West Asia

Iraq Freedom Congress Convention

Iraq’s Civil Resistance: The Secular Left Opposition Stands Up

Bill Weinberg January 10, 2008 Bill Weinberg

Iraq Freedom Congress Convention
July 4, 2007 saw the Fred Hampton-style execution of the leader of a popular citizen's self-defense force in Baghdad. According to the Iraq Freedom Congress, the group Abdelhussein Saddam was associated with, a unit of US Special Forces troops and Iraqi National Guards raided his home in Baghdad's Alattiba neighborhood at 3:00 AM, throwing grenades in before them-and opening fire without warning at him and his young daughter. The attackers took Saddam, leaving the girl bleeding on the floor. Two days later, his body was found in the morgue at Yarmouk Hospital.

Benazir Bhutto

Death in Pakistan Politics

Rene Wadlow January 3, 2008 Rene Wadlow

Benazir Bhutto
The continued mastery of death in Pakistan politics was evident in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007 after her electoral campaign speech at Liaquat Square.  The square is named after the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, who was assassinated in 1953.  Liaquat Square is close to the Rawalpindi jail where Benazir's father, former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged in 1979. The jailhouse has now been torn down least it become a pilgrimage goal for devoted members of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) which Zulfikar Bhutto headed. 

Destruction in Palestine, Indymedia

A Gaza Development Corporation

Rene Wadlow December 18, 2007 Rene Wadlow

Destruction in Palestine
On December 17, 2007, eighty seven states, the United Nations Secretariat, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund met in Paris for a one-day international funding conference for the Palestinian Authority. $7.4 billion was pledged over a three-year period - $3.44 billion for 2008.  The conference, planned well in advance, comes shortly after the Annapolis meeting whose aim was to restart serious Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that would lead to the creation of a sustainable Palestinian state by the end of President Bush's term in 2008. Financing an economic recovery and development program for Palestine is an obvious need for the creation of a state. However, it is often easier to raise funds than to spend them in ways that promote the desired ends.

Image

Post Annapolis: A Road Ahead?

Rene Wadlow December 3, 2007 Rene Wadlow

There was a high level of scepticism - not to say cynicism - concerning the outcome of the November 27th conference on Israel-Palestine in Annapolis. There were a few photo-ops but no memorable photos that I have seen. All the chief actors in this play had different motivations and different interests to advance. If the aim of the meeting were really a settlement of the key final status issues between Israel and Palestine and the creation of a Palestinian state, a trip to Washington and a car ride to Annapolis would have been unnecessary.

Musharraf

Pakistan: It Could Get Very Messy

Rene Wadlow November 20, 2007 Rene Wadlow

Musharraf
A November 11, 2007 report in the Washington Post stated that the United States has developed contingency plans to safeguard Pakistani nuclear weapons if they risk falling into the wrong hands. The newspaper quotes an unnamed former US official as saying "If an attempt were made by the US to seize the weapons to prevent their loss, it could be very messy." Even without US Special Forces tramping around Pakistan looking for nuclear weapons and long-range delivery systems, the situation can get very messy.

Abdelhussein Saddam

The Plight of Iraq’s Progressive Labor Movement

Dan Read October 3, 2007 Dan Read

Abdelhussein Saddam
Like many people who lived under the Baathist dictatorship, Abdelhussein Saddam passionately yearned for change. Born in 1957 in Basra, Saddam became known as a progressive thinker, for which he was imprisoned for two years by state security forces. When the US/UK coalition invaded Iraq in 2003, he understood that the future lay within Iraq's ability to organize itself independently - free of both the gun-toting hypocrisy of western imperialism and the machinations of political Islam.