De Nuance van de NRC 104

De volgens Henk Hofland 'kwaliteitskrant' voor de 'politiek literaire elite' van de polder, de one and only 'slijpsteen voor de geest' die ook nog eens de nuance zoekt buigt zich vanavond over het volgende: '

Discussie van de dag  Van Basten acht zichzelf niet goed genoeg voor Ajax. Trainerscarrière voorbij? Discussieer mee' Ik zou zeggen: geachte intellectuelen van mijn blog, mengt u in de discussie van de 'politiek literaire elite' van de polder. Succes en laat me de uitkomst weten. http://weblogs2.nrc.nl/discussie/2009/05/06/van-basten-stapt-op-wie-heeft-daar-baat-bij/ 'Liudger Silva zegt:  woensdag 6 mei 2009, 23:48 uur Van Basten was een goed voetballer, maar als coach heeft hij nooit wat bereikt.' Topniveau, deze reactie, probeer hier maar eens bovenuit te stijgen.

Iran 266

Mousavi for presidency

By Global Voices.

mousavi Supporters of two leading  reformist presidential candidates, former prime minister  Mir Hussein Mousavi and former parliament speaker,  Mehdi Karroubi are using the internet, including blogs and Facebook, to beef up their chances of being selected as presidential candidates by the  Guardian Council in June’s election.

In this post, we look at Mousavi supporters as a first journey into Iran’s election cyber-battleground. Around 1000 bloggers have announced that they support Mir Hussein Mousavi. Their names and web addresses are published on Mirhussein.com, a website created by “a big group of bloggers supporting Mousavi.”

In his speeches, Mousavi has previously criticized president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s “mismanagment”. Mousavi has said that he would work to build international confidence that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are peaceful. Mousavi has also spoken in defense of “free media” in the past, although he refused to promise to release political prisoners if he became president.

The bloggers who support Mousavi write about many different topics, from religion to sports, and they differ ideologically too. They also live in various corners of the country. Some of the blogs have been around for long time, while other have created their blogs especially for the election. We can divide pro-Mousavi bloggers into several different categories, including:

Fundementalists: Islam is superior to everything, is one of Mousavi’s listed supporters. The blogger does not explain why he supports Mousavi, but has also published several photos of the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khamenei and who could easily be considered a fundamentalist.

Non-Political Bloggers: Another blogger who backs former prime minister for the presidency is Perspolis Ghahreman, a blog that talks mainly about football. Perspolis is a very popular soccer/football team in Iran. Another blog announcing its support is, Modyryat, Eghtesad, Toseh (Managment, Economy, Development), an economics blog.

Election bloggers without geographic focus: Barayeh Mirhussein (for Mir Hussein) was recently created by its author for writings about the former prime minister’s candidacy and his ideas. This blog quotes Mir Hussein Mousavi for saying that the government’s most important problems are inflation and unemployment, and that it should be possible to create private TV channels in Iran. Barayeh Mirhussein does not represent any specific local community.

Election bloggers with geographic focus: Mousavi’s supporters in Dubai is a good example of a blog by a group of Iranian expatriates in a foreign country. Mousavi supporters have also launched a blog, named Nasim 88 in the Iranian city  Ardebil too.

Former Khatami supporters: Khatami88 is a blog that was previously launched to support former reformist president Mohmmad Khatami’s bid for the presidency. But as soon as Khatami stepped out of the election race and announced his support for Mir Hussein, these supporters followed.

Although blogs are not very good as a sample to study the Iranian population’s electoral preferences as a whole, at least we can see from the wide range of Mousavi’s supporters in the blogosphere that support for his candidacy is not limited to any one specific group.

– By Hamid Tehrani 

ZIE:  http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2009/05/07/iran-movement-of-1000-bloggers-supports-mousavi-for-presidency/

Irak 280

Laying the Groundwork for Violence

Thursday 07 May 2009

by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

photo

Members of the Sahwa militia, who were promised jobs, have instead been targeted by the Iraqi military. (Photo: Ali Yussef / Getty Images)

    Throughout history, those who collaborate with the occupiers of their country tend to end up hung out to dry, or dead. The occupation of Iraq is no different - collaboration and the poison fruits that come of it are on full display for the history books once again. Only now, the rapidity with which this is happening is staggering.

    On May 5, the Iraqi military killed Basim Mohammed and detained his brother. Mohammed was a member of the Sahwa, the 100,000-strong Sunni militia composed mostly of former resistance fighters that the US created in order to use them to battle al-Qaeda in Iraq, as well as paying them off to draw down the number of attacks against occupation forces.

    The Sahwa, who were supposed to be given government jobs either in security or in civil services, have been betrayed. Instead of being given the promised jobs, they have been consistently targeted by the Iraqi military, and at times the US military, which has left them vulnerable as well to attacks from al-Qaeda. As a result, they are walking off their security jobs for lack of pay, and have largely ceased their military operations against al-Qaeda. The predictable result is what we have been witnessing over the last months - a slow but steady increase in the number of attacks against Iraqi and US forces and a dramatic rise in the spectacular car bomb attacks in largely Shia areas that kill scores at a time.

    The obvious solution would be for the Obama administration to pressure its client government in Baghdad to fulfill promises to incorporate the Sahwa into its ranks, as well as applying pressure to Prime Minister Maliki to lay off targeting the Sahwa and its leadership.

Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/050709J?n

The Empire 448

Tomgram: Everyday is Doomsday in Washington

Secretary Doomsday and the Empathy Gap
The Everyday Extremism of Washington
By Tom Engelhardt

A front-page New York Times headline last week put the matter politely indeed: "In Pakistan, U.S. Courts Leader of Opposition." And nobody thought it was strange at all.

In fact, it's the sort of thing you can read just about any time when it comes to American policy in Pakistan or, for that matter, Afghanistan. It's just the norm on a planet on which it's assumed that American civilian and military leaders can issue pronunciamentos about what other countries must do; publicly demand various actions of ruling groups; opt for specific leaders, and then, when they disappoint, attempt to replace them; and use what was once called "foreign aid," now taxpayer dollars largely funneled through the Pentagon, to bribe those who are hard to convince.

Last week as well, in a prime-time news conference, President Obama said of Pakistan: "We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear-armed militant state."

To the extent that this statement was commented on, it was praised here for its restraint and good sense. Yet, thought about a moment, what the president actually said went something like this: When it comes to U.S. respect for Pakistan's sovereignty, this country has more important fish to fry. A look at the historical record indicates that Washington has, in fact, been frying those "fish" for at least the last four decades without particular regard for Pakistani sensibilities.

In a week in which the presidents of both Pakistan and Afghanistan have, like two satraps, dutifully trekked to the U.S. capital to be called on the carpet by Obama and his national security team, Washington officials have been issuing one shrill statement after another about what U.S. media reports regularly term the "dire situation" in Pakistan.

Lees verder: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175069/everyday_is_doomsday_in_washington

Nederland en Afghanistan 204

'120 die' as US bombs village

Afghan outrage after strike targeting Taliban fighters hits women and
children

By Patrick Cockburn in Kabul

Thursday, 7 May 2009

A misdirected US air strike has killed as many as 120 Afghans, including
dozens of women and children. The attack is the deadliest such bombing
involving civilian casualties so far in the eight years since the US-led
invasion of Afghanistan.

Families in two villages in Farah province in western Afghanistan were
digging for bodies in the ruins of their mudbrick houses yesterday. "There
were women and children who were killed," said Jessica Barry, a Red Cross
spokeswoman. "It seemed they were trying to shelter in houses when they
were hit." Survivors said the number of dead would almost certainly to rise
as the search for bodies continued.

The killing of so many Afghan civilians by US aircraft is likely to
infuriate Afghans and lead to an increase in support for the Taliban in the
bombed area. President Hamid Karzai, who was meeting President Barack Obama
in Washington yesterday, sent a joint US-Afghan delegation to investigate
the incident. The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, standing next to
Mr Karzai, voiced her "deep regret".

US Marine Special Forces supporting the Afghan army apparently called in
the air strike on Tuesday on two villages in Bala Baluk district after
heavy fighting with the Taliban. Accounts by Afghans of high civilian
casualties are often denied or dismissed by US officials. But a team from
the Red Cross visited the scene of this attack. "There were bodies, graves,
there were people burying bodies when we were there," said Ms Barry. She
said a first aid worker for Afghanistan's Red Crescent died with 13 members
of his family. "Dozens of dead bodies were seen in the two locations we
went to." Rohul Amin, the provincial governor of Farah, told The
Independent that "the dead numbered over 100". Villagers brought 30 bodies,
including women and children, in a truck to Mr Amin in Farah City to prove
it had happened.

Lees verder: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/120-die-as-us-bombs-village-168

Martelen 104

Revealed: U.S. Interrogators May Have Killed Dozens of Detainees
By John Byrne, Raw Story
Posted on May 6, 2009, Printed on May 7, 2009

In all, 98 detainees have died while in U.S. hands, with 34
identified as homicides, at least eight of which were tortured to death.

United States interrogators killed nearly four dozen detainees during
or after their interrogations, according a report published by a
human rights researcher based on a Human Rights First report and
followup investigations.

In all, 98 detainees have died while in U.S. hands. Thirty-four
homicides have been identified, with at least eight detainees -- and
as many as 12 -- having been tortured to death, according to a 2006
Human Rights First report that underwrites the researcher’s posting.
The causes of 48 more deaths remain uncertain.

The researcher, John Sifton, worked for five years for Human Rights
Watch. In a posting Tuesday, he documents myriad cases of detainees
who died at the hands of their U.S. interrogators. Some of the
instances he cites are graphic.

Most of those taken captive were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. They
include at least one Afghani soldier, Jamal Naseer, who was
mistakenly arrested in 2004. “Those arrested with Naseer later said
that during interrogations U.S. personnel punched and kicked them,
hung them upside down, and hit them with sticks or cables,” Sifton
writes. “Some said they were doused with cold water and forced to lie
in the snow. Nasser collapsed about two weeks after the arrest,
complaining of stomach pain, probably an internal hemorrhage.”
Lees verder: http://www.alternet.org/story/139867/

Pete Seeger

Springsteen to Seeger: "You Outlasted the Bastards"

by: Katrina Vanden Heuvel  |  Visit article original @ The Nation

photo

Pete Seeger celebrated his 90th birthday in a star-studded concert in Madison Square Garden. (Photo: Reuters Pictures)

    "You outlasted the bastards, man," Bruce Springsteen told the roaring crowd.

    I think that was my favorite line at the rollicking birthday concert celebrating Pete Seeger's 90th!

    There were other uplifting, astonishing moments Sunday night at Madison Square Garden, at a five-hour concert which Seeger only OK'd because it raised much-needed funds for his Clearwater project--a non profit organization which the oft-maligned bard started in 1969 to clean up his beloved, polluted Hudson River.

    Fifteen thousand people, of all ages, (okay, median age was probably 55) danced, clapped and sang along as Seeger did a soaring version of "Amazing Grace" and the saintly looking Joan Baez sang " Where Have All the Flowers Gone."

Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/050609E?n

Amazing Grace en de ironie: 'John Newton, the author of the lyrics to Amazing Grace, was born in 1725 in Wapping, London, United Kingdom.[1] Despite the powerful message of "Amazing Grace," Newton's religious beliefs initially lacked conviction; his youth was marked by religious confusion and a lack of moral self-control and discipline.[1]

After a brief time in the Royal Navy, Newton began his career in slave trading. The turning point in Newton's spiritual life was a violent storm that occurred one night while at sea. Moments after he left the deck, the crewman who had taken his place was swept overboard. Although he manned the vessel for the remainder of the tempest, he later commented that, throughout the tumult, he realized his helplessness and concluded that only the grace of God could save him.'  En dus niet allereerst de slaven.