NYCLAW -- New York City Labor Against the War

NYCLAW Antiwar Digest

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*OVERVIEW
*SEVEN DAYS AFTER
*AFGHANISTAN & PAKISTAN
*IRAQ
*PALESTINE
*NYCLAW LINKS



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OVERVIEW

This Veterans Day, U.S. Soldiers Say 'Stop the War'
We believe that veterans and active-duty GIs are in a key position to stop illegal and unjust war, and we are inspired by the resistance of troops who stood against the war in Vietnam. . . . It is in this vein that we turn to organizations like Courage to Resist, Iraq Veterans Against the War.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/106404/this_veterans_day,_u.s._soldiers_say_%27stop_the_war%27/

Antiwar Protesters As Obama and Michelle Tour White House
Before the president-elect's arrival, spectators three rows deep pressed against the north gate of the White House, eager for a glimpse. Farther back, antiwar protesters chanted, "No more war!"
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-transition11-2008nov11,0,5420171.story

MFSO Opposes Delayed "Withdrawal"
[L]eaving U.S. combat troops in Iraq well into 2010, and leaving tens of thousands of additional troops in Iraq indefinitely, is not ending this war -- it is continuing it.
http://www.nbc25online.com/news/story.aspx?id=219763



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SEVEN DAYS AFTER

Secret Order Lets U.S. Attack Many Countries
The Pentagon has exercised its authority frequently, dispatching commandos to countries including Pakistan and Somalia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/washington/10military.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Leading Democrat: Sometimes Continuity Trumps Change
"You're going to see a lot more sympathy than you might expect between Obama and his chief military advisers."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/09/AR2008110902555.html

Obama's Death Squads?
[D]eath squads will probably continue to play a central role in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan under an Obama administration.
http://counterpunch.org/lee11102008.html

Obama Silent While IVAW Was Beaten
[W]hile Matthis Chiroux and Nick Morgan and the other members of IVAW were being beaten by the police outside of the presidential debate, inside the presidential debate John McCain and Barack Obama didn't even use the word "Iraq" or the word "Afghanistan."
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/11/on_veterans_day_15_vets_of

Will Obama "Change" U.S. Foreign Policy?
[B]efore we get too excited, like many Americans have, about the "change" he will bring to America, let's look at his first two presidential appointments.
http://www.nolanchart.com/article5437.html

Will Obama Stand Up For the Righteous Cause?
[A]n uncritical level of support of Obama is as much 4 more years as one can imagine.
http://www.blackcommentator.com/298/298_st_righteous_cause.html

Symbolism: Yes. Change: ?
We should understand the difference between the symbolism of a black man winning the presidency of the United States and the reality of a moderate liberal free marketeer who believes that there is a war on terror and that it can be won by killing Afghanis and other people whose religion and culture are used to define them as the enemy.
http://counterpunch.org/jacobs11122008.html

Progressives for Obama: Still Intoxicated
With a general absence of criticism during his campaign from Hayden and company, one would be hard put to imagine much of it taking place from now on.
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/11/101364.html

Struggle in the Obama-Era: What Next?
The great challenge for the small bands of the left is to anticipate this mass disillusionment, understanding that our task is not "how to move Obama leftward", but to salvage and reorganise shattered hopes.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/774/39910

Grassroots Must Avoid Hibernation
Despite the rhetoric for change, Obama's foreign and domestic policies, for those who bothered to listen, offer little that we haven't heard before.
http://www.newuniversity.org/main/article?slug=grassroots_must_avoid_hibernation169



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AFGHANISTAN & PAKISTAN

Obama and Generals Morphing on Afghanistan
The emerging broad strokes of Obama's approach are likely to be welcomed by a number of senior U.S. military officials who advocate a more aggressive and creative course for the deteriorating conflict.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/10/AR2008111002897.html?sub=AR

G.I.'s in Remote Afghan Post Drawing Fire
"Basically, we're the bullet sponge."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/world/asia/10outpost.html?ref=world

Occupation Forces Kill 14 More Afghani Civilians
President Hamid Karzai and a provincial governor accused the U.S.-led coalition of killing 14 Afghans who were guarding a road construction project. . . . Later, a 12-year-old boy was reported killed when Pakistani helicopter gunships attacked
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan11-2008nov11,0,2457145.story

Occupation Breeds Resistance
The perceived poison of a foreign occupation, the rampant corruption, the all-too-frequent desecration of Islam by the occupiers, the sheer folly of the US/NATO seeking to extend the writ of a central government into the Pashtun tribal regions, the spiraling count of civilian deaths has shifted the Afghan struggle towards being a war of national liberation.
http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=47790&s2=08

The Case for U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan
[I]t's not just that the Afghan population believes that the Taliban resistance is legitimate; that resistance is legitimate under international law.
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5658

Pakistani Forces Mired in Battle to Oust Taliban
To save Loe Sam, the army has destroyed it. . . . "You keep killing them," Colonel Saeed said, "but you still have them around."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/world/asia/11pstan.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin



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IRAQ

What "Self-Sufficiency"?
"Everyone knows the Iraqi security forces are not going to be self-sufficient by 2011."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/08/AR2008110801029.html

Will Obama Adjust His Timetable?
The hope among senior officers in Iraq is that President-elect Obama will make good on another promise he's made over an over again from the stump: "We must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20081107/us_time/willobamahavetoadjusthistimetableoniraq

Change on the Way?
"Most of Obama's speeches were only for campaigning," said foreign affairs official Abd al-Barie Zebari. "The likelihood that Washington will change its Iraq policies is limited."
http://www.metimes.com/Security/2008/11/07/iraq_wary_over_troops_despite_obama_plans/85f0/

New Gulf War Syndrome
Thousands of soldiers coming home from the war may have been exposed to chemicals that are known to cause cancers and neurological problems.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/11/cia-rendition-raids-al-qaida



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PALESTINE

Palestinian Village Turning Into Ghetto
Encircled by half a dozen Jewish settlements like Hashmonaim -- all illegal under international law -- the village is slowly being sealed off in a fashion that may soon make its isolation almost as complete as Gaza's.
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081110/FOREIGN/137859693/1011

Army Escalates Attack on Nonviolent Resistance
[T]he army has focused on a number of activists protesting the security fence, those who help Palestinians harvest their olives, and others.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035176.html

Israel Boycott Isn't Limited to '67 Occupation
Ignoring Israel's denial of refugee rights and its own system of racial discrimination against its "non-Jewish" citizens, the two other fundamental injustices listed in the BDS Call, is tantamount to accepting these two grave -- certainly not any less evil -- violations of human rights and international law as a given, or something that "we can live with." Well, we cannot.
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14369

Israeli Apartheid Institutions: The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra & the Batsheva Dance Company
The Middle East Task Force of Ann Arbor, Michigan is organizing a nonviolent protest outside the Hill Auditorium on Sunday, November 16, 2008, at 3:00 PM in support of the boycott of two Israeli cultural organizations touring the US.
http://nextyearinalquds.blogspot.com/2008/11/israeli-apartheid-institutions.html



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