Israeli Aggression

Reclaiming a legacy

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

The Death of Fatima Meer & the World Cup

By Dave Zirin

(source: The Nation)

I journeyed to South Africa to celebrate the life of the late poet, anti-apartheid fighter, and sports activist Dennis Brutus. During my stay, another giant of the South African freedom struggle passed away: Fatima Meer. Fatima left us at the age of 81 and embodied a tireless grassroots resistance that stretched back to the 1940s. She was best known in the West as the author of Nelson Mandela’s first official biography, Higher than Hope (translated into 13 languages.) Others knew her as a renowned academic who had published more than 40 books. In South Africa, she was nothing less than iconic political royalty.

Over the course of decades, Fatima Meer confronted apartheid with storied bravery: holding vigils outside brutal political prisons, organizing marches of Indian and African women in defiance of protest bans; surviving assassination efforts after attempting to rally alongside Steven Biko. The fact that she did this as an Indian Moslem woman was, in South Africa, both unprecedented and highly influential.

Report iaf helicopters unload equipment meant for attacking a muslim state at saudi airport

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

Helicopters landed at a Saudi airport and unloaded equipment intended for attacking targets in a Muslim state, semi-official news agency reports

By Jack Khoury

(source: Haaretz)

A semi-official Iranian news agency reported Wednesday that Israel Air Force helicopters recently landed at a Saudi Arabia airport and unloaded equipment intended for attacking targets in a Muslim state.

helicopter

An IAF helicopter

This follows last weekend’s reports of an American fleet passing through the Suez Canal, triggering fears that the United States and Israel were preparing for an attack on Iran, with Egypt’s cooperation, the Arabic language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi said.

The Israeli aircraft reportedly landed at Tabuk Airport on June 18 and 19 and that the Saudi airport canceled numerous flights to enable the Israeli aircraft landing, the FARS agency said in an unconfirmed report titled "Suspicious military activity of the Zionist regime in Saudi Arabia."

Interview with wikileaks spokesman kristinn hrafnsson

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

“The Iraq documents give a picture of the war that has been hidden until now”

By Jerry White

(source: World Socialist WebSite)

On October 22, the web-based whistle-blower organization WikiLeaks released nearly 400,000 internal US military reports that provide damning evidence of war crimes committed by the US government against the people of Iraq.

The “Iraq War Logs”—the largest leak of classified military material in history—consist of Significant Action or SIGACT reports filed by US Army soldiers between January 2004 and December 2009, which WikiLeaks notes, “detail36as seen and heard by the US military troops on the ground in Iraq and are the first real glimpse into the secret history of the war that the United States government has been privy to throughout.”

Among the major revelations contained in the documents are reports of at least 15,000 previously undisclosed civilian deaths and the killing by US forces of 834 people at military checkpoints, including at least 681 civilians and 30 children. They also detail US complicity in the torture of prisoners by the Iraqi stooge army and police. (See: “The WikiLeaks documents and the rape of Iraq”)

For its release of these documents—and previous material related to the Afghan War, along with a video showing the murder of Iraqi civilians by a US Apache helicopter crew in 2007—WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange have come under vicious attack by the US military, the Obama administration and the news media, led by the New York Times. An article by right-wing journalist Jonah Goldberg published in the Chicago Tribune over the weekend was headlined, “Why is Assange still alive?”

Fall of the despots

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Dr Firoz Osman

(source: Citizen Newspaper, thurs 24/02/2011, pg12)

The massive and indiscriminate violence meted out to the unarmed peaceful protesters by the brutal, tyrannical Libyan regime, and the behaviour of rulers in Bahrain, in Yemen and Algeria, has shocked the world. Reports that hundreds of civilians have been killed and thousands wounded by mortars, missiles, helicopter fire and aerial bombings is simply outrageous.

The pathetic attempt by Muammar Gaddafi and his son Saif to justify these attacks by raising the spectre of the “danger” of Islam in a bid to gain Western support will be in vain, just as the West failed to protect Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak.

Mubarak was the lynchpin in American foreign policy for the Middle East, designed primarily to dominate and exploit the oil-rich region and to protect Israel. If they were unable to save Mubarak, they are unlikely to save Gaddafi’s neck.

The use of a ruthless mercenary force to massacre his own people reflects his fear of being ousted in a coup d’etat. He has shrewdly played the tribal card in pitting one against the other to maintain the regime’s survival.

Other besieged Arab regimes in Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Algeria, Morocco and even Saudi Arabia are desperately resisting popular revolts. Many of them will stubbornly cling onto power using brute force and repulse the call for freedom, justice, and dignity.