phase ii

Kathleen and Bill Christison are strongly and eloquently endorsing the Nader candidacy, citing Barack Obama's indebtedness to the Israel lobby and ambiguousness on the role of the US Army in Iraq. Crucially, they implore pro-Obama democrats not to seek to limit voters' choices in the 2008 election.

Israel, meanwhile, has withdrawn troops from the Gaza Strip, threatening further operations at any time. Missing Links, a great blog that does a round-up of interesting items from the Arab press, features a long post on various reports on this most recent attack on Gaza--as well as connections that large numbers of people in the Arab world are making between Israel's assault and the arrival of the USS Cole in the waters off of Lebanon.

Fear and Loathing in Anne Arundel County

Today is the day (or at least the paltry reenactment) we've all been waiting for since September 1993 in the Rose Garden at the White House. The Annapolis "conference"--complete with its own PowerPoint-style background graphic--has been roundly ridiculed in recent weeks, with Olmert and Bush firmly rejecting any discussion of final status issues such as the status of Jerusalem or the right of return of Palestinian refugees (which would thereby invalidate the racist Zionist project), and Mahmoud Abbas seemingly more willing than ever to kowtow to American and Israeli diktats. We first here provide you with a powerful report from Gaza, courtesy of Laila El-Haddad and the Electronic Intifada.

"If it were easy [achieving the goal of establishing peace between Israel and Palestine], it would have happened a long time ago" said George Bush...and we'll leave it to our faithful readers to fill in the flagrant historical and ideological gaps in this statement.

For now, an article by NE favorites Kathleen and Bill Christison will do more than suffice.

well-made world #3

to fuck with your weekend, and with love to moms:

• Patrick Cockburn--No Empires hopes that he will come to be seen as the pre-eminent journalist of the second Iraq war--puts paid to any positive assessment of George Bush and David Petraeus's (and Joe Lieberman's? and Christopher Hitchens's? and Hillary Clinton's? and Bill Keller's? and Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz's?) troop surge in Iraq.
• John Loose (much love!) directs No Empires to this Common Dreams article about a new hydrocarbon law being considered by the Iraqi Parliament.
• The improbably-named Steve Stalinksy--a rank-and-file member of the scum at the New York Sun, who so purposely supervened on issues of "academic freedom" in the MEALAC department at Columbia in 2005/6--purports a growing alliance between the "anti-global left" and Islamist movements in the Middle East.
• Kathleen Christison, a favorite at No Empires (along with her husband, Bill), on the "fake peace conference" taking place this week in New Mexico, to the tune of half of a million dollars.
• No consequences, it would seem, for the police who killed Jean Charles de Menezes in the London tube system in July of 2005