UnEmbeded!

Zoriah, who was an embeded photojournalist in Iraq, blogs:

A few hours after posting my story on the suicide bombing in Anbar Province, I was woken up by a young marine who took me to receive a phone call.  A high ranking Public Affairs Officer told me that they were requesting that I remove my blog post immediately.  I asked on what grounds, as media rules state that wounded and killed soldiers may be portrayed in images as long as their name tags and identifiable features are not shown.  I made very sure my images followed those guidelines, and questioned a large number of soldiers on base to see if they could find anything at all that would identify the dead.  I did this primarily out of respect for the families.

I truly labored with the decision to post these images and I still do.  But in my heart of hearts I know that people need to see and feel the reality of this horrible situation.  How can things change if all that comes out of Iraq are sanitized, white-washed images of war designed for mainstream media outlets who focus on making money, not on the quality and truth in what they report?

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Attacks in West Bank

Khalid Amayreh blogs:

Last week, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem released video clips showing masked Jewish settlers ganging up on and severely beating elderly Palestinian peasants near the town of Yatta, southwest of Hebron. At least three Palestinians were wounded in the unprovoked assault, including a man and his wife, both in their early sixties.

The latest act of settler terror was not an isolated incident, as official Israeli spokespersons would often claim. It represents a disturbing and persistent phenomenon as young and usually heavily armed settlers continue to attack Palestinian farmers, peasants and shepherds and vandalize their property in an effort to drive them away from their lands and villages.

Students Stranded in Gaza

Haitham blogs about the aftermath of seven students getting their Fulbright scholarships revoked, then reinstated, yet still being stranded in the Gaza Strip:

For the mainstream press, this story “moved quickly” and has now concluded with a positive ending for the Gaza Fulbright seven. But hundreds of other Palestinian students remain stranded inside the Gaza Strip, and the number is expected to rise this summer. According to data from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), almost 700 Palestinian students are still waiting to leave Gaza in order to pursue studies, and scholarships, abroad. “This number will increase within the next month, after the schools announce their exam results and Gaza students want to move onto universities” says Khalil Shaheen, a senior PCHR researcher. “All of these students are stranded inside the Gaza Strip because of the Israeli siege and closure, and they are being denied their rights to pursue their education, and their futures.”

America’s “Good” War

Jo Swift blogs:

If you look more closely at what the U.S. has done in Afghanistan and plans to do in the future, it’s clear that the rhetoric about upholding democracy and making the world safer is – as in Iraq – a smokescreen to justify pursuing imperial ambitions.

No Olympics on Stolen Land

Verbena-19 reposts an article on her blog:

“By them choosing to have the Olympics here, it’s opening up our land, our sacred sites, our medicine grounds,” says Kanahus Pellkey. “We want investors to know our land is not for sale.” Pre-Olympic fever occupies the province of BC, and the economic excitement has massively accelerated gentrification and the building of highways, resorts, and condos. The construction of infrastructure for the 2010 Olympics itself is adding to extensive destruction of traditional homelands of the local Indigenous peoples.

Nationality

No Snow Here blogs:

Earlier this week, I saw a commercial on TV. Several shots of people saying things like “I am American,” “I am Korean,” and “I am Indian.” When I heard the words, “I am Israeli,” I shouted some expletives at the screen. WTF!? And I shouted some more expletives when I learned that apparently the “right” to a nationality is Youth For Human Rights International’s 15th human right (just not for Palestinians, who have no rights, human or otherwise).  First, Israelis and Americans have no “right” to a national identity. Israelis and Americans have a national identity that exists on the backs and dead bodies of indigenous people, so I don’t even want to hear that bullsh#@. Second, most people in this world have a national identity that was entirely invented and forced upon them by colonizers. Who drew those lines on the map? Who constructed and named those countries? Uh huh.

San Francisco Popular Struggles Mural

Martin Travers blogs about a mural he is designing in San Francisco and is asking for support:

I am a firm believer in the right to self determination of all peoples all over this wonderful world we all inhabit. To stand by the right to that self determination by Palestinian people or any other people is by no means supporting terrorism or senseless violence or racism, to say that is in itself an injustice. My painting which was recreated on the mural in question is about that right, breaking through the wall that separates the Israelis from Palestinians and the Palestinians from each other is symbolic of the breaking of the walls that fence in the marginalised and the “unwanted” people everywhere because to see them is to be reminded of where and how Europe, north America and Israel got its wealth.

Life in Gaza

Mona Elfarra, back from a tour in the U.S., writes:

Now it is my personal story, like the daily stories of 1.4 million people in GAZA under siege and occupation, poverty, lack of resources, killing, shooting, violence etc….

I cannot cross the borders, I cannot cross the Rafah crossing. I badly need to be next to my mother. I badly need to be there with her to help her, to do whatever I can for her. To say good bye mum.

Canadian Independence Day

Thinking Girl blogs about Canada Day:

However, I can’t help but feel this year that, because I love my country, I should talk about what I consider to be the greatest and most serious blight on the face of our nation, and that is the ongoing brutal colonization of Canada’s indigenous peoples.  It’s something that I feel all non-indigenous Canadians should be extremely embarrassed by, and should be actively trying to correct. We have all benefitted from the brutalization, ghettoization, displacement, colonization, and genocide of First Nations people here in Canada, and we should be ashamed.

Porn and Liquor Made Them Do It!

Ridwan blogs about Prime Minister Howard’s latest attempt to “save” the Australian Aboriginal population:

Luckily, Australia is led by a ‘great-white’ leader who has a plan to save the Aboriginal from extinction. Prime Minister John Howard, the Grand-Wizard of Australian racism, wants Aboriginals to live beyond their pathological destructiveness.

According to the BBC, the benevolent Howard has decided to ban alcohol and pornography in almost all of the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal communities. And, to show that he is serious, he is going to use the police and the military to protect the Aboriginals from themselves.

What a great plan hey? Ignore all the destruction of racist colonialism and instead blame the Aboriginals for not living up to the wonders of white civilization. And, typically forget the fact that Australia stands on the backs of those who once walked everywhere without the paternalism that now reduces them to no more than children.

Iraqi Union Comes Out Victorious

Robbin posts:

Which was a frustrating microtrend in politics once, frustrating like heat rashes and shoes with heels. However, good news everyone! The federation of oil worker unions in Iraq have won their battle with the puppet government. Despite having their leaders arrested on the charge of ‘sabotaging the economy’, despite being threatened with the army, the oil workers, it seems, have won.

Fighting for Fightings Sake

Will, over at KABOBfest, posts:

NOW Magazine in Toronto reports that Palestine solidarity activists from the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid have launched a boycott campaign against the chain of Indigo and Chapters bookstores, Canada’s largest bookseller. Its owners run a scholarship fund for Israeli soldiers without family in Israel — in other words, Zionuts who travel to Israel just to fight for the Zionut vision of an exclusive ethno-religious state that suppresses and dispossesses the native Palestinians. Which is, in a word, racist.

Palestinian Women

Mona El-Farra, of the blog From Gaza, with Love, writes about women in Palestine:

I believe that women in my country need to be empowered in various ways. What is most important is that women are aware of their social, legal, economic, health and political rights and have the tools to fully implement those rights. While education for women about these rights is important, knowledge and enlightening alone is not enough. Practical projects and programmes that help to alleviate poverty for women and strengthen their economic independence are essential. Having this economic independence means they can play a much greater and important role, both inside the family and in the community as a whole.

Ulster Volunteer Force Disbands

Máirtín Ó Muilleoir blogs about the disbanding of the Ulster Volunteer Force in Northern Ireland in the blog From The Balcony, A Publisher’s Blog:

For the notion that the UVF was ever anything more than a pseudo-gang of toy soldiers nourished and directed by the British is confirmed in both the coming and, hopefully, the going of that bunch of wannabe warriors.

Once MI5 declared it surplus to requirements, the UVF became nothing more than a parasite on its host community. What else was to be expected from ‘volunteers’ whose most famous ‘brigade’ was baptised the Shankill Butchers for its cut-throating feats of derring-do?

An Interview With Ali Abunimah

Laila El-Haddad interviewed Palestinian journalist Ali Abunimah in her blog Raising Yousuf, Unplugged: diary of a Palestinian Mother:

Ok, I’ve promised you a post on this for a while. And it just hasn’t happened.
Frankly, I was waiting first for Aljazeera to run an interview I did with Ali Abu Nimah, co-founder of the Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.

Deir Yassin: 59 Years Latter

Haitham writes about the massacre at Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948 in the blog Sabbah’s Blog:

Early in the morning of April 9, 1948, commandos of the Irgun (headed by Menachem Begin) and the Stern Gang attacked Deir Yassin, a village with about 750 Palestinian residents. The village lay outside of the area to be assigned by the United Nations to the Jewish State; it had a peaceful reputation. But it was located on high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Deir Yassin was slated for occupation under Plan Dalet and the mainstream Jewish defense force, the Haganah, authorized the irregular terrorist forces of the Irgun and the Stern Gang to perform the takeover.

Ethiopian Troops Further Push Towards Somalia

On the Blog Shining Light Into Dark Corners the author writes:

Al Jazeera is reporting a new offensive in Somalia accompanied by a new incursion of Ethiopian troops. Local residents have reported hundreds of Ethiopian soldiers moving into Mogadishu via trucks and air transport. Ethiopia is still reporting they are withdrawing from Somalia. However there is clearly an offensive going on, allegedly prior to a “National Reconciliation” conference scheduled to begin on April 16th. Perhaps most significantly, the US new allies are being accused of war crimes.

Iraq For Sale

Louis Proyect reviews the movie Iraq For Sale on his blog Louise Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist:

Directed by Robert Greenwald, who has an acclaimed documentary on Walmart to his credit as well, “Iraq for Sale” is a hard-hitting exposé of how companies such as Halliburton-KBR, Blackwater, CACI and Titan used a form of “insider trading” to reap super-profits since the war began. In every instance, the boards of directors of such big contractors are filled with former military men who use their connections to cement sweetheart contracts at the expense of the tax-payer.

Life Under Occupaton

Mona El-Farra writes about life under occupation in the Gaza strip as she crosses the boarder into Israel, in her blog From Gaza, with Love:

On my way to the Israeli checkpoint I walked with my daughter and ten sick people, who are in desperate need for further treatment in Israel. We walked through a long cement tube, with cameras looking down on top of our heads and sound from hidden mics giving us instructions. At that moment I recalled the big brother from the ‘1984’ novel and felt in an unrealistic world. I kept walking and before reaching the end of that tube I met tens of Palestinian people of all sorts of ages (children, babies, old women and men) tired exhausted and very sad. I stopped one very old woman limping with her walking sticks and asked her who she was. She said that they had been visiting their sons and daughters in the Israeli jails. I burst loudly into tears. I felt speechless and helpless.