Stephen Lendman

Photo: A Palestinian woman hangs her laundry on the roof of her house close to a concrete wall, part of the controversial Israeli security barrier which separates the West Bank town of Abu Dis from east-Jerusalem on June 30, 2004. (Reuters/Reinhard Krause)

Instead of peace, reconciliation, equity and justice, Israel plans settlement expansions and more Walls. More on them below.

At the same time, Abbas broke his pledge about no peace talks unless settlement expansions stop. Chief negotiators Saeb Erekat and Yitzhak Molcho are meeting in Amman, Jordan. They're joined by Quartet representatives.

Netanyahu's spokesman Mark Regev claims "talks are intended to move forward to negotiations."

PLO spokesman Xavier Abu Eid said, "We are just trying to create the right environment for talks." Chief negotiator Saeb Erekat sidestepped controversy, saying "I would not make a big deal out of it." According to Abbas:

The meeting "was a response to a noble initiative by the brothers in Jordan in an attempt to push forward the peace process and to bridge gaps."

"God willing, results of this meeting will be revealed in the coming two days, and based on that we will set the suitable grounds for resuming negotiations. This would be positive, and we hope Jordan will succeed."

In fact, Abbas and other PLO leaders know decades of peace talks proved fruitless. Israel doesn't negotiate. It demands. Settlement construction won't stop. Neither will Israel's Separation Wall and others on three borders - Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan. More on them below.

Claiming meeting in Amman doesn't begin new talks is duplicitous, even though what follows is uncertain. Hamas denounced them. Spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri wants them boycotted, saying they replicate a "failed policy."

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) calls them an affront, a clear setback, and "severe political mistake," benefitting Israel alone. The Palestinian Democratic Union (FIDA) opposes them while land theft, home demolitions, and settlement expansions continue.

They benefit Israel at the expense of Palestine. Notably, as talks began, Israel's Housing Ministry announced 300 new East Jerusalem housing units on stolen Palestinian land. They're part of 500 units announced in mid-December.

At the time, Housing Minister Ariel Atias said it's "clear that in any future agreement, these neighborhoods will stay under Israel's sovereignty," as well as others yet to be announced.

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Ismail Salami

Washington is widely blamed for bloodbath in
Iraq and Syria.

From the recent massacres happening in Iraq and Syria, one can gather that Washington has adamantly trodden on a path which is to be seen as a way to redefine the war in Iraq, an effective stratagem to bring the regime of Assad to its doom and recalibrate a comprehensive plan to topple the Islamic government of Iran.

Immediately coinciding with the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, a coordinated string of deadly explosions gripped Iraq, leading to the massacre of dozens of civilians. On December 22, 2011, multiple bomb explosions happened simultaneously in Baghdad, claiming the lives of tens of innocent civilians. Another series of explosions targeted Shia Muslim pilgrims on Friday (January 6) and killed at least 71 people.

Most of the explosions which targeted the Shia Muslims are maliciously meant to inspire the feeling and doubt that it is a matter of sectarian violence, a plot devised by the US and its allies to justify that the Iraqi politicians are intent to provoke a 'communal bloodletting' which is gradually tearing the country asunder.

In fact, Washington is capitalizing on tension in the country and playing the sectarian card on the one hand and sending a message that Iraq is not capable of maintaining security and stability in the country.

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Bill Van Auken

“The tide of war is receding,” President Barack Obama declared, not once, but twice on Thursday in his brief remarks at the Pentagon introducing a new defense guidance strategy that formally announces an aggressive US buildup toward military confrontation with China.

Perhaps the US president felt compelled to repeat the phrase because it is so belied by the contents of the document he unveiled. The strategy guidance, together with the remarks that have accompanied and followed its release, points to a further eruption of American militarism and the palpable threat of a third world war.

Obama based his rhetoric about a receding tide of war on the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, the modest drawdown of forces in Afghanistan—where over 90,000 US soldiers and Marines remain—and the proposal, mandated by a deficit reduction measure passed by Congress, to cut $487 billion from projected Pentagon spending over the next decade.

Yet the US president was at pains to deflect the inevitable criticism from his Republican opponents and from within America’s military-industrial complex by stressing that the Pentagon’s budget would remain at the record levels reached at the end of the Bush administration and would continue to grow, just not at the breakneck 80 percent rate recorded over the last decade.

Referring to the disastrous US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama declared the “end of long-term nation-building with large military footprints.” Yet the strategy guidance insists that the US will continue pursuing its full range of interests in the oil-rich Persian Gulf and broader Middle East, adding that “to support these objectives, the United States will continue to place a premium on US and allied military presence in—and support of—partner nations in and around the region.” (Emphasis in the original).

While the document suggests that Washington can pursue its interests by combining air and sea superiority with drone missile assassinations and Special Forces and CIA killing squads, it also insists that the US military will retain the capacity to “secure territory and populations and facilitate a transition to stable governance on a small scale for a limited period using standing forces and, if necessary, for an extended period with mobilized forces.” (Emphasis in the original).

In other words, wars for regime-change and the “large military footprints” of protracted American occupations are over only until the next time. The document stresses that the “concept of reversibility” is “key” to the Pentagon’s calculations, meaning that plans have been drafted to quickly swell the ranks of the Army, including through the mobilization of National Guard and Reserve units as well as through a potential military draft.

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Stephen Lendman

Obama Plans More War

Obama's January 5 Pentagon news conference reeked of duplicity like all his pronouncements. Surrounded by Joint Chiefs of Staff, hawkishness took center stage.

Stressing a leaner, more agile/flexible military, he said counterterrorism, intelligence and cyberwarfare will be emphasized without sacrificing America's superiority against global enemies.

So will subversion, destabilization, drone killings, other targeted assassinations, global state terrorism, and permanent war.

In other words, new and old tactics are featured. Strategies are unchanged. So are imperial aims. Permanent war remains policy. Merciless high-tech killing and destruction will be featured. Ravaging the world one country at a time is planned.

So is expanding the Bush Doctrine. Preemptive global wars define it. Addressing West Point cadets in June 2003, Dick Cheney said:

"If there is anyone in the world today who doubts the seriousness of the Bush Doctrine, I would urge that person to consider the fate of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq."

Bush was more succinct, saying "You're either with us or against us." Neutrality's not an option. Neither are equity, justice, rule of law principles, democratic values and peace.

Supporters thought Obama was different. In fact, he exceeds the worst of Bush at home and abroad. He arrogated to America the right to confront independent regimes belligerently, replace them with client ones, and target homeland dissenters relentlessly.

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Charles Davis & Medea Benjamin

In an age when U.S. power can be projected through private mercenary armies and unmanned Predator drones, the U.S. military need no longer rely on massive, conventional ground forces to pursue its imperial agenda, a fact President Barack Obama is now acknowledging. But make no mistake: while the tactics may be changing, the U.S. taxpayer – and poor foreigners abroad – will still be saddled with overblown military budgets and militaristic policies.

Speaking January 5 alongside his Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the president announced a shift in strategy for the American military, one that emphasizes aerial campaigns and proxy wars as opposed to “long-term nation-building with large military footprints.” This, to some pundits and politicians, is considered a tectonic shift.

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