Author: Bill Weinberg

North America
The mosque at Zhuxian

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The White House issued a proclamation that bans migrants caught entering the US unlawfully from seeking asylum. The ban's stated purpose is to funnel migrants from Mexico and Central America to ports of entry, where they will be allowed to apply for asylum "in an orderly and controlled manner instead of unlawfully." But Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrant Rights Project, stated: "The law is clear: People can apply for asylum whether or not they’re at a port of entry, and regardless of their immigration status. The president doesn't get to ignore that law, even if he dislikes it." (Photo via Jurist)

Afghanistan
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Bedouin under siege

In its latest quarterly report to Congress, the US watchdog for Afghan reconstruction finds that the security situation is at an all-time low since monitoring began. Since the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) began tracking district control in 2015, Afghan government-controlled or "influenced" districts have declined 16% to 55.5%. In the same period, areas of insurgent control or influence rose 5.5% while "contested" districts increased 11%. As of late July, the US military assessed that the Kabul government controls or influences 226 of Afghanistan's 407 districts, while the Taliban controls/influences 49. The remaining 132 districts are identified as "contested." Since the prior quarterly report, Operation Resolute Support downgraded eight districts from "government influenced" to "contested." SIGAR said Afghan security forces "made minimal or no progress in pressuring the Taliban" in the period covered by the report. (Photo via Stars & Stripes)

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Bedouin under siege

Bedouin children wander away from their home in al-Hadidiya village in the West Bank, which is now within a closed military zone claimed by the Israeli army Photo: Phoebe Greenwood/IRIN

Iran

Israel to attack Iran in December —again

Jeffrey Goldberg in a story in The Atlantic, “The Point of No Return,” claims that Israel will attack Iran by the end of the year. But readers may recall that there was a flurry of such predictions last year too.

New York City

Bloomberg blows it with New York state Indians

Mayor Bloomberg, winning praise over his position on the “Ground Zero Mosque,” weighs in against Native Americans’ right to tax-free tobacco sales on their reservations in blatantly racist terms.

Iran

Ahmadinejad’s Orwellian logic mirrors Bush

At the unveiling of a new bomber, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran “should seek the ability to make pre-emptive strikes against a perceived threat,” while also saying it would “never strike first.”

Greater Middle East

Sufis on the NYT op-ed page —again

Author William Dalrymple weighs in with a defense of Sufism and the “Ground Zero Mosque” on the Times op-ed page—but in terms that smack of a neocon strategy to groom domesticated “good” Muslims.

New York City

Islamophobic propaganda: coming to a bus near you

New York City buses will be running ads from the jingoistic American Freedom Defense Initiative attacking the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”—part of a nationwide propaganda campaign.

Greater Middle East
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GOR

The US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced that they have temporarily halted their campaign against ISIS after they were bombarded for the second time in four days by Turkish forces. With Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an promising to "wipe out" the Kurdish YPG militia, calling them "terrorists," his forces in northern Syria attacked YPG positions east of the Euphrates River. The YPG, or People's Protection Units, constitute the central pillar of the US-backed SDF, which Washington continues to support with some 2,000 embedded troops. At least 10 YPG fighters were reported killed in the Turkish shelling of territory in the Kurdish autonomous canton of Kobani. The SDF said in a statement: "Turkish attacks in the north and ISIS attacks in the south against our troops had forced us to stop our current operation temporarily against ISIS in its last pocket… We call upon the international community to condemn the Turkish provocations." The statement claimed that YPG fighters responded to the shelling with artillery and machine-gun fire, destroying a Turkish military vehicle and border post. (Image of SDF fighters via Rudaw)

Europe

Srebrenica: 15 years later, still no justice

World leaders commemorated the 1995 Srebrenica massacre July 11, and genocide convictions have been handed down—but the accused massacre mastermind Ratko Mladic remains at large.