Pakistan

"Realizing the horrific mistake they had made, the pilots dropped white phosphorus bombs with the intention of incinerating all evidence. The entire North Pole lit up and Santa and Prancer could be seen in the distance on a huge block of ice drifting off into the dark sea, the ice everywhere cracked and weakened by the combined effects of white phosphorus and years of global warming."

"We are living on borrowed money and time, neither of which can be repaid under presently collapsing capitalism. We need to organically transform our economy before its synthetic malevolence totally poisons the earth and destroys civilization. That calls for a democratic structure we still need to create. Once we begin that process and join the emerging global culture of change we not only can believe in, but absolutely need, 2009 could turn out to be a significant turning point in history. But we need to work fast."

"While the Obama Administration, itself, may not want to open this file, and while the next Congress will have so much on its plate that it may not want to divert its attention by engaging in a full-fledged investigation - a "special prosecutor" ought to be appointed to pursue the matter."

"Hamas appears to be here to stay--on the Israeli, Palestinian and Middle East Islamic scene. Under these circumstances, whether we are now entering into an informal ceasefire, a new round of conflict or something in between appears to be largely irrelevant to the big picture. That Israel has difficulty acknowledging this fact--that it's ineffective leaders continue to bluster day in and day out with an utter lack of credibility about what Israel is going to do to Hamas rather than acknowledging strategic bankruptcy as a first step toward more constructive thinking--is part of the problem."

"The upcoming Israeli elections are another factor strongly influencing the behavior of the two parties. The different Israeli political leaders are using the Gaza escalation as a way to ensure that in front of voters they look tough on Hamas and are seen to act to end rocket fire and make progress in bringing Shalit home. At the same time, those political leaders in government know that if they overplay their hand, it could backfire. Hamas too understands that while an Israeli government can be violently dangerous around election time, it is also vulnerable, and the normally harmless rocket and mortar fire will be magnified enormously under the lens of elections."

"They must start a new intellectual and organizational effort to realize these important aims. No longer to be satisfied with voting for the “lesser evil” but finally to vote for the greater good, and - together with sectors that have not been partners up till now - to work out solutions that have not yet been tried in ways that have not yet been tried. To bring about an Obama-like miracle."

"Worse, where was the heavy Israeli security contingent in Hebron when the extremist settlers responded to the evacuation by marauding through Arab Hebron (by far the larger part of the city), torching houses and cars, shooting and stoning? It was well known that the extremist settlers had put a "price tag" on every act by the state against them. Yet the violence and the defacing of mosques and Muslim cemeteries began before the evacuation and were allowed to continue for a day or two afterward, not only in Hebron but elsewhere in the West Bank as well."

"The presence and expansion of settlements together with the activities of settlers, violent and aggressive as they are, have shown that the settlement phenomenon is the biggest and most dangerous threat to any potential peace and co-existence between Palestinians and Israelis. Ending the expansion of settlements and eventually evacuating the occupied territories of settlers in order to allow for an independent Palestinian state to emerge are prerequisites for a peaceful solution."