Monthly Archives: December 2009

"The internet has become an arena of struggle, where the progressive vices of peace are competing with the retrogressive voices of hate. For those who choose a better tomorrow, not only for themselves, but for all, this is the time for a momentous change. It is a time to raise our voice against the voices of hate within our own countries, societies and religions to usher the hoped for new millennium."

"Observers of the Middle East conflict insist that the continuation of the plight of the Palestinians and the injustice they are suffering at the hands of the Israeli occupiers is a source of anger and frustration for millions around the world. Candidate Obama, as well as President Obama in his first 100 days, would not have taken his eyes off the ball. Preventing further attacks against American targets will not take place with hard power. Soft power and support of justice and neutrality in the Middle East will provide much better protection than body scanners and efficient intelligence work."

"The serious nation-building efforts of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have not included any developed plans for the potential of building an audio-visual industry in Palestine. What is unique about this is that a serious audio-visual strategy could be a win-win effort. It can combine job creation, cultural and artistic development, awareness building, and national loyalty."

"The tools Israel musters in its relations with Washington are well known: an extremely effective lobby that is backed by a wealthy and influential American Jewish community and that works hard to establish influence with each new Congress and administration; close military-security-intelligence relations based on a communality of interests and shared regional threat assessments--once regarding the Soviets, now the Iranians and militant Islam; the perception of common value-systems; and currently, though not always, a prime minister who knows the American system well...None of these components exists in the US-Palestine relationship."

"If Afghanistan is a trial or the test of NATO in its sixtieth year, it is not so for the NATO of 1949 but of what leading Alliance officials and other proponents in recent years have referred to as 21st century NATO, expeditionary NATO, global NATO: The first attempt in history to forge an international military alliance. An international armed network with the world's self-proclaimed exclusive superpower and its nuclear arsenal as its foundation and at its core...The "asymmetric" war in Afghanistan now in its ninth year is a seminal venture for NATO in several respects. In addition to it signifying the bloc's first ground war and its first colonial excursion outside the Euro-Atlantic world, the drawn-out and by all indications indefinite campaign in South Asia is laboratory and training camp, firing range and convergence point for the U.S.'s consolidation of a global military strike and occupation force first tested in Kosovo in 1999 with 50,000 troops under NATO command, then in Iraq after 2003 with tens of thousands of troops from NATO, new NATO and NATO candidate nations."