Sixth in a series. Sadly this probably won’t be the last.

Continue reading about Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions – Gaza Flotilla Edition

AronT on January 20th, 2010

I have cited Colin Dayan’s book Cruel and Unusual several times. Here is a lecture by the author herself:

Continue reading about The Story of ‘Cruel and Unusual’ with Colin Dayan

AronT on September 17th, 2009

As I noted in my twitter postings, Judge Goldstone’s report on the Gaza invasion condemns both Israel and Hamas for war crimes. As reported in the NY Times: The report called Israel’s military assault on Gaza “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity [...]

Continue reading about Goldstone Report Reaction Roundup (Updated)

Uri Avnery deconstructs all the arguments defending Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. Normally I bring a key quote, but in this case i would end up just copy and pasting the entire article. Here is my own recent personal commentary on serving in the Israeli army and fighting a civilian population,

Continue reading about Uri Avnery “The Johnny Procedure” – The Israeli Army and War Crimes in Gaza

AronT on May 4th, 2009

Philip Gourevitch puts in writing his ideas re: Abu Ghraib and Obama’s release of the torture memos (I had mentioned some of these in an earlier post): The natural first reaction on seeing the photographs of American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners in Saddam Hussein’s old dungeons was to ask: Why are we doing such things [...]

Continue reading about Interrogating Torture

AronT on April 6th, 2009

This op-ed piece in the New York Times by law professor George Bisharat provides a precise summary of all of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza. Bisharat concludes his account with these words: Israeli political and military personnel who planned, ordered or executed these possible offenses should face criminal prosecution. The appointment of Richard Goldstone, the [...]

Continue reading about Feature: War Crimes and Punishment

AronT on March 30th, 2009

This sentence became the rallying cry for George Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his support for the war crimes of Arik Sharon and his successors. Except the United States is far more authoritarian than many of its citizens and certainly its politicians care to admit. A shining exception is Senator Jim Webb: Let’s [...]

Continue reading about “They Hate us for our Freedom”

AronT on March 26th, 2009

As a follow up to yesterday’s post, one might ask why does this type of news article only appear in the UK’s Guardian? Is it not fit to print in the New York Times? Israel’s military fired white phosphorus over crowded areas of Gaza repeatedly and indiscriminately in its three-week war, killing and injuring civilians [...]

Continue reading about War Crimes in Gaza

AronT on March 24th, 2009

It angers me that Guatanamo has become the focus of “liberal” outrage in this country. Every day thousands of people are tortured in US prisons in various ways. Yet little is written condemning these practices. On the contrary, they are glorified and justified in popular culture (cf. Con Air for one of thousands of examples) [...]

Continue reading about The United States of Torture

AronT on March 6th, 2009

Amira Haas, whose writing often appears on this blog, interviews Gaza residents: n the midst of all of this were plastic bottles of urine and many closed bags – in some houses, olive-colored ones – of excrement. People assumed that the commanders stayed there. There are houses where excrement was smeared on the walls, or [...]

Continue reading about How IDF troops Vandalized Gaza Homes