Winter Patriot Community Blog

February 23, 2012 - 114 martyrs fell in another day of continuous gunfire of the security forces and Shabiha. There are 17 children among the martyrs and one media activist. 58 martyrs fell in the governorate of Idlib alone, 26 martyrs fell in Hama, 9 in Deir Ezzor, 7 fell in Daraa, 5 martyrs are from Quneitra, 4 fell in Homs, 2 martyrs fell in each of Raqqa and Damascus Suburbs (Daraya and Douma) and one martyr fell in Aleppo....

February 24, 2012 -- Leaders of Hamas turned publicly against their long-time ally President Bashar Assad of Syria on Friday, endorsing the revolt aimed at overthrowing his dynastic rule.... "I salute all the nations of the Arab Spring and I salute the heroic people of Syria who are striving for freedom, democracy and reform," Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, visiting Egypt from the Gaza Strip, told thousands of Friday worshipers at Cairo's al-Azhar mosque. "We are marching towards Syria, with millions of martyrs," chanted worshipers at al-Azhar, home to one of the Sunni world's highest seats of learning. "No Hezbollah and no Iran"...

February 23, 2012 - 114 martyrs fell in another day of continuous gunfire of the security forces and Shabiha. There are 17 children among the martyrs and one media activist. 58 martyrs fell in the governorate of Idlib alone, 26 martyrs fell in Hama, 9 in Deir Ezzor, 7 fell in Daraa, 5 martyrs are from Quneitra, 4 fell in Homs, 2 martyrs fell in each of Raqqa and Damascus Suburbs (Daraya and Douma) and one martyr fell in Aleppo....

February 23, 2012 - Chaos and violence continue, a wave of attacks hit Iraq, Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani again sees one of his clerics targeted, Iraqiya calls for the government to provide protection or resign, Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc lashes out at the United Nations over Camp Ashraft, and more... The wave of attacks were spread across ten locations. RT notes, "The violence started with a drive-by shooting in Baghdad and was followed by blasts inside and outside the capital." Salam Faraj and Mohamad Ali Harissi (AFP) count 16 car bombings and 8 roadside bombings and note Baghdad, Babil, Diyala, Slaheddin, Kirkuk and Nineveh were all hit. Rick Dewsbury (Daily Mail) notes, "The coordinated bombings and shootings unfolded over four hours in the capital Baghdad -- where most deaths were -- and 11 other cities. They struck government offices, restaurants and one in the town of Musayyib hit close to a primary school...

February 23, 2012 - The United States is finding the occupation of other nations more and more challenging. Witness the clueless US soldiers or contractors who burned a dozen Korans at the Bagram Air Force Base trash dump in Afghanistan. The uproar in response has only begun. Then there were the ace troopers who filmed themselves urinating on corpses. And let's not forget the perplexing US assault that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Plus a host of other disasters. We're failing at Occupation 101. Economic challenges at home only add to the difficulty...

February 23, 2012 - Hundreds of armed tribesmen on Thursday rallied against US drone attacks in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt, demanding compensation for damage and losses, witnesses said. Up to 2,000 tribesmen gathered in Miranshah bazaar shouting "Death to America" and "Stop drone attacks in Pakistan" at the rally organised by Pakistan's largest Islamic party, Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI), witnesses said....

February 23, 2012 - Just a day after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned of efforts to stoke sectarian strife, coordinated attacks against mostly Shi'ite targets took place across the country. At least 97 Iraqis were killed in the attacks, and another 348 were wounded. While some of the bloodshed is part of the background violence that still plagues Iraq, when major attacks occur, more of the base ones get reported. A member of parliament's Security and Defense Committee, Shuwan Mohammed Taha, blamed the government itself for the lapse in security. Tawa charged national security forces with an inability to protect Iraq because one party monopolizes the ranks and renders them unable to cooperate with other government agencies. The Interior Ministry, which is in charge of national security, simply blamed al-Qaeda....

February 23, 2012 - Speaking before students at Northern Virginia Community College on February 13, President Obama unveiled his 2013 budget request, in which he proposed "some difficult cuts that, frankly, I wouldn't normally make if they weren't absolutely necessary. But they are." These budget cuts are unavoidable, the President argued, because "the truth is we're going to have to make some tough choices in order to put this country back on a more sustainable fiscal path." In a sad commentary on the misplaced priorities of the Obama Administration, however, these "tough choices" will affect the delivery of basic services to U.S. citizens while the Israeli military hits the jackpot at taxpayer expense....

February 23, 2012 - I grew up under Israeli occupation, a brutal military occupation accompanied by "colonization" (land theft). My family suffered, though not as much as other Palestinian families. It is hard to describe how much the occupation invades every aspect of one's life here: from eating and drinking to education and from healthcare to travel, from economy to freedom of religion. The antithesis of all of this repression, violence, occupation, colonization and war is, of course, peace. I was thus captivated by peace as a concept, a dream, a hope. Sometimes I was thinking of peace in terms of a state of external calm and lack of disturbance. In other times, I thought peace was related to freedom from repression. Now, I think of peace as being an inner peace, that only comes from acting on what we believe and freeing our minds of the bondage acquired from external sources....

February 23, 2012 - Summary : Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law in the OPT continued during the reporting period (16 - 22 February 2012): Shooting: In the West Bank, IOF wounded 11 protesters, including an Israeli peace activist. Seven of the Palestinians wounded in the West Bank were wounded in peaceful protests to the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities while 4 Palestinians were wounded in peaceful demonstrations organized in support of Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan. In the Gaza Strip, 14 Palestinians, including 2 women and 3 children, sustained bruises and wounds by shrapnel wounds in airstrikes implemented by IOF warplanes...

February 23, 2012 - As the news spread, everyone went out to the streets. Students left their classrooms and rushed to the streets. Employees left their offices and rushed to the streets. Workers and farmers stopped working and rushed to the streets. Everyone left whatever they were doing and rushed to the streets. You could hear the anger in the chants that echoed in the streets of Nablus, Bethlehem, Acca, Um Il-Fahim and Gaza. You could smell the anger in the tens of burning tires that appeared out of nowhere in almost every street, at the entrance to every village, every town, every refugee camp and every city in occupied Palestine. You could see the anger in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands that marched in the streets of Jenin, Yaffa, Ramallah, An-Nasreh and Rafah....

February 23, 2012 - Mansoor Ijaz, an American businessman, was allowed to give his evidence by videolink from London on Wednesday after he said his safety could not be guaranteed in Pakistan. He claims he was asked to deliver a memo to American military officers asking for their support in removing the head of the army and the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency in May last year. Mr Ijaz told a commission investigating the case that he wrote the explosive memo from notes dictated over the telephone by Husain Haqqani, the then Pakistani ambassador to Washington. He was told that President Asif Ali Zardari himself was behind the plan, he added...

February 23, 2012 - In the American mind, if Apple made weapons, they would undoubtedly be drones, those remotely piloted planes getting such great press here. They have generally been greeted as if they were the sleekest of iPhones armed with missiles. When the first American drone assassins burst onto the global stage early in the last decade, they caught most of us by surprise, especially because they seemed to come out of nowhere or from some wild sci-fi novel. Ever since, they've been touted in the media as the shiniest presents under the American Christmas tree of war, the perfect weapons to solve our problems when it comes to evildoers lurking in the global badlands...

February 21, 2012 - Some 500 Palestinians are demonstrating in Gaza City in solidarity with Syrian anti-government protesters. The group of mostly Islamic University students hoisted Palestinian and Syrian flags and burned images of President Bashar Assad on Tuesday. They shouted "Bashar go to hell" to protest his violent crackdown on opponents... One of the organizers, Hamas activist Muhammad Rayyan, said the protest was against Assad and those in Syria who are "killing their own people."...

February 21, 2012 - A few years ago, in a series of posts about the economic unraveling of the United States, I cited Mike Whitney a number of times.... But as the ruling class's grip on those who are not favored by wealth and power grows constantly tighter, as the ruling class throttles the little remaining life out of those of us struggling merely to survive, laments of this kind grow more and more wearisome... The title of his article emphasizes the question: "Why Hasn't Anyone Gone to Jail?" The question assumes that "the law" exists in a manner separate and independent from particular actors in our corporatist-authoritarian system of government -- that "the law" will in some unspecified manner root out wrongdoing and punish it. That particular assumption will reliably be found in fifth-grade civics textbooks. It has no place in discussions conducted by adults about politics in the real world. To conceive of "the law" in the fashion Whitney does is to embrace the State's own propaganda...

February 21, 2012 - ...His administrative detention order, as is the case with all other administrative detainees, is based on the alleged threat he poses to the "security of the State of Israel." However, if Israeli officials agree that he will not be a threat on 17 April, as clear from today's deal, he surely does not pose any threat today and his case provides further proof of Israel's policy of arbitrary detention. Addameer reiterates its call for his immediate and unconditional release and the release of the 308 other administrative detainees. Addameer's main concern remains Khader's health, in critical condition after over two months of hunger strike. Whether or not Khader continues his hunger strike, he must receive proper arrangements for observing his health condition, which will likely now have irreversible consequences. If he does decide to end his hunger strike, the potential complications from such a protracted hunger strike will require urgent and trusted care, which can only be provided if he is released....

February 21, 2012 - At any given moment, hundreds of Palestinians are held by Israel without charges or trial. Of the Palestinians currently under administrative arrest, 88 have been held for more than a year. One has been held for more than five years. Some advocacy groups and Israeli officials have recently claimed that Khader Adnan, the 33-year-old Palestinian on a hunger strike for more than two months now, "is no saint," and that real security concerns led to his arrest. But we can never know for sure, since Adnan is held under administrative arrest, a measure that contradicts the logic at the heart of the rule of law: it aims to put people in prisons not for what they did or conspired to do, but for what they might do. In other words, he is guilty until proven innocent. And there is no way to try and prove he is innocent, since Adnan won't face trial....

February 21, 2012 - ...The Addameer Prisoner Support group reported Adnan's announced deal on Twitter, but said: "For the sake of his family, we will not release any additional information until we have confirmation from Khader Adnan." Addameer also said his attorney Samer Sam'an is outside his Safad Hospital detention location "being denied permission to see" him. Israeli government spokesman Ofir Gendelman spuriously Twittered: Adnan "will finish his sentence on April 17, if there's no new evidence. If he returns to violence & and terror, he will be arrested again." Adnan, of course, committed no crime and wasn't charged. Suggesting it highlights Israeli oppression against millions of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs....

February 21, 2012 - - Authorities in and around Misrata are preventing thousands of people from returning to the villages of Tomina and Kararim and have failed to stop local militias from looting and burning homes there, Human Rights Watch said today. The abuse mirrors the treatment of roughly 30,000 displaced people from the nearby town of Tawergha, who have also been blocked from returning home for at least five months, Human Rights Watch said...

February 21, 2012 - Fierce clashes between two tribes in Libya's remote southeastern desert have killed more than 100 people over the past 10 days, tribal sources said on Tuesday. At least 113 people from the Toubu tribe and another 23 from the Zwai tribe have been killed in the town of Kufra since fighting erupted on 12 February, the sources said. "We are under siege since a week. Since the start of the clashes, 113 people (from our side) have been killed, including six children," Toubu chief Issa Abdelmajid told AFP by telephone...