• Commentators who like war faster, please
• Washington still fighting the Soviets in 2010
• We break Iraq and simply ignore it
• The Western war on a free press, coming to a country near you
• So much for Fayyad’s dream in the West Bank
• Who’s the IDF mole who wants to expose Gaza abuses?

Commentators who like war faster, please 27 Nov 2010 Salon releases its Hack Thirty, their least favourite political columnists. Why? “Criteria for inclusion included writing the same column every week for 30 years, warmongering, joyless repetition of conventional wisdom, and making bad puns.” Number three is typical of the rot: [New York Times'] Thomas Friedman is an environmentalist, now. When he’s not jetting around the world on the literally unlimited expense account his money-bleeding newspaper provides him, pondering KFC billboards he spots outside the windows of gleaming office towers in Delhi — or when he’s not lounging beside the pool at his absurd home — thesecond-most-influential business thinker in the country is worrying about carbon emissions. Which is, I freely admit, a nice change of pace from back when he was telling the world that the invasion and occupation of Iraq would lead to a glorious new dawn of freedom/democracy/whiskey/iPods/Old Navy in the Middle East as a whole. (Oh wait, what’s that? What Obama needs to deal with Iran is “a Dick Cheney standing over his right shoulder, quietly pounding a baseball bat into his palm”? Hm. And your message to the people of Iraq? Oh, right, it was, “suck on this.”)

Washington still fighting the Soviets in 2010  27 Nov 2010 Happy anniversary suckers: The US has now been in Afghanistan longer than the Soviet Union.

We break Iraq and simply ignore it Posted: 27 Nov 2010 04:52 AM PST Where is the Western responsibility for causing such chaos in Iraq? A second exodus has begun here, of Iraqis who returned after fleeing the carnage of the height of the war, but now find that violence and the nation’s severe lack of jobs are pulling them away from home once again. Since the American invasion in 2003, refugees have been a measure of the country’s precarious condition, flooding outward during periods of violence and trickling back as Iraq seemed to stabilize. This new migration shows how far the nation remains from being stable and secure. Abu Maream left Iraq after a mortar round killed his brother-in-law in 2005. Amar al-Obeidi left when insurgents threatened to kill him and raided his shops. Hazim Hadi Mohammed al-Tameemi left because the doctors who treated his wife’s ovarian cancer had fled the country. All three joined the flow of refugees who returned as violence here ebbed. But now they want to leave again. “The only thing that’s stopping me is I don’t have the money,” said Mr. Maream, who gave only a partial name — literally, father of Maream — because he feared reprisal from extremists in his neighborhood. “We are Iraqis in name only.” Nearly 100,000 refugees have returned since 2008, out of more than two million who left since the invasion, according to the Iraqi government and the United Nations high commissioner for refugees. But as they return, pulled by improved security in Iraq or pushed by a lack of work abroad, many are finding that their homeland is still not ready — their houses are gone or occupied, their neighborhoods unsafe, their opportunities minimal. In a recent survey by the United Nations refugee office, 61 percent of those who returned to Baghdad said they regretted coming back, most saying they did not feel safe. The majority, 87 percent, said they could not make enough money here to support their families. Applications for asylum in Syria have risen more than 50 percent since May. As Iraq struggles toward a return to stability, these returnees risk becoming people without a country, displaced both at home and abroad. And though departures have ebbed since 2008, a wave of recent attacks on Christians has prompted a new exodus.

The Western war on a free press, coming to a country near you 26 Nov 2010 Al Jazeera’s Listening Post is a weekly show that dissects the world’s media. This week there’s a focus on Sarkozy in France and his increasingly authoritarian ways against the press. Welcome to democracy:

So much for Fayyad’s dream in the West Bank 26 Nov 2010 This is what Palestinian “state-building” really means: On Sept. 1, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad celebrated with the residents of Qarawat Bani Hassan the inauguration of a mile-long road linking the small West Bank village to a spring its residents consider the lifeline of the community. It was called Freedom Road. While Fayyad was on a trip to Japan this week, hoping to get more funding for his two-year “Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State” program, of which building that road was one project, Israel on Wednesday destroyed the road, which is located in Area C of the West Bank. According to the Oslo breakdown of the West Bank, Area C, which makes up more than 60% of the West Bank land, remains under full Israeli military control. But Area C is also an important segment in Fayyad’s state building program, crucial to his dream of setting up the necessary infrastructure for a viable Palestinian state by August 2011. Israeli officials had informed Fayyad and the village residents that they would not allow the road because it was located in an area under its full control.   According to the village mayor, the Israeli army tried to stop construction on the $335,000 road, paid for by the Palestinian Authority, several times. But they continued with the project, and when the road was completed, Israeli officials informed the mayor two days before the inauguration that he had one week to destroy the road or the army would be sent in to do so. But Fayyad snubbed the Israeli threat and proceeded with the official inauguration ceremonies. Israel did not act until about three months later, when Fayyad was abroad, and bulldozers were sent in. Fayyad on Thursday took time off from his busy schedule in Japan to denounce the Israeli step as “an act of sabotage.” He said, “Israel’s destruction of Freedom Road in Qarawat Bani Hassan will only strengthen the will of our people to continue on the road to freedom.” He vowed to rebuild the road. The spring, to which the road was built, is located near an illegal Israeli settlement outpost called Havat Meir.

Who’s the IDF mole who wants to expose Gaza abuses? 26 Nov 2010 An Israeli insider who dislikes what his colleagues are doing: The IDF magazine, Bamachaneh confirmed today that the list of IDF officers who served in Cast Lead and allegedly committed war crimes, was leaked through an army source.  This contradicts attempts by Israel apologists to rebut the charges and information contained in the list by saying some of those listed didn’t serve in that Operation.