Winter Patriot Community Blog

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...

February 14, 2012 - The "tide of war is receding" is a phrase President Barack Obama has employed ad nauseam-once in his State of the Union address, twice in the course of remarks last month at the unveiling of the Pentagon's new military strategy document, once again during his speech at the United Nations, also in his announcement of troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, and in a Veteran's Day address. The constant repetition of this hackneyed metaphor is aimed at obscuring the obvious-that US militarism has escalated dramatically under the Democratic president and its tide threatens to engulf the entire planet....

February 15, 2012 - Israeli forces arrived before sunrise on Monday, 13 February to demolish a newly completed community facility that residents refer to as a cultural cafe' in the Wadi Hilweh area of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem. The bulldozers arrived without any prior warning. The Israeli-controlled Jerusalem municipality and the National Parks Authority carried out the demolition with Israeli police officers closing off the street and even preventing some nearby families to leave their homes while the demolition was underway. Palestinians living in Silwan and other areas of occupied East Jerusalem are facing increased attacks from the Israeli authorities and Israeli settlers...

February 14, 2012 - ...For as soon as Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a statement calling for what he described as jihad in Syria, others rushed to say that what is happening in the country has Al Qaeda backing, and that this represents evidence of the Al Qaeda movement's presence in Syria. However this is an over-simplification, if not part of an explicit desire to collude against the unarmed Syrian people! One might ask: how? The answer is simple, for al-Zawahiri's statement on Syria is not the first of its kind, for he has issued similar statements lauding the Syrian revolution many months ago, long before the revolution reached its peak. Al-Zawahiri also hailed the Arab Spring; indeed his statements about the Syrian revolution pale in comparison to his statements of support for the Egyptian revolution, the Tunisian, revolution, not to mention the revolution in Libya, where he warned the Libyan people against the aspirations of NATO. Al-Zawahiri even called on the people of Algeria to revolt against their ruling regime. So why did nobody show any concern over these statements, whilst today we find people trying to say that the Syrian revolution is backed by Al Qaeda?...

February 14, 2012 - The number of martyrs has risen to 49 thus far, including 3 defected soldiers (Damascus Suburbs) and 3 women. The remainder include, 11 in Idlib, 10 in Aleppo, 9 in Homs, 4 in Daraa, 4 in Deir Ezzor, 3 in Hama, 6 in Damascus Suburbs, 1 in Lattakia, and 1 in Damascus...Hama: The regime's army is violently shelling the neighborhood of Hamidieh. There are reports of many martyrs in the streets, but the residents cannot reach them due to the continuing shelling...Homs: Qusair: Martyrdom of farmers: Muhammad Mahmoud Muhebbuddin, Abdulbaset Muhammad Harba and Abdullah Muhyiddin Shasuddin after they were abducted and slaughtered by security forces which are positioned at Hamed Amer checkpoint, and then thrown on the road near the security checkpoint...The Occupied Golan: Majdal Shams: Kameel Khater, who was freed from Israeli detention, and now he's forced to stay inside his home announced his food-strike in objection to the massacres commited by the Syrian regime... Hama: More than 100 persons were injured after the regime's army shelled the Midani Hospital in the Hamidieh district.

February 14, 2012 - Former Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Michael Sabbah said the current municipality of Jerusalem is trying to turn the city into a Jewish one. He told the Italian news Agency AKI, that turning the holy city of Jerusalem into a mono-ethnic city will only cause war instead of stability and peace. The city should maintain its holistic nature that welcomes all people, and should have a special political status by becoming the capital of both, Palestine and Israel...

February 14, 2012 - Today the systematic dispossession of the Palestinian people continues unabated and largely unchallenged by the United States and the European Union. Barriers to Palestinian mobility, social and political development are visible everywhere. While Jewish-Israeli citizens pass freely, more than 500 police and military checkpoints regulate Palestinian movement between the occupied West Bank and Israel. Passing through these checkpoints on a recent fact-finding tour organized by the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, we witnessed Palestinians endure a daily ritual of subordination, humiliation and suspicion....

February 14, 2012 - Previous articles discussed her 2003 abduction, detention, torture, false charges, prosecution, and conviction despite clear evidence she's innocent. Nonetheless, in September 2010, she was wrongly sentenced to 86 years in prison. Imprisoning her for hours, let alone years, constitutes gross injustice. Doing so compounded years of horrific treatment in US custody, including sadistic torture....

February 14, 2012 - State-run newspapers splashed accusations of a U.S. plan to spread "anarchy" in Egypt, escalating a dispute that Washington said on Tuesday must be resolved to ensure their continued military cooperation. Based on remarks by a government minister, the headlines marked another low in the crisis between Washington and Cairo triggered by the investigation into U.S.-based non-governmental organizations that has resulted in criminal charges against Americans who have been banned from leaving the country....

February 14, 2012 - As hundreds of Palestinians rallied in Gaza today to demand that Israel release Palestinian administrative detainee Khader Adnan, Yassar Salah, a 17-year veteran of Israel's prison system, spoke about Adnan's 60-day hunger strike and his own reasons for joining it. "We are on hunger strike to show our sympathy and solidarity with Sheikh Khader Adnan, who is battling to overcome Israel's system of administrative detention," he told me in the protest tent outside Gaza's International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) compound....

February 14, 2012 - Recently, discourse, within the free-range pathogen zone of the U.S. political realm, has been infected and inflamed by the use of verbiage (applied both in the metaphoric and literal sense) related to disease and contagion by editorial scribes and political hacks. For example, we have been informed that Occupy D.C. sites were attacked and destroyed by police authorities for reasons related to public health and hygiene. These actions (part of a series of ongoing coordinated, anti-democratic measures) carried out on orders from the current governing class of the U.S. display the tendency of the hyper-authoritarian mindset to regard the inherent messiness of freedom - including those individuals who engage in acts of dissent in public space - to pose a danger to civil order and the wellbeing of the general public on the level of that of bio-hazardous material...

February 14, 2012 - Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians and their property in the West Bank have tripled in the past five years, a Washington-based think tank said Tuesday. Violence by Israelis living in Jewish-only settlements reached a peak in 2011, when the number of attacks grew by 39 percent from the previous year, according to the report by the Palestine Center. Most settler attacks now occur in the northern West Bank governorate of Nablus, overtaking the southern Hebron district as the most concentrated center of violence, the report said....

Tuesday, February 14, 2012. Chaos and violence continue, Nouri's accusations are noted by those he accused, Iraqiya calls for those imprisoned who have not been convicted to be released, US Senator Patty Murray talks with veterans in a new format, and more... In Iraq violence continues, AP notes a Baghdad bombing has claimed 1 life and left six other people injured. In addition, Reuters notes 1 Asaish was shot dead in Kirkuk and, dropping back to Monday, the corpse of 1 woman was discovered in Baquba (strangled), 2 corpses were discovered elsewhere in Baquba (the two are thought to have been killed in 2006). Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reports military General Aziz Hamzah was shot dead in Baghdad, a second Baghdad bombing left two peple injured and a Mosul bombing claimed 3 lives and left nineteen people injured. Violence includes the targeting of various groups in Iraq with threats of violence or with actual violence....

February 14, 2012 - The American public has been told that the Iraq War is a thing of the past. Even still, the US Department of Defense is asking the federal government for almost $3 billion for "activities" in a country that they shouldn't be in. The last US troops were supposedly withdrawn from Iraq just before 2012 began, but after years of a war that abruptly ended this past December, the Pentagon still wants billions to continue doing...something in Iraq. According to the latest budget request, the DoD think around $2.9 billion should cover the cost of "Post-Operation NEW DAWN (OND)/Iraq Activities."...

February 14, 2012 - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had a clear and unified message coming out of their meeting in Washington, D.C. Monday: They are looking for a political solution in Syria and won't consider putting international troops there unless the Syrian regime agrees... "Ultimately, it's going to be important to convince the Assad regime that they are leading Syria into the outcome that we all deplore. We do not want to see a civil war in Syria," Clinton said. "No one wants to see a civil war in Syria. So we have to encourage the Assad regime, and those who support it, to understand that there's either a path toward peacemaking and democratic transition - which is what we are promoting - or there's a path that leads toward chaos and violence, which we deplore." ...

February 14, 2012 - For the tenth day straight, the flashpoint city of Homs is the target of intense bombing by the Syrian army. Due to frequent electricity outages and severed Internet connections, it is becoming harder and harder to obtain images of what's happening on the ground. At least six people were killed just on Tuesday in Homs, according to activists. Of our numerous Observers in the city, Omar is the only one we were able to contact today, thanks to his satellite connection....

February 14, 2012 - This Valentine's Day, I live in fear of being separated from my wife by the force of the Israeli state and the whim of bureaucrats enforcing a discriminatory law that can separate Palestinian citizens of Israel from Palestinian spouses from the occupied West Bank. This fear will hang over us for years if the "Citizenship and Entry Into Israel Law" is not revoked as the state can use this law to separate me from my family. Lana, my wife, is from Jenin in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. She has a diploma in economics from Al-Najah University in Nablus. We met and fell in love in Jenin in late 2002 after Israel's destruction of the Jenin refugee camp during the second intifada. She moved to Israel in 2005 to live with me. We now have two children, Adnan, who is 4 and a half years old and Yosra, who is 3 and a half years old...

February 14, 2012 - When people typically complain about the lack of bipartisanship in American politics, their outrage is grossly misplaced. While it is certainly true that our political discourse is home to contentious debates, this, in itself, is not the major problem. Rather, it is a distraction from the most potent toxin in American politics, which is our widespread bipartisan disregard for the preservation of civil liberties. When it comes to this issue, the distinction between Democrats and Republicans blurs to the point of non-existence. While right-wing politicians have a well-established history of ignoring civil liberties, Democrats have recently become much worse. The well-deserved condemnation that the Bush administration received from Democrats regarding civil-liberties violations has proven to be simply flowery political rhetoric based on their recent actions. The left's outrage at Bush's policies coupled with their acceptance of Obama's reveals undeniable hypocrisy...