What motivated the 9/11 hijackers? See testimony most didn't

YouTube: What motivated the 9/11 attackers to do what they did? 9/11 Commission investigation.

Daniel Ellsberg-Nixon/Bush wanted to Nuke Vietnam/Irag 2-2

McLoughlin Post Weekly News Digest, February 23, 2009

Weekly news digest from The McLoughlin Post. This week featuring YouTube of George Galloway speaking during a break with the Viva Palestina convoy travelling with donated humanitarian supplies and volunteers to Gaza. Peace Action on nukes in stimulus package. Petition links. Links to recommended articles. Plus editorial, 'Human vs. Human'.

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Jewish Voices For Peace

Human vs Human Means No More Humans

The survival of the human race may not be tenable long-term - perhaps not even short-term if we do not get out of the war business. Central to survival are many pressing questions including this one: Now that we have painted ourselves into this corner of fear, how do we turn American foreign policy around on a dime?

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Aerosol Arabic - Free Gaza Graffiti Mural in Birmingham

Jailing Kids for Cash

As many as 5,000 children in Pennsylvania have been found guilty, and up to 2,000 of them jailed, by two corrupt judges who received kickbacks from the builders and owners of private prison facilities that benefited.

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Photo of Sam the koala with Bob

The rescued injured koala Samantha (in YouTube below) with new friend Bob who places a protective arm around her. Both Bob and Sam were amongst the thousands of animal casualties of the recent devastating South Australia wild fires.

(Photo: Reuters)

Australian Bushfire : Survivor Sam The Koala Bear

The F Word: Caterpillar, Obama, and Israel

The F Word: Message To The President. Listen to a message by Craig Corrie, the father of the late Rachel Corrie, to the President Obama on GRITtv with Laura Flanders. The commentary is regard Obama's visit to Caterpillar, a company whose D9 bulldozer killed Rachel Corrie in Rafah.

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Ron Paul on Gaza 1-3-09

A brilliant, good man.

Under Siege Again, But Gaza Will Not Die

A retired US Army colonel writes of her visit to Shifa Hospital and Gaza during a brief 48 hour opening of the blockade. Compelling reading.

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RON PAUL: WHAT IF... The American People Learn Truth!

Ron Paul tells the truth in the House.

Egypt Seizes Aid Supplies for Gaza

"Egypt has seized relief supplies for the Gaza Strip as it continues to keep closed the Rafah border crossing for aid flow to the region."

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Gaza: Death's Laboratory

Erik Fosse, a Norwegian cardiologist, worked in Gaza hospitals during the recent war."It was as if they had stepped on a mine," he says of certain Palestinian patients he treated. "But there was no shrapnel in the wound. Some had lost their legs. It looked as though they had been sliced off. I have been to war zones for 30 years, but ...

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Building in West Bank - 94% of Palestinian requests denied

18,472 houses build by settlers in Area C of West Bank (cca 40% of West Bank, full Israeli control), while only 91 permits were issued to Palestinians. Demolitions - 1,663 (Palestinians):199(settlers).

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News digest: Gaza; petitions; Stimulus: Headstart not nukes

Newsletter. One page with useful links to several petitions; a YouTube of a Shministim appeal for support; UN information on the humanitarian situation in Gaza; surprising info. that the stimulus package includes a billion dollars to make more nukes (and recommends cutting 1.1 billion in early education); other links.

Link: The McLoughlin Post news and Activism Selection for Feb. 09, 09

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Netanyahu, Rabbi Hillel and a Jewish notion of self-respect

'It is the same type of arrogance that caused him to blunder historic opportunities in the past, and by the sound of his rhetoric, nothing has changed.'

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Shalit and Hamas the deal that could bring Abbas down

'Senior Palestinian Authority and Fatah officials are speaking openly of the end of an era if an agreement to free abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit is reached. Palestinian officials say a Shalit deal would bring about early elections in the territories, and Hamas would win again - but this time it would win the Palestinian presidential election..'

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Farming Under Fire

Palestinian farmers and peace activists shot at by IDF in the fields in broad daylight.

Let Netanyahu Win

Netanyahu's election is likely to bring the curtain down on the great fraud - the best show in town - the lie of "negotiations" and the injustice of the "peace process."

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The starving of Gaza

One less-noticed effect of the Israel's brutal assault on the civilian and economic infrastructure of Gaza--combined with the suffocating effects of the 18-month siege that came before--is the further destruction of Gaza's long-term ability to provide food for its population.

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Wikileaks releases 6,780 quasi-secret Congressional reports

Wikileaks calls it: "Change you can download." In a move sure to cause an uproar in Washington, the whistleblower-enabling organization has just posted to its Web site 6,780 taxpayer-funded Congressional Research Service reports...

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War reporters used to prefer morality over impartiality.

...I began to wonder – in an age when the BBC can refuse help to the suffering because of its "impartiality" – whether we still report war with the same power and passion as the men and women of an earlier generation.

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Johann Hari: The nightmare of Netanyahu returns

This is a man calling for the violent re-occupation of Gaza to "liquidate" its elected government. This is a man who says he will "naturally grow" the West Bank settlements.

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If not fascism, what is?

'Without controversy, Lieberman's political and social ideas can be described as racist, even genocidal. In recent weeks, he was quoted as suggesting that Israel should use nuclear weapons against the Gaza Strip.'

What We Found in Gaza: War Crimes

From: 'What We Found in Gaza Strong Indications of Violations of the Laws of War, U.S. Law, and War Crimes Found in the Gaza Strip'.

Excerpt of opening statement:

GAZA CITY - We are a delegation of 8 American lawyers, members of the National Lawyers Guild in the United States, who have come here to the Gaza Strip to assess the effects of the recent attacks on the people, and to determine what, if any, violations of international law occurred and whether U.S. domestic law has been violated as a consequence.

Excerpt of conclusion:

'A report of our initial findings will be compiled and submitted to, among others, members of the United States Congress. We intend to push for an investigation by the United States government into possible violations by Israel of US law. We also hope to contribute our finding and efforts to other efforts by local and international lawyers to push for accountability against those found responsible for the egregious crimes that we have documented.'

(Link: www.commondreams.org/view/2009/02/08-0 )

Ron Paul - USA Is Setting Up For A Military Dictatorship

GAZA: Israel stops aid for ordinary people at border

“I don’t want to hear any more from people on the Israeli side the arguments about who might or might not benefit… The ordinary people on the ground are paying the price, not the politicians, and of course the inevitable consequences are entirely predictable: we’re going to have more desperation, more misery, more violence,” he said.

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Gaza:Israeli soldiers smiling, eating killed daughters

"The soldiers were eating chips and chocolate, and they were smiling when they killed my daughters.

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Video Israel Doesn't Want You to See

From the CBC Website:http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?category=World&story=/news/2002/03/19/mideast_censor020319 Israeli army embarrassed by video broadcastLast Updated Tue Mar 19 19:52:12 2002JERUSALEM - The Israeli army has expressed a note of contrition after a television station aired a videotape showing an army assault on...

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Hi

This blog is a new addition to my web writing and publishing. I am a writer and I maintain the website The McLoughlin Post.

Over the past month or so, I have expended a lot of time and energy searching out and going over the various blogging platforms trying to decide what would work best for me so that I could maximize what I can accomplish in a day.

For anybody who has set out on such a quest you know just how many options there are out there and how difficult it is to find information to quickly compare systems - for yourself. I found many blogging sites to be hopeless at demonstrating exactly what features they offer and what great things you can do with them.

Wordpress seems to be the platform of choice for many web publishers, but having suffered a brief sojourn with it a year ago, I do not want to go there because of the frustrations involved in getting up to speed with the code. (But I may still end up there someday if I find it offers features I can no longer live without.)

So for the moment and possibly for a long time to come, here on Blogger I can quickly share articles and editorial (with a 'comments' feature that works! Ugh. Another story.) My main site is great because I can create and add to pages such as my Links and Resources on Gaza, Israel and Palestine.

Hovering over-all is the hope that I can somehow make a living with my independent editorial writing. Once upon a time I wrote cozy pieces about family life. Some of those got published. As my horizons broadened and I began to develop a need to express my political convictions though, things changed.

I began to write opinion articles that expressed the conviction that mankind needs to maintain the integrity of the living earth's genetic codes; I began to defend the rights of the suffering underclasses of the world; I argued for justice equaling peace in the Middle East.

These ideas, ideas I felt were basic and so obvious when one looked at the facts, I was unhappily to learn ran against the grain of corporate media. Letters of mine were published to be sure, some of them. But such views were not welcome in articles - not even on Op Ed pages, where the idea in theory is to publish opinion opposite the majority view of the editorial board or owner(s).

Now, if there was a healthy diversity otherwise of views in the Main Stream Media (MSM), that would be one thing. But over the course of the last twenty-five years things have changed for the worse in a multitude of ways.

Access to information and lively debate over the facts has withered on the democratic vine. I am able to draw a direct line between this and unfettered war. Our minds have been muzzled. It is a very dangerous thing.

So I write. And I try to make connections and find ways to get myself out there which is tough, because you don't want to be found guilty of the capital offense of self-promotion. (How any business got ahead without promoting itself I have no earthly idea.)

I am a proud member of the Alternative Media (aka Alt. Media or Indy Media.) Alt. Media is independent, it is diverse, and it works hard at finding creative ways of reaching you. Feed it. If having an independent media and a healthy democracy is important to you, if you can afford it, those donate buttons are there on Alt. Media pages for a reason. Because we need your support.

Visit often. Come see me at The McLoughlin Post, too.