By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies
The U.S. corporate media usually report on Israeli military assaults in occupied Palestine as if the United States is an innocent neutral party to the conflict. In fact, large majorities of Americans have told pollsters for decades that they want the United States to be neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But U.S. media and politicians betray their own lack of neutrality by blaming Palestinians for nearly all the violence and framing flagrantly disproportionate, indiscriminate and therefore illegal Israeli attacks as a justifiable response to Palestinian actions. The classic formulation from U.S. officials and commentators is that “Israel has the right to defend itself,” never “Palestinians have the right to defend themselves,” even as the Israelis massacre hundreds of Palestinian civilians, destroy thousands of Palestinian homes and seize ever more Palestinian land.
How the United States helps to kill Palestinians
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Special Operations Forces Bracing for Arctic Missions SPECIAL OPERATIONS
5/14/2021
Navy Photo by Visual Information Specialist Chris Desmond
For the past two decades, U.S. Special Operations Forces have deployed to some of the most dangerous and inhospitable places on the planet to combat terrorist networks. With the Pentagon increasingly focused on great power competition, they may soon find themselves spending more time in a region that presents a unique set of challenges the Arctic.
In 2019, the Defense Department released its latest Arctic Strategy, which noted the important role for special operators.
“DoD’s desired end-state for the Arctic is a secure and stable region in which U.S. national security interests are safeguarded, the U.S. homeland is defended, and nations work cooperatively to address shared challenges,” the document said. “The agile and expeditionary nature of SOF, combined with established allied and partner
Leaders in Africa and around the world give lip service to addressing
underlying causes of terrorism, violent internal conflicts, criminal violence and other threats. In practice,
they prioritize militarized responses that are not only
abusive of human rights but also ineffective and counter-productive.
African conflicts are most often seen in terms of simplistic
narratives and applied to the entire continent. But each country
is distinct. Most are at peace, afflicted not by war and warlords,
but by the less visible kinds of violence that prevail around the
world: violence against women or the everyday violence of crime and
discrimination against immigrants.
Portugal to send more soldiers to Mozambique to fight terrorism
Wednesday May 12 2021
A member of the Mozambique security forces patrols on December 9, 2020 in Pemba, Mozambique, where internally displaced people fleeing from unrest in Cabo Delgado sought refuge. PHOTO | AFP
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Portugal will send 60 more soldiers to Mozambique as part of a new cooperation agreement aimed at helping the southern African country to fight insurgency, the Portuguese defence minister has said.
Mr João Cravinho made the announcement on Monday after the signing of the framework cooperation agreement between Lisbon and Maputo with his African counterpart Mr Jaime Neto.
Sixty members of the Portuguese special forces are already training soldiers in Mozambique, following the March 24 attack in the village of Palma, Cabo Delgado, in the northern part of the country.
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