus tours to show off the new community.

But when homeowners started having problems, several of them said the organization was aloof and unresponsive. In 2005, the cracks in one foundation became so severe that the house had to be lifted and settled on piers. Engineers hired by HabiJax found six feet of debris buried under the soil. April Charney, a Legal Aid lawyer representing the homeowners, said HabiJax had an obligation to tell residents that part of the development’s land had previously been used as a garbage dump.

Before October 2005, few knew how widely their complaints were shared. Then, Shirley Dempsey, president of the homeowners association, said she began having a series of dreams that she said were religious visions, leading her to discover problems in her house and others. Most had the same complaints: cracks in the slabs and walls, rotting door frames, leaky plumbing. Many residents had developed rashes.

On a recent afternoon, Ms. Dempsey, 52, sat in her living room amid artwork commemorating the accomplishments of African-Americans. Her bare concrete floor had a crack running the width of the house, wide enough to insert quarters at three places. She pointed to poorly hung doors, cracked walls, nails popping through plasterboard and spots that she said were mold.

“They let us down,” said Ms. Dempsey, who earns $10.50 an hour at a nearby mall and pays $295 a month for her mortgage and homeowner’s insurance. “They was going to let us live out here and not say anything.”

Ms. O’Rourke disputes this. In April, HabiJax officials asked residents to report problems. Of 36 responses, she said, workers have resolved 25 and are “working on the others.”

Even on the blitz construction schedule, she said, all work was supervised by licensed builders and then fully inspected. Professionals — not volunteers — handled the wiring, plumbing, heating, air conditioning and structural work, she said.

“These homeowners have been pulling up carpeting and noticing cracks” in their concrete slabs, Ms. O’Rourke said, taking care to praise many for their work maintaining their homes. But she said, “There’s an innocence when you go into home ownership for the first time. There’s been attention recently because of the scares, people telling them, if you have a crack, it’s a problem.”

Houses in the development have recently sold for more than $90,000, demonstrating that their values are rising, not falling, she said.

About the residents’ concerns of soil contamination, she said, “I don’t know how you change people’s opinions.”

Some residents dismiss their neighbors’ complaints, attributing them to poor maintenance by first-time homeowners. “Lots of problems, people can take care of themselves,” said Dinelle Fields, 51. “Get a bleach bottle,” she said, referring to complaints about mildew.

Even some of the homeowners with complaints expressed ambivalence. “I’m not speaking bad about HabiJax,” said Deanna Norris, 42, who complained about cracks and bugs in her house and worried that mold, mildew or soil contamination was contributing to her 5-year-old daughter’s chronic health problems. “It’s a good program for poor single people like me. But when things go bad, I just want them to do something about it.”

For Iris McCloud Moody, who moved to her four-bedroom house from a $500 rental apartment in public housing, assurances from HabiJax provided no comfort. In 2005, she said, the back of her house started to sink, making her feel as if she was walking downhill. Engineers hired by HabiJax lifted the back on hydraulic beams and resettled it on buried piers; the work has a 20-year warranty.

But even after the repair, Ms. Moody said, she hears constant cracking sounds, and fears the house will fall on her daughter and two sons. HabiJax has declined her request for relocation, she said. “This was my first house,” she said. “I thought it was going to be the American dream.”

She added, “The warranty’s going to run out. I’m worried that I can’t sell it. Or just say, I’m leaving it to the kids, and it’s falling apart.”

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3) Abbas Swears In Emergency Cabinet
By ISABEL KERSHNER and IAN FISHER
June 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/world/middleeast/17cnd-mideast.html?hp

JERUSALEM, June 17 - A new Palestinian cabinet was sworn in today, just days after President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the three-month old unity government after Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip.

The new government was sworn in by Mr. Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah but promptly rejected by spokesmen for Hamas. It was composed mainly of political independents and technocrats, among them Salam Fayyad, an independent lawmaker and former World Bank economist respected in the West. Mr. Fayyad was made prime minister, replacing Ismail Haniya of Hamas, and foreign minister.

Hamas spokesmen in Gaza have said that Mr. Haniya would remain in office.

Also today, Katyusha rockets were fired into northern Israel, with two of them falling in the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona, where they caused damage but no injuries, according to an Israeli army spokesman.

Mr. Abbas dissolved the cabinet last week after Hamas fighters took control of Gaza, signaling the collapse of the last semblance of cooperation between Fatah and Hamas, and the West Bank and Gaza. The emergency government appointed by Mr. Abbas will rule in the West Bank, headed by Mr. Fayyad, who served as finance minister in the previous government.

The Fatah faction moved to consolidate control over the West Bank on Saturday, and seized public buildings, including the parliament. The United States has worked swiftly to shore up the weakened Mr. Abbas, of Fatah. The American consul in Jerusalem, Jacob Walles, met with Mr. Abbas on Saturday and said that, now that Hamas was not part of the government, the United States was prepared to restart direct aid -- even if the new government’s control was limited to the West Bank.

”I expect that we are going to be engaged with this government,” Mr. Walles was quoted as telling The Associated Press after the meeting. He said he expected an announcement about the aid to be made within the week. The United States and other Western governments cut off direct aid to the Palestinian Authority after Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, won legislative elections last year.

Compared with the five days of fighting between the groups, which left nearly 120 people dead, Saturday was relatively calm, although there was little stability in either Gaza or the West Bank.

In the West Bank, armed Fatah supporters stormed the parliament in Ramallah as well as government buildings in Hebron and Nablus that the two groups had shared as part of the now-disbanded unity government. News agencies reported that buildings controlled by Hamas, including charity and political offices, had been seized.

The seizures in the West Bank seemed to solidify the split between Palestinians after the fighting ended Thursday with Hamas, an Islamic group, in full control of the crowded coastal strip of Gaza. They also seemed to raise the risk of violence spreading to the West Bank, where the secular and nationalist Fatah is dominant, but Hamas retains pockets of strength and some armed fighters, though the Israeli Army keeps them largely underground.

The new government would control only the West Bank, which contains an estimated 2.5 million Palestinians, compared with 1.5 million in Gaza.

Taghreed El Khodary contributed reporting from Gaza.

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4) Palestinian Split Poses a Policy Quandary for U.S.
By STEVEN ERLANGER
June 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/world/middleeast/17assess.html?ref=world

JERUSALEM, June 16 — With the two Palestinian territories increasingly isolated from each other by a week of brutal warfare between rival factions, Israel and the United States seem agreed on a policy to treat them as separate entities to support Fatah in the West Bank and squeeze Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The idea is to concentrate Western efforts and money on the occupied West Bank, which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction control, in an effort to make it the shining model of a new Palestine that will somehow bring Gaza, and the radical Islamic group Hamas, to terms.

As Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, who arrives in the United States on Sunday to meet with American officials, said, a Fatah government, shorn of Hamas, “can be a new opening.”

After the failure of the Palestinian unity government, Mr. Olmert said in an interview with The New York Times, “I suggest we look at things in a much more realistic manner and with less self-deceit.”

But like all seemingly elegant solutions in this region, this one has many pitfalls. It is entirely unclear whether Hamas would sit still during such an effort, whether Mr. Abbas would be willing to ignore the 1.5 million residents of Gaza or whether the separation strategy would gain the crucial support of the Arab world.

As Daniel Levy of the Century Foundation and the New America Foundation in Washington suggests, it’s hard to imagine how Mr. Abbas could accept the tax receipts Israel has been withholding from the Hamas government and use them only for West Bankers. The Palestinians in Gaza and the refugee diaspora would not stand for it, he says, and Fatah might lose more popularity than it gains.

Mr. Abbas is already under pressure from some Arab governments, in particular the Saudis, who mediated the national-unity government at Mecca, to take Hamas at its word and try to recreate a shared government.

In a speech on Friday to an emergency meeting of the Arab League, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia said, “The Palestinians have come close to putting by themselves the last nail in the coffin of the Palestinian cause.”

But he added, “It would be best for our Palestinian brothers to return to their commitment to the Mecca agreement and work to carry it out.”

Both the United States and Israel are reeling from the rapid and ignominious collapse of Fatah in Gaza in recent days, despite significant injections of American political and military advice and aid.

There is no question that, if they are to survive, Mr. Abbas and Fatah need bolstering fast after the victory in Gaza of Hamas, which favors Israel’s destruction. The whole future of the two-state solution — an independent Palestine living in relative peace with an independent Israel — seems ever more at stake.

The United States and Israel are each searching for short- and medium-term responses to a collapse neither saw coming. Both want to limit the regional impact of the latest victory of radical Islam over Western-backed, secular forces. And both are worried about the impact on Egypt, which is trying to seal its border from Gazan refugees and where President Hosni Mubarak faces a serious internal challenge from the Muslim Brotherhood, the radical Islamist organization with which Hamas is affiliated.

Mr. Abbas and Fatah say they are committed to a two-state solution with Israel. Whatever his weaknesses, which are manifold, Mr. Abbas still has the legal authority as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization to negotiate with Israel.

There is even talk of pushing Israel to negotiate with Mr. Abbas to create a Palestinian state in provisional borders in much of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with Gaza left for another time — a way to use the road-map peace plan President Bush endorsed. This idea was floated by a former Clinton Administration official, Martin Indyk, now director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, in an opinion article published Friday in The Washington Post.

For Mr. Olmert and Israel, the policy of treating the two territories separately would also be a way to justify the continued sealing off of Gaza from the West Bank on security grounds, to prevent the transfer of military equipment and skill. And it would also take the pressure off Israel to lift security restrictions on Gaza crossing points or to move very quickly to withdraw more settlers and soldiers from the West Bank, let alone start negotiating with Hamas.

But it is highly unlikely that Mr. Abbas, elected as president of all Palestinians, will change his refusal to accept statehood in provisional borders, or abandon all Gazans, many of whom would vote for Fatah if given a chance, to their fate.

That means efforts to reach a shared political consensus will have to continue, because Hamas is clearly not going to go away.

There is another problem with the idea of creating a beautiful West Bank Palestine at relative peace with Israel and with fewer checkpoints and restrictions. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, though kept underground there because of the Israeli occupation, could produce havoc, Iraq style, with a few bombs and suicide bombers. That would put a quick end to any easing of Israeli security restrictions.

And Hamas may in turn make something of its new responsibilities in Gaza. Without what it considers the troublemakers of the Fatah security forces, some of whom had been engaging in crime and destabilizing acts, Hamas may very well bring a new security to the people of Gaza. And if the customs connection to Israel is broken, it may be able to work out a deal to ship goods in and out of Egypt and create some jobs.

Still, Gidi Grinstein, a former Israeli negotiator who runs the Reut Institute in Tel Aviv, said that with Hamas now confronted with real power and responsibility for the welfare and security of Gazans, “this may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory for them,” since they always wanted to share such responsibility with Fatah.

Hamas, he said, is “more comfortable in the gray area where it addresses the needs of the population but not the requirements of power.” But Hamas may find that it needs to deal with Israel and the compromises of politics in ways that could bring it over time, as Yasir Arafat and Fatah were brought, closer to the space in which two adversaries can negotiate a peace.

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5) Olmert Assails Hamas and Vows Cooperation With Abbas
By STEVEN ERLANGER and ISABEL KERSHNER
June 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/world/middleeast/17olmert.html?ref=world

JERUSALEM, June 16 —Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, deploring the “brutality of the Palestinians against their own people,” said that Israel would “cooperate fully” with a new government installed by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

A Fatah government, shorn of Hamas, “can be a new opening,” Mr. Olmert said, suggesting that Israel would hand over $562 million in withheld tax and customs duties to help Fatah turn the West Bank into a model for the Palestinian future, even if Gaza was lost to extremism with last week’s takeover of the territory by Hamas.

“I am willing to cooperate with Abu Mazen if there will not be a Hamas government and meet all my commitments, including all the financial commitments, no question about it,” Mr. Olmert said, using a name by which Mr. Abbas is known. “To give it to a Hamas government is reckless. To give it to a Fatah government is an opportunity.”

And in remarks that were unprecedented for a sitting Israeli prime minister, Mr. Olmert spoke explicitly about the pain suffered by Palestinian refugees and their families who fled or were forced to flee their homes in the war of 1948-49. While not accepting responsibility for a war the new Israeli state did not start, he said, “It’s time for Israel to deal seriously, openly and generously with the suffering of the Palestinians that has taken place over many years as part of the conflict between us and them.”

“We do want to say to the Palestinians,” he said, “that we are not indifferent to what happened to them.”

As part of any future peace settlement, he said, “We want to take part in an effort to effectively deal with this issue” in a way “that will not create more suffering but perhaps bring an end to this chapter in the relations between the two peoples.”

Mr. Olmert remained firm in saying that no Palestinian refugees or their descendants would be able to return to the state of Israel, but he clearly appeared to want to soften the message, speaking about Israel’s need to recognize the refugees’ suffering and hinting at compensation, though he offered no details. Mr. Olmert spoke in a 40-minute interview on Thursday with The New York Times in his Tel Aviv office, as Hamas was completing its violent takeover of Gaza and before flying to the United States to meet with President Bush on Tuesday.

Those meetings will be vital in shaping a joint strategy to deal with the victory by Hamas, regarded as a terrorist group by both countries, and the blow suffered in Gaza by Mr. Abbas and Fatah, who favor peace with Israel.

In the interview, which was embargoed for Sunday publication, Mr. Olmert was alternately gracious and prickly, and appeared preoccupied with the fast-moving events in Gaza.

He tried to find opportunity in the likely separation of the political future of the West Bank from that of Gaza.

“I think the government and the authority that Abu Mazen holds in the West Bank can create an opportunity for an entirely different way of living for those who live in the West Bank,” Mr. Olmert said. “That can be the platform upon which a somewhat different Palestinian realization of what’s good and what’s bad, what’s preferred and what’s not, can emerge.”

After the Hamas conquest and the failure of the Palestinian national unity government negotiated in March, Mr. Olmert said: “I suggest we look at things in a much more realistic manner and with less self-deceit. A democracy which is based on terror and on brutal killing of opponents is not a democracy. Even if it received more votes, in a way that is totally now irrelevant to the realities of life of that population.”

Mr. Olmert was expecting continued pressure from the Bush administration and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to maintain talks on a “political horizon” for a future Palestinian state with Mr. Abbas, but he was clearly feeling that his own pessimism about Mr. Abbas’s ability to deliver had been warranted.

He said that he and Mr. Bush agreed on the need for creating a Palestinian state, and he agreed with Ms. Rice’s “desire to push things forward rapidly.” But the Fatah collapse in Gaza changes the conversation, not only with Mr. Abbas, but also with the Americans, Mr. Olmert implied.

“The real aggravation we sometimes have is not in the basic perception of what needs to be done in the territories, between us and the Palestinians,” Mr. Olmert said of his talks with Washington. “I guess the only difference that sometimes exists is between the assessment of the real opportunities and how one can deal with these, and how difficult it is to change things when the main agent of change doesn’t have the willpower that he should have.”

Mr. Olmert likes Mr. Abbas but does not think much of him as a leader. He insists that it is Mr. Abbas who is reluctant to have regular meetings with Israel, and who is conditioning them on the return of the confiscated tax money. “I don’t think I need to pay cash for every meeting in order to discuss the common future of the Jews and the Palestinians in this part of the world,” he said.

Mr. Olmert also implicitly criticized the American policy of funneling arms to Mr. Abbas’s Presidential Guard in Gaza, one of the many elite Fatah forces that fought badly in Gaza, if at all.

“I look at the Fatah fighting now in Gaza, and I don’t see any of the commanders in the area,” he said. “Where have they been? Where have they disappeared? Why are they not in Gaza? How can one expect that the Fatah will prevail if all their commanders are away outside the region altogether or in the West Bank?” Everyone wants to “help the moderates and provide them with weapons,” he said. “But it’s another thing to ask yourself, if I’m going to give weapons and these weapons are going to be taken by Hamas, what am I doing?”

Asked if the Hamas victory in Gaza marked the failure of the American and Israeli policy to isolate Hamas diplomatically and financially and boost Fatah through aid and weapons, Mr. Olmert said that “this policy was never exercised to the fullest.” Appearing annoyed, he said, “Hamas was not really ever isolated entirely.”

Palestinian leaders of Fatah, he said, collaborated with Hamas: “To sit in the back rooms and make all the deals with Hamas and then go outside and say, we are by ourselves, we are not part of it — it doesn’t work. What it did was help create a stronger basis for Hamas.”

Mr. Olmert, who came to power effectively in January 2006 and was elected two months later with a mandate to pull more Israeli settlers out of the occupied West Bank, was badly damaged by last summer’s war against Hezbollah. He was sharply criticized in a partial report put out by a government commission, and successfully resisted calls for his resignation.

But with a new defense minister — the former prime minister and new Labor Party leader Ehud Barak — and a successful campaign to elect Shimon Peres as Israel’s next president, Mr. Olmert is considered to have a new beginning as prime minister, at least until the autumn. Asked if his chair felt more comfortable now, Mr. Olmert bristled. “This chair, to be honest,” he said, leaning back and staring at his questioner, “it’s quite comfortable anyway.”

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6) The Situation in Gaza
Audio/Transcript: Ali Abunimah and Laila El-Haddad
Audio, Democracy Now!
June 15, 2007
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7033.shtml

EI's Ali Abunimah appeared on Democracy Now!, interviewed by host Amy Goodman, on Friday, 15 June 2007. He was joined by journalist and mother living in Gaza, Laila El-Haddad. Abunimah and El-Haddad discuss the current situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as Hamas takes control over the Gaza Strip. The two discuss US and Israel's involvement in the recent fighting between Fatah and Hamas which has been commonly referred to as a civil war.

AMY GOODMAN: Hamas is in full control of the Gaza Strip following days of bloody clashes with rival Palestinian faction Fatah. Hamas militants seized the presidential compound in Gaza City overnight after a week of fighting, which has left more than 100 people dead.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday announced the dismissal of the Hamas-led government and declared a state of emergency. Abbas said he would now rule by presidential decree until the conditions were right for early elections. However, Prime Minister Ismail Haniya says his government will press on and impose law and order.

The Occupied Territories have now been effectively split into two separate entities with Hamas in charge of Gaza and Fatah controlling the West Bank. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told Agence France Presse: “This is the worst thing I’ve seen since 1967.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave her backing to Mahmoud Abbas, saying he had exercised his “lawful authority.” There are reports today the Bush administration will boost aid to Abbas while allowing Gaza to slip into further despair in order to weaken Hamas’ popular standing. Meanwhile, Haaretz reports that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is planning to tell President Bush that that there is an urgent need to view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as separate entities and prevent contact between them. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon held preliminary talks on the idea of sending an international force to Gaza, but Hamas rejected the move, saying it would treat foreign troops as occupation forces.

There are new fears violence will now spread to the West Bank where Fatah militants have rounded up nearly 90 Hamas fighters and claimed to have killed a Hamas member in retaliation for events in Gaza.

This all comes as new details emerge about criticism from a former top UN envoy on the U.S. and UN role in Israel and the Occupied Territories. In a confidential report disclosed earlier this week, Alvaro de Soto condemns the boycott on the Palestinian government and says the U.S. and Israel virtually neutralized prospects for peace.

AMY GOODMAN: Laila el-Haddad is a Palestinian journalist. She writes for Aljazeera.net and is making a film on Gaza's underground economy. She maintains a blog “Raising Youssef: A Diary of a Mother Under Occupation.” Laila lives in Gaza and the United States. She returned from Gaza last week, joins us in our firehouse studio. Ali Abunima is cofounder of the publication The Electronic Intifida, author of the book "one country: a bold proposal to end the Israeli-Palestinian impasse." he joins us from Chicago. And on the line from Gaza is Fares Akram, a freelance journalist in Gaza city. We will go to you, Fares, first. Tell us what is happening today on the ground in Gaza.

FARES AKRAM: Well, now Hamas supporters and partisans, thousands of them are taking to the streets to celebrate what they call the victory. A day of victory in which Gaza was cleaned from the corruption and corruption makers. Those [inaudible] have witnessed some violence as [inaudible] in central Gaza Strip came under fire and one person from Hamas was killed. The Israelis came after all the security compound that are loyal to a President Mahmoud Abbas of rival Fatah, and have fallen in Hamas grip after days of bloody fighting that left more than 130 Palestinians dead.

AMY GOODMAN: And what is the feeling of the general population right now, about what is happening, about Hamas being in charge of Gaza now, in control, and Fatah of the West Bank?

FARES AKRAM: During the fighting some of Hamas leaders have vote they will clean Gaza from secularism. This has created fear among the ordinary people that their personal freedom might be confiscated and Hamas maybe going to impose radical thought on society. But soon after the capturing of the security compound Hamas has assured the people that the fighting was aimed at the coup-seekers among the security chiefs and those Fatah leaders who implement US orders on the Gaza Strip. And their war was against those who confiscate Hamas victory that the Islamic movement has achieved in January in parliamentary elections. Now Hamas men are calling on the security members to surrender and lay down their personal guns and give them an ultimatum that ends after half an hour. But they said anyone who delivers his weapons before that deadline he would enjoy full amnesty. And also Hamas has given amnesty to Fatah people, including some major security chiefs who were captured yesterday. And they released them today. Also, Hamas leaders are assuring the people that they will spread Islam in a very civilized way and will not be like the Taliban. They have been promising the people that Gaza is very safe now. Any individuals can walk from Beit-Hanoon, in the north of the Gaza Strip to Rafah City in far south of the Gaza Strip, enjoying full safety without being ambushed or killed or his car stolen. So Hamas has been promising the safety and security. And in the coming days will show if Hamas promises can come through or not.

AMY GOODMAN: And the reports that Hamas had executed some Fatah fighters yesterday?

FARES AKRAM: Yeah, at least they have executed two Fatah leaders. A day after the execution the chief Hamas Moofti has issued the fatwa approving the killing of Sami al-Madhoon, who Hamas accuses of being a symbol of those who try to confiscate Hamas legitimacy. Sami al-Madhoon used to live in northern Gaza and was responsible for affecting tens of Hamas men and torturing them and also killing a number of Hamas partisans. Two months ago Hamas reached a deal to evacuate al-Madhoon from the northern Gaza Strip and position him in a security compound. The deal came into effect. But when the previous round of violence erupted last month, al-Madhoon was responsible for affecting and killing a number of Hamas men including three pro-Hamas journalists. So Hamas has taken a decision to kill al-Madhoon, and they mostly have approved that decision. But on the other hand this was the only two events of public execution.

AMY GOODMAN: Fares Akram, thank you for being with us. Joining us from Gaza city, a freelance journalist. When we come back from break, Laila el-Haddad and Ali Abunimah will be with us to talk further about the mass crisis in Gaza and the West Bank.

AMY GOODMAN: As we continue on Gaza and the West Bank, our guest Laila El-Haddad, Palestinian journalist, mother, living in Gaza, just came to the United States last week. And Ali Abunimah joining us in Chicago, cofounder of the online publication Electronic Intifada. Describe what it is like to live in Gaza right now and what you understand to be happening, Laila.

LAILA EL-HADDAD: Well, as you mentioned, I was just there. I just came back last Friday. The day I was trying to leave -- it took me several days to leave because the Rafah crossing of course, which is still controlled by Israel, and the only outlet for Gazans to the outside world, is open less than a quarter of the time and is extremely difficult for people to pass. As I was leaving, we were hearing reports of activity and things happening in the southern Rafa, in the southern Gaza Strip. The beginning of this latest bout of fighting. Of course, when I was there a month -- or a few weeks ago, rather, the most recent state of fighting had begun. And then it was sort of quelled and died down. For a few days it was extremely terrifying in our apartment in central Gaza city. We were penned in there for about four days. We couldn't leave. It was very unpredictable. The situation was very volatile. There were snipers that had taken position on various high-rise towers throughout the city and masked gunmen throughout the streets. What we had seen was a new phenomenon we had not seen before, was these stopping of cars and random abductions and targeting journalists, very specifically. So, journalists were not going out on the streets. And again it was by masked gunmen, nobody knew who was who and who was doing what. So it was best just to stay indoors until that had passed. So it sounds very similar to what has happened. Maybe this was in greater intensity in the past few days.

AMY GOODMAN: Ali Abunimah, can you describe who is arming both sides, Fatah and Hamas?

ALI ABUNIMAH: Yes. What we've seen is really a direct result of the Bush doctrine. Since January 2006 when Hamas won the legislative election fair and square, the United States refused the election result and it has been arming several Palestinian militias, particularly those controlled by the Gaza warlord, Mohammed Dahlan. This is a repeat strategy of the contras. These are Palestinian contras. And the architect of this policy is none other than Elliott Abrams, the deputy national security advisor, who was convicted for lying to congress in the Iran-contra scandal. And Alvaro de Soto, the UN Reporter that you mentioned in the introduction, Amy, confirms in detail the extent of the conspiracy that the United States has been undertaking to overthrow the election result and destroy Hamas. And just a few days before this round of fighting started on June 7, Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper reported that senior Fatah commanders in the Gaza Strip had asked Israel for millions of rounds of ammunition, RPG's, hand grenades and armored cars to use against Hamas. So I think what we've seen is Hamas taking a last resort move to put an end to what it describes as a coup intended to overthrow the election result. It's a major blow for the United States and for the Bush doctrine, although it's very hard to see how it helps Palestinians very much considering that Israel and the United States are likely to tighten the siege of Gaza and to continue to fund the militias. We've already seen Condoleezza Rice throwing her support behind Abbas and no sign of a letup in US interference and armed intervention in Palestinian affairs.

AMY GOODMAN: How did the weapons get to both sides? And does that aid that Condoleezza Rice is talking about include weapons?

ALI ABUNIMAH: Yes. The weapons that have been delivered to the Fatah militias to the Palestinian contras of Mohammed Dahan, come via Egypt and are delivered with the direct coordination of Israel. The Fatah commanders make requests to Israel and Israel coordinates the delivery of the weapons to Egypt. Hamas gets its weapons. There are reports that Hamas receives funding from Iran. Hamas also gets weapons from Egypt. What's notable is that many of the weapons that Israel delivers to Fatah for use against Hamas are then sold on by corrupt Fatah commanders to the highest bidders, so recently Israel has been actually turning down Fatah requests for weapons because they say to the Fatah commanders you just turn around and sell the weapons to Hamas. So Gaza is absolutely awash with weapons and nobody seems to have any difficulty getting hold of them.

AMY GOODMAN: Ali Abunimah, you've written a book, One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Now there's discussion of three countries, not even a two-state solution. Gaza, West Bank, Israel. Your response?

ALI ABUNIMAH: I wouldn't put too much stock in that because the Israeli policy of cutting Gaza off from the West Bank is longstanding. It's been for more than a decade, that Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank can't travel from one place to the other. What I think we are seeing is the collapse of the two-state solution. Alvaro de Soto acknowledged that in his leaked confidential report. And today in the The Washington Post Edward Abington, the former US Counsel general in Jerusalem and now a lobbyist for the Palestinian authority was quoted saying that these events signal the death of the two-state solution. I think we have to recognize that the Israeli policy of trying to create Palestinian ghettos and Bantustans is failing before our very eyes. Palestinians are the majority population in Israeli-ruled territory between Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. And it's only a matter of time before the world wakes up to this reality.

AMY GOODMAN: Laila El-Haddad, what does this separation mean? And would you say it's been effectively a separation between West Bank and Gaza for a long time or life on the ground every day as you write your blog, "Raising Your Child in Gaza"?

LAILA EL-HADDAD: Yeah. I was just actually going to say initially when you were commenting -- and not just you. Many people saying Gaza and the West Bank has split now two different authorities. It's always been the case for over a decade now that Israel has effectively separated Gaza from the West Bank and in the recent two years hermetically sealed the Gaza Strip, as a mentioned, opening the crossing less than a quarter of a time for a million and a half people, the only passage for a million and a half people. So to me I see this as the way it's being described in the separation as part of the sort of larger plan. And what's taken place, of course in Gaza, while a terribly tragic to watch as a Palestinian, for me signals the failure of the Bush policy over the past two years of starving Gaza's population, of trying to fund and arm Hamas [correction: Fatah] with something of $84 million. I’ve seen these brigades they're trying to arm in Jordan and train in Jerico and Egypt. As I was leaving they stalled the Rafah crossing as they allowed in several hundred and thousand of these troops last Thursday.

AMY GOODMAN: You interviewed one of the men who was recently executed.

LAILA EL-HADDAD: That's right. I interviewed [name], who was [name] sort of the right-hand man in the northern Gaza Strip and the head of what's known as the Fatah death squads. I interviewed him in December for an article I was writing about the infighting, the beginning of the infighting. It was called "An Eye for an Eye in Gaza." I interviewed members of the Hamas executive force and then [name]. I had asked him about the situation and where he thinks it will go, where it will lead to, and who he gets his orders from. I specifically asked him if he gets his orders from [name]. He said everybody gets their orders from somewhere. And I said what do you anticipate will happen? He said, well, it's going to get to a point where we're not going to hold back anymore and we're going to take that extra step and just attack. We're just waiting for the right time. So this was in December, but I think he knew that his days were limited from this talk at least

AMY GOODMAN: You have also been writing about the underground economy. How does that work?

LAILA EL-HADDAD: Right. My colleague and I, [name] were working on a film called, "Gaza's Underground Economy" which is about the tunnel trade in Gaza that evolved over the past decade and a half or so as a direct result of Gaza's economic and political isolation. This is a trade that takes place under the Egyptian-Gaza border in southern Gaza Strip of Rafah. While certainly there are basic weaponry like [name] bullets that are traded it also involves something much more complex and is a means of substance for families there. It involves everything from food processors to even car parts and often heart medicines and even people who lack ID Cards that can't come into Gaza are often smuggled through these tunnels. That trade has evolved over the past few years as Gaza's isolation has increased.

AMY GOODMAN: We're very much reporting on this as Hamas-Fatah internal fight, a civil war. Where does Israel fit into this?

LAILA EL-HADDAD: >> Plays a huge part. Every time this discussion comes up I like to remind people this is not something that's happening in isolation, it’s not as though things just erupt. Certainly the factors were there -- the environment was ripe for this to happen, but this was the result of years and years of siege and most recently a US-led global siege and an Israeli siege and aggressive violent occupation of the Gaza Strip that has completely isolated it from the West Bank, from Palestinians, from their counterparts in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the outside world, of course. In addition to the Israeli continued-- American, rather, training and funding of Fatah. Something that is not unambiguous in any terms. As Ali mentioned just last week they were asking and actually received training and funding in Jericho. Israel allowed them passage to train in Jericho.

AMY GOODMAN: You talked about the just retired UN Coordinator for the Middle East has warned international hostility to the Palestinian Hamas movement could have grave consequences by persuading millions of Muslims that democratic methods don't work. He said, “Hamas is in its effervesce and can potentially evolve in a pragmatic direction that would allow for a two-state solution, but only if handled right. Your response to this?

ALI ABUNIMAH: I think Alvaro de Soto's 53-page report is very revealing. It's on the internet in p.d.f. form. It was leaked. It is a savage indictment of US, Israeli and European Union policy. I think any objective observer would agree with Alvaro de Soto and would agree that from the moment it won the elections Hamas had tried to be pragmatic and flexible. It had observed the unilateral truce with Israel. It had given up suicide attacks against Palestinian civilians. And there was no response to that. On the contrary. The United States, Israel, the European Union and some Arab states decided to launch a war against Hamas by trying to deny Hamas its fair share. And Hamas offer less than its fair share. It is the one that immediately asked the election offered in national unity government by denying it its fair share they have assured that Hamas has taken the whole pie. It's time for them to radically change their approach, stop treating the Palestinians like puppets and toys who could be manipulated, and start treating them like human beings who deserve at least their full human rights and freedom just like any other people.

AMY GOODMAN: You said Palestinian -- suicide attacks against Palestinians. You mean Israeli civilians?

ALI ABUNIMAH: Of course. That's exactly what I meant. Hamas had effectively suspended that tactic and had observed the unilateral truce with Israel -- I mean just, Amy, in 2006 Isreal killed 700 Palestinians, half of whom were civilians, and 141 of whom were children. In the same period Palestinians killed 23 Israelis. And the world is demanding that Palestinians renounce violence? It's time to start treating the Palestinians fairly and end this dirty war that the United States and Israel are waging against the Palestinians just as the United States and Elliott Abrams waged such a dirty war for so long against people in central America. It's time for it to end.

AMY GOODMAN: How does this relate to these two other crises now? You've got Iraq. You've got what's happening in the occupied territories and its relation to Israel, and you've got Lebanon.

ALI ABUNIMAH: It relates directly because the wider US Strategy now is to install or support puppet regimes and client militias throughout the region in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine in order to fight proxy wars against the United States, against this phantom enemy of an Islamic caliphate that George Bush and his friends have dreamed up. And everywhere it's failing. In Afghanistan the Taliban are resurgent. Iraq has new reports every day. The US Can't even trust the Iraqi militias and the Iraqi army that it set up. And we see the total failure of the surge as violence intensifies. In Lebanon the United States has been arming and funding the Lebanese army, hoping that it will be a counter weight for Hezballah. And we've seen the Lebanese army performing very poorly against a few militants, foreign fighters in the [name] refugee camp. Although they've caused devastation to the refugee camp itself. And now we see the US-backed Palestinian contras being routed in Gaza. Also, Amy, a final point. I wouldn't overestimate the strength of Fatah or underestimate the strength of Hamas in the West Bank because Hamas has considerable resources in the West Bank. The thing I fear, though, is that the United States and its allies in the Palestinian authority will be foolish enough to try to do in the West Bank what they've just failed to do in Gaza. And that would bring increased disaster and chaos for Palestinians throughout the West Bank as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Laila El-Haddad, you write the blog, A Mother from Gaza. How do you live every day? Talk about your son. How do people wake up in the morning? Where do you go? How do you take shelter?

LAILA EL-HADDAD: Obviously it's a very complicated situation to explain to a 3-year-old. I mean in terms of actually entering Gaza, of living in Gaza, in terms of explaining what is Gaza and who is in control of Gaza. As we go through the crossing he says, you know, “who's not allowing us through?” And we're stuck in the crossing, And trying to explain to him who that is. Then he sees, of course, on one side Egyptians and on the other Palestinians and European monitors. Yet it's an outside force, meaning he Israelis ultimately closing the crossing. Then, of course, going into Gaza and being subject to periods of time these bits of infighting and him having to deal with the gun fire so forth. Children are extremely adaptable. But, of course, he has become terrified by the loud sound of the gunfire on the one hand or the Israeli shelling on the other and just has taken to closing his ears. So I just told him there was a lot of popcorn being made outside. And when the gunfire subsided, he said, oh, I think the popcorn is done. Can we go and see it? So he managed that fairly well at least for those few days. But it's certainly very troubling, setting an environment to raising a child in for any Palestinian, certainly. Whether your dealing with the occupation on one hand or the infighting on the other.

AMY GOODMAN: And the level of hunger, of malnutrition?

LAILA EL-HADDAD: Hunger, people like to focus and certainly with cause on the hunger and on the malnutrition. And that is a major concern, especially seeing as how it's been so methodical. But I like to point out that it's not just mere hunger that is the problem here. You're starving a people of their basic freedoms and their rights. I think ultimately that's been the grand scheme. Of course it becomes very significant and important.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us. We'll certainly continue to follow this situation. Laila el-Haddad is a Palestinian journalist, a mother living in Gaza, writing Raising Youssef: a diary of a mother under occupation." ali abunimah, speaking to us from Chicago, cofounder of the online publication The Electronic Intifada. his book is called "one country: a bold proposal to end the Israeli-Palestinian impasse." published by metropolitan books last year.

Transcript courtesy of Democracy Now!

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7) U.S. Losing Ground Through Tribal Allies
Inter Press Service*
By Ali al-Fadhily*
Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches
http://dahrjamailiraq.com

RAMADI, Jun 15 (IPS) - U.S. attempts to win over tribal collaborators
in the al-Anbar province have won it more enemies instead.*

The U.S. military has launched one of its biggest operations to date to
regain control of the province, to the west of Baghdad. It had lost
control over the region more than a year back.

The province, which represents a third of the total area of the country
and is inhabited by roughly 2.5 million people, mostly Sunni Muslims,
has stood firm against the U.S. occupation of Iraq since the early days
of occupation that began in March 2003.

Fallujah, the second biggest city in the province after capital Ramadi,
ignited fierce resistance to U.S. forces after they killed 17 unarmed
demonstrators protesting in front of a school occupied by the military
in May 2003.

Resistance then spread to Khalidiya, 80 km west of Baghdad, then Ramadi,
105 km west of Baghdad, and reaching Hit, Haditha and then al-Qa'im on
the Syrian border.

Massive U.S. military operations have brought short-term victories, but
turned people more and more strongly against the occupation. The
province remains the most dangerous for occupation forces, and attacks
have continued to escalate.

This year U.S. military authorities worked to firm up a tribal coalition
that they said would oppose al-Qaeda terror groups fighting against U.S.
forces.

Unnamed officials in the Bush administration have made claims to
reporters that the move has reduced violence in al-Anbar, but residents
in the area think otherwise.

"The American Army failed to control the situation in al-Anbar province
through military attacks that killed thousands of civilians, so they
decided to set up local militias," former Iraqi Army colonel Jabbar
Ahmad from Ramadi told IPS.

"It started with the so-called campaign 'Awakening of al-Anbar', then it
developed into forming 'The Revolutionary Force for Anbar Salvation',"
Hamid Alwani, a prominent tribal leader in Ramadi told IPS. "This was
supposed to be a local fight between al-Qaeda and the local people of
al-Anbar, but in fact we all realised the Americans meant us to fight
our brothers of the Iraqi resistance."

Alwani said "most tribal sheikhs opposed the idea" and made it clear to
U.S. military commanders that they would never be part of the U.S. plan.
"It seems that the Americans have started to realise their mistake now."

Few tribal groups are backing U.S. forces any more.

Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, leader of the Dulaim confederation, a tribal
organisation in al-Anbar, told reporters recently in his Baghdad office
that the Revolutionary Force for Anbar Salvation would be dissolved
because of increasing internal dissatisfaction.

Opposition has grown against one of the council leaders, Abdul Sattar
Abu Risha, who Suleiman called a "traitor" and someone who "sells his
beliefs, his religion and his people for money."

Any Iraqi working with the U.S. military is now opposed by most people
in the province.

"Sattar is well known as a former criminal," a tribal leader in al-Anbar
who asked to be referred to as Hatam told IPS. "The Americans are now
spoiling him like a favourite child."

A well-respected leader in Fallujah told IPS on condition of anonymity
that "Shia leaders had their doubts about him from the beginning, but
the desperate Americans thought he was the best solution to their
failure in al-Anbar."

Abu Risha has been living in Amman, Jordan for several months now.

And there is growing doubt how much influence he has. "The Suleiman
family who were called the princes of al-Dulaim tribes have no power in
Iraq," Mohammad al-Dulaimy, a historian from al-Anbar told IPS in
Ramadi. "They were assigned leaders by the British occupation (during
the 1920's) and everyone in Iraq knows that."

Al-Dulaimy added, "As soon as the British left Iraq, those guys lost
power and went abroad. They then found a chance to return under the
American flag."

Others see the promotion of Abu Risha as a failed attempt by occupation
forces to apply divide and rule tactics in the province.

"I do not see this working amidst the obvious division amongst tribal
leaders looking for power," a professor at the University of al-Anbar in
Ramadi, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "People here know
each other and they knew from the beginning that those warlords would
fight over power and money one day."

But such co-opting has not in any case lessened violence. "All the new
militia did was increase tensions among the local community," local
cameraman Fowaz Abdulla told IPS. "Americans are getting killed by the
day and these militias are just executing people just like Shia militias
in Baghdad and the southern parts of Iraq."

Policemen loyal to tribal leaders in the Revolutionary Force for Anbar
Salvation have told reporters that the U.S. military provided them
weapons, funding and other items like uniforms, body armour, pickup
trucks and helmets, besides paying loyal tribal fighters 900 dollars a
month.

*(Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with
Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels
extensively in the region)

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8) School, military skirmish over data on students
Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
BERKELEY
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/12/BAGFJQDKCM1.DTL

Berkeley High remains the only high school in the nation that has failed to comply with the military's request for students' data, a Department of Defense spokesman said.

A month ago, the school -- under pressure from the government to release the data or lose funding -- changed its policy that blocked the release of students' personal information. The new policy allows students and parents who do not wish to be contacted by military recruiters to opt out by signing a form.

But the school did not immediately release the data to the government. Instead, a group of parents have been on a campaign to ask each and every student whether they want to opt out.

Thus far, 90 percent of the students at Berkeley High have refused to have their names released to miliary recruiters.

Berkeley High risked losing $10 million in federal funding, and possibly faced legal action, if it did not change its policy regarding military recruitment.

The controversy began in 2001, when the federal No Child Left Behind law passed. It requires school districts to hand over personal contact information for all juniors and seniors to military recruiters. The law also allows students to opt out.

The Berkeley Unified School District board has a strict policy against releasing students' personal information. So previously, instead of adopting an opt out policy, it used an "opt in" procedure in which students and parents could sign a form only if they wanted their information released to the military.

The result was that only about two dozen students a year opted in. One year only 16 did, said district spokesman Mark Coplan.

The military was not thrilled with the results and began pressuring district and school administrators to increase the numbers.

Maj. Stewart Upton, Department of Defense spokesman, said that recruiters have a tough time finding students because of "reduced interest" among young people and the strict eligibility requirements.

"Today's military recruiters must find and recruit from among the best and brightest of America's youth in a very challenging market," Upton wrote in an e-mail. "One vital tool that our recruiters rely on to help them succeed is access to high schools, in order to provide students with the opportunity to learn about the option of military service."

Local military recruiters complained, and progressively higher-ranking officers all the way up to a general came to Berkeley and met with Superintendent Michele Lawrence to resolve the matter.

Things escalated in May, when "the general got a call from the undersecretary of Defense, who made it clear in no uncertain terms that Berkeley was the last high school in the nation that has not complied and they would move forward with legal action," Coplan said. After that, Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asking for something to be done.

The school held several assemblies a month ago, explaining why the district was changing its policy and advising students to sign the forms immediately -- whether they wanted to opt in or opt out.

Of the school's 1,500 juniors and seniors, 1,350 signed opt out forms prohibiting the district from turning over their data. The remaining 150 either have not responded or signed consent forms allowing the district to turn over their names, address and phone numbers to the military.

Parent volunteers are contacting the 150 to determine their intentions. The results won't be available until next week, after school is out for the summer.

"Not a lot of people know what's going on with the war," said Krystal Elebiary, a junior who joined with student Daniel Sandoval to write a letter and collect about 250 student signatures proclaiming, "We will not be used as tools for an unjust and imperialist war."

At a news conference Monday, the pair criticized the Bush administration for forcing Berkeley's compliance by threatening to withhold education funding from the school.

E-mail Carolyn Jones at carolynjones@sfchronicle.com.

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9) At Least 7 Afghan Children Killed in U.S. Airstrike
By BARRY BEARAK and GRAHAM BOWLEY
June 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/world/asia/18cnd-afghan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 18 — The American-led coalition forces in Afghanistan killed seven children during an air strike on a religious school thought to be an Al Qaeda safe house in the remote east of the country, spokesmen for the coalition said today.

The death of the children, tragic enough by itself, will now add to the crescendo of anger Afghans feel about civilian casualties caused by American and NATO operations. More than 130 civilians have been killed in such bombings and shootings in just the past six months, according to Afghan officials.

The air strike, which took place on Sunday night, hit a compound in the Zarghun Shah district of the border province of Paktika containing a mosque and a religious school. The coalition forces said its intelligence had shown it was being used as a safe house for Al Qaeda fighters.

Several militants were killed in the strike, and two militants were also detained, the coalition said.

“We are truly sorry for the innocent lives lost in this attack,” said United States Army Maj. Chris Belcher. “We had surveillance on the compound all day and saw no indications there were children inside the building.”

There are more than 50,000 foreign troops operating in Afghanistan, most of them American. Today’s statement by the coalition was unusual. More commonly, the military is responding to alleged mistakes rather than announcing them.

Still, the coalition placed the ultimate burden for the children’s deaths on the enemy, claiming “Al Qaeda operatives” had again used innocents as human shields.

“Witness statements taken early this morning clearly put the blame on the suspected terrorists, saying that if the children attempted to go outside they were beaten and pushed away from the door,” said the coalition’s press release.

Recently, there have been several episodes in which civilians were killed and foreign forces were criticized for using excessive force.

In April, aerial bombing of a valley in western Afghanistan by the American military killed at least 42 civilians, including women and children, and wounded 50 more, an Afghan government investigation found last month. Legislators and some tribal elders have warned that the actions in which civilians are put at risk are playing into the hands of the insurgents.

The attack on Sunday followed a mammoth bombing by insurgents in Kabul on Sunday, which killed at least 24 people and was one of the deadliest insurgent attacks in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Of those killed, 22 were police academy instructors on their way to work.

The blast occurred at 8:15 and was powerful enough to shear off the roof and both sides of the bus and uproot many of the front seats.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, with Zabihullah Mujahid, who said he was a spokesman, saying in a phone interview that a suicide bomber had infiltrated the police and guilefully boarded the vehicle.

Kabul’s police chief, Esmatullah Daulatzai, said the precise tactics of the attack were unclear. “Our investigation shows that a suicide attacker jumped into the vehicle and blew himself up,” he said.

Whatever the method, it was spectacularly lethal, unleashing shards of glass and metal into a crowded area beside police headquarters, the governor’s office and the national archive. Two other vehicles were ripped apart by the explosion. The wounded included pedestrians waiting at an adjacent bus terminal.

Raz Muhammad, a policeman standing guard at headquarters, was among the first to reach the scene. “Those in the front seats, their bodies were very ripped apart,” he said. “Half of their heads were gone and there was brain matter all over. Very few of those inside survived. I could help those able to walk.”

There is confusion about the death toll. Police officials originally said 36 had died, but the chief later amended that number, adding that 52 people were wounded, including 38 who had to be hospitalized. It remains possible that more than 24 people perished. Bodies were taken to more than one hospital and then quickly released to families, perhaps sacrificing an accurate mortality count.

In any case, the magnitude and casualties in the attack evoked memories of a similarly huge bombing in the capital on Sept. 5, 2002, that killed at least 30 people and wounded 170 in a marketplace. Afghan and American officials blamed the Taliban and Al Qaeda for that blast.

The attack on Sunday occurred on a heat-swaddled day. Havoc immediately spread through an area that customarily teems with people, in a country long contaminated with tragedy.

An anguished 14-year-old named Emal recognized the bus as the one driven by his father, Muhammad Hashib. “I must see him,” he cried as police officials kept him away from the wreckage. Though they knew otherwise, they tried to convince the boy that his father was alive, telling him to go home to await news.

Then the policemen began their own ordeal of mourning, listing the names of those friends they had lost moments before: Azul, Jaleel, Habib.

The policeman they called Habib was actually Habibullah, a 26-year-old who had once taught Dari literature and Islamic studies at a high school before entering the police academy. He was such an impressive cadet that after completing the three-year program he was kept on as an instructor. Last year, he married, and on Sunday he had eaten breakfast with his wife and infant son before leaving for the Interior Ministry, where the teachers catch the bus for the academy.

“I barely recognized his corpse,” said his brother Wahidullah, another policeman. He had searched for Habibullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, at the military hospital where many bodies were taken. “I recognized his belt, but his eyes and forehead were gone. I had to look very, very hard.” As he said this, another policeman embraced him, and the two men wept.

The dead were washed, wrapped in shrouds and given over to their kin. Habibullah’s body was taken to his home village north of Kabul, Ahmad Shab Baba Mina. There, in a ritual of grieving repeated among woebegone families on a sorrowful Sunday, his body was displayed in a coffin in the courtyard of his ancestral home.

Dozens of Habibullah’s students came to say goodbye — all of them dressed in the gabardine of cadets with blue stripes above their left pockets to indicate their seniority in the academy. “He was so nice,” said one cadet, Abdul Wares. “We have a saying in this country that a man is so good he would not even hurt an ant. Habibullah was such a man.”

Sunday’s suicide attack was the sixth in Kabul this year and the second in two days. The Taliban are employing tactics similar to those used by insurgents in Iraq. The use of improvised explosive devices is also on the increase in Afghanistan, including one employed Sunday to kill three members of the United States-led coalition forces and their local interpreter in Kandahar Province.

At 2:30 p.m., Habibullah’s body was carried from the house in a coffin adorned with a black and gold blanket and wildflowers. A caravan proceeded to a mosque beside a cemetery. A few prayers were said before mourners took turns looking into the open casket where the head wounds were hidden beneath balls of cotton.

Then Habibullah, the police academy teacher, was laid into his grave. His students covered him for eternity with the rocky soil of the beleaguered city. Though many were in tears, they chanted words of congratulations. In their eyes, their teacher had become a martyr.

Barry Bearak reported from Kabul and Graham Bowley from New York. Abdul Waheed Wafa contributed reporting from Kabul.

[Note to readers: The following is a quote from the above article:

"Still, the coalition placed the ultimate burden for the children’s deaths on the enemy, claiming 'Al Qaeda operatives' had again used innocents as human shields.

'Witness statements taken early this morning clearly put the blame on the suspected terrorists, saying that if the children attempted to go outside they were beaten and pushed away from the door,' said the coalition’s press release."

Now, it would seem to me, that if "All Qaeda operatives" had wanted to use the children as human shields then they would want them to be seen outside. Otherwise, how would the "coalition" know the children were there? And how could the use of the "human child shields" hope to deter the attack? If the children remained hidden then they certainly couldn't be considered "human shields." By the logic of
the "coalition"--after the fact--anybody at a home with children inside can be accused of using their children as human shields if and when they are bombed. So all homes, schools, hospitals--anything with children inside that the "coalition" bombs--the "coalition" can "reason" that the children were being used as "human shields." How convenient. ...BW ]

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10) June 18, 2007
U.S. and Iraqi Troops Begin Big Offensive
By DAMIEN CAVE
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/world/middleeast/18cnd-Iraq.html?hp

[The photo with this article looks like they are just rounding
up young men. The men are unarmed and blind-folded and being guarded by armed American soldiers...bw]

BAGHDAD, June 18 — American and Iraqi troops began major military operations north and south of Baghdad today, while deep in the south near the Iranian border, a ferocious battle between American troops and Shiite militants left at least 20 dead and wounded scores more, Iraqi and American officials.

The clashes in Amara and Majjar al-Kabir, a pair of mostly Shiite towns just north of Basra, came as troops fanned out across Iraq in what American commanders have described as a broad offensive against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia in the provinces surrounding the capital.

In Diyala province, the site of particularly vicious sectarian violence, witnesses said that Iraqi security forces moved into an area of western Baquba before dawn, encountering little armed resistance. The Iraqi forces were joined by members of the 1920s Revolutionary Brigade, who have rejected a long-standing alliance with Al Qaeda, and witnesses said the combined force was welcomed with demands from residents for more help in stopping the bloodshed and ridding Iraq of the Americans.

“Why didn’t you do this in the past?” said a man who gave his name as Abu Muhammad. He held the hands of a police captain and a 1920s Brigade commander, and said: “If you work together you can secure Iraq, and the occupation will have no choice but to leave. But if you stay divided, Al Qaeda will stay and the occupation will stay.”

The operation led to the deaths of at least four terrorists as of this afternoon, Iraqi police said. Another 14 were arrested, and a large arms cache was seized, the police said.

In Amara, the fighting started early this morning during raids on what American officials described as a secret network involved in transporting “lethal aid” from Iran to Iraq, particularly deadly roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or E.F.P.’s.

Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, an American military spokesman here, said that American troops have intensified their focus on finding and dismantling places where E.F.P.’s are built, like those raided today, because the weapons are especially hard to stop at the border.

“It’s hard to catch because they are shipped as components, not completed weapons,” he said.

The fighting involved members of the Mahdi militia, loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, according to Sadr officials in Basra, and the battle appeared to be the largest clash with Sadr’s loosely affiliated gunmen since the start of a new security plan in February.

American troops led the raid, and suffered no reported casualties, Colonel Garver said. British forces played a support role, a British military official said.

According to an American military statement, troops came under withering small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenade attacks, forcing commanders to call in air support. Attack aircraft strafed the buildings and destroyed a vehicle being used “as a fighting position,” the statement said, wounding six suspects and leading to the detention of one of the gunmen.

At least 60 people were wounded, according to a hospital official.

A few hours later, members of the Mahdi militia marched alongside the coffins of those killed, said Abdul Karim al Muhammadawi, a senior tribal and political figure in Amara. “They left because there was no one to fight,” he said, adding that by this afternoon, “it was quiet. The armed presence of the Mahdi army was gone.”

Elsewhere in Iraq, despite the heightened military activity, violence continued. In northern Baghdad, a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi military convoy killed three soldiers and wounded two, an interior ministry official said. In Adhamiya, a Sunni enclave in eastern Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a civilian minibus filled with employees of the neighborhood government. One person was killed and two were injured, an interior ministry official said.

A car bomb targeting a communication center in downtown Falluja, in Anbar province, killed at least two people and wounded 10, according to a Falluja police official.

Near Hilla, south of Baghdad, gunmen killed two women in a drive-by shooting, the police said.

In Kirkuk, a spray of bullets fired at a police checkpoint south of the city killed a policeman and gravely wounded two others, said Brigadier Burhan Habeeb Tayeb, the city’s chief of police.

Gunmen also assaulted two truck drivers carrying vegetables and killed both of them as they entered a market south of the city, he said.

Ali Adeeb, Karim Hilmi and Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Baghdad; additional reporting was contributed by Iraqi employees of the New York Times in Basra and Baquba

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11) Comparing the Two Territories
By CRAIG S. SMITH and GREG MYRE
June 17, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/weekinreview/17smith.1.html

Palestinians of the West Bank (about 2.5 million): From Israel's founding in 1948 until the 1967 war, the region was administered by Jordan and the Palestinians there tended to identify with the more secular societies of Jordan, Syria or Lebanon, where many went to study. With greater freedom of movement, a healthier economy, and better educational opportunities than in Gaza, the Palestinians on the West Bank generally feel superior to their Gazan cousins.

But there are divisions within West Bank Palestinians -- between the roughly 40 percent who are refugees from Israel and most of the rest, who are historically tied to the land. There are distinctions between residents of different cities, between city folk and country folk, between different clans and between rich and poor. While Fatah continues to dominate the territory, Hamas' popularity has grown.

Palestinians of Gaza (1.4 million): From Israel's founding in 1948 until the 1967 war, the region was administered by Egypt, which fostered a strong sense of Palestinian identity. Many Gazans studied in Egypt and were influenced by Islamist movements there, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood. That influence gave birth to Hamas in 1987 and the radical Islamist group has steadily grown in the territory as economic conditions worsened.

But there are divisions within Gaza's Palestinians -- between the roughly 70 percent who are refugees from Israel and the rest, who are historically tied to the land. Clan identities are stronger in the densely populated confines of Gaza. While Hamas won the 2006 national elections, Fatah continues to enjoy significant support, particularly among the large number of people who work for the near-bankrupt Palestinian Authority -- only Fatah has the backing of the international community necessary for the financial support that can pay their salaries.

Palestinian exiles: Palestinians make up a majority of the population in Jordan, where they also tend to be moderate and relatively well off. But Palestinian refugees in Syria and Lebanon live in impoverished camps, where many support radical factions.

Israeli Arabs (1 million plus): Arab Israelis tend to be much more politically moderate than the other groups.

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12) Behind the Che Bandannas, Shades of Potential Militias
By SIMON ROMERO
June 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/world/americas/18venezuela.html?ref=world

CARACAS, Venezuela, June 17 — Visitors to the Alexis Vive Collective, one of the most radical of the pro-Chávez groups that thrive in the hillside slums of this city’s western fringe, can see the writing on the wall — quite literally — as they approach. The group’s headquarters are just past the murals of Jesus with an assault rifle and Che Guevara puffing on a cigar.

The collective, led mainly by university students in their 20s, leapt into the Venezuelan consciousness in recent weeks after its members were videotaped defacing the headquarters of Globovisión, the country’s only remaining opposition television network, amid an intensifying debate here over freedom of expression.

“We’re Marxist-Leninists,” Robert Longa, 30, the group’s chief spokesman, said nonchalantly in a recent interview, as if the Berlin Wall had never come down. “The counterrevolutionaries at Globovisión sprayed their own graffiti on the consciousness of the Venezuelan people. We felt we had to react to them.”

The collective is among the most prominent of more than 40 groups, many of them armed and organized around various schools of leftist thought, that function throughout 23 de Enero, a sprawling housing complex interspersed with makeshift hovels, said Alejandro Velasco, a historian at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., who specializes in Venezuelan leftist movements.

The decaying modernist rectangular apartment blocks, a Le Corbusier-inspired project built in the 1950s, have long been a breeding ground for subversion and are now considered a leading bastion of support for President Hugo Chávez.

The police classified all the armed leftist groups in 23 de Enero as criminals until Mr. Chávez’s election as president in 1998, mainly because of their ideology. But these organizations are now largely embraced by Venezuela’s socialist-inspired political establishment.

Critics of Mr. Chávez say he has allowed these groups to operate unfettered — none of Alexis Vive’s members was arrested for the assault on the television network, for instance. And that has led to worries that the president is effectively creating the possible beginnings of a paramilitary support system for his government in case of crisis.

“These groups are encouraged, not just tolerated,” said Alberto Garrido, a political analyst here. “Senior military strategists believe a confrontation with the United States is inevitable, during which they envision a fusion between the armed forces and civilian militias along the lines of what we see in Iraq.”

Despite deteriorating political ties, United States officials have repeatedly said they have no plans to take military action against Venezuela. Still, after the Bush administration’s indirect support for a coup that briefly ousted him in 2002, Mr. Chávez regularly says Washington is trying to destabilize his government.

He has insisted, for example, that the United States is behind the huge student protests that have convulsed the country in recent weeks since his unpopular decision to effectively take RCTV, the country’s largest private television network and a fierce critic, off the air.

Alexis Vive, which openly supports the president’s talk that has rattled Venezuela’s well-to-do citizens, stands in contrast to that largely middle-class protest movement and points to the resilience of Mr. Chávez’s base even as his approval ratings decline, partly as a result of his RCTV decision.

On the eve of RCTV’s final broadcasts last month, the collective’s members, riding motorcycles and wearing bandannas to hide their identities, painted the walls outside Globovisión’s studios with slogans accusing it of serving the interests of the United States and Venezuela’s moneyed elite.

Soon afterward, Mr. Chávez threatened Globovisión with legal action, saying it broadcast images with subliminal messages intended to provoke an assassination attempt against him.

The collective also damaged the exterior of the headquarters of Fedecámaras, the country’s main business federation, saying it conspired to create the shortages of basic foods that now plague many parts of Venezuela.

In an interview at its headquarters, where the collective has set up what it described as a situation room to monitor news broadcasts by Venezuela’s five main television networks, the group’s leaders said a disinformation campaign against them was under way.

Its members said local news media reports blaming them for the detonation of a small explosive device at the Central University of Venezuela were unfounded. Armed conflict, members said, would be employed only after other options were exhausted.

“The bourgeois media has an erroneous image of us as outlaws,” said Fausto Castillo, who described 23 de Enero as a theater for insurgent activity. “We’re simply responding to reactionary elements, as if this were Belfast or Gaza or El Chorrillo,” the area in Panama that saw heavy fighting during the United States invasion there in 1989.

The collective’s leaders did not brandish any guns during a recent interview, though other visitors to their headquarters in a state-owned building say they are well-armed and photographs of members of the collective that have circulated on the Web show them firing weapons in the environs of 23 de Enero.

In a country where leftist revolutionary imagery on billboards and state television is common to the point of becoming banal, the group, which says it has 100 members, fits right in.

Simply radical chic they are not, the group’s members say, but they all wear bandannas decorated with images of Che and the colors of Venezuela’s flag. They say they have cells in other cities including Puerto La Cruz and Valencia. Formed in 2005 and named “Alexis Lives” in honor of Alexis González, who died in the chaos surrounding the brief 2002 coup and is considered a martyr, the collective requires entrants to study texts by Lenin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh.

An older organization, the Tupamaros, named after a Uruguayan urban guerrilla movement, has long been the most prominent armed group in 23 de Enero. The Tupamaros even had their own political party, dissolved this year to become part of Mr. Chávez’s Socialist Party.

Along with the Piedrita Work Group, an organization thought to have close ties to Venezuela’s military, Alexis Vive is one of the most visible of newer groups that have been formed and among the most radical in its pro-Communist ideology.

Mr. Velasco, the historian at Hampshire College, said the groups saw Mr. Chávez as “a tool with which to achieve strategic goals” of moving to a socialist society. “They see themselves as revolutionaries first and Chavistas second,” he said.

Still, Alexis Vive’s leaders said they admired Mr. Chávez’s capacity to lead a broad transformation of Venezuelan society and made it clear how they would react if more pointed resistance to the president’s rule — from outside or inside the country — emerged.

“We’re not the police or the national guard, but if there is a coup or an effort to assassinate the comandante, we will go into the streets to defend the revolution,” said a 25-year-old member with the nom de guerre Américo Gallego, using the military title Mr. Chávez’s most ardent supporters often employ to describe the president. “If Chávez wants us to react, we will.”

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13) In Ethiopia, Fear and Cries of Army Brutality
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
June 18, 2007
[This page also has an excellent video interview with Ogaden rebels...bw]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/world/africa/18ethiopia.html?ref=world

IN THE OGADEN DESERT, Ethiopia — The rebels march 300 strong across the crunchy earth, young men with dreadlocks and AK-47s slung over their shoulders.

Often when they pass through a village, the entire village lines up, one sunken cheekbone to the next, to squint at them.

“May God bring you victory,” one woman whispered.

This is the Ogaden, a spindle-legged corner of Ethiopia that the urbane officials in Addis Ababa, the capital, would rather outsiders never see. It is the epicenter of a separatist war pitting impoverished nomads against one of the biggest armies in Africa.

What goes on here seems to be starkly different from the carefully constructed up-and-coming image that Ethiopia — a country that the United States increasingly relies on to fight militant Islam in the Horn of Africa — tries to project.

In village after village, people said they had been brutalized by government troops. They described a widespread and longstanding reign of terror, with Ethiopian soldiers gang-raping women, burning down huts and killing civilians at will.

It is the same military that the American government helps train and equip — and provides with prized intelligence. The two nations have been allies for years, but recently they have grown especially close, teaming up last winter to oust an Islamic movement that controlled much of Somalia and rid the region of a potential terrorist threat.

The Bush administration, particularly the military, considers Ethiopia its best bet in the volatile Horn — which, with Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea, is fast becoming intensely violent, virulently anti-American and an incubator for terrorism.

But an emerging concern for American officials is the way that the Ethiopian military operates inside its own borders, especially in war zones like the Ogaden.

Anab, a 40-year-old camel herder who was too frightened, like many others, to give her last name, said soldiers took her to a police station, put her in a cell and twisted her nipples with pliers. She said government security forces routinely rounded up young women under the pretext that they were rebel supporters so they could bring them to jail and rape them.

“Me, I am old,” she said, “but they raped me, too.”

Moualin, a rheumy-eyed elder, said Ethiopian troops stormed his village, Sasabene, in January looking for rebels and burned much of it down. “They hit us in the face with the hardest part of their guns,” he said.

The villagers said the abuses had intensified since April, when the rebels attacked a Chinese-run oil field, killing nine Chinese workers and more than 60 Ethiopian soldiers and employees. The Ethiopian government has vowed to crush the rebels but rejects all claims that it abuses civilians.

“Our soldiers are not allowed to do these kinds of things,” said Nur Abdi Mohammed, a government spokesman. “This is only propaganda and cannot be justified. If a government soldier did this type of thing they would be brought before the courts.”

Even so, the State Department, the European Parliament and many human rights groups, mostly outside Ethiopia, have cited thousands of cases of torture, arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings — enough to raise questions in Congress about American support of the Ethiopian government.

“This is a country that is abusing its own people and has no respect for democracy,” said Representative Donald M. Payne, Democrat of New Jersey and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa and global health.

“We’ve not only looked the other way but we’ve pushed them to intrude in other sovereign nations,” he added, referring to the satellite images and other strategic help the American military gave Ethiopia in December, when thousands of Ethiopian troops poured into Somalia and overthrew the Islamist leadership.

According to Georgette Gagnon, deputy director for the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, Ethiopia is one of the most repressive countries in Africa.

“What the Ethiopian security forces are doing,” she said, “may amount to crimes against humanity.”

Human Rights Watch issued a report in 2005 that documented a rampage by government troops against members of the Anuak, a minority tribe in western Ethiopia, in which soldiers ransacked homes, beat villagers to death with iron bars and in one case, according to a witness, tied up a prisoner and ran over him with a military truck.

After the report came out, the researcher who wrote it was banned by the Ethiopian government from returning to the country. Similarly, three New York Times journalists who visited the Ogaden to cover this story were imprisoned for five days and had all their equipment confiscated before being released without charges.

Ethiopia’s Tiananmen Square

In many ways, Ethiopia has a lot going for it these days: new buildings, new roads, low crime and a booming trade in cut flowers and coffee. It is the second most populous country in sub-Saharan Africa, behind Nigeria, with 77 million people.

Its leaders, many whom were once rebels themselves, from a neglected patch of northern Ethiopia, are widely known as some of the savviest officials on the continent. They had promised to let some air into a very stultified political system during the national elections of 2005, which were billed as a milestone on the road to democracy.

Instead, they turned into Ethiopia’s version of Tiananmen Square. With the opposition poised to win a record number of seats in Parliament, the government cracked down brutally, opening fire on demonstrators, rounding up tens of thousands of opposition supporters and students and leveling charges of treason and even attempted to kill top opposition leaders, including the man elected mayor of Addis Ababa.

Many opposition members are now in jail or in exile. The rest seem demoralized.

“There are no real steps toward democracy,” said Merera Gudina, vice president of the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces, a leading opposition party. “No real steps toward opening up space, no real steps toward ending repression.”

Ethiopian officials have routinely dismissed such complaints, accusing political protesters of stoking civil unrest and poking their finger into a well-known sore spot. Ethiopia has always had an authoritarian streak. This is a country, after all, where until the 1970s rulers claimed to be direct descendants of King Solomon. It is big, poor, famine-stricken, about half-Christian and half-Muslim, surrounded by hostile enemies and full of heavily armed separatist factions. As one high-ranking Ethiopian official put it, “This country has never been easy to rule.”

That has certainly been true for the Ogaden desert, a huge, dagger-shaped chunk of territory between the highlands of Ethiopia and the border of Somalia. The people here are mostly ethnic Somalis, and they have been chafing against Ethiopian rule since 1897, when the British ceded their claims to the area.

The colonial officials did not think the Ogaden was worth much. They saw thorny hills and thirsty people. Even today, it is still like that. What passes for a town is a huddle of bubble-shaped huts, the movable homes of camel-thwacking nomads who somehow survive out here. For roads, picture Tonka truck tracks running through a sandbox. The primary elements in this world are skin and bone and sun and rock. And guns. Loads of them.

Camel herders carry rifles to protect their animals. Young women carry pistols to protect their bodies. And then there is the Ogaden National Liberation Front, the machine-gun-toting rebels fighting for control of this desiccated wasteland.

Rebels Live Off the Land

Lion. Radio. Fearless. Peacock. Most of the men have nicknames that conceal their real identities. Peacock, who spoke some English, served as a guide. He shared the bitter little plums the soldiers pick from thorn bushes — “Ogaden chocolate,” he called them. He showed the way to gently skim water from the top of a mud puddle to minimize the amount of dirt that ends up in your stomach — even in the rainy season this is all there is to drink.

He pointed out the anthills, the coming storm clouds, the especially ruthless thorn trees and even a graveyard that stood incongruously in the middle of the desert. The graves — crude pyramids of stones — were from the war in 1977-78, when Somalia tried, disastrously, to pry the Ogaden out of Ethiopia’s hands and lost thousands of men. “It’s up to us now,” Peacock said.

Peacock was typical of the rebels. He was driven by anger. He said Ethiopian soldiers hanged his mother, raped his sister and beat his father. “I know, it’s hard to believe,” he said. “But it’s true.”

He had the hunch of a broken man and a voice that seemed far too tired for his 28 years. “It’s not that I like living in the bush,” he said. “But I have nowhere else to go.”

The armed resistance began in 1994, after the Ogaden National Liberation Front, then a political organization, broached the idea of splitting off from Ethiopia. The central government responded by imprisoning Ogadeni leaders, and according to academics and human rights groups, assassinating others. The Ogaden is part of the Somali National Regional State, one of nine ethnic-based states within Ethiopia’s unusual ethnic-based federal system. On paper, all states have the right to secede, if they follow the proper procedures. But it seemed that the government feared that if the Somalis broke away, so too would the Oromos, the Afar and many other ethnic groups pining for a country of their own.

The Ethiopian government calls the Ogaden rebels terrorists and says they are armed and trained by Eritrea, Ethiopia’s neighbor and bitter enemy. One of the reasons Ethiopia decided to invade Somalia was to prevent the rebels from using it as a base.

The government blames them for a string of recent bombings and assassinations and says they often single out rival clan members. Ethiopian officials have been pressuring the State Department to add the Ogaden National Liberation Front to its list of designated foreign terrorist organizations. Until recently, American officials refused, saying the rebels had not threatened civilians or American interests.

“But after the oil field attack in April,” said one American official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, “we are reassessing that.”

American policy toward Ethiopia seems to be in flux. Administration officials are trying to increase the amount of nonhumanitarian aid to Ethiopia to $481 million next year, from $284 million this year. But key Democrats in Congress, including Mr. Payne, are questioning this, saying that because of Ethiopia’s human rights record, it is time to stop writing the country a blank check.

In April, European Commission officials began investigating Ethiopia for war crimes in connection to hundreds of Somali civilians killed by Ethiopian troops during heavy fighting in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital.

Women Are Suffering the Most

In the Ogaden, it is not clear how many people are dying. The vast area is essentially a no-go zone for most human rights workers and journalists and where the Ethiopian military, by its own admission, is waging an intense counterinsurgency campaign.

The violence has been particularly acute against women, villagers said, and many have recently fled.

Asma, 19, who now lives in neighboring Somaliland, said she was stuck in an underground cell for more than six months last year, raped and tortured. “They beat me on the feet and breasts,” she said. She was freed only after her father paid the soldiers ransom, she said, though she did not know how much.

Ambaro, 25, now living in Addis Ababa, said she was gang-raped by five Ethiopian soldiers in January near the town of Fik. She said troops came to her village every night to pluck another young woman.

“I’m in pain now, all over my body,” she said. “ I’m worried that I’ll become crazy because of what happened.”

Many Ogaden villagers said that when they tried to bring up abuses with clan chiefs or local authorities, they were told it was better to keep quiet.

The rebels said thats was precisely why they attacked the Chinese oil field: to get publicity for their cause and the plight of their region (and to discourage foreign companies from exploiting local resources). According to them, they strike freely in the Ogaden all the time, ambushing military convoys and raiding police stations.

Mr. Mohammed, the government spokesman, denied that, saying the rebels “will not confront Ethiopian military forces because they are not well trained.”

Expert or not, they are determined. They march for hours powered by a few handfuls of rice. They travel extremely light, carrying only their guns, two clips of bullets, a grenade and a tarp. They brag about how many Ethiopians they have killed, and every piece of their camouflage, they say, is pulled off dead soldiers. They joke about slaughtering Ethiopian troops the same way they slaughter goats.

Their morale seems high, especially for men who sleep in the dirt every night. Their throats are constantly dry, but they like to sing.

“A camel is delivering a baby today and the milk of the camel is coming,” goes one campfire song. “Who is the owner of this land?”

Will Connors contributed reporting from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

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14) U.S. and Europe Offer Support for Abbas Government
By CHRISTINE HAUSER and STEPHEN CASTLE
June 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/world/middleeast/18cnd-union.html?hp

The United States and the European Union pledged support today for the newly established Palestinian government. Senior European officials said in Luxembourg that the European Union had agreed to resume direct financial aid to the Palestinian Authority but it was still working out how to transfer the money.

The remarks by European officials, at a meeting of foreign ministers in Luxembourg, , came after the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, installed an emergency cabinet in the West Bank that, in part, replaced ministers belonging to the Hamas faction, which seized control of Gaza last week.

A White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said in a briefing today that the Bush administration backed those steps and other “affirmative steps.”

“We are certainly going to support him on that,” Mr. Snow said at a briefing in Washington.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Mr. Abbas on Sunday to talk about the American support for him and “for the Palestinian moderates who have made the commitment to working with Israel and others in the region who want peace,” said another White House spokesman, Scott Stanzel, in Washington.

“We will continue to work with those in the Palestinian population who have chosen the pathway to peace,” he added.

Hamas is considered to be a terrorist organization by Israel and much of the West. After it won a majority of seats in parliamentary elections in January 2006, the European Union and the United States cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority.

An aide to Mr. Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeina, said Sunday that he believed the United States and Israel would agree to lift their embargoes.

President Bush is meeting the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, in Washington today.

European officials welcomed Mr. Abbas’s decision to dismiss the Palestinian “unity” government, in which his Fatah party and Hamas shared power, and to appoint a caretaker administration led by a new prime minister, Salam Fayyad, an internationally respected economist who will serve also as finance and foreign minister in the 12-member cabinet.

The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said Europe would provide direct assistance to the West Bank and Mr. Abbas’s government, but he did not say how much aid would go to Palestinians in Gaza or how it would be channeled there.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European Commissioner responsible for foreign policy, said European Union officials wanted to meet the new prime minister as part of the process of resuming direct aid.

She was cautious about the timing of the resumption of payments, and said she had had a conversation with Mr. Fayyad to work out the logistics of the transfer of the money, amounting to several hundred thousand euros a year (a euro is worth about $1.34).

Hamas has called the emergency Palestinian government sworn in by Mr. Abbas on Sunday illegitimate, and has insisted that the unity government was still in charge.

The European Union is seeking a way of bypassing Hamas to funnel money to Palestinian Authority employees in Gaza, probably something similar to the way the union has been able to transfer funds into the Palestinian territories outside the hands of the Palestinian Authority. The union has kept up aid sent that way, even as it cut off official payments to the authority after Hamas took over.

"There will be part of the money that will be direct," Mr. Solana was quoted by Reuters as saying. He added that it was important that the new government construct a budget to help Palestinians in both territories, Reuters reported.

The European Union and its 27 member governments finance subsidies to about one million people in the West Bank and Gaza, providing basic necessities like food, water and medicine.

Christine Hauser reported from New York, and Stephen Castle reported Luxembourg. Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York.

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15) U.S. Seeks to Block Exits for Iraq Insurgents
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
June 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/world/middleeast/20military.html?ref=world

BAQUBA, Iraq, June 19 — In more than four years in Iraq, American forces have been confounded by insurgents who have often slipped away only to fight another day. The war in Iraq has been likened to the arcade game of whack-a-mole, where as soon as you knock down one mole another pops up.

Taking the fight to insurgents from Al Qaeda did not so much destroy them in Anbar Province as dislodge them, prompting the fighters to build up their strength elsewhere, including Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province.

So the planners of this latest operation are attempting to plug the holes that have allowed the insurgents to escape in the past. The goal is not merely to reclaim western Baquba from insurgent control, but to capture or kill the estimated 300 fighters to 500 fighters who are believed to be based in that part of the city.

In the first hours of the American military assault, after midnight early Monday, helicopters flew two teams of American troops and a platoon of Iraqi scouts so they could block the southern escape routes from the city. Stryker armored vehicles moved along the western outskirts of Baquba and then down a main north-south route that cuts through the center of the city.

By the time dawn broke on Tuesday, the insurgent sanctuary in western Baquba had been cordoned off. Then, the American forces established footholds on the periphery of the section and slowly pressed in. “Rather than let the problem export to some other place and then have to fight them again, my goal is to isolate this thing and cordon it off,” said Col. Steve Townsend, the commander of the Third Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Second Infantry Division.

It promises to be a methodical, steady squeeze against fighters from Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia, who have fortified their positions and have shown no signs of giving in.

The problem of collaring the Qaeda fighters is challenging in several respects. Unlike Falluja, where most of the population fled in advance of the battle, thousands of civilians remain in the western section of the city.

American helicopters dropped leaflets last night urging the residents to stay in their homes. The hope was to keep civilians off the streets while American forces began to close in on the insurgents. The appeal appeared to have little effect, though, as large groups of civilians mingled on the streets Tuesday and some students even sought to go to the local university.

The presence of so many civilians on an urban battlefield affords the operatives from Al Qaeda another possible means to elude their American pursuers. If the insurgents do not manage to sneak out, some may hide their weapons and try to blend with the city’s residents.

To frustrate such plans, the Americans intend to take fingerprints and other biometric data from every resident who seems to be a potential fighter after they and Iraqi forces have gained control of the western side of the city. The Americans will also test for the presence of explosive material on suspects’ hands.

Officers are hoping that local residents and even former insurgents who have split with Al Qaeda may quietly help the American troops pick out insurgents. American troops have already begun to work with more than 100 Iraqis on the eastern side of the city — a group American soldiers have nicknamed the “Kit Carson scouts.” To try to prevent insurgents from escaping, American commanders are also stepping up their reconnaissance efforts.

Since the battle for western Baquba began, Qaeda insurgents have carried out a delaying action, employing snipers and engaging American troops in several firefights. A small group of insurgents was seen via an Army drone leaving a building on a mosque compound to lay a roadside bomb.

Backing the insurgents into a corner may mean that the Stryker units that are edging their way into the city — the Fifth Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment and the Third Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment — are in for much tougher fighting ahead.

An indication of what may be in store for those units came Tuesday when a Bradley fighting vehicle was upended by a large, buried bomb, which killed an American crew member. The insurgents have fortified their position by burying many such bombs and laying wires that can be triggered from safe houses. What made the loss of the Bradley particularly worrisome is that the explosion occurred in a heavily trafficked area that American forces had considered successfully cleared.

This American counterinsurgency operation has some of the firepower associated with conventional war. American forces have already fired more than 20 satellite-guided rockets into western Baquba. Apache helicopters have attacked enemy fighters.

Warplanes have also dropped satellite-guided bombs on suspected roadside bombs and a weapons cache, which produced spectacular secondary explosions after it was struck. M1 tanks have maneuvered through the narrow city lanes. The Americans have responded to insurgent attacks with mortar fire.

On Tuesday afternoon, a Stryker company tried to blaze a path through the road believed to be full of buried bombs by firing a line-charge, a cable festooned with explosions. The hope was that the explosion would cut the wires that the Qaeda fighters use to set off the blasts.

After a delay in getting the line-charge to detonate, the weapon went off. There was a resounding thud and the skies over Baquba were smeared by a spiraling mushroom cloud.

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16) Some Texans Say Border Fence Will Sever Routine
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
June 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/us/20border.html?ref=us

McALLEN, Tex., June 15 — Antonio N. Zavaleta, a vice president and professor of anthropology at the University of Texas branch in Brownsville, saw a slight problem in the route of a border fence that federal officials displayed at a community meeting earlier this month.

“Part of our university,” Dr. Zavaleta said, “would be on the Mexican side of the fence.”

What about traffic between classes, he wondered. “Would the students need to show a passport?”

He was not the only one who was startled. Local leaders throughout South Texas have been voicing puzzlement and alarm at the implications of the barrier, which Congress has authorized the Department of Homeland Security to construct along 370 miles of the United States-Mexico border, including 153 miles in Texas, by December 2008.

Some of the gravest concern involves the effect on wildlife in the 90,000 acres of national refuges in South Texas, where bumper stickers read “No Border Wall” and a group of naturalists, Los Caminos del Rio, has been staging ecotourism forays into a long-closed sanctuary to draw attention to endangered habitats.

Customs and Border Protection officials say that the path of the fence is far from settled and that they are discussing it with local officials.

But maps like the one shown in Brownsville on June 4 by Chief David Aguilar of the Border Patrol put the route along a levee built inland to hold back flooding on the Rio Grande. That location, some here say, would in effect cede to Mexico the land on the other side of the fence up to the official international border, the middle of the Rio Grande.

In Brownsville, Dr. Zavaleta said, that path would cut off not only the International Technology, Education and Commerce campus of the University of Texas and Texas Southmost College, which is in a former shopping center about a mile from the main campus, but also its golf course and a national historic site, Fort Brown, where an upright cannon marks an opening skirmish of the Mexican War.

Even the heavily trafficked bridge between Brownsville and Matamoros, Mexico, would be on the Mexican side of the fence, Dr. Zavaleta said.

He said Chief Aguilar had seemed taken aback by the observations and agreed to review the route.

“Nothing has been finalized yet,” said Xavier Rios, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection. “To say something will be cut off is way premature.”

Mr. Rios added that the fence would have many access points to allow monitored passage.

But in Laredo, where Mayor Raul G. Salinas, a former officer for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has complained of being bypassed, a city spokeswoman, Xochitl Mora Garcia, said that after promising to consult with local officials, federal authorities recently invited contract proposals for construction of the fence.

“What they’re saying and doing are two different things,” Ms. Garcia said.

In Brownsville, the district clerk, Aurora De La Garza, and a county commissioner, Sofia Benavides — who emerged from a hurricane-planning visit to the Mexican consulate at the university campus that would be isolated — derided officials in Washington as not understanding family ties across the border.

“This is a relationship that cannot be broken by a fence,” Ms. Benavides said.

Representative Henry Cuellar, the South Texas Democrat who has been organizing local forums to air grievances, said the Homeland Security Department had become more responsive.

“They may have started off on the wrong foot,” Mr. Cuellar said, “but they’re trying to work with the locals now.”

On Friday, the House passed a bill, now before the Senate, appropriating $37 billion for the Homeland Security Department with a provision, insisted on by Mr. Cuellar and others, requiring federal officials to consult with local communities about the fence, which could cost $2 billion to $49 billion.

Supporters say a fence is crucial to shoring up the nation’s southern border. Critics say that a 10-foot-high wall in San Diego is already being scaled by illegal immigrants using ladders, and that technology alone — a virtual fence — could provide much of the same security.

Furthermore, congested areas like Laredo, where development extends to the Rio Grande amid tightly intertwined commercial and social ties to its sister city across the border, Nuevo Laredo, do not lend themselves to a fence.

In an unusual step in the booming border crossroads city of McAllen, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service has taken a role in the debate, providing a rare permit to Los Caminos del Rio (Ways of the River), to run scheduled biking and kayaking outings into the long-restricted Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge. Members have to announce their visits ahead of time to tip off the Border Patrol and assure protection from the human smugglers who infest the refuge — like, for example, the three jumpy fellows who had just crossed the river from Mexico the other evening to stash a bag of dry clothes for nightfall.

“Don’t mess with us or we’ll both get messed up,” warned one (or words to that effect).

Eric Ellman, executive director of the 17-year-old Los Caminos group, said the strategy was akin to that devised in New York City at the height of the 1970s crime wave.

“Legal activity will displace illegal activity,” Mr. Ellman said, maintaining that the presence of ecotourists would make the refuge less appealing to illegal immigrants and drug smugglers.

Bryan R. Wynton, the refuge manager, said he was concerned that a fence could prove ruinous to wildlife relying on the river. “It pretty much destroys 20 years of efforts,” he said.

But Mr. Wynton added, “I’m smart enough to know national security is going to trump fish and wildlife management any day, but that doesn’t mean I need to throw in the towel.”

A morning spent biking and kayaking the refuge with about a dozen members of Los Caminos showcased the diversity of the wildlife. As Lori Humphreys, executive secretary of the group, led the group with an S.U.V. full of gear, and Mel Piñeda, a consultant, followed in a pickup loaded with kayaks, a herd of javelinas bolted into the mesquite. A turkey buzzard circled overhead along with menacing-looking tarantula wasps that lay their eggs inside tarantulas also in evidence from a dried carcass at the side of the road.

Sue Thompson, a local farmer and a member of the North American Butterfly Association, with its own reserve nearby, said she had seen smugglers in the refuge driving up to unload boxes of drugs ferried across the Rio Grande.

Just the evening before, on a run-through of the next morning’s nature tour, Mr. Piñeda stumbled across the three men huddling on the shore of the river waiting for dark with their bag of dry clothes.

On the Mexican side, families frolicked in the water, and Mr. Piñeda shouted across, asking what they thought of the wall. “It’s an insult,” one man shouted back, adding, “We’ll make tunnels.”

As nightfall came, Napoleon Garza, an armed local caretaker who was patrolling the reserve against feral hogs, warned the visitors to leave.

“There’s a lot of dope being run across here,” he said.

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17) Fierce Battles Near Baghdad in Push Against Insurgents
By JON ELSEN
June 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/world/middleeast/20cnd-Iraq.html?hp

American and Iraqi troops engaged in fierce gun battles with insurgents today as they continued their push into Diyala province north of Baghdad. But the insurgents continued to inflict damage of their own, launching deadly attacks on police in the area.

American and Iraqi military officials said 30 insurgents were killed in the fighting. Coalition soldiers evacuated the bodies of the 30 dead insurgents, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, which said that the dead were Al Qaeda fighters. By late Tuesday, the military had reported one American death, a soldier killed by an explosion near his vehicle, according to The Associated Press.

Another 13 people said to be insurgents were detained by coalition forces, who blew up three car bombs and three weapons warehouses, American and Iraqi military officials said. Soldiers found four roadside bombs in homes and defused them; another 10 that had been already been placed and buried were also located and defused, they said.

American military officials said the weapons caches that were found included assault weapons, grenades, rocket launchers and large and small-caliber ammunition and explosives.

An air strike destroyed an Al Qaeda weapons cache in a safe house, sparking a large secondary explosion, according to the American military.

Soldiers also engaged in a gun battle with two people who were planting roadside bombs, killing them both, American military officials said.

Two American Humvees were burned in the clashes, according to Iraqi civil defense officials who were called in to put out the fires.

Some 10,000 American soldiers, along with 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and 1,000 Iraqi police officers, are involved in the assault, which the military is calling Operation Arrowhead Ripper. The campaign is focusing on Al Qaeda strongholds where, coalition forces say, many vehicle bombs are manufactured.

According to the American military, coalition troops approached Baquba from the south, west, and north, clearing alleys of gunmen in the west and engaging in a heavy battle with gunmen in the north. A curfew was imposed in those areas, and residents trying to leave the western area of Baquba were prevented from doing so, because coalition forces had information that insurgents had been fleeing the area by blending in with the civilian population, they said.

In southern Baquba, eight policemen and two women were wounded in a mortar attack on a police station, authorities said. A police officer was killed when his convoy came under fire in north Baquba, and one gunman was killed when police returned fire.

Three policemen were wounded in an attack by gunmen on a police checkpoint in northern Baquba.

On Tuesday, a suicide bombing at a large Shiite mosque in the heart of Baghdad killed at least 61 people and wounded 130.

The timing of that attack, right after the start of the push into Diyala began, seemed intended to demonstrate that the insurgents could still strike with near impunity, blindsiding the American security crackdown in Baghdad.

The powerful explosion destroyed a part of the Khalani Mosque and engulfed a line of minivans and an adjacent parking area in flames. The toll was expected to climb as bodies were counted and as some of the injured died of their wounds.

Today, gunmen blew up two Sunni mosques south of Baghdad, causing heavy damage but no casualties, The Associated Press reported, citing the police.

Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Baghdad and an employee of The New York Times contributed from Diyala province.

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18) What Hamas Wants
By AHMED YOUSEF
Op-Ed Contributor
Gaza City
June 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/opinion/20yousef.html

THE events in Gaza over the last few days have been described in the West as a coup. In essence, they have been the opposite. Eighteen months ago, our Hamas Party won the Palestinian parliamentary elections and entered office under Prime Minister Ismail Haniya but never received the handover of real power from Fatah, the losing party. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has now tried to replace the winning Hamas government with one of his own, returning Fatah to power while many of our elected members of Parliament languish in Israeli jails. That is the real coup.

From the day Hamas won the general elections in 2006 it offered Fatah the chance of joining forces and forming a unity government. It tried to engage the international community to explain its platform for peace. It has consistently offered a 10-year cease-fire with the Israelis to try to create an atmosphere of calm in which we resolve our differences. Hamas even adhered to a unilateral cease-fire for 18 months in an effort to normalize the situation on the ground. None of these points appear to have been recognized in the press coverage of the last few days.

Nor has it been evident to many people in the West that the civil unrest in Gaza and the West Bank has been precipitated by the American and Israeli policy of arming elements of the Fatah opposition who want to attack Hamas and force us from office. For 18 months we have tried to find ways to coexist with Fatah, entering into a unity government, even conceding key positions in the cabinet to their and international demands, negotiating up until the last moment to try to provide security for all of our people on the streets of Gaza.

Sadly, it became apparent that not all officials from Fatah were negotiating in good faith. There were attempts on Mr. Haniya’s life last week, and eventually we were forced into trying to take control of a very dangerous situation in order to provide political stability and establish law and order.

The streets of Gaza are now calm for the first time in a very long time. We have begun disarming some of the drug dealers and the armed gangs and we hope to restore a sense of security and safety to the citizens of Gaza. We want to get children back to school, get basic services functioning again, and provide long-term economic gains for our people.

Our stated aim when we won the election was to effect reform, end corruption and bring economic prosperity to our people. Our sole focus is Palestinian rights and good governance. We now hope to create a climate of peace and tranquillity within our community that will pave the way for an end to internal strife and bring about the release of the British journalist Alan Johnston, whose kidnapping in March by non-Hamas members is a stain on the reputation of the Palestinian people.

We reject attempts to divide Palestine into two parts and to pass Hamas off as an extreme and dangerous force. We continue to believe that there is still a chance to establish a long-term truce. But this will not happen unless the international community fully engages with Hamas.

Any further attempts to marginalize us, starve our people into submission or attack us militarily will prove that the United States and Israeli governments are not genuinely interested in seeing an end to the violence. Dispassionate observers over the next few weeks will be able to make up their own minds as to each side’s true intentions.

Ahmed Yousef is the political adviser to Ismail Haniya, who became the Palestinian prime minister last year.

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19) U.S. needs to exit Iraq: Gorbachev TheStar.com - comment - U.S. needs to exit Iraq: Gorbachev
Developing a strategy to withdraw troops is the only real aid Bush can give Iraq, ex-Soviet leader says
June 17, 2007
Mikhail Gorbachev
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/225995

Clashes between U.S. troops and insurgents throughout Iraq, political manoeuvring in the United States over its presence there and the repercussions of that presence around the world leave no doubt that the Bush administration's hopes for a turnaround have been frustrated.

The recent American troop "surge" has only increased the grim statistics of military casualties, civilian deaths and overall devastation. The U.S Congress reluctantly approved funding for the continued troop presence without requiring a date for withdrawal. But despite claims of victory, media reports suggest that the Bush team understands its current Iraq policies have run their course.

The administration is reportedly considering a 50 per cent reduction of troops in Iraq next year, as well as changing their mandate from combat missions to support and training. There's renewed interest in the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, brushed aside only a few months ago. The administration has begun consulting Iraq's neighbours, Iran and Syria.

So even those who like to persist in their mistakes and illusions are being forced to rethink or, at least repackage, their policies. But is this a real change for the better? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

No.

The key to understanding the situation – as it appears today and as it appeared one, two or three years ago, indeed as it appeared from Day One of the invasion – is simple. Iraq is occupied by U.S. forces.

That fact hasn't been changed by Iraq's creation of a parliament, the election of a new government or the establishment of relative quiet in some parts of the country. Millions of Iraqis perceive the occupation as a national humiliation. That fuels sectarian conflicts, civil strife and continuing instability.

President Bush blames the terrorists (who, incidentally, had no foothold in Iraq before the invasion) and urges Iraq's neighbours and the international community to co-operate in stabilizing the country. In fact, most of the United States' international partners – not only members of the so-called "coalition of the willing," but also those who condemned the invasion – are ready to co-operate.

A conference recently held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, agreed to write off $30 billion of Iraqi debt. This decision was supported by China, Saudi Arabia, Spain and a number of other countries. Russia agreed to forgive much of Iraq's debt even earlier. There is therefore no reason to accuse members of the world community of failing to understand the importance of a stable Iraq.

The Bush administration, however, seems to be using this apparently constructive attitude for self-serving ends. While asking its partners to help Iraq, it refuses to do the one thing that would really aid that country: develop a strategy for withdrawal.

Americans will put increasing pressure on the administration to do exactly that. Keeping a certain number of U.S. troops in Iraq for a reasonable period would be acceptable to most Iraqis, as well as to the international community. But only if it's recognized that the occupation has ended. Such recognition can be achieved only if normalization of Iraq becomes a true international initiative, with the United States ceasing to only hand off certain aspects when it is in its own self-interest.

U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is inevitable. But is it not better to withdraw when the major players inside and outside of Iraq agree on key issues?

Those don't merely include how to withdraw without too much pain, but also how to move toward national reconciliation and how to ensure peace and security in the region.

At first, to secure order it could conceivably be necessary to replace U.S. troops with soldiers from other countries whose presence would not be resented by most Iraqis. Any such troops would have to be approved by the UN Security Council. The international community's help might also be needed to advance the political process in Iraq, which is currently stalled to the point of creating a real risk of the country breaking up. No one should fear internationalizing the Iraqi problem; in the end, it would benefit all parties.

In 1985, it took a change of leadership in the Soviet Union to recognize the mistake of entangling the USSR in the Afghan conflict. That new Soviet leadership – with me as its president – set the goal of withdrawing from Afghanistan while urging other countries to help in securing peace and stability.

Regrettably, the U.S. government chose to forget its own assurances, as it had on other occasions. Instead of co-operating with all responsible Afghan forces, including President Mohammad Najibullah, the United States favoured the proxies of certain elements in Pakistan.

We had warned our American partners about the long-term dangers of playing this game, but they seemed unaware of those consequences. Finally, when Russia backed out of Afghan affairs, the road to extremism was left wide open. The "blowback" from those fateful decisions came on a September morning in 2001, in New York and in Washington.

Some would object that historical analogies, whether with Vietnam or Afghanistan, only go so far. It is true that every conflict has some unique features. But many of their lessons are the same.

Think long and hard before trying to solve any problem militarily. Talk of all other peaceful means as exhausted is often baseless: An alternative is always available. If, however, a great power makes the mistake of entangling itself in an armed conflict, it shouldn't make things worse by arrogantly refusing to heed warnings of dire consequences.

Finally, and most importantly, it should be understood from the start that ultimately there must be a political solution to these conflicts. Seek it honestly, thinking not just of your own self-interest, and look years, not just months, ahead.

Mikhail Gorbachev served as the leader of the former Soviet Union from 1985 until its collapse in 1991. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, he is currently president of the International Foundation for Socio-Economic and Political Studies (The Gorbachev Foundation).

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20) Passport rule delayed for U.S. border crossings TheStar.com - News - Passport rule delayed for U.S. border crossings
June 20, 2007
Tim Harper
WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/227491

WASHINGTON – Canadians have won a reprieve of at least six months before the Bush administration will require passports to cross the U.S. border by land or sea.

The U.S Department of Homeland Security announced the delay today, acknowledging that a massive backlog which forced it to suspend passport requirements for U.S. air travellers will also push back land requirements.

The U.S. government had said it would require Canadian citizens to carry government-issued photo identification, such as a driver’s license, plus proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate, as of Jan. 31, 2008.

Now it says it will not attempt to implement legislation requiring passports at land crossings until at least summer 2008.

However, the rules could be pushed back further if the U.S. Congress gets its way.

The House of Representatives has already passed legislation that would push the passport requirements back to June 2009, and the U.S. Senate is expected to take up a similar provision later this summer.

Canadians still require passports to fly to the United States, the first rule implemented under what is know as the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI).

But an unprecedented backlog of passport applications in the United States forced the U.S. State Department to suspend the passport rule until Sept. 30 for U.S. air travellers returning home.

A Senate committee was told yesterday the new air rules triggered a backlog of three million passport applications in the U.S., pushing wait times for the documents from three weeks to 12 weeks.

“Secure documents are a national imperative that will prevent dangerous people from entering our country using fraudulent identification,” Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff said in a statement.

Ottawa and the provinces have been pushing the Bush administration to accept enhanced driver’s licenses, which would denote citizenship, when crossing the U.S. border.

A pilot project testing the efficiency of such licenses is set to begin next January at the border between British Columbia and Washington state.

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21) Israeli troops raid Gaza TheStar.com - News - Israeli troops raid Gaza
Four militants shot in pre-dawn incursion
June 20, 2007
Reuters
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/227467

GAZA – Israel attacked Islamist fighters in Gaza today for the first time since Hamas seized the territory, and ended an embargo of the Palestinian Authority by opening contacts with a new government in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli soldiers killed four Palestinian fighters in a pre-dawn incursion into the Gaza Strip to hunt for wanted militants. Israel also carried out air strikes against rocket launch sites after one rocket fired from Gaza struck Israel.

Hamas Islamist militias overran President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction and seized control of the territory a week ago.

Two other Palestinian guerrillas, one from Islamic Jihad and another from Fatah were killed in a gun battle in the West Bank, the larger of the two Palestinian territories where Israel maintains an occupying force and Fatah remains dominant.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni made Israel's first high-level diplomatic contact with the emergency cabinet formed by Abbas in the West Bank after last week's fighting.

Livni told Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in a telephone conversation that the establishment of his emergency government, replacing one headed by Hamas, would allow "progress on various issues ... as well as advance the political process".

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the exchange "represents the beginning of a dialogue between the two governments, a dialogue that was put unfortunately on hold for the period under which Hamas controlled the Palestinian government".

"We look forward to continuing to engage with the new Palestinian government," Regev said.

Israel had had no contact with the previous Palestinian government for 15 months while Hamas was in power on the back of a parliamentary election win 18 months ago. But it has maintained contacts with Abbas, who was elected separately.

Abbas disbanded the Hamas-led government last Thursday. Hamas has rejected Abbas's new government and still regards itself as head of a unity coalition.

The result has been a schism that leaves Gaza, a 40-km (25-mile) strip of Mediterranean coast, isolated behind a dense Israeli military cordon and tightening economic blockade.

U.S. President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged at the White House on Tuesday to bolster Abbas, while Israel sought to tighten the screws on Hamas in Gaza.

Bush and Olmert reaffirmed their commitment to the vision of a Palestinian state but offered no concrete plan to achieve a negotiated deal with Abbas.

"He is the president of all the Palestinians," Bush said of Abbas, with Olmert at his side in the Oval Office. "He has spoken out for moderation. He is a voice that is a reasonable voice amongst the extremists in your neighbourhood."

The United States and European Union pledged on Monday to lift an economic and diplomatic embargo imposed on the Palestinian Authority in March 2006 when Hamas rose to power and refused to drop its refusal to recognise Israel.

As an initial gesture, Olmert has promised to release Palestinian tax revenues withheld since Hamas came to power. He said after the White House talks he would ask his cabinet at its next meeting on Sunday to approve the release of the funds.

The Israeli leader said he wanted to make "every possible effort" to cooperate with Abbas, but he stopped short of bowing to the Palestinian president's push for full-scale peace talks, and Bush showed no sign of pressuring him to do so.

Fatah leaders question Olmert's willingness to negotiate with them. Abbas's national security chief, Mohammad Dahlan, told Reuters on Tuesday: "Israel is releasing money not because they are honourable but they just want to entrench the divide between the West Bank and Gaza."

Senior Palestinian officials said Abbas and Olmert might meet next week in Egypt but an aide to the Israeli prime minister said no date had been set for any meeting.

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22) Paris Crying
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
prisonradio.org

With every major news outlet providing breaking news coverage of the Paris Hilton story, I thought I'd add my two cents worth.

To be sure, the early release of the hotel heiress set tongues on fire on both coasts, for it seemed symbolic of the power of wealth, race and privilege in the nations' courtrooms.

But, a moment's reflection provides a deeper view, one which reveals the unassailable fact that, in many ways, L.A. and Southern California are different from other areas of the country—where celebrity is virtually an industry.

Several months ago, a well-known Latina actress got busted for DUI, and was given a similar sentence. Like Hilton, she too got cut loose quite early, based on the severe overcrowding in the county jails. Her ordeal, however, didn't garner banner headlines (at least on this coast), and it was barely a day's news.

That said, if either woman were poor and unknown, she'd undoubtedly be left for a good deal longer; jailed simply because of her poverty, and her inability to make bail.

Wealth has its privileges

And in the U.S., wealth is virtually tantamount to race; meaning that while whites are hardly rich in this country (on average,) if one examines the tiny minority who are indeed wealthy, the overwhelming majority is white.

Paris Hilton got wealthy the old fashioned way—she inherited it.

It doesn't make it less cruel when she is allowed to go home for a night, dragged to court the next day, and hauled off to the joint because of a spat between the county judge and the sheriff.

There's nothing pretty about a young but grown woman crying for her Mamma, because she's being tossed into jail.

She's being treated this way precisely because of her celebrity.

And returning Paris to the joint doesn't make the criminal justice system more just; it just shows how the system reacts to bad PR. It's cruel, vindictive; and serves up raw meat for the spectacle of the crowd.

If the media hadn't flashed the story across the globe, Paris would be home, with a monitor on her leg.

Wealth may have its privilege; but celebrity has its price.

June 10, 2007

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LINKS AND VERY SHORT STORIES

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Medical Marijuana Measure Falls With Connecticut Governor’s Veto
By MATTHEW J. MALONE
June 20, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/nyregion/20rell.html

AP Blog: Living on Cuba's Rationed Food
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:18 p.m. ET
"AP Havana Bureau Chief Anita Snow is spending the month of June living on the ''libreta,'' a ration book for food consumption in Cuba. Here's her story."
June 19, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-INT-Cuba-Weblog.html?ex=1182916800&en=6f07cb599a5fd992&ei=5070&emc=eta1

The Earth today stands in imminent peril
" ...and nothing short of a planetary rescue will save it from the environmental cataclysm of dangerous climate change. Those are not the words of eco-warriors but the considered opinion of a group of eminent scientists writing in a peer-reviewed scientific journal."
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 19 June 2007
http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2675747.ece

With Rise in Radiation Exposure, Experts Urge Caution on Tests
By RONI CARYN RABIN
June 19, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/health/19cons.html?ref=health

Conservancy Buys Large Area of Adirondack Wilderness
By ANTHONY DePALMA
June 19, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/nyregion/19adirondacks.html?ref=nyregion

Global: Hidden cancer epidemic kills hundreds of thousands each year
"A worldwide epidemic of occupational cancer is claiming at least one life every 52 seconds, but this tragedy is being ignored by both official regulators and employers. A new cancer prevention guide, reveals that over 600,000 deaths a year – one death every 52 seconds – are caused by occupational cancer, making up almost one-third of all work-related deaths."
http://www.hazards.org/cancer/index.htm

Preventing occupational cancer
"A new cancer prevention guide, reveals that over 600,000 deaths a year – one death every 52 seconds – are caused by occupational cancer, making up almost one-third of all work-related deaths."
IMF / News article
http://www.imfmetal.org/main/index.cfm?n=47&l=2&c=15708

A Harsh Lesson in Finances for After-School Students
By DAVID GONZALEZ
June 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/nyregion/18citywide.html?ref=nyregion

Long Reviled, Merit Pay Gains Among Teachers
By SAM DILLON
June 18, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/education/18pay.html?ref=us

Meadow Birds in Precipitous Decline, Audubon Says
By FELICITY BARRINGER
June 15, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/us/15birds.html?ref=science

Strike in South Africa expands
By Geoff Hill
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published June 12, 2007
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20070611-114232-8445r.htm

Oregon: More Than 165 Workers Are Detained After Raid
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
More than 165 workers were detained to be processed for possible deportation after federal agents raided the Fresh Del Monte Produce food-processing plant and two offices of a staffing company in Portland. Three people were indicted on immigration, illegal documents and identity theft charges. An official at Fresh Del Monte Produce Company headquarters in Coral Gables, Fla., said the company could not comment until federal investigators provided it with more information. Mayor Tom Potter of Portland criticized the raids. The three arrests were understandable, Mr. Potter said, but “to go after local workers who are here to support their families while filling the demands of local businesses for their labor is bad policy.”
June 13, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/us/13brfs-immigration.html

Robert Fisk: Lies and outrages... would you believe it?
It was Israel which attacked Egypt after Nasser closed the straits of Tiran
Published: 09 June 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2636206.ece

Judge Throws Out Sentence in Teen Sex Case
By BRENDA GOODMAN
June 11, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/us/11cnd-consent.html?hp

US Military Envisions "Post-Occupation" Force
"US military officials are increasingly envisioning a "post-occupation" troop presence in Iraq that neither maintains current levels nor leads to a complete pullout, but aims for a smaller, longer-term force that would remain in the country for years."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061107J.shtml

Lieberman Backs Limited U.S. Attacks on Iran
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
June 10, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/10/washington/10cnd-policy.html

Biologists Make Skin Cells Work Like Stem Cells
By NICHOLAS WADE
June 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/science/07cell.html?ref=science

Report Confirms CIA Secret Prisons in Europe
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060807J.shtml

The Dirty Water Underground
By GREGORY DICUM
OAKLAND, Calif.
May 31, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/garden/31greywater.html

A Hot-Selling Weapon, an Inviting Target
By ANDREW PARK
June 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03rifle.html?ref=business

Surf’s Up, but the Water Is Brown
By MIREYA NAVARRO
June 3, 2007
Los Angeles
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/fashion/03beaches.html

When Should a Kid Start Kindergarten?
By ELIZABETH WEIL
June 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/magazine/03kindergarten-t.html?hp

After Sanctions, Doctors Get Drug Company Pay
By GARDINER HARRIS and JANET ROBERTS
June 3, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/health/03docs.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Somalia: The Other (Hidden) War for Oil
by Carl Bloice; Black Commentator
May 07, 2007
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=12768

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GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS AND INFORMATION

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LAPD vs. Immigrants (Video)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/qws/ff/qr?term=lapd&Submit=S&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Search&st=s

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Dr. Julia Hare at the SOBA 2007
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeo9ewi/proudtobeblack2/

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"We are far from that stage today in our era of the absolute
lie; the complete and totalitarian lie, spread by the
monopolies of press and radio to imprison social
consciousness." December 1936, "In 'Socialist' Norway,"
by Leon Trotsky: “Leon Trotsky in Norway” was transcribed
for the Internet by Per I. Matheson [References from
original translation removed]
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/12/nor.htm

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Wealth Inequality Charts
http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html

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MALCOLM X: Oxford University Debate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmzaaf-9aHQ

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ADDICTED TO WAR
Animated Video Preview
Narrated by Peter Coyote
Is now on YouTube and Google Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZwyuHEN5h8

We are planning on making the ADDICTED To WAR movie.
Can you let me know what you think about this animated preview?
Do you think it would work as a full length film?
Please send your response to:
Fdorrel@sbcglobal. net or Fdorrel@Addictedtow ar.com

In Peace,

Frank Dorrel
Publisher
Addicted To War
P.O. Box 3261
Culver City, CA 90231-3261
310-838-8131
fdorrel@addictedtow ar.com
fdorrel@sbcglobal. net
www.addictedtowar. com

For copies of the book:

http://www.addictedtowar.com/book.html

OR SEND CHECK OR MONEY ORDER TO:
Frank Dorrel
P.O. BOX 3261
CULVER CITY, CALIF. 90231-3261
fdorrel@addictedtowar.com
$10.00 per copy (Spanish or English); special bulk rates
can be found at: http://www.addictedtowar.com/bookbulk.html

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"There comes a times when silence is betrayal."
--Martin Luther King

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DEMAND THE RELEASE OF SAMI AL-ARIAN

The National Council of Arab Americans (NCA) demands the immediate
release of political prisoner, Dr. Sami Al-Arian. Although
Dr. Al-Arian is no longer on a hunger strike we must still demand
he be released by the US Department of Justice (DOJ). After an earlier
plea agreement that absolved Dr. Al-Arian from any further questioning,
he was sentenced up to 18 months in jail for refusing to testify before
a grand jury in Virginia. He has long sense served his time yet
Dr. Al-Arian is still being held. Release him now!

See:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/16/1410255

ACTION:

We ask all people of conscience to demand the immediate
release and end to Dr. Al- Arian's suffering.

Call, Email and Write:

1- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Department of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Fax Number: (202) 307-6777
Email: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov

2- The Honorable John Conyers, Jr
2426 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-5126
(202) 225-0072 Fax
John.Conyers@mail.house.gov

3- Senator Patrick Leahy
433 Russell Senate Office Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
(202)224-4242
senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov

4- Honorable Judge Gerald Lee
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
401 Courthouse Square, Alexandria, VA 22314
March 22, 2007
[No email given...bw]

National Council of Arab Americans (NCA)
http://www.arab-american.net/

Criminalizing Solidarity: Sami Al-Arian and the War of
Terror
By Charlotte Kates, The Electronic Intifada, 4 April 2007
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6767.shtml

Related:

Robert Fisk: The true story of free speech in America
This systematic censorship of Middle East reality
continues even in schools
Published: 07 April 2007
http://news. independent. co.uk/world/ fisk/article2430 125.ece

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[For some levity...Hans Groiner plays Monk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51bsCRv6kI0
...bw]

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Excerpt of interview between Barbara Walters and Hugo Chavez
http://www.borev.net/2007/03/what_you_had_something_better.html

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Which country should we invade next?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3g_zqz3VjY

My Favorite Mutiny, The Coup
http://www.myspace.com/thecoupmusic

Michael Moore- The Awful Truth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeOaTpYl8mE

Morse v. Frederick Supreme Court arguments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_LsGoDWC0o

Free Speech 4 Students Rally - Media Montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfCjfod8yuw

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'My son lived a worthwhile life'
In April 2003, 21-year old Tom Hurndall was shot in the head
in Gaza by an Israeli soldier as he tried to save the lives of three
small children. Nine months later, he died, having never
recovered consciousness. Emine Saner talks to his mother
Jocelyn about her grief, her fight to make the Israeli army
accountable for his death and the book she has written
in his memory.
Monday March 26, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2042968,00.html

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Introducing...................the Apple iRack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-KWYYIY4jQ

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"A War Budget Leaves Every Child Behind."
[A T-shirt worn by some teachers at Roosevelt High School
in L.A. as part of their campaign to rid the school of military
recruiters and JROTC--see Article in Full item number 4, below...bw]

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THIS IS AN EXCELLENT VIDEO DESTRIBUTED BY U.S. LABOR AGAINST
THE WAR (USLAW) FEATURING SPEAKERS AT THE JANUARY 27TH
MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOCUSING ON THE DEMAND - BRING
THE TROOPS HOME NOW.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6935451906479097836&hl=en

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Defend the Los Angeles Eight!
http://www.committee4justice.com/

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George Takai responds to Tim Hardaway's homophobic remarks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcJoJZIcQW4&eurl_

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Iran
http://www.lucasgray.com/video/peacetrain.html

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Another view of the war. A link from Amer Jubran
http://d3130.servadmin.com/~leeflash/

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Petition: Halt the Blue Angels
http://action.globalexchange.org/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=458
http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/289327

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A Girl Like Me
7:08 min
Youth Documentary
Kiri Davis, Director, Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, Producer
Winner of the Diversity Award
Sponsored by Third Millennium Foundation
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1091431409617440489

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Film/Song about Angola
http://www.prisonactivist.org/angola/

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"200 million children in the world sleep in the streets today.
Not one of them is Cuban."
(A sign in Havana)
Venceremos
View sign at bottom of page at:
http://www.cubasolidarity.net/index.html
[Thanks to Norma Harrison for sending this...bw]

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"Cheyenne and Arapaho oral histories hammer history's account of the
Sand Creek Massacre"

CENTENNIAL, CO -- A new documentary film based on an award-winning
documentary short film, "The Sand Creek Massacre", and driven by
Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people who tell their version about
what happened during the Sand Creek Massacre via their oral
histories, has been released by Olympus Films+, LLC, a Centennial,
Colorado film company.

"You have done an extraordinary job" said Margie Small, Tobient
Entertainment, " on the Colorado PBS episode, the library videos for
public schools and libraries, the trailer, etc...and getting the
story told and giving honor to those ancestors who had to witness
this tragic and brutal attack...film is one of the best ways."

"The images shown in the film were selected for native awareness
value" said Donald L. Vasicek, award-winning writer/filmmaker, "we
also focused on preserving American history on film because tribal
elders are dying and taking their oral histories with them. The film
shows a non-violent solution to problem-solving and 19th century
Colorado history, so it's multi-dimensional in that sense. "

Chief Eugene Blackbear, Sr., Cheyenne, who starred as Chief Black
Kettle in "The Last of the Dogmen" also starring Tom Berenger and
Barbara Hershey and "Dr. Colorado", Tom Noel, University of Colorado
history professor, are featured.

The trailer can be viewed and the film can be ordered for $24.95 plus
$4.95 for shipping and handling at http://www.fullduck.com/node/53.

Vasicek's web site, http://www.donvasicek.com, provides detailed
information about the Sand Creek Massacre including various still
images particularly on the Sand Creek Massacre home page and on the
proposal page.

Olympus Films+, LLC is dedicated to writing and producing quality
products that serve to educate others about the human condition.

Contact:

Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
7078 South Fairfax Street
Centennial, CO 80122
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Vasicek,+Don
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103

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A NEW LOOK AT U.S. RADIOACTIVE WEAPONS
Join us in a campaign to expose and stop the use
of these illegal weapons
http://poisondust.org/

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You may enjoy watching these.
In struggle
Che:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqcezl9dD2c
Leon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukkFVV5X0p4

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FIGHTBACK! A Collection of Socialist Essays
By Sylvia Weinstein
http://www.walterlippmann.com/sylvia-weinstein-fightback-intro.html

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[The Scab
"After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad,
and the vampire, he had some awful substance left with
which he made a scab."
"A scab is a two-legged animal with a corkscrew soul,
a water brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue.
Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten
principles." "When a scab comes down the street,
men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven, and
the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep him out."
"No man (or woman) has a right to scab so long as there
is a pool of water to drown his carcass in,
or a rope long enough to hang his body with.
Judas was a gentleman compared with a scab.
For betraying his master, he had character enough
to hang himself." A scab has not.
"Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage.
Judas sold his Savior for thirty pieces of silver.
Benedict Arnold sold his country for a promise of
a commision in the british army."
The scab sells his birthright, country, his wife,
his children and his fellowmen for an unfulfilled
promise from his employer.
Esau was a traitor to himself; Judas was a traitor
to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country;
a scab is a traitor to his God, his country,
his family and his class."
Author --- Jack London (1876-1916)...Roland Sheppard
http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret]

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END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL!
Stop funding Israel's war against Palestine
Complete the form at the website listed below with your information.
https://secure2.convio.net/pep/site/Advocacy?
JServSessionIdr003=cga2p2o6x1.app2a&cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=177

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Sand Creek Massacre
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FEATURED AT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/local/16035305.htm
(scroll down when you get there])
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING
WRITER/FILMMAKER DONALD L. VASICEK REPORT:
http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/sandcreekmassacre.html
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FINALIST IN DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL COMPETITION (VIEW HERE):
http://www.docupyx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=41
VIEW "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FILM MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR FREE HERE:
http://twymancreative.com/twymanc.html

On November 29, 1864, 700 Colorado troops savagely slaughtered
over 450 Cheyenne children, disabled, elders, and women in the
southeastern Colorado Territory under its protection. This act
became known as the Sand Creek Massacre. This film project
("The Sand Creek Massacre" documentary film project) is an
examination of an open wound in the souls of the Cheyenne
people as told from their perspective. This project chronicles
that horrific 19th century event and its affect on the 21st century
struggle for respectful coexistence between white and native
plains cultures in the United States of America.

Listed below are links on which you can click to get the latest news,
products, and view, free, "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" award-
winning documentary short. In order to create more native
awareness, particularly to save the roots of America's history,
please read the following:

Some people in America are trying to save the world. Bless
them. In the meantime, the roots of America are dying.
What happens to a plant when the roots die? The plant dies
according to my biology teacher in high school. American's
roots are its native people. Many of America's native people
are dying from drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, hunger,
and disease, which was introduced to them by the Caucasian
male. Tribal elders are dying. When they die, their oral
histories go with them. Our native's oral histories are the
essence of the roots of America, what took place before
our ancestors came over to America, what is taking place,
and what will be taking place. It is time we replenish
America's roots with native awareness, else America
continues its decaying, and ultimately, its death.

You can help. The 22-MINUTE SAND CREEK MASSACRE
DOCUMENTARY PRESENTATION/EDUCATIONAL DVD IS
READY FOR PURCHASE! (pass the word about this powerful
educational tool to friends, family, schools, parents, teachers,
and other related people and organizations to contact
me (dvasicek@earthlink.net, 303-903-2103) for information
about how they can purchase the DVD and have me come
to their children's school to show the film and to interact
in a questions and answers discussion about the Sand
Creek Massacre.

Happy Holidays!

Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Vasicek,+Don
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net
303-903-2103

"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FEATURED AT NATIVE AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/local/16035305.htm
(scroll down when you get there])
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING
WRITER/FILMMAKER DONALD L. VASICEK REPORT:
http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/sandcreekmassacre.html
"THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FINALIST IN DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL COMPETITION (VIEW HERE):
http://www.docupyx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=41
VIEW "THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE" AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY
SHORT FILM MOVIE OF THE WEEK FOR FREE HERE:
http://twymancreative.com/twymanc.html

SHOP:
http://www.manataka.org/page633.html
BuyIndies.com
donvasicek.com.

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