January 2008

'US the Biggest Producer of Terror'
Posted: Monday, January 28, 2008

¤ Snowstorms cause havoc in China

¤ CBS Falsifies Iraq War History
There's a cynical old saying that the victors write the history. CBS's "60 Minutes" demonstrated how that process works on Jan. 27 in airing Scott Pelley's interview with the FBI agent who de-briefed former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
In a world of objective reality, a reporter might say that the United States launched an unprovoked invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, under the false pretense that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, even after Iraq had repeatedly – and accurately – announced that its WMD had been destroyed in the 1990s.

¤ The Annapolis spirit in action
¤ Operation Desert Slaughter
¤ Government Panel Gets It Wrong on Afghanistan
¤ What a Great Freakin' War!!

¤ A Lesson in How to Create Iraqi Orphans
It's not difficult to create orphans in Iraq. If you're an insurgent, you can blow yourself up in a crowded market. If you're an American air force pilot, you can bomb the wrong house in the wrong village. Or if you're a Western mercenary, you can fire 40 bullets into the widowed mother of 14-year-old Alice Awanis and her sisters Karoon and Nora, the first just 20, the second a year older. But when the three girls landed at Amman airport from Baghdad last week they believed that they were free of the horrors of Baghdad and might travel to Northern Ireland to escape the terrible memory of their mother's violent death.

¤ Fastest Growing Corporate Crime in America
¤ Some Things Even Obama Can't Transcend
¤ DRC: The Invisible War

¤ How Bush Destroyed the Dollar
It is difficult to know where Bush has accomplished the most destruction, the Iraqi economy or the US economy.
In the current issue of Manufacturing & Technology News, Washington economist Charles McMillion observes that seven years of Bush has seen the federal debt increase by two-thirds while US household debt doubled.

¤ America's Sick Comedy
¤ The Depressing Truth About Anti-Depressants

¤ 'US the Biggest Producer of Terror'
¤ Dear Soldiers: Your Government Lied to You
¤ Worse Than a Crime
¤ Exonerating Neocon Criminals
¤ Howard Zinn: The Myth of American Exceptionalism Video

¤ Tip-off Thwarted Nuclear Spy Ring Probe
¤ A Criminal Idea
¤ Iraq urges limits on U.S. operations
¤ Dead For Lies

¤ What A Great Freakin' War!!
For months – nay, years! – I've been ranting about how screwed up the war in Iraq has been, and how disastrous have been its consequences.
What a fool I've been! In reality, it's actually turned out pretty great.
That's what I learned when I read William Kristol's recent New York Times piece, "The Democrats' Fairy Tale". In a stroke of thoughtfulness, generosity and uncanny prescience, the Times was kind enough recently to hire Kristol to write a regular column for their op-ed page. I guess that's because Ariel Sharon was unavailable and David Duke was on vacation.

¤ The Doctrine of Blatancy
¤ Wall comes tumbling down

¤ Unimaginable Intentional Human Suffering
Perhaps one day we shall know the truth about being, and being alive on planet earth, whether life on every living planet is as messed-up as it is here. Earth's problems must be unique, as they are of man's own creation, man-made disasters caused by ambitious men who are allowed to rise to the top, where they dominate us for self-gain. We allow our leaders to take the positions of power that they desire, instead of actually choosing who shall lead us. Humans tend to submit to those who claim authority, since it is easier to believe in symbols of power, than it is to personally submit to the tedium of the reasoning process. As a people, we tend to follow the natural order of things along the path of least resistance. By taking the easy way out, we give our blessing to the law of the jungle.

¤ South Carolina Primary Colors: Black and White?
South Carolina 2000: Six hundred police in riot gear facing a few dozen angry-as-hell workers on the docks of Charleston. In the darkness, rocks, clubs and blood fly. The cops beat the crap out of the protesters. Of course, it's the union men who are arrested for conspiracy to riot. And of course, of the five men handcuffed, four are Black. The prosecutor: a White, Bible-thumping Attorney General running for Governor. The result: a state ripped in half - White versus Black.

¤ U.S. War Costs In Iraq Up

¤ Death toll climbs to 800 in fresh wave of Kenya violence

Study: Bush Led US To War on ‘False Pretenses’
Posted: Thursday, January 24, 2008

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."
Full Article : commondreams.org

Zimbabwe: BBC Reporting a Disgrace
Posted: Thursday, January 24, 2008

By Leo Makombe
January 22, 2008
The Herald (Harare)

NO wonder the BBC was banned from reporting from Zimbabwe as it behaves like a terrorist or spy media organisation if their recent story, "Mugabe faces rival from within party", broadcast on Monday January 14 2008 at 23:56GMT, is taken into consideration.

The BBC, it appears, also reported from ignorance, because if they had known that two Zimbabwe weekly newspapers had reported the story, they would not have acted as if it was breaking news. If it is the story of shortages, be it of foodstuffs or money, all newspapers including The Herald and privately owned newspapers in Zimbabwe are covering these daily and weekly.

To other fair-minded people, and me the reporter was covering stale news.

And for John Simpson to brag that he defied the odds and sneaked into Zimbabwe and managed to shoot video and then report when he had returned to his base is childish, because knowing the security system in Zimbabwe, he was being protected all the time he was in the country so that he could report back his stale news.

What would have happened if he had been arrested, as what happened to the e-TV crew of South Africa that was arrested when they were reporting on illegal diamond mining in Mutare? It seems the BBC either wants its reporters to be arrested, harassed or to report stale news. That is news to the BBC.

The BBC is now, as I said earlier, behaving like a terrorist or spy organisation. It is now stage-managing events just like it did during past elections, when it stage-managed events for the MDC.

This is why the BBC was banned from Zimbabwe, because it was partisan and acting on behalf of the British government who have an agenda against Zanu-PF and the Government it leads, an agenda they have sought to internationalise.

It is true that the ordinary Zimbabwean can afford a satellite dish and can tune and view the BBC and many other international television and radio stations.

The BBC is not popular; it is just like an other international TV and radio station.

The Government of Zimbabwe, which the BBC and other misguided people view as inhuman, allows people to access views from other international broadcasting stations, a situation that does not prevail in some countries the British government openly supports.

If the BBC did not know, we also have France24 on satellite, which is competing with the BBC on world news in addition to CNN, among other channels.

The BBC can interview all the anti-Zimbabwe people, I say anti-Zimbabwe because these people have nothing to offer the ordinary people in Zimbabwe, like Dr. John Makumbe, whose hatred of President Mugabe has outgrown him that he is so hypocritical that he is employed by the University of Zimbabwe whose Chancellor is President Mugabe.

If President Mugabe was so bad, why don't Makumbe and Lovemore Madhuku quit their jobs at the UZ and concentrate on their numerous sojourns that have enabled them to hoodwink the Western world and donor agencies who are pouring money into their various money-spinning ventures? What is more, why haven't they been fired?

I have always told my friends that Zimbabweans are very clever in that they can get money from foreigners with minimal sweat.

Is the ordinary person in Britain getting the pounds as easy as the likes of Madhuku, Makumbe and the MDC are doing in Zimbabwe? The British public is being taken for a ride by their own government.

The British public sweat to pay lazy and unemployable Zimbabweans.

What a shame! If ever there should be an uprising it should be in Britain, because their government is wasting money on a cause that does not benefit them. Even the BBC has fallen into the trap. Were the people who were moving with Simpson doing that for free? That is my ordinary cunning Zimbabwe brother at work.

Make money from gullible Westerners without breaking a sweat.

I also wish to remind the BBC that Zimbabweans do not just vote for anyone just because the BBC or British government says so. People from within Zanu-PF can form as many parties as they want (Edgar Tekere did so and what happened?), but if the ordinary person who has no access to the BBC knows you as we know Zanu-PF, the parties are doomed.

Why should someone who has a personal vendetta against Zanu-PF want the whole of Zimbabwe to fight his battles? Zimbabweans know what the British and their allies have done in other countries and they are now wiser and will not be hoodwinked.

In all fairness, if there are over a million Zimbabweans in the UK, why doesn't the British government deport them now so that they can vote in the March elections so that the Government is democratically removed from office? No the British government will not do that, they continue poisoning us with the stale news from the BBC, simply because those numbers are cooked up.

In Zimbabwe we hold elections, we do not handpick leaders, as was done with Gordon Brown, so which system do the British want to teach us? If there is an illegitimate prime minister/president, it is Gordon Brown.

No wonder he did not attend the EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon, he knew it was for elected heads of state and government.

Zimbabweans welcome diversity and if it happens that the Young Turks from Zanu-PF form a party that can win the elections, fair enough.

We do not have any problems with that. But for the BBC to start campaigning for that stillborn party raises eyebrows, just as we have always queried the BBC's support for the MDC.

Already, people are saying the "new" stillborn party is a creation of the West as a replacement to the MDC which is past its sell-by date, thus the proposed party has already lost relevance before its arrival.

With the news doing the rounds, it seems the new stillborn party will be a one-man show. Its proposed leader is hardly known in the rural areas where the bulk of the vote is. So please BBC, do not celebrate yet.

Disgruntled and power-hungry people from Zanu-PF have been dumped by Zimbabweans and the same will happen to anyone from anywhere who wants to use his disgruntlement to get into power.

People will ask you, if Zanu-PF was so bad why did you stay in that party for the past 25 or so years?

Coming to the MDC, the reason they lose the elections, like one sister stated in The Herald the other day, is that its membership is made up of people who do not vote. True, everyday at the MDC offices one would think there is a rally as unemployable -- not unemployed -- youths, men and women roam the street outside.

Such people have taken the MDC as their employer and the reason they do not want to vote is that when the situation changes for the better, no employer will engage them because they are lazy.

They would rather stick by Harvest House and hoodwink gullible opposition leaders, because they know the MDC will not win the elections as they withhold their votes.

Tsvangirai, instead of wooing voters, is busy threatening them with Kenya-style violence and boycotting the elections.

Whose child is he going to sacrifice and kill? What kind of a leader openly calls for violence against his own people? While Zanu-PF and everyone else in Zimbabwe is calling for peaceful elections, the MDC Tsvangirai faction is doing the opposite.

Why threaten people before elections? And why is the BBC silent on this? Would they be silent if it were Zanu-PF threatening violence? Let us not be blinded by being partisan. If it was in other countries, Tsvangirai would have been arrested.

He is calling for the equivalent of genocide, yet he fancies himself a potential president.

Tsvangirai is so obsessed with power that he is busy decampaigning for himself. He is doing the same thing he has done in the past whereby he has called for sanctions. It appears he does not learn from his mistakes.

Tsvangirai is in his last term as MDC president. If he loses in March, as he is likely to, then it will be good riddance for many in his faction. But Tsvangirai seems not to see this. He sees President Mugabe as his enemy and is not seeing the enemy within his own party.

Study: False statements preceded Iraq war
Posted: Wednesday, January 23, 2008

¤ Pre-Emptive Nuclear Strike a Key Option, NATO Told
¤ Humanitarian impact of Israel's blockade of Gaza Video

¤ Hard Times A-Coming
The first government response to America's sinking economy was denial. We were told as recently as a month ago by administration officials and Wall Street charlatans that the economy was robust and that there would not be a recession. Now we are told that the economy is in trouble, but that the government is taking decisive action to shore it up.

¤ Dollar May Extend Drop Against Euro on Further Fed Rate Cuts
The dollar may extend its drop against the euro after investors increased bets the Federal Reserve will cut borrowing costs again next week after its first emergency reduction since 2001.

¤ Bank of America's 4Q income plummets 95 percent
¤ Feds may cut key interest rate to 2.25 later this year
¤ Rate cuts expected as governments try to calm markets
¤ Asian markets suffer biggest plunge since Sept. 11 terror attacks

¤ A Recession, If It Comes, Could Be Worse Than Those of Recent Past
¤ The United States cannot claim success if it retreats in the face of Iraqi suffering
¤ 37 militants killed in Pakistan
¤ Democracies don't torture

¤ Study: False Statements Preceded War
A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

¤ False Pretenses
President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

¤ The uncounted dead of Iraq
¤ Contractor Abuses Rarely Punished, Groups Say

¤ Never Under Saddam - Really?
One pro-US blogger writes about the US army building a clinic for a small community in Iraq and states that this would never have happened under Saddam. As is the case with such bloggers their ability to approach any matter objectively is seriously compromised by their bias.

¤ Why Jose Padilla's 17-year prison sentence should shock and disgust all Americans
¤ Death, despair in West Bank camp
¤ Palestinians flood into Egypt after Gaza wall blasts

¤ The NIE Report Keeps Spreading Its Influence
Like the Energizer Bunny, the ripples from the Dec. 3 publication of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear program just keep going and going and going.
Aside from the obvious fact that the prospect of a U.S. military attack on Iran seems to have been put in deep freeze for the time being, there are other fascinating aspects.

¤ Bolívar's Sword
¤ Racism in 'Post-Racial' America
¤ Don't Blame Subprime Lenders!

¤ War in Congo kills 45,000 people each month
A decade of fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo is continuing to kill about 45,000 people each month - half of them small children - in the deadliest conflict since the second world war, according to a new survey.

¤ China breaks "real-time" porn web site"

America Is A Bully. OK.
Posted: Monday, January 21, 2008

¤ People are dying, Help us!
A humanitarian crisis is underway as the Gaza Strip's only power plant began to shut down on Sunday, and the tiny coastal territory entered its third full day without shipments of vital food and fuel supplies due to Israel's punitive sanctions.
The Gaza Strip's power plant has completely shut down on Sunday because it no longer has the fuel needed to keep running. One of the plant's two electricity-generating turbines had already shut down by noon.

¤ So Many Tragedies in So Little Time

¤ The Apartheid Paradigm in Palestine/Israel

¤ There Is No "War on Terror"
One of the most telling signs of the political naiveté of liberals and the Left in the United States has been their steadfast faith in much of the worldview that blankets the imperial state they call home. Nowhere has this critical failure been more evident than in their acceptance of the premise that there really is something called a "war on terror" or "terrorism"[1]—however poorly managed its critics make it out to be—and that righting the course of this war ought to be this country's (and the world's) top foreign policy priority. In this perspective, Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than Iraq ought to have been the war on terror's proper foci; most accept that the U.S. attack on Afghanistan from October 2001 on was a legitimate and necessary stage in the war. The tragic error of the Bush Administration, in this view, was that it lost sight of this priority, and diverted U.S. military action to Iraq and other theaters, reducing the commitment where it was needed.

¤ Kenya violence claims more lives
¤ Israel must bomb Iran for Bush: US Rep. advisor
¤ Chavez warns banks on farm lending

¤ How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston joins us to talk about his new book, "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You with the Bill)." Johnston reveals how government subsidies and new regulations have quietly funneled money from the poor and the middle class to the rich and politically connected.

¤ Bread, milk, meat prices tipped to soar

¤ Pakistan's Nukes Are Here To Stay, Get Used To It
Last November, The New York Times published what many analysts in Islamabad described as a misleading story, claiming that the United States had spent up to $ 100 million over the past five years to help Pakistan secure its nuclear weapons.
The story coincided with reports alleging that elite U.S. troops already had access to Pakistan's vast arsenal of nuclear and other strategic weapons.
Pakistani officials preferred to ignore these reports, confident about their capabilities and a little curious about where these bogus stories were coming from. These officials were also content with assurances from the Bush administration it had nothing to do with these reports.

¤ Blowback In The War On Terror

¤ Canada puts U.S., Israel on torture watchlist
¤ Canada takes US, Israel off torture watch list

¤ Israel Shocked at Torture Claim
Israel's Ambassador to Canada says "Israel doesn't engage in torture, it's prohibited by Israeli law."
Alan Baker says it's shocking Israel was labelled a practitioner of torture in a Foreign Affairs training manual for Canadian diplomats.
Baker told The Canadian Press he demanded that Israel be deleted from the list of suspected human rights abusers as soon as he learned of the matter.

¤ Cowered Canadian Government

¤ More Israeli war crimes, more media complicity
¤ Government Health Agencies Complicit in Cholesterol Ruse
¤ Accused of Hiding Drug Dangers Again
¤ Bhutto's party rejects youth's assassination confession
¤ Pakistan Confirms Two Arrests in Bhutto Assassination
¤ Women turn on 'traitor' Oprah Winfrey for backing Barack Obama

¤ The Lying ambassador

¤ The Bush Debacle: One Year to Go?
The political calendar indicates that in one more year – on Jan. 20, 2009 – the presidency of George W. Bush will come to an end. However, the worst consequences of his disastrous reign, including the Iraq War, may be nowhere near ending.
Today's presidential frontrunners, John McCain and Hillary Clinton, were early prominent supporters of the Iraq War and appear to have suffered little political damage for lining up behind Bush in 2002 when he was at the peak of his power.

¤ McCarthyism Comes to Europe and the Levant
¤ Better Kiss Your Abe 'Goodbye'
¤ This is the debate NBC and General Electric Didn't want you to hear

¤ What the CIA Had to Destroy
So what was on those videotapes destroyed by the CIA? Let's put a face to it. Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and, after being shot in the groin while trying to escape, was sent to recover in a CIA secret prison. He would be the first of the CIA's many "ghost prisoners"—and also the first to test the value of what the president has often described as an "alternative set of [interrogation] procedures . . . that are safe and necessary."
As described by Ron Suskind in The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 , Zubaydah—held in an ice-cold cell—was denied medication for his wounds, threatened with death, prevented from sleeping, incessantly blasted with pounding rock music (by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, among others), and, at last, waterboarded. After 30 seconds of feeling that he was on the verge of drowning, he was more than eager to answer any questions.

¤ America Is A Bully. OK. There, I Said It!
¤ Israel murders Hamas activist
¤ Death toll soars in Kenya clashes
¤ Iran slams US sanctions drive, China backs dialogue
¤ Britain 'as inept as US' in failing to foresee postwar Iraq insurgency
¤ Israel keeps up raids amid blackout

The Great American Election Charade
Posted: Wednesday, January 16, 2008

¤ Iraq's national grid grinds to a halt
¤ Kenyan opposition plans parliament protest

¤ Iran says US 'lost face' over ship incident
Iran on Sunday said the United States had "lost face" and should apologise over its portrayal of an incident between Iranian and US naval forces in the Strait of Hormuz.
Foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini accused the US of exaggerating the incident "to fool the region" during a visit by US President George W. Bush to Washington's Arab allies.

¤ Tamil Tigers kill 28 with bus bomb

¤ Oil Is Little Changed as Dollar Nears Record Low Against Euro
Crude oil was little changed in New York after rising for the first time in four days as the dollar fell to within a cent of its record low against the euro, prompting investors to buy commodities as an inflation hedge.
The dollar dropped on speculation that the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates this month, sending gold and platinum futures to records. Crude prices also increased on expectations that fuel consumption will surge this week as colder weather moves across the U.S.

¤ Subprime Nation
¤ The Coddled "Terrorists" of South Florida

¤ How the American Media Enables Bush
President George Bush has a few months left in office. Many analysts have believed for some time now that before he retires from that position, he will have orchestrated an attack either against Syria or Iran. Increasingly, it seems that his fixation is with Iran. After much was made by the Bush administration about Iran's covert nuclear program, recently there was acknowledgment that many of those fears may have been over-exaggerated or even misplaced. Yet no one from the administration was taken to task for spreading such sinister misinformation. More disturbingly, there was no substantive criticism from the American media either.

¤ How The Pentagon Planted a False Hormuz Story
Senior Pentagon officials, evidently reflecting a broader administration policy decision, used an off-the-record Pentagon briefing to turn the Jan. 6 U.S.-Iranian incident in the Strait of Hormuz into a sensational story demonstrating Iran's military aggressiveness, a reconstruction of the events following the incident shows.
The initial press stories on the incident, all of which can be traced to a briefing by deputy assistant secretary of defence for public affairs in charge of media operations Bryan Whitman, contained similar information that has since been repudiated by the Navy itself.

¤ Kenyan police shoot dead protesters
¤ The Coming Oil Price Decline

¤ A Strategic Call to Close Guantánamo
Widely reported in the last few days were comments made by the United States' most senior military official, Admiral Mike Mullen, during a visit to Guantánamo on Sunday. In his first trip to the prison since he became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in October, Admiral Mullen told reporters, "I'd like to see it shut down." Asked why, he explained, "More than anything else it's been the image -- how Gitmo has become around the world, in terms of representing the United States. I believe that from the standpoint of how it reflects on us that it's been pretty damaging."

¤ Going 15 Rounds with Seymour Hersh
¤ Shin Bet boasts of 1,000 assassinations, included 150 children
¤ Israel kills 19 in deadliest Gaza incursion in a year
¤ The hidden victims of U.S. imperialism
¤ Protecting Mesopotamian riches from U.S. 'mobs and Humvees'

¤ The Great American Election Charade
In the United States of America, the public selects the candidates of each of the two parties. Several candidates of these parties offer themselves to the citizens of a number of states, the free US press presents the policy positions of the candidates to the public, and the free broadcast media conduct debates in which the issues are openly discussed. Then the states hold primaries and caucuses, in which delegates are chosen by the voters, whereupon the delegates choose the parties' nominees at open national party conventions.

Number Crunching: Death Count Politics
Posted: Monday, January 14, 2008

¤ Letter from Judy, Kenya
¤ The Real Case Against Hillary Clinton
¤ Revealed: secret plan to storm SA's last bastion of white power

¤ The Iraqis Don't Really Want Us
Did you miss this? It should have been the lead story in every newspaper and radio and TV program in America. In the Washington Post it was on page 14. In virtually all of the rest of the media it was on page zero, channel zero, 0000 AM or 00.0 FM.
The US military in Iraq hired firms to conduct focus groups amongst a cross section of the population. A summary report of the findings was obtained by the Post. Here are some of the highlights of the report as disclosed by the newspaper:
Until the March 2003 US occupation Sunnis and Shiites coexisted peacefully.

¤ Dutch friendly fire kills 4 troops

¤ Iran agrees to provide nuclear data
Iran has agreed to answer questions about "secret nuclear activities" within one month, in a pledge made during talks between Iranian leaders with head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Tehran provided information to the IAEA on Sunday about work to develop advanced centrifuges.

¤ Legal mist stokes US-Iran tensions in strait

¤ Who's the voice on radio in Iran standoff?
The threatening radio transmission heard at the end of a video showing apparently harassing maneuvers by Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz last weekend may have come not from the Iranian crews, but from a locally famous heckler known among ship drivers as the "Filipino Monkey."

¤ Mischievous 'Filipino Monkey' could have triggered latest US-Iran row
¤ Gulf Shenanigans: No Laughing Matter
¤ Israeli aircraft fire at Palestinian car
¤ 'An Absurd, Sadistic Image'
¤ Musharraf: U.S. May 'Regret' Covert Ops
¤ Chavez defends Colombia rebels

¤ Iraq's Displaced Children
The number of internally displaced people in Iraq had increased some 50% from 2006 to 2007, however some claim the numbers may now be falling, but only slowly. There are still millions of Iraqi's living away from home due to the threat of violence there, leaving some to flea their homes and head to other regions of the country, while others leave Iraq completely, leaving a total of approximately 4 million Iraqi refugees.

¤ Number Crunching: Death Count Politics

¤ Gross Distortions, Sloppy Methodology and Tendentious Reporting
Almost five years into the destruction of Iraq, the orthodox rule of thumb for assessing statistical tabulations of the civilian death toll is becoming clear: any figure will do so long as it is substantially lower than that computed by the Johns Hopkins researchers in their 2004 and 2006 studies. Their findings, based on the most orthodox sampling methodology and published in the Lancet after extensive peer review, estimated the post-invasion death toll by 2006 at about 655,000. Predictably, this shocking assessment drew howls of ignorant abuse from self-interested parties, including George Bush ("not credible") and Tony Blair.

¤ US Elections as Hollywood Movie
¤ Clinton Smears Obama on Iraq - Again
¤ The Turks haven't learned the British way of denying past atrocities
¤ A Slave Government Video

Bush's Mideast Pipe Dream
Posted: Saturday, January 12, 2008

¤ Official Version of U.S.-Iranian Naval Incident Starts to Unravel
The United States has lodged a formal diplomatic protest against Iran for its "provocation" in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday morning. But new information reveals that the alleged Iranian threat to American naval vessels in the Strait might have been blown out of proportion.

¤ CIA Reveals: We Said In 1974 That Israel Had Nuclear Weapons
¤ A Modesty Proposal

¤ And the Oscar Goes to...
Hillary's recent emotion at the tanking of her multi-million dollar; mass pandering campaign reminded me of a scene in Mike Myers' Wayne's World where he, as Wayne, throws water on his face and emotes about something while "Academy Awards Clip" flashes on the screen. Hillary Clinton does not do anything that is not coldly, if not icily calculated. However, seeing her ambitions and life's work of becoming the first female president go down into the primordial-primary ooze may be something for which she might exhibit a little emotion.

¤ The Winning Ticket: Hillary and Diebold in 2008
Something doesn't ring true about Hillary's "upset" victory in the New Hampshire primary. It just doesn't pass the smell test. All the exit polls showed Clinton trailing Obama by significant margins. In fact, in the Gallup Poll taken just days before the election, "Crocodile tears" Hillary was down by a whopping 13 points. Her "turnaround" was not only unexpected, but downright shocking. The results for the rest of the candidates--excluding Clinton and Obama---were all within the margin of error. Clinton was the only anomaly. Surprise, surprise.

¤ Did Hillary Really Win New Hampshire?
¤ The Voter ID Fraud
¤ Why I'm Still Not for Hillary Clinton
¤ Mediation Bush-style
¤ Big win for Taiwan opposition
¤ Shots at Benazir fired from a .30 gun: report
¤ Blair accused of taking blood money
¤ The "Good Good War" Is A Bad War
¤ New Baghdad embassy's fire-fighting system is defective

¤ 'A Heartbeat Away' From War With Iran and Pakistan
As the American people amuse themselves with the illusion that they have any say in the way they are presently governed, our rulers are moving toward war. Two recent incidents underscore the imminence of this prospect.
The Iranian "provocation" in the straits of Hormuz has set the stage for a new "crisis" manufactured wholly by the War Party, the rationale for which is uncritically accepted by our passive "mainstream" media. We are expected to believe that five minuscule speedboats "menaced" the USS Hopper, a destroyer armed with missiles; the cruiser USS Port Royal; and the USS Ingraham, a frigate. That's rather like five gnats "menacing" a trio of elephants. Oh, but that's not all. In addition to intercepting the American flotilla, CNN reports the Iranians supposedly issued explicit threats:

¤ USA prepares military action against Iran?

¤ Bush's Mideast Pipe Dream

¤ Food crisis worsening in Gaza: World Food Programme
¤ A First! Snow Falls in Baghdad
¤ Bush misleads the Palestinian people, legitimizes Israeli occupation
¤ Enough is Enough
Six Years of Guantánamo

¤ The charade goes on
Political commentators in this region and beyond are nearly unanimous in their estimates that President Bush's highlighted visit to Palestine-Israel is going to fail to achieve substantive results in terms of peace-making.
Many observers point out that Bush's understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is very superficial. For example, he said Israel should remain a "Jewish state," but wouldn't say what that meant in real terms and what he thought the fate of nearly 1.5 million Israeli Muslim and Christian citizens, who constitute nearly a quarter of Israel's population, would be, especially in the long run.

¤ Death toll survey omits most deadly areas
¤ 151,000 deaths in Iraq? (Updated)

¤ Who Is Killing the Women of Basra?

¤ EXPORTING RAPE
Bremer and Bush must be commended for their public stance against rape, but their words were utter fantasy. They get a 100% score for lying. There were no rape rooms in Iraq and the actions Bremer stated are more in tune with what the U.S. brought to Iraq, not what was there before March 2003.
The facts show that instead of halting rape epidemics in countries the U.S. invades, the occupiers introduce rape to these nations; nations in which rape was virtually non-existent.

¤ Welcome, Mr President, to the misery you've created
¤ Why Don't You Bomb Yourself And Save Us All

¤ Ex-CIA Agent Philip Agee Dead in Cuba
¤ Philip Agee, 72, ex-CIA agent and turncoat, dies
¤ A First! Snow Falls in Baghdad
¤ Marion Jones sentenced to 6 months in prison for lying about steroids and check-fraud scam

¤ Opposition to resume protests after Kenya talks fail
Kenya's main opposition party today called for three days of mass rallies after the failure of the first British-backed African Union attempt at mediation in the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki.

¤ Crisis in Kenya After Disputed 2007 Elections

'Suitcase Scandal' is Another U.S. Foreign Policy Blunder
Posted: Saturday, January 12, 2008

The now infamous "suitcase scandal" has deeply alienated the new Argentine government and is likely to further sully Washington's reputation in Latin America.

On December 20 the U.S. government indicted four Venezuelans and one Uruguayan for allegedly acting as foreign agents without notifying the U.S. government. The charges stem from an incident that occurred on August 4 when Guido Antonini Wilson, a Venezuelan/American with dual citizenship, was stopped at Argentine customs with about $800,000 cash in a suitcase.
Full Article : alternet.org

Recession in the US 'has arrived'
Posted: Thursday, January 10, 2008

¤ The Empire Strikes Back
Unlike her husband in New Hampshire in 1992, Hillary Clinton not only came back from premature announcements of her political demise. She actually won the Democratic primary by a narrow 2 per cent, 39-37. (In 1992 Bill, battered by reports of his infidelity, came second to Paul Tsongas by 8 per cent.) The prime reasons for her victory were a) women and b) the lower profile in New Hampshire of the war in Iraq.

¤ Watching the US Presidential Primaries in Canada

¤ 99 bottles of tears on the wall
It didn't really matter that Hillary Clinton won the primary in the end; that was gravy. The story line for the night was written as soon as 15 percent of the results were tallied and it was clear the race would be close. Well before CNN had called the race for her, on-air analysts were trotting out the next cliche down in the drawer, a reprise of Bill's 1992 "Comeback Kid" shtick. Expect to hear it ad nauseam for the foreseeable future; as of early this morning, the string "Hillary Comeback-Kid" returns over 1800 results at Google News.

¤ Kicking the Can Down the Road in Iraq
¤ Double Standard on Divestment
¤ US targets al-Qaida insurgents with massive air strikes
¤ Police targeted in deadly Pakistan suicide bomb
¤ Little progress in AU-Kenya talks
¤ Where are Hillary Clinton's tears for our soldiers and innocent Iraqis?
¤ Oil at $100 vs the 'war on terror'

¤ The three Rs: Rivalry, Russia and 'Ran
We are witnessing a systemic decline in Russia's relations with the West. There is a long list of complaints from the industrial democracies regarding Moscow's behavior, many of them justified. But the US-Russia relationship (and that of Europe and Russia) does not occur in a strategic vacuum. Many of Russia's contemporary offenses pale before what should be the West's highest policy priority in the period ahead: preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

¤ What is This "Iranian Provocation" BS?
Not one news story about this week's latest chapter in the administration's ongoing effort to gin up a crazy war with Iran--the so-called "provocation" caused by Iranian naval speedboats approaching within 200 meters of a US destroyer--mentioned that the US, which sits some 7500 miles away from Iran, has sent a whole fully-armed armada into the Persian Gulf just off Iran's coast.

¤ Iran plays down 'ordinary' incident with US ships

¤ "Hostile" Iranian Ships Hyped By War-Hungry Neo-Cons On Eve Of Bush Trip

¤ The West Has Not Just Repressed Democracy. It Has Aided Terror
The Pakistani senator gazed at the headline in despair. It read: "US weighs new covert push in Pakistan". Washington was authorising "enhanced CIA activity" in the country while US Democratic candidates declared they were all ready "to launch unilateral military strikes in [Pakistan] if they detected an imminent threat". Hillary Clinton wanted "joint US-UK oversight" of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. In a country where anti-Americanism is almost a religion, said the senator, this is "an answer to a Taliban prayer".

¤ Debunking the Death Penalty Deterrence Myth

¤ Why Bolivia Matters
During the colonial period the Spanish exploited the country's mineral wealth without mercy, leading to the death of hundreds of thousands of indigenous mineworkers and uprisings that punctuated the nation's history with blood and legends. Between forced labor, the war of independence, and European diseases, the new nation began its life as a republic rich in natural resources but with a decimated populace. In the words of an historian in 1831, Bolivia was like "a beggar seated on a throne of gold."
¤ Apaches Defend Homeland from Homeland Security

¤ But No Justice for Iraq Atrocities
Two years ago, a group of Marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians -- including women and children cowering in their own homes -- in a revenge rampage in Haditha. Once the story emerged from the usual layers of lies and cover-up, the atrocity flared briefly on the public stage, and eight of the Marines and their officers were charged "with murder or failing to investigate an apparent war crime," as the Post reports. But public attention moved swiftly on, and over the past few months, the Pentagon's "military justice" system has quietly reduced or dropped charges against most of the men. Yesterday's announcement signaled the final climb-down in the case, leaving only a single Marine, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, facing a charge of voluntary manslaughter, and lesser charges against one other enlisted man and two officers.

¤ So, how ARE things in Iraq?

¤ Two jailed for leaking Blair-Bush memo
¤ CITGO, Venezuela Distribute Oil To U.S. Services
Flashback ¤ "Super-Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire".

¤ Protest in Gaza against Bush visit
¤ Children As "Collateral Damage" Of The War In Iraq

¤ 151,000 deaths in Iraq?
¤ The answer to 'Why they hate us', America are you listening?

¤ Kenya's new cabinet stymies peace talks
. Hasty naming of ministers infuriates opposition
. Observers accuse Kibaki of acting in bad faith

¤ Pakistan says won't let foreign troops on its soil

¤ Pakistan to go after Zardari in Swiss case
Pakistan will pursue Benazir Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari for $54 million, which it says the couple hid illegally in Switzerland, its lawyer said on Tuesday.
A hearing is expected in Geneva in late January in the long-running money-laundering case, begun in 1997 against Benazir and Zardari, according to Jacques Python, Pakistan's lawyer.

¤ Report reveals Vietnam War hoaxes, faked attacks
North Vietnamese made hoax calls to get the US military to bomb its own units during the Vietnam War, according to declassified information that also confirmed US officials faked an incident to escalate the war.
The report was released by the National Security Agency, responsible for much of the United States' codebreaking and eavesdropping work, in response to a "mandatory declassification" request, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) said Monday.

¤ Recession in the US 'has arrived'

Kenyan crisis: West's hand visible
Posted: Wednesday, January 9, 2008

By Reason Wafawarova
January 09, 2008

Kenya has started 2008 with a bloodbath that has clearly overshadowed the spilling of Benazir Bhutto's blood at the end of December in Pakistan.

Both Kenya and Pakistan were electioneering at the end of 2007 with Kenya holding its plebiscite on December 27, shortly before descending into freestyle post election killings while Pakistan's poll that had been scheduled for January 8 was ruined by some daring suicide bomber who reportedly took his own life together with that of Benazir Bhutto, the Western approved democracy torch bearer in the electoral race.

Benazir Bhutto's democratic credentials might have been fantastic in the eyes of her Western backers, particularly in Washington's eyes, but this writer will insist that her decision to direct through a will that in the event of her death, her son should assume the leadership of her party is what is called monarchy and certainly not democracy.

Perhaps she was a monarchical democrat like Washington's friends in the rulership of Saudi Arabia.

The election in Kenya was supposed to be a torchbearer for democracy in Africa the same way Bhutto was supposed to show those Pakistan Islamic extremists the civility of Western backed democracy.

The Western hand in the political processes of both countries goes far back to the collapse of colonial empires and the politics of the Cold War.

This writer will not go into any detail about the creation of Pakistan from India and all that followed but will look at the way Kenya became independent, suffice to say the embarrassment brought by the sudden stubbornness of good old Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, the disconcerting assassination of Bhutto and the entangling post-election violence in Kenya all but put the western hopes of exporting democracy into disarray – especially with the faltering military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq making unpalatable news at home.

The Mau Mau uprising of Kenya was extinguished by sheer brute British force in 1959 and the defeat meant that Britain could go ahead to grant independence or majority rule to Kenya on London's own terms.

This they did in 1963, the same time the Central African Federation was dismantling to pave way for Zambia and Malawi's independence; while Zimbabwe was meant to be evolved into a Western outpost, along with South Africa.

From the onset Jomo Kenyatta was viewed as pro-Western and Kenya was always seen as the centre of Western interests at a time the crisis in Southern Africa was seen as threatening Western capital and offering the Russian bureaucracy major opportunities.

This crisis was in the context of the Angolan Liberation war, the Frelimo offensive in Mozambique and later the Zanla/Zipra offensive in Northern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) – of course not forgetting the Umkhonto WeSizwe rebellion in South Africa.

When Henry Kissinger visited southern Africa in 1976, with the aim of granting pro-Western independence to Zimbabwe through the internal settlement treachery that was being entertained by some nationalists and other black politicians; he outlined Western concerns emanating from the Rhodesia crisis. He pointed out that Kenya; one of the "most pro-Western states in the continent" was surrounded by "hostile regimes" armed by the Russians and China.

These were Julius Nyerere's Tanzania, Idi Amin's Uganda and Siad Barre's Somalia.

The tensions were well manifested through the Entebbe raid of July 3 1976 by Israel – although of course, part of this aggression was a result of Amin's excesses.

Kissinger also pointed out the Western concerns in Ethiopia where the pro-Western Derg faced a mounting rebellion from the peasants and the working class. Added to this were the Eritrean independence movement's offensive and the possibility of war with the Russian backed Somalia regime.

The current invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia and the accusations levelled against Kenya in the sponsoring of rebellion in Somalia are only an extension of this long-standing conflict of interests at whose centre is the Western interest in the horn of Africa.

In neighbouring Malawi, Kamuzu Banda was well into Vorster's pocket but almost useless in as far as Washington's grand plan was concerned.

The shaky Mobutu regime in Congo, installed by the West after the gruesome murder of Patrice Lumumba, was now faced with what Washington perceived to be a hostile and pro-Russian state across the border in Angola.

The West could not use Zambia's Kaunda because of his humanism ideology.

As a result of these perceived threats by the West, the then US secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, paid a visit to Africa in June 1976 and signed a major arms deal with Kenyatta and Mobutu – of course as an addition to what the US was already supplying to Haile Sellasie of Ethiopia.

Of course, the guns did not solve the problem of Western interests in the Russian-Chinese backed African countries, particularly in southern Africa.

There was a line up of African politicians meant to be Kenyattas and Mobutus of Zimbabwe and South Africa and the US did all in its power to prop up these "moderate African leaders" like Mangosuthu Bhutelezi, Abel Muzorewa, Ndabaningi Sithole and others but all this was in vain.

The West in general and the British in particular were quite wary of the "Marxist Robert Mugabe" and of course the South African apartheid regime was just not ready for any black African government, however moderate.

Kenya continued with its pro-Western tag after the death of Kenyatta through Daniel Arap Moi's tenure and both Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga hail from the Western favoured breed of politicians.

This is the legacy that has resulted in many of the regional head offices of Western non-governmental organisations being based in Nairobi, a city largely recommended as Western friendly and safe.

Even the UN Habitat Office is ironically headquartered in Nairobi, just next to the biggest slum on this planet, Kibera.

Indeed this is the Kibera, from where Odinga draws massive support from the nothing-to-lose slum dwellers who have put to effective use their status by challenging Mwai Kibaki's reportedly rigged election victory with their lives.

Kenyans have not meaningfully benefited from their post-colonial independence since the days of Kenyatta and the signs of disgruntlement have just started with the post-election violence of January 2008.

British foreign secretary, David Miliband has clearly said sanctions against Kenya are out of the question because of British interests in Kenya and McKinnon has said suspension from the Commonwealth is also out of question.

This puts to question the commitment by Western countries to the concept of democracy.

Indeed sanctions and suspension from the Commonwealth are only reserved for those who threaten Western interests, normally economic interests and there is just no way the mere death of 600 native Kenyans in eight days can be reason enough for sanctions or suspension from the Commonwealth.

It is not like the alleged death of 12 white farmers in Zimbabwe, who died putting up a spirited fight against Cde Mugabe's farm invaders coming in the name of landless poor masses. That is different; very, very different because it touches on Western interests.

The people of Kenya were expected to quietly ratify a Western endorsed government and go back to their suffering old selves in Kibera.

However, the two Western approved candidates fronting the Kenyan election appear to have involved themselves into some short-changing games thereby creating a real conflict between their followers. Whatever Kibaki did or did not do, the West is not after democracy in Kenya.

They are simply after their interests and the premature congratulatory message from Washington was meant to make those interests tally with the idea of democracy. The game plan clearly took the slum dwellers for granted, as events would later show.

In Rwanda, the Germans came in 1894 and empowered the Tutsi monarch over the majority Hutu in order to protect their interests through divide and rule.

The Belgians took over in 1919 and also empowered the Tustsis over the Hutus, even expounding the Himatic hypothesis that said the Tutsi were in fact Europeans and not "true Negroes".

They used an identity card system that spelt out the holder as Hutu or Tutsi in order to sideline the Hutu from the education system and other privileges. It is clear that such methods of protecting one's interests cannot succeed without problems.

As it were, the Belgians granted independence to Rwanda in 1957 and inevitably that had to come under majority rule and they gave the ruling privilege to the Hutus then led by Gregorie Kayibanda and later by Juvinal Habyarimana.

The Hutu intellectuals drafted the Hutu Manifesto the same year and they concurred with the Himatic theory and agreed that Tustsis were European "invaders" and therefore Rwanda was a Hutu nation.

The Manifesto firmly reaffirmed the marked ID cards as progressive and the Hutu government used them to separate the "indigenous" from the "invaders". Habyarimana even went as far as coming up with a policy of a maximum of 10 percent Tutsis in the education system.

The Tutsis fled the country and made up the bitter Diaspora that was later to launch a civil war from Uganda – fighting for the right to return to Rwanda. The Western backed war did not only come with the current Coalition government of Paul Kagame but also with the most publicised genocide of the 20th century.

When Radio Mille Collines announced that "all Tutsis need to be killed"; after President Habyarimana's plane had been shot down on April 6 1994 – the result was a deadly 100 day orgy of killing – claiming 800 000 lives, mainly Tutsis. This is what happens when deep-seated problems are left unsolved for a long time and the West created many such problems across Africa.

When Odinga announced after the December 2007 Kenyan election that he would not "give the people of Kenya anaesthesia so that they continue to be raped" – the result was an orgy of random killings that claimed 600 Kenyan lives. We have seen yet again another unsolved problem manifesting itself in Africa.

This writer has no illusions on the failure by some African leaders to command the necessary vision and skill needed to make Africa stand to be counted among other continents. What can one make of a continent where the likes of Afonso Dhalkama, Mobutu, Moise Tshombe, Muzorewa and others actually make it into history books as serious political contenders?

Even plain traitors like Morgan Tsvangirai can still hope to mount a meaningful challenge towards the leadership of a country freed after so much ruin and slaughter by Western ammunition. These shortcomings on the part of African politicians are indeed an impeding factor in the road towards real democracy for Africa.

However, the examples cited in this piece are meant to outline the role of the invisible hand from the West – a role so arrogantly played that Jendayi Frazer has no qualms flying into Nairobi and behaving like a mother settling a fight over toys between her two under five boys.

This is exactly what we saw in Frazer's talks to both Odinga and Kibaki – she told them to share the toy well and just forget about the election, didn't she? Odinga is of course playing the stubborn and difficult kid who insists that there cannot be peace until the other kid returns the toy to where it was in the first place.

This writer will assert once again that the uninvited meddling by Western powers into the affairs of Africa will just create more tragedies than what Rwanda and Kenya have already shown us. In fact it is only foolish to imagine that the Interahamwe Diaspora of Rwanda are dead and gone into history books. There are high chances that they will come back one day the way the Tutsis came with the Rwanda Patriotic Front in 1987.

This democracy that is centred on the Western interests and not on the welfare of Africans will just but backfire the Kenya way. It is time nation states started engaging in partnerships of equals as well as trading on a win-win basis. Outside this framework of relations the West can expect a lot more challenging scenarios coming up after Kenya.

Zimbabwe has now gone eight years on its own path outside the Western interest and it is incumbent upon the West to study the situation carefully before they have a dozen Zimbabwes right at their doorstep. Confrontation, sanctions, threats and demonisation will not work in favour of western interests – now more than ever before challenged by the rising influence of China.

The way forward is to allow African countries economic independence and the freedom to run their own political affairs in the context of the African interest. This trend of former colonial powers playing a big brother role in the affairs of former colonies will just not work and the sooner the likes of Britain realise that the era of colonies ended over half a century ago the better.

Reason Wafawarova is a Zimbabwean political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk

The liar of Washington
Posted: Monday, January 7, 2008

¤ The Mindless Iran Strategy
Historians will view Bush as the President who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), made public on December 4, concluded Iran had closed its nuclear weapons program four years earlier. Bush could have attributed this "fact" to his aggressive rhetoric (threats). Instead, he whined at his press conference that day: "Look, Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. The NIE says that Iran had a hidden -- a covert nuclear weapons program. That's what it said. What's to say they couldn't start another covert nuclear weapons program?"

¤ Saddam Who?

¤ The US Occupation and Popular Opinion in Iraq
No nation that claims to value democracy for the world's people can maintain a military occupation against the will of the occupied population. Yet despite what seems like a fundamental moral truism-the notion that a military occupation of one country by another can only be justified if the occupied population supports it-mainstream commentators in this country rarely broach the subject of Iraqi attitudes toward the US-led occupation.

¤ Bomb blasts mar Iraq Army Day holiday
¤ The Top Eleven Myths about Iraq, 2007
¤ An Imperialist Comedy
¤ McCain: I would have started Iraq war regardless of WMD
¤ Pakistan Won't Allow U.S. Military to Operate in Tribal Areas
¤ Australians hit by worst floods in decades
¤ Scale of Kenya's refugee crisis begins to emerge
¤ Iraq death rate belies US claims of success
¤ Authorities Find Grisly Scene in Texas
¤ Sri Lanka Clashes Kill 81
¤ Fire South of Seoul Kills 22
¤ Naomi Campbell interviews 'rebel angel' Hugo Chavez
¤ Size zero epidemic as hospitals face huge rise in patients with eating disorders
¤ Iran 'did not harass US warships'
¤ U.S. says Iranian gunboats harassed warships
¤ More than 10,000 police will guard Bush during Israel visit

¤ The liar of Washington is not welcome in Palestine
President Bush, the notorious liar of Washington, is about to embark on a four-day visit to the Middle East, a region that has suffered immensely and continues to suffer as a direct result of his stupid and criminal policies.
The declared aim of the visit is to advance the prospects of peace between an obviously insolent Israel, whose leaders are convinced that the Jewish lobby controls America from coast to coast, and a pathetic Palestinian Authority (PA) that increasingly resembles the Jewish "judenrate" under the Nazis during WWII.

¤ Major fire damages Iraq's biggest oil refinery
¤ Time catching up with Bush administration

¤ The Bhutto Mistake
The U.S. government played a part in the return of Mrs. Benazir Bhutto to Pakistan. For what reason, I don't know, but it was clearly a mistake on everyone's part. The woman paid with her life.
She had been schmoozing the Washington crowd for years. She had even hired a public-relations firm to help her do it at one point. In the past, the U.S. had pressured the Pakistani government to accept her as prime minister. She didn't last long in that office despite two terms and was ultimately exiled on charges of corruption and incompetence. Her husband has a notorious reputation for corruption. Her father was hanged, and two of her brothers were murdered.

¤ YouTubers aren't necessarily breaking copyright laws

Amnesty for Coup Participants
Posted: Saturday, January 5, 2008

Venezuelan President's Amnesty for Coup Participants is Praised and Criticised

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez granted amnesty on Monday to a number of opposition leaders connected to the shortlived military coup against his government in April 2002 and a two month oil industry shutdown which caused an estimated $10 billion dollars damage to the economy and ended in January 2003.

Chavez said he hoped the amnesty decree would "send a message to the country that we can live together despite our differences."
Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com

War Crimes Airbrushed from History
Posted: Friday, January 4, 2008

¤ Iraqi Girl tells of US Attack in Haditha Video
¤ Extinguishing Liberty’s Light and Independent Views
¤ Education is Ignorance
¤ Still Dead On Arrival
¤ Despair, poverty rise in Palestinian area

¤ Iraqis resort to selling children
Abu Muhammad, a Baghdad resident, found it difficult to let go of his daughter's hand but he had already convinced himself that selling her to a family outside Iraq would provide her with a better future.
"The war disgraced my family. I lost relatives including my wife among thousands of victims of sectarian violence and was forced to sell my daughter to give my other children something to eat," he told Al Jazeera.

¤ The real reason behind the rise of oil-prices after Bhutto’s assassination
¤ Iran leader suggests U.S. ties possible in future
¤ Seven Killed In Suicide Bomb Attack In Southwestern Afghanistan
¤ Wealthy citizens of foreign countries start to evince immense interest in U.S. real estate
¤ Kenya's leader 'would agree to new election'
¤ Vanity trade sent oil price to record high
¤ War Crimes Airbrushed from History
¤ U.S. Elections Over Before They Began

¤ They Report, They Decide?
Should Big Media decide for the rest of us who is -- and more importantly who is not -- a viable candidate for president? It's bad enough that thus far the reporting of this year's quadrennial presidential pursuit has been even more insubstantial than ever, focused on the horse race, the fundraising, the polls, the pundits, the haircuts and assorted other bits of silliness -- anything other than actual issues of concern to voters and importance to the world. Now we find Big Media, (specifically its Fox/ABC News wing,) determined to narrow the field of presidential candidates before any of us, other than a handful of white people in Iowa, even get a chance to vote!

¤ Who Killed Benazir Bhutto?
¤ Iowa upsets deliver wins for Huckabee and Obama

¤ Agents warn of new drug hitting U.S.
Federal agents are targeting a turbo-charged form of Ecstasy that is gaining in popularity, fearing it will lead to fatal overdoses similar to ones experienced a few years ago caused by heroin mixed with fentanyl.
Michigan and nine other states along Canada's border would see the first wave of any such overdoses, and officials are warning that the so-called "extreme Ecstasy," which is mixed with methamphetamines, is becoming a problem.

¤ COALITION OF THE DEFEATED
¤ China switches to lethal injection
¤ Kenya Opposition Seeks New Vote
¤ Kenya's presidential election should be re-run
¤ Crisis in Kenya After Disputed 2007 Elections

Oil Prices Soar To $100 A Barrel
Posted: Thursday, January 3, 2008

¤ Expert: Crime of torture could only have been ordered by the president

¤ "The EU Is a Bandit in Trade Negotiations"
¤ Broke Britain
¤ Kibaki faces pressure over 'rigging'
¤ 80 children massacred in Kenyan church
¤ Pressure grows on Kenya to end bloodshed
¤ Presidential Candidates Diverge On US Joining War Crimes Court

¤ Kenya election chief spills the beans
Meanwhile, as President Kibaki summoned all the MPs elect from all political parties to a meeting at State House yesterday evening, Kenya Electoral Commission (ECK) chairman Samuel Kivuitu has made damning remarks that he announced the results of the fiercely contested presidential election under pressure.

¤ Kibaki offers talks, protests shake Kenya
¤ US denies pushing for coalition government in Kenya

¤ Kenyan president offers talks if violence calms
The Kenyan president, Mwai Kibaki, today appealed for an end to the violence unleashed by his disputed re-election and said he was ready for talks with the opposition.
Under pressure to reach out to his political opponents, Kibaki extended an olive branch to his rival, Raila Odinga, who claims he was robbed of victory in last week's elections.

¤ Kenyan police battle Odinga supporters

¤ Kenya's 2007 Election and Aftermath

¤ A dynasty isn't a democracy
As the U.S. election season shifts creakily into higher gear, our leaders are enthusiastically lionizing slain Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto. The former prime minister "returned to Pakistan to fight for democracy," noted Hillary Clinton. "The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is a tragic event ... for democracy," mourned Rudy Giuliani. Meanwhile, President Bush urged Pakistanis "to honor Benazir Bhutto's memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life."

¤ Pakistan Pushes Elections Back By A Month
¤ My Family Has Lost Enough

¤ Musharraf denies agencies' involvement

¤ Madness Compounding Madness
"Al-Qaeda is now as much a Pakistani phenomenon as it is an Arab or foreign element," declares Najam Sethi, editor of Pakistan's Daily Times. It is not just the Arabs, Uzbeks and other foreigners who fled from Afghanistan into Pakistan in the wake of the U.S. invasion of late 2001. It draws in Pakistani tribesmen, Punjabis, Urdu speakers. What was once a group foreigners (numbers unknown) enjoying Pashtun hospitality under the Taliban in Afghanistan has struck roots in neighboring Pakistan.

¤ US: No need for UN probe into Bhutto slaying

¤ More on Benazir Bhutto Assassination

¤ Oil Prices Soar To $100 A Barrel For First Time Ever
¤ Mexican Farmers Protest NAFTA
¤ Five killed in Turkish bomb attack
¤ I Hate Iowa

¤ Edwards Reconsidered
"Presidential candidates have to be considered in the context of the current historical crossroads. No matter how much we admire or revere an individual, there's too much at stake to pursue faith-based politics at the expense of reality-based politics. There's no reason to support Obama over Edwards on Kucinich's say-so. And now, I can't think of reasons good enough to support Kucinich rather than Edwards in the weeks ahead."

¤ Stonewalled by the C.I.A.

¤ Crime of torture could only have been ordered by the president

¤ The Five Iraqs
It has become a mantra of sorts among the faltering Republican candidates: Victory is at hand in Iraq. Mitt Romney, in particular, has taken to so openly embracing the "success" of the U.S. troop "surge" that it has become the centerpiece of his litany of attacks on the Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton.

¤ Welcome to Third World, U.S.A.
¤ The clock ticks for Iraq's time bomb
¤ Journey to the Dark Side
¤ How the Iraqi resistance changed the world power balance!
¤ Car bomb kills 5, wounds 68 in Turkey

The Destabilization of Pakistan
Posted: Tuesday, January 1, 2008

¤ Benazir Bhutto's husband unravels mystery of her death
¤ My heart bleeds for Pakistan.

¤ Daughter of the West
Arranged marriages can be a messy business. Designed principally as a means of accumulating wealth, circumventing undesirable flirtations or transcending clandestine love affairs, they often don't work. Where both parties are known to loathe each other, only a rash parent, desensitised by the thought of short-term gain, will continue with the process knowing full well that it will end in misery and possibly violence. That this is equally true in political life became clear in the recent attempt by Washington to tie Benazir Bhutto to Pervez Musharraf.

¤ The Destabilization of Pakistan
The process of US sponsored "regime change", which normally consists in the re-formation of a fresh proxy government under new leaders has been broken. Discredited in the eyes of Pakistani public opinion, General Pervez Musharaf cannot remain in the seat of political power. But at the same time, the fake elections supported by the "international community" scheduled for January 2008, even if they were to be carried out, would not be accepted as legitimate, thereby creating a political impasse.

¤ New video footage shows Bhutto was shot dead
¤ News exclusive: Bhutto assassination
¤ Ministry backtracks on Bhutto sunroof claims
¤ Bhutto 'blocked from hiring US bodyguards'
¤ Bhutto report: Musharraf planned to fix elections
¤ US Gave Bhutto Info About Threats
¤ Democracy In Action: Slain Leader's Crown Passes To Her Son

¤ The phantom terrorists of the War on Terror
The stories we know about the most famous terrorists and the best known terrorist plots do not match up with the facts. DeepJournal created a seven part series detailing this issue, starting off with the case of the Liquid Bombers. The limitations for liquids on airports are the result of the near attack by these so-called Liquid Bombers. Their plot was foiled just in time in August of 2006. Or was it? There are still some disturbing questions to be asked regarding the terrorists and their plan. Questions that can no longer be posed to the leader of the Liquid Bombers, Rashid Rauf, now that he has escaped under suspicious circumstances.

¤ The Perfidy of Pakistan's Rulers
¤ Who Killed Bhutto?
¤ Myths and Realities About Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan's Dark Future
¤ The Dream that was Benazir Bhutto
¤ American diplomat shot and killed in Sudan
¤ Not one step forward

¤ Top economist says America could plunge into recession
Losses arising from America's housing recession could triple over the next few years and they represent the greatest threat to growth in the United States, one of the world's leading economists has told The Times.
Robert Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, predicted that there was a very real possibility that the US would be plunged into a Japan-style slump, with house prices declining for years.

¤ Hunger and Homelessness Intensify in US Cities
The number of people hungry and homeless in US cities rose dramatically again in 2007, according to the annual report on hunger and homelessness from the US Conference of Mayors. The 23-city Hunger and Homelessness Survey was released in late December.
Requests for emergency food increased in four of every five cities. Among 15 cities with quantifying data, the median increase in requests for food was 10 percent and in some cities it was much higher. Detroit and some other cities reported seeing more working poor among those seeking food.

¤ A people betrayed
¤ A stolen election
¤ Death toll mounts in Kenya riots
¤ Scores die in Kenya election riots
¤ Kenyans burnt alive in church as unrest toll tops 300

¤ '50 dead' in torching of Kenyan church
Dozens of people, many of them children, were killed when a mob set fire to a Kenyan church today, as the crisis over the disputed re-election of the country's president escalated.

¤ Violence Grows in Kenya
¤ Kenya in flames over 'stolen' election
¤ Ancient pyramid found in central Mexico City
¤ The Post-Bush Regime: A Prognosis
¤ Goodbye 2007 and Good Riddance!

Benazir Bhutto: Daughter of the West
Posted: Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Daughter of the West

Tariq Ali

Arranged marriages can be a messy business. Designed principally as a means of accumulating wealth, circumventing undesirable flirtations or transcending clandestine love affairs, they often don’t work. Where both parties are known to loathe each other, only a rash parent, desensitised by the thought of short-term gain, will continue with the process knowing full well that it will end in misery and possibly violence. That this is equally true in political life became clear in the recent attempt by Washington to tie Benazir Bhutto to Pervez Musharraf.
Full Article : lrb.co.uk

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