Winter Patriot Community Blog

February 15, 2012 - Greece's plight proves the Lords of Capital have no more use for democratic facades. The Greeks will be forced to surrender to "the free movement of capital" and take no actions that would "influence the management or control of companies." For the people's purposes, the Greek state has ceased to exist. "The sad truth is that citizens of supposedly democratic countries live in dictatorships of, for, and by the rich."...

February 15, 2012 - NATO is to buy five U.S.-made unmanned drone aircraft capable of countering Afghan insurgents, hunting pirates off Somalia or monitoring arms embargoes, an alliance official said on Wednesday. The drones are part of the Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) project, scheduled to begin operating between 2015 and 2017. The project reflects NATO efforts to cooperate more closely with its member states on defense costs and capabilities at a time of financial constraints...

February 15, 2012 - Dear brother, dear comrade, As you continue to defy oppression and as you continue to struggle for freedom, in your name and in the name of every Palestinian and in the name of every conscientious human, listen to the voices around you. Listen to the voices of the walls of the dungeon that hold you captive, listen to their silent whisper, shameful of imprisoning your dignified spirit, shameful of burying you alive, shameful of you and your steadfastness. Listen to your body break the limits of hunger, break the limits of pain. Listen to your willpower break the walls of the dungeons, listen to your courage defeat oppression, listen to your voice break the silence. And listen to the voices beyond your dark cold cell; listen to the voices rising high and growing strong with every day and every hour, listen to them chant your name, listen to them demand your freedom, listen to them repeat your words: my dignity is more precious than food....

February 15, 2012 - February 15, 2012. Chaos and violence continue, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon talks Camp Ashraf, another prep meet-up for a national conference takes place, Iraq continues to struggle to pass a 2012 budget, the US House Veterans Affairs Committee hears from the VA about their budget requests and more... Violence continued in Iraq today. Reuters notes a police officer's Jurf al-Sakhar home was attacked with gunfire and grenades leaving his wife and their two daughters dead and him injured and a Baquba roadside bombing left two people injured. Aswat al-Iraq adds that a Mosul bombing left 1 person dead and one police officer injured....

February 15, 2012 - representative of Islamic Emirate has held meetings with American delegates in Qatar regarding confidence building measures. As for when we will send or not send delegations to Qatar, then it all depends on when we reach the negotiation stage. Up until now, this has not officially occurred and naturally, as we reach the negotiation stage, a delegation or a team of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will be chosen and sent to Qatar... Now the question is, when will negotiations begin? I must say that before any negotiations can take place, confidence building measures must first succeed so an atmosphere can be created for negotiations and this confidence building measure rests entirely with the Americans and they must take steps for it which are; exchange of Guantanamo prisoners, the opening of a political office and the termination of the black list of the United Nations as well as the bounty lists of America and her allies...

February 15, 2012 - Defense for Children International has documented the arrest by Israeli soldiers of 16 year-old Mahmoud Omar Faqeh from Qattana village northwest of Jerusalem. Defense for Children International revealed that the Israelis were in direct violation of many international standards for the treatment of children during arrests. As the teen explained to Defense for Children International, Mahmoud was going with his friends to a place near the Apartheid Wall in Beit Sourek village when they were attacked by Israeli soldiers...

February 15, 2012 - "Senior ranking U.S. military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the U.S. Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable." That's the assessment of a damning new report by Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, who returned in October from his second year-long deployment in Afghanistan and says military officials have misled the American public about how poorly the decade-long war is going. He argues that local Afghan governments are unable to provide the basic needs of the people and that insurgents control virtually all parts of Afghanistan beyond eyeshot of a U.S. base. We speak with Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone, who obtained a copy of the full report and published it last week. "Lieutenant Colonel Davis is on the right side of history, and the fact [is] that he believes in this and is willing to risk [his career]," Hastings says...

February 15, 2012 - ... "We accept that eight young Afghans died that day," said Air Commodore Mike Wigston, who led the investigation team and is director of air operations for the NATO joint command here. "The decision to bomb this group was made because they were seen as adult-sized and moving in a tactical fashion, and the commander was worried they were in a good position to attack" nearby NATO forces, Commodore Wigston said...Afghan relatives of those who died and Mohammed Tahir Safi, an adviser to President Hamid Karzai and the leader of the Afghan investigation team, said that those killed were young boys who had taken their sheep and goats to graze outside the village. They were cold and gathered under a rock and lighted a small fire to warm themselves. That was the place where they were struck by bombs. Photographs of the dead shown by Mr. Safi at a news conference this week included some of badly bloodied young boys and a couple of young men who might have been older. The father of one of the boys who was killed said that his son was 12 and that two nephews who were killed were younger...

February 15, 2012 - On February 15, Palestinian faction leaders began supportive hunger strikes. Gazans erected a sit-in tent near ICRC's Gaza City offices. Islamic Jihad leaders Sheikh Nafth Azzam, Ahmad Al-Mudallal, Dawood Shihab and Khader Habit joined with others and civil society organization members. Al-Mudallal said striking "support(s) the battle of dignity of Sheikh Khader Adnan. This is the least we can do (for) this legendary symbol." Palestinian Authority civil affairs minister Hussein al-Sheikh said PA officials were trying to free him and hold Israel responsible for his well-being....

February 15, 2012 - Before clashes broke out in Syria, the head of the Hamas Movement's Political Bureau, Khaled Meshaal, contacted the Syrian leadership and offered clear and frank advice regarding the need for political reform. He warned the regime that the wave of demand for reform sweeping the region would not stop at the Syrian borders, and that the Syrian people wished for freedom just like other Arab people. The leadership did not listen to the advice, and insisted that "this system of resistance and opposition" is different than any other, and that the Syrian people would not rebel against the regime. However, the heroic Syrian people surprised not only the regime, but the entire world with their patriotism, persistence and sacrifices for freedom...

February 15, 2012 - Palestinian hunger striker Khader Adnan petitioned Israel's Supreme Court on Wednesday to appeal his detention without charge, as thousands took to the streets in solidarity with him. Lawyer Jawad Bulus said he had lodged an urgent appeal with the Supreme Court to lift the administrative detention order in light of the rapidly deteriorating health of his client, Khader Adnan. "We filed an appeal this morning and requested an immediate hearing in front of the court due to the seriousness of his condition," Bulus told AFP. "We are awaiting an answer."...

February 15, 2012 - Two months ago, few of us knew the name Khader Adnan. Today, he is an inspiration to all of us. Two months ago he was kidnapped from his home by Israel. He was charged with no crime. He was abused by his captors and interrogators from the moment he was arrested. None of this is unusual in Palestine, every day people are kidnapped from their homes, abused, and held without charge. Torture is a routine matter for prisoners of the occupation. None of the abuse that Israel inflicted on Khader Adnan was new, it has happened to thousands, really hundreds of thousands of Palestinians under the occupation. It was all so routine that no one would bother to report on it, that is a specialty of the occupation, to make crimes so routine that they are not news....

February 15, 2012 - The issue is not about hummus, chocolate bars or Dead Sea vacations. It is about civil society taking full responsibility for its own action (or lack of). The issue is not exactly about Israeli products either, but rather about how even a seemingly innocent decision like buying Israeli dates may enable the continued subjugation of the Palestinian people. Because the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) highlights this, the reaction it often generates is charged and vehement. Many also react to the BDS because it actually works. Israeli supporters have every right to be concerned that their carefully customized discourse on Israel's infallibility (juxtaposed with Palestinian depravity) - which has been promoted for decades in various media and political outlets in the US and Western countries - is now simply falling apart....

February 15, 2012 -- Reporters Without Borders on Wednesday condemned violence used by Israel against photojournalists covering demonstrations against Israel's West Bank barrier. Reporters Without Borders "deplores the total impunity enjoyed by the soldiers responsible for these abuses," the Paris-based press freedom watchdog said in a statement. The statement referred to incidents in January and February in which soldiers injured photojournalists in Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah, and in Kufr Qaddoum, near Qalqiliya, and others sites in the occupied West Bank...

February 15, 2012 - Armed militias operating across Libya commit widespread human rights abuses with impunity, fuelling insecurity and hindering the rebuilding of state institutions, warned Amnesty International in a new report released today, a year on from the start of the February 2011 uprising. The report Militias threaten hopes for new Libya, documents widespread and serious abuses, including war crimes, by a multitude of militias against suspected al-Gaddafi loyalists, with cases of people being unlawfully detained and tortured - sometimes to death. African migrants and refugees have also been targeted, and revenge attacks have been carried out, forcibly displacing entire communities - while the authorities have done nothing to investigate the abuses and hold those responsible to account....

February 15, 2012 - What does the European Union have to say about the plight of Palestinian hunger striker Khader Adnan? Not one word. I have just entered Adnan's name into the search facility on the website for the EU's diplomatic service. The result: zero hits. A moment later, I searched under the words "Gilad Shalit" and received 230 hits. Catherine Ashton, the bloc's foreign policy chief, publicly sympathised with the family of Shalit at every conceivable opportunity, never acknowledging that the Israeli soldier belonged to an army of occupation and was taking part in acts of aggression against the Palestinian people when he was captured...

February 14, 2012 - Now, it is going to be almost impossible for teachers to make ends meet if they have to move away from home. Having a job at all is also highly uncertain.The reason is that the troika, in close collaboration with the unelected Greek government imposed by the troika, has decided on more public sector sackings. The plans are part of the second memorandum agreement between the troika and the Greek government. This memorandum includes cuts of 14.3 billion euros between 2012 and 2015, starting with 3.3 billion euros this year.With 11 million Greek people, these sums come up to a high amount per head. This is all the more shocking if we consider that a huge proportion of Greek people live in extreme poverty. The number of Greek people living at or below the poverty line is more than 3 million and rising...

February 14, 2012 - Now, it is going to be almost impossible for teachers to make ends meet if they have to move away from home. Having a job at all is also highly uncertain.The reason is that the troika, in close collaboration with the unelected Greek government imposed by the troika, has decided on more public sector sackings. The plans are part of the second memorandum agreement between the troika and the Greek government. This memorandum includes cuts of 14.3 billion euros between 2012 and 2015, starting with 3.3 billion euros this year.With 11 million Greek people, these sums come up to a high amount per head. This is all the more shocking if we consider that a huge proportion of Greek people live in extreme poverty. The number of Greek people living at or below the poverty line is more than 3 million and rising...

February 14, 2012 - Behind the open hostility and rhetoric that the US and Syria display to one another, there lies an entirely different face. Behind the open hostility and rhetoric that the US and Syria display to one another, there lies an entirely different face. One which goes the very heart of the Syrian uprising - a face which presents the countries more as allies, and less as foes. On 6 May 2002, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, included Syria within the infamous 'Axis of Evil' that George W Bush spoke of earlier in that year. At the same time that such open statements were being made, Canadian citizens: Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Muayyad Nureddin, Ahmad Abou El Maati and the German, Mohammed Haydar Zammar, were being tortured in various Syrian prisons, the most feared being Fara' Falastin. All of the men had been placed on US watch lists with Arar being the only one to have been rendered by the US from the US mainland to Jordan, and then subsequently taken to Syria...