Monday, September 10, 2007

Amy Goodman interviews Jimmy Carter today on Democracy Now!

Remember that Amy Goodman interviews Jimmy Carter on today's Democracy Now! and, among the topics, will be the occupied territories. Excerpt:

AMY GOODMAN: At this conference, you describe the wall as worse than the Berlin Wall.
JIMMY CARTER: Oh, it's much worse. The Berlin Wall was built by the communists on the communist side of the border between East and West Germany, as you know. This wall is built on Palestinian land, and it's designed not for security -- that’s an ancillary benefit -- but it goes deep within the West Bank just to carve out more and more land for the Israelis to occupy in Palestine.
AMY GOODMAN: What is the point of the wall?
JIMMY CARTER: The wall was built -- was planned originally by Yitzhak Rabin when he was prime minister -- he's the one that negotiated the Oslo Agreement, a peace agreement -- to be built along the border, the 1967 border between Israel and Palestine. And the International World Court and I and others approved completely. There's nothing wrong with that. That would have been like the Berlin Wall. But then Rabin was assassinated, and his successors -- Netanyahu, Sharon and others -- decided: let's move the wall from the Israeli border to intrude deeply within Palestine to carve out some of that precious land for the Israeli settlers to occupy.

In this morning's Los Angeles Times, Tina Susman offers "Looking to Anbar for Iraq's future:"

But is it an example of what can be achieved if President Bush's military strategy continues? Or should it be regarded as a reminder of how difficult it will be to make similar gains elsewhere? Military and political leaders warn against resting hopes for all of Iraq on this province, where U.S. forces are empowering, and even arming, the people who once fought them.
Some say that the strategy could backfire by spawning new militias that in the long term might wreak more havoc on the country. They also warn that the situation here still could slide backward if the Shiite-dominated central government does not live up to its promises of support for the province's Sunni Arab leadership, such as the $120-million package.

You can pair the article with Damien Cave and Stephen Farrell's "At Street Level, Unmet Goals in Iraq" (New York Times) and Leila Fadel's "Security in Iraq still elusive" (McClatchy Newspapers) -- both from Sunday.

Meanwhile, as everyone rushes to cover official speak, will they make time for what the US military announced today: "A Task Force Lightning Soldier died from injuries sustained from rocket fire while on patrol in Kirkuk province, Sunday. One Soldier was also wounded and transported to a Coalition medical facility for treatment."? Probably not. The same way they haven't really made news thus far today for yesterday's announcements of a US soldier and a US marine killed. The soldier died in Baghdad, the marine in that 'model province, Al Anbar. 3763 is now the total number of US service members announced dead since the start of the illegal war and 21 for the month thus far.

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