July 2007

Impeachment as Political Solution to Iraq War
Posted: Tuesday, July 31, 2007

by James Rothenberg

It has become cliché to say that this Iraq war cannot be won militarily. Equally comfortable with this admission are hawks who would turn on a dime if they thought the insurgency was capable of collapsing, and doves whose primary objection to the war is its “mismanagement”.

Trouble is it never really was a war because there was no opposing side. What was there was known to be easy picking - minimally armed and quickly demoralized. Mischaracterizing it as a war appears to give credibility to certain concepts such as self-defense (none was needed), appears to justify curtailment of civil liberties (what are they worth if they can be taken away anyhow?), and appears to give meaning to concepts such as winning and losing (you don’t win something you couldn’t lose).
Full Article : commondreams.org

$5.8 Billion More in Oil Revenues for Venezuela
Posted: Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Speaking from La Cabrerita in the state of Anzoátegui during his weekly program Aló Presidente, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that Venezuela has recuperated US$5.8 billion annually through measures to introduce ‘oil sovereignty’ and elaborated on his vision for the “new geometry of power” in Venezuela.

Describing the Orinoco Oil Belt, “from the savannas of Guárico, to the delta of the Orinoco,” an area of more than 55,000 square kilometers as a “sea of oil” and a “key objective of foreign transnationals who want to take advantage of its vast reserves,” Chavez explained how, through the application of five legislative measures aimed at recuperating oil sovereignty Venezuela has obtained and additional US$5.8 billion a year.
Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com

Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela Holds First Meetings
Posted: Tuesday, July 31, 2007

This past Saturday a second round of neighborhood meetings were held to begin the consultation process for the launching of the soon to be formed Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Meetings got off to a slow start, but with much enthusiasm.

To find out the location of nearest assembly, those who had registered for the new party last May, could check the Venezuelan daily Ultimas Noticias or received a phone call or cell phone text message with the location. While meetings were scheduled to begin at 2pm, they generally did not get underway until three.
Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com

Marcus Mosiah Garvey: Black Revolutionary Hero
Posted: Monday, July 30, 2007

Today, Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the Black liberation movement he founded are largely forgotten and only matter-of-factly remembered each year when his birthday comes around. The philosophy and ideology that bears his name remains on the shelf as modern Black leaders get back to business as usual. But Garvey and his movement constituted one of the most important, innovative, and original of all contributions to the struggle for Black and African liberation.
Full Article : opednews.com

Brown points to UK withdrawal from combat in Iraq
Posted: Monday, July 30, 2007

Gordon Brown today used his first summit with the US president, George Bush, to hold out the prospect of withdrawing British troops from a combat role in the one remaining zone of Iraq they control.

The prime minister put no timescale on the move, which would see the UK troops pull back from combat to "overwatch" operations in Basra, the fourth and final Iraqi province in the hands of the British.

But, standing beside Mr Bush at Camp David, in Maryland, he said there was a "chance" that MPs could be informed of the step "when parliament returns". The House of Commons returns from recess on October 8.
Full Article : guardian.co.uk

The War Racket
Posted: Monday, July 30, 2007

¤ Bush Administration Utterly Callous Toward Iraqi Refugees
New definition of chutzpah: You send a country to hell, and then you refuse to assist the millions of people you have caused to suffer.
The Bush Administration is showing the utmost callousness toward the more than two million Iraqis rendered nationless due to its misadventure. A recent conference in Amman, Jordan, to deal with the situation only highlights the crisis. An estimated 1.5 million Iraqi refugees live in Syria, and 750,000 in Jordan. (An additional two million are internal refugees-out of a population of twenty-eight million-making this a catastrophe of truly staggering proportions.)

¤ Bush vs. Children
¤ Spun To Death: 'War Made Easy'

¤ The Cold War Between Washington and Tehran
In the energy-rich Middle East, only two countries have failed to subordinate themselves to Washington's basic demands: Iran and Syria. Accordingly both are enemies, Iran by far the more important.
As was the norm during the Cold War, resort to violence is regularly justified as a reaction to the malign influence of the main enemy, often on the flimsiest of pretexts. Unsurprisingly, as Bush sends more troops to Iraq, tales surface of Iranian interference in the internal affairs of Iraq-a country otherwise free from any foreign interference, on the tacit assumption that Washington rules the world.

¤ Dark Powers, The Sequel
'We … have to work the dark side, if you will,” Vice President Dick Cheney told NBC's Tim Russert, five days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “We've got to spend time in the shadows using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies. That's the world [terrorists] operate in, and so it's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal.”
It was an odd thing to say. Throughout our history — from John Winthrop's 1630 “City Upon a Hill” sermon to President Clinton's foreign policy speeches — our leaders have been quick to assure us of the opposite premise: We will prevail against our enemies because (and only if) we're on the side of light, rather than the side of darkness. We will prevail not through spending “time in the shadows” but through our commitment to freedom, democracy, justice and the rule of law.

¤ Bush Sets the Table for September

¤ The Withdrawal Follies
Withdrawal is now so mainstream. Last week, debate about it led to a sleep-in protest in the Senate and, this week, it's hit the cover of TIME Magazine, of which there's no mainer-stream around. The TIME cover couldn't be more graphic. The word “IRAQ” is in giant type, the “I,” “R,” and “Q” all black, and a helicopter is carting off a stars-and-stripes “A” to reveal the phrase, “What will happen when we leave.” (Mind you, some military blogs now claim that the helicopter in silhouette is actually an old Soviet Mi-24 Hind; if so, maybe the designer had the embattled Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan in mind.)

¤ Operation Jumpstart -- for Iraq!

¤ Bush's First Crime Solved
"In the corporate world, some things aren't exactly black and white when it comes to accounting procedures."
-- George W. Bush
The reluctance of Congressional Democratic leaders to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Bush may be frustrating. But there's an upside. For anyone seeking to file charges against Bush in lieu of impeachment, it relieves the urgency and buys time to make their case that much more airtight. Henry Waxman's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform alone is conducting 20 investigations.

¤ Sausage making and electronic voting machines
¤ The Cry of a Wolf; An Appeal for Truth
¤ Fatal Attraction: The Problem With Hillary Clinton
¤ Beating Back the Latest Neocon Attack Scheme
¤ Bush Fulfills His Grandfather's Dream
¤ Truth-telling 2.0 - A Guide For Adults and Public Officials

¤ Iraqi Civilians Routinely Terrorized In Midnight Searches
If polls show Iraqis overwhelmingly want the U.S. out, it may be because the civilian population is being terrorized in their homes, subjected to dragnet arrests, wrongfully imprisoned, run down on the highways, shot at the checkpoints, and demeaned as hajis.
That's the distressing picture painted by 50 returned veterans who, speaking on the record to reporters Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian of The Nation magazine(July 30), describe an American army of occupation that is frustrated, fearful, confused, calloused, arrogant, and quick on the trigger.

¤ The Merits of Mass Murder
¤ Russia leads race for North Pole oil
¤ Iraq Wins Asia Cup, Will Bush Take Credit?
¤ Now the New York Times Sells "Bloodbath" as a Rationale for Staying in Iraq
¤ Gonzales and the Democrats' Dance of Evasion

¤ American Lies and Iraqi Nationalism
The international tragedy of not learning history's lessons can be monumental. In the case of the Iraq war the result of not heeding the past is perhaps the worst it has been in centuries.

One wonders what led the U.S. and the world to its current situation. What caused a nation once respected as a beacon of peace and freedom (whether or not that reputation was ever deserved) to descend into the immorality of a pre-emptive strike, another overthrow of a sovereign government and finally the chaos of monitoring a bloody civil war in Iraq?

¤ The Hollow Environmentalism of Leonardo DiCaprio
¤ Empty Rhetoric from Congress
¤ Was The U.S. Invasion Of Iraq Legal or Illegal Under International Law Video
¤ Bush's Real Agenda in Palestine
¤ Female soldier committed suicide over interrogation techniques in Iraq
¤ Fresh from the Iraqi Oven.
¤ One week in July: Israel's human rights violations
¤ The War Racket

¤ Decider Guy Demands Further Erosion of the Fourth
If Bush and the neocons have their way, your cell phone will be an official government surveillance device. Of course, your cell phone and computer connected to the internet are already surveillance devices, it is just that Bush and the neocons want to enshrine this fact in law.

¤ Accustomed to Their Own Atrocities in Iraq, U.S. Soldiers Have Become Murderers

Congress delivers blow to Bush's European missile project
Posted: Friday, July 27, 2007

Congress delivers blow to Bush's European missile project by slashing funding

George Bush's plans to establish a European missile defence system suffered a big setback yesterday when a Congressional committee slashed the funding.

The House appropriations committee cut $139m (£69.5m) from the $310m the Bush administration wants for preparatory work on the missile project in Europe. It approved funds for a radar system in the Czech Republic but cut the $139m Mr Bush requested to establish a missile interception system in Poland, the most controversial part of the defence system.
Full Article : guardian.co.uk

U.S. Officials Voice Frustrations With Saudis, Citing Role in Iraq
Posted: Friday, July 27, 2007

Now, Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia’s counterproductive role in the Iraq war. They say that beyond regarding Mr. Maliki as an Iranian agent, the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow.

One senior administration official says he has seen evidence that Saudi Arabia is providing financial support to opponents of Mr. Maliki. He declined to say whether that support was going to Sunni insurgents because, he said, "That would get into disagreements over who is an insurgent and who is not."
Full Article : nytimes.com

Africa must fight alongside Zimbabwe
Posted: Thursday, July 26, 2007

By Reason Wafawarova
July 26, 2007

ON September 3, 1986, a 36-year-old revolutionary by the name Thomas Sankara, representative and head of state for the West African state of Burkina Faso, spoke at the 8th Summit Conference of the then vibrant Non-Aligned Movement held in Harare, Zimbabwe. His speech was titled "Ours Is a Seething Anti-Apartheid, Anti-Zionist Dream."

This writer was a mere 19-year-old then, busy preparing for Cambridge O-Level examinations at Zimuto Secondary School in rural Masvingo.

Yes, O-Level at 19, thanks to Ian Douglas Smith who, because of pressure from the escalating war for independence, had ordered the closure of our rural schools in 1976, effectively dumping some of us out of school for a long two years.

The speech by Sankara did not escape the attention of this writer then and today it has reignited precious memories and influenced this article. Sankara's speech was so inspirational then that when Samora Machel was killed by imperialist forces on October 19, just over a month after Sankara delivered his great speech, this writer and 15 other students, abandoned a Cambridge Ordinary Level Shona paper due to be written at 8:30am on October 20, 1986, and embarked on an emotionally charged 20km walk from the mission school into the town centre of Masvingo.

No amount of persuasion from friends and school authorities could dissuade us from the march and we were in such an uncompromising mood that we stopped every motorist we came across and demanded that they unequivocally denounce Pieter Botha, apartheid, imperialism and racism.

The night of October 20, 1986, was to be the first time this writer ever appeared on television and I remember telling one Norman Tirivavi of ZBC that we cared nothing about the Shona paper and subsequent papers because all we wanted was to be given guns and allowed to walk to South Africa and teach Botha the lesson of his life.

We were actually gathered at Zimuto Camp, an army barracks complex and many adults who had come to see what was going on just wept like we were all doing with rage.

Of course, no one granted our teenage plight, choosing rather to persuade us to go back to school in a military truck and making sure that we sat for our paper in a special room at 8:00pm.

This writer got an "A" grade in that Shona paper after writing with tears of bitterness over the death of that gallant son of Africa — Samora Machel — and today he revisits the inspirational memories from Thomas Sankara's speech.

The context in which Sankara delivered his speech was the Cold War era scenario, a situation that made the Non-Aligned Movement so significant to the awakening that brought a refusal by the weaker developing states to be the grass that fighting elephants trample with impunity. Sankara was speaking about a force the imperialist forces were obliged to respect and to take into account, a force meant to recover the dignity of the oppressed.

It was a context reminiscent of what we just saw in Accra, Ghana at the beginning of this month. Two prominent speakers at the 1986, Harare NAM summit were there at the 2007 African Union summit in Accra, Ghana namely Colonel Muammar Gadaffi of Libya and Cde Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

In 1986, young Sankara cried out saying, "Tito, Nehru, Nasser, Kwame Nkrumah, wake up, the Non-Aligned Movement is dying. Help us.

"Namibia is still occupied, the Palestinian people are still searching for a home, and we are still being traumatised by foreign debt."

Today, Namibia is 17 years old and Palestinians are still looking for a home and the Non-Aligned Movement is all but dead. Fifty-three African countries gather in Accra, Ghana and alas, it's still a seething anti-imperialist dream. The Soviet Union is 18 years down under, the US is pushing forward with its selfish and brutal imperial agenda with unmitigated impunity.

If Sankara had not been killed in that brutal imperialist sponsored anti-revolutionary assassination on that fateful October 15, 1987, maybe he would have been part of the 2007 Accra AU Summit. If this had been the case, the firebrand Burkinabe would have no doubt lamented more the departed of our African heroes.

This writer can hear his voice crying out, "Tito, Nehru, Nasser, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Julius Nyerere, Samora Machel, Joshua Nkomo, wake up, the African Union, born out of your Organisation of African Unity is dying! Help us. Zimbabwe is under imperial siege.

The imperialistic forces isolate Mugabe! They want an Africa without him at their summit in Portugal. They have put his economy under brutal siege.

They are trying to force independent South Africa to join them as a pawn in their shameless attack on the people of Zimbabwe.

The seething dream against imperialism is to see a day when the forces of oppression, manipulation and imperial military supremacy all brought down.

The justice in the philosophy that right is might — replaces a day when the philosophy that might is right — is the driving force behind the suffering of Iraqis and Afghans.

This is the dream in the camp of the silent majority of this planet who have watched the vocal minority from the North plundering the God given resources of this planet with reckless greed.

This is the dream for which Hugo Chavez is termed "a reckless populist", it is the dream for which Fidel Castro is labelled "an intolerant authoritarian", the dream for which Mammoud Ahmadinejad is dubbed "an overly confident dissident Arab leader", it is the dream for which Robert Mugabe is labelled an "African dictator" and it is the dream for which Lumumba, Machel and Sankara himself were killed.

In Accra, someone is reported to have endlessly played Bob Marley's Redemption song, especially the lyrics "How long shall they kill our prophets; while we stand aside and look?" It's a good question given the attitude of some in the African Union as well as some in our African community.

Many regard Cde Mugabe as a hero just as much as onlookers who dine and wine with the enemy.

What is the point in expressing solidarity with a fellow comrade through the megaphone and from the galleries while one's hands are folded in the comfort of crumbs provided by the very enemy one cheers his brother to stand up to?

Sankara expressed similar concerns about the attitude of the same African leaders during the apartheid era in South Africa.

He questioned, "Will we continue to whip up our brothers in South Africa with our fiery speeches and deceive them as to our determination, thus rashly throwing up against the racist hordes, knowing very well that we have done nothing to create a relationship of forces favourable to blacks?"

He further questioned: "Is it not criminal to exacerbate struggles in which we do not participate?"

Africa adores the Zimbabwean struggle for land rights but hands are largely folded when it comes to participation.

They love every bit of Cde Mugabe's pan-Africanist principles but they would rather have the struggle for those noble principles exacerbated without the remotest of participation.

Just imagine if the Americans merely lauded the Israeli unjustifiable onslaughts on Lebanon and Palestine without active participation through arming the Israelites.

If they did that today, Palestine would be back to its rightful owners and Lebanon would not have been bombed last year.

Africa must take a pragmatic resolve to win its struggles; a resolve beyond conference rage; a resolve beyond merely shunning the imperialistic enemy by diplomatic means.

As Ngugi wa Thiongo would put it, men should talk and act like people "with something between their legs".

It is commendable that both Sadc and the AU have refused to be the pawns of Western imperialistic forces but that refusal should be backed by tangible action in fighting alongside Zimbabwe as opposed to cheering Cde Mugabe from the touchline.

During, the Apartheid era, many delivered fiery speeches against the racist regime in South Africa, but the onslaught and backlash was on the Frontline States, especially Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

We prolonged the Swapo war for independence in Namibia by endlessly cheering Sam Njuoma from the sidelines while giving calculated and cautious support.

Zimbabwe came through 15 slow years of a war of attrition while we left most of the support work to come from Russia and China, although countries like Mozambique did put up a good fight.

When Zimbabwe went to help end the nonsense the US sponsored Jonasi Savimbi was wrecking in Angola, some western oriented intellectuals among us reminded us about the cost of war and the importance of maintaining "cordial relations".

Similar warnings were given when Zimbabwe went to put an end to the madness Alfonso Dhlakama was unleashing in Mozambique and today many are falling over each other writing articles that remind us that the economic problems of Zimbabwe are a direct result of the country's participation in stopping the US sponsored Jean Pierre Bemba of DRC from capturing Kinshasa in a regional war that pitted six African countries.

Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia were the anti-imperialist forces repelling Bemba who enjoyed unfortunate support from Uganda and Rwanda.

These pieces of history do make bad reading. Africa should stop displaying individual docility through its member states.

We must stop this habit of negotiating with our exploiters by betraying our brothers, secretly hoping that in this way we will be awarded some bonuses. Such bonuses are the wages of indignity, of shame and of betrayal.

These are futile sacrifices offered at the altar of political expediency, greed and quick-fix solutions.

These are the futile sacrifices characterising the Zimbabwean opposition; an opposition made up of political upstarts who believe more in sympathy than victory.

They wine and dine with the very enemy of Africa; all for the fuzzy feeling derived from sweet media coverage from the bases of their imperial masters.

They even have the audacity, temerity and face to disown the AU and Sadc in line with the thinking of their masters who like master, like puppet, somehow believe that their imperialistic club makes up the international community.

The dream against imperialism is collective resistance.

The Empire fronting the imperialist agenda knows pretty well that there is no victory against collective resistance and that is why they keep attacking threatening power centres like Venezuela in Latin America, Cuba in the Caribbean, Zimbabwe in Africa, Iran and Syria in the Middle East and Russia in Eastern Europe.

They know as much as all of us do that, a successful socialist project in Venezuela will dismantle their capitalist hold in Latin America, a successful land reform programme in Zimbabwe will lead a revolution in Sub Saharan Africa, a prosperous Iran in the Middle East will tame the bandit-like Israelites, an uncontrolled North Korea will strengthen the Chinese influence and an undefeated Cuba is bad news to the myth of imperial authority.

Is it not a shame that today the developing world stands divided by aid, which in all cases is at most 10 percent of the total wealth looted by the imperialistic machinery?

We even stand divided by the sweet rhetoric of freedom and democracy, the American type of exported democracy, delivered as a shiny package of limitless liberties and individual self-rule.

We all aspire for this freedom to do as each pleases and we even plead for arms to fight each other in the name of this fictitious kind of freedom which does not exist even in heartland America.

This is the folly of deception and I am surprised that the vision of Sankara is dying; the vision of Machel is now ridiculed.

The treachery of Tshombe, Muzorewa and Mangusuthu Buthelezi is what some of us now believe in. The treachery rooted in the politics of silver.

Like Sankara and Machel; is it not more noble that we die fighting on our feet instead of dying with stomachs full of the crumbs from the ill-gotten fruit of the tree of repression and exploitation? This writer rests his case.

Reason Wafawarova is a Zimbabwean writer leaving in Sydney, Australia and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.zw

War Lies and the 2004 Election
Posted: Thursday, July 26, 2007

¤ Resistance on the rise
In a rare moment of jubilation, thousands of Iraqis took to the streets in various parts of the country, waving Iraqi flags and firing in the air, to celebrate the win of their national team in the Asian Cup games. But even that moment turned sour when stray bullets killed two bystanders in Baghdad.
Pentagon figures say that resistance attacks in June were among the highest since May 2003. A total of 5,335 attacks were mounted against the occupation forces and the Iraqi security forces in June, a figure that is 2.5 per cent lower than the record of 5,472 seen in October 2006. The Bush administration deployed 28,000 additional troops last month as part of its controversial plan to "stabilise" the country. Attacks against Iraqi civilians dropped by 18 per cent last month, from 932 in May to 763 in June. Attacks on coalition forces rose by seven per cent, from 3,423 to 3,671, during the same period.

¤ Bush's latest speech on Iraq (Osama bin ladin did it)
¤ The ivory tower behind the Apartheid Wall
¤ Media Spin on Iraq: We're Leaving (Sort of)
Flashback ¤ America's Tomorrow

¤ How Truth Slips Down the Memory Hole
One of the leaders of demonstrations in Gaza calling for the release of the BBC reporter Alan Johnston was a Palestinian news cameraman, Imad Ghanem. On 5 July, he was shot by Israeli soldiers as he filmed them invading Gaza. A Reuters video shows bullets hitting his body as he lay on the ground. An ambulance trying to reach him was also attacked. The Israelis described him as a "legitimate target." The International Federation of Journalists called the shooting "a vicious and brutal example of deliberate targeting of a journalist." At the age of 21, he has had both legs amputated.

¤ Why the Pentagon's Guantánamo Study is a Joke
¤ Apartheid Americana
¤ An American Plantation in Baghdad

¤ War Lies and the 2004 Election
Shortly after he was reelected, President Bush declared that American voters had had their "moment of accountability" regarding the Iraq war. Since he had gotten slightly more than 50 percent of the votes in the November 2004 election, that meant that they had ratified his policies and that Bush was free to do as he chose in the coming years.
Almost all of the Founding Fathers would have recognized Bush's interpretation as dictatorial tripe. But it is also worthwhile to examine the war frauds by which Bush and Dick Cheney won a second term. This is especially relevant, since Bush and Cheney may use similar frauds to attack Iran.

¤ Powerful quake rocks eastern Indonesia

¤ More Dubya Talk
It's been another week chock full of Bush administration double talk, starting off with the latest stall for time in Iraq.
The New York Times reported that in closed-door videoconferences on Thursday, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker told members of Congress that it was unlikely that the Iraqi government could reach all its benchmarks by September, when he and General David Petraeus are scheduled to report to Congress on the "surge" strategy But that shouldn't be a reason to abandon the present strategy, according to Crocker. The 18 benchmarks may not be the best measure of success in Iraq, he says.

¤ Bush In Free Fall
¤ Poor and Uneducated Like We Thought
¤ Clinton, Obama Camps Battle Over talking to Castro, Chavez
¤ Tapped Out: The Perils of Bottled Water
¤ Bush Speechwriter Calls for Attack on Syria
¤ The Old Mercantilism and the New
¤ US-Iran dialogue on a tortuous path
¤ Many dead in Syria barracks blast
¤ Is the US Preparing To Attack Pakistan?
¤ Democracy Interrupted

¤ Agency of Rogues
The secret prison was set up on a secure U.S. Naval base outside the U.S. and so beyond the slightest recourse to legal oversight. It was there that the CIA clandestinely brought its "suspects" to be interrogated, abused, and tortured.
That description might indeed sound like Guantanamo 2002, but think again. According to New York Times reporter Tim Weiner's new history of the Central Intelligence Agency, Legacy of Ashes -- a remarkable treasure trove of grim and startling information you hadn't known before -- this actually happened first in the Panama Canal Zone in the early 1950s. It was there, as well as at two secret prisons located in Germany and Japan, the defeated Axis powers (and not, in those days, in Thailand or Rumania), that the CIA brought questionable double agents for "secret experiments" in harsh interrogation, "using techniques on the edge of torture, drug-induced mind control, and brainwashing." This was but a small part of "Project Artichoke," a 15-year, multi-billion dollar "search by the CIA for ways to control the human mind."

¤ NY Times Responds on Fallujah Weapons
¤ Venture capitalists with guns: private contractors in Iraq
¤ 18 unidentified bodies found in Baghdad

¤ New U.S. Embassy rises in Iraq
Huge, expensive and dogged by controversy, the new U.S. Embassy compound nearing completion here epitomizes to many Iraqis the worst of the U.S. tenure in Iraq.
"It's all for them, all of Iraq's resources, water, electricity, security," said Raid Kadhim Kareem, who has watched the buildings go up at a floodlighted site bristling with construction cranes from his post guarding an abandoned home on the other side of the Tigris River. "It's as if it's their country, and we are guests staying here."

¤ Commander Guy Delivers Another Scary "al-Qaeda in Iraq" Campfire Story
As Bush, reading once again from a neocon script, this time at the Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina, insists "al-Qaeda in Iraq" is a threat not only to the occupation of Iraq but grade schoolers at home, it is useful to revisit Nick Possum. "Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a real Zarqawi. Nobody is willing to tell what really happened to him, but at some point before the invasion of Iraq he vanished from the real world and entered the twilight zone of black operations to become a symbol of evil and a master of disguise. Nowadays he hides out in the CIA complex at Langley, Virginia, a basement in Baghdad's Green Zone, an office in Kuwait … or maybe all three," Possum wrote on June 1, 2005.

Eight Americans graduate in boost for Cuban health care
Posted: Thursday, July 26, 2007

Eight American students have graduated from a Cuban medical school after six years of free tuition, giving a fresh boost to the reputation of the communist government's health care system.

The first class of US graduates from the Latin American School of Medicine, a Fidel Castro brainchild on Havana's outskirts, plan to return home and take board exams for licenses to work as doctors in US hospitals.

The Americans were among more than 2,100 students from about 25 countries who received diplomas this week in a high-profile ceremony at Havana's Karl Marx theatre. The six women and two men, all from US ethnic minority backgrounds, said they would use their skills to treat poor people, in keeping with the humanitarian ethos of the school.
Full Article : guardian.co.uk

Fleeing Haitian rebel, Guy Philippe denies drug charges
Posted: Wednesday, July 25, 2007

US forces tried capturing Haitian rebel
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (UPI): US forces out of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, used helicopters and jets to try to capture a former Haitian rebel leader accused of trafficking drugs.

Fleeing Haitian rebel leader denies drug charges
Philippe, a former member of Haiti's defunct army and a former police commissioner, led an armed rebellion that ousted Aristide in February 2004. Aristide, who was also under intense French and U.S. pressure to quit, is exiled in South Africa.

Drugs and Politics in Haiti
The US Drug Enforcement Agency's recent attempt to hunt down former policeman, paramilitary commander and presidential candidate Guy Philippe on drug charges can be traced back to a recent arrest in the town of Gonaives, Haiti.

U.S. Raids Home of Haitian Ex-Rebel

Neocons Press Pakistan Endgame
Posted: Tuesday, July 24, 2007

¤ A 21st century catastrophe
Flood-ravaged Britain is suffering from a wholly new type of civil emergency, it is clear today: a disaster caused by 21st-century weather.
This weather is different from anything that has gone before. The floods it has caused, which have left more than a third of a million people without drinking water, nearly 50,000 people without power, thousands more people homeless and caused more than £2bn worth of damage - and are still not over - have no precedent in modern British history.

¤ Venezuela state oil company to nearly double investment in 2007
¤ Recapping the YouTube/CNN presidential debate
¤ The First One's Free ...then you pay.

¤ George Bush: Moral Termite
For many of us on the left coast, President Bush's pardon of Scooter Libby was a non-event; we've grown blasé about Bush abuses. As a result, we shrug and say to the rest of the nation: What did you expect? You supported a conservative demagogue whose most notable "accomplishments" were a series of business failures. Why are you surprised that he's become the worst President in modern history? Nonetheless, while it's comforting to bask in self-righteousness, that won't fix our common problem: Bush will be President for another 18 months and the immorality of the Bush Administration infects us all. The President is a moral termite.

¤ Nincompoop Strategery
¤ How to Walk in Bushtime
¤ Media Corrections We'd Like to See
¤ Bulgarian medics pardoned after arrival from Libya
¤ After carnage, U.S. and Iraqi authorities compete for control
¤ Brown predicts tougher stance on Iran
¤ Re-Targeting Syria, the “Ho Chi Minh Trail of Terrorists?”
¤ 'Why Do They Hate Us?'
¤ Iran's Forgotten Anti-Nuke Movement

¤ Scare-Mongering and Executive Orders
In his first year in office, the widely-followed Cook Political Report had this assessment of George Bush's early months as president: "Looking back over his first five months in office, President George W. Bush and his administration started off to a strong, fast start but now, his future seems far less certain. Not only are Bush's overall job approval ratings slumping, but his disapproval ratings are climbing (and) after a strong start, the last three months have been less than auspicious for this new President. The good news....is that they have plenty of time before the next presidential (or) mid-term elections. The bad news is that they have a lot of repair work to do and had better get started." They wasted little time doing it, but no one (at least the pubic) knew in June what lay ahead in September.

¤ Hazard Warning on Home Cleaners
¤ Now It's On to Iran and Let's Win There!
¤ The Great Denier, At It Again and Again
¤ Bin Laden Gets His Wish, Thanks to Bush Administration

¤ Resisting the plans to control Iraq's oil
The US wants to get it hands on Iraq's oil wealth and is pressuring the Iraqi government to pass a law that will mortgage the country's future, says Hassan Jumaa Awad, the leader of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions.
The union, which represents 26,000 oil workers in southern Iraq, recently staged a series of strikes in protest at the proposed oil law.
The US has made passing the law one of its "benchmarks" to judge the success of its "surge" strategy to regain control of the country.

¤ We hacked into Apple's iPhone, claim security researchers
¤ YouTube prompts revolution in televised debates
¤ Dozens killed in Iraq Hilla blast
¤ US lawmakers unite to demonize Iran

¤ Neocons Press Pakistan Endgame
Ah, yes, another clueless political hack, this one who works for a dictator. "It would be 'completely counterproductive' for the United States to launch military strikes in the Pakistani tribal regions where al Qaeda and Taliban militants have created safe havens, Pakistan's foreign minister said Sunday," reports CNN.
It is "completely counterproductive" because Pakistan's ISI has spent a lot of time and money reconstituting the Taliban in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas or FATA of Pakistan. "The ISI quietly allowed free passage within the Waziristans to Afghan Taliban commanders Jalaluddin Haqqani and Mullah Dadallah. These leaders' task was to marshal the different tribal Taliban chieftains into a movement coherent enough to abide by a truce. But the price for peace was Talibanization. It was pronounced in a communiqué issued by Haqqani in May 2006," writes Graham Usher for the Middle East Report. Of course, as we know, the process of talibanization was a collaborative effort between the CIA and the ISI. CNN, of course, does not bother to inform us of this crucial fact.

¤ The plot to bring back Benazir

¤ It's a pity Fidel Castro does not have time to turn Hugo Chavez into a Martyr
In his latest nationwide TV and radio show 'Alo Presidente,' aired Sunday, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez claimed categorically that he is not a Marxist ... a topic he did not need to clarify, given the trim and the concrete politics his administration has carried out. Like the constitutional defense of private property as the means of production and communication and the deepening of the commercial ties with the United States of America, especially oil-related ties.

¤ Why Germans Supported Hitler
¤ Britain is protecting the biggest heroin crop of all time
¤ Israel Needs Enemies To Exist
¤ A Thousand Nine-Elevens
¤ Who Would Attack A Children's Hospital?

Six medics released in Libya
Posted: Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Six foreign medics convicted of infecting Libyan children with HIV have been freed after diplomatic talks secured their release from prison in Libya.

The five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian-born doctor were serving life sentences and have already served more than eight years.

They had always denied the charges and said they were tortured to confess.

AdvertisementThey have now arrived back to Bulgaria after an agreement was reached on improving relations between Libya and the European Union.

Last week a Libyan judicial council commuted the death sentences against the six to life imprisonment after the victims' families received a $330m settlement.
Full Article : rte.ie

America's Next Big Blunder
Posted: Tuesday, July 24, 2007

by Eric Margolis

Fears are growing the U.S. may be planning to attack Pakistan's “autonomous” tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The Bush administration is ready to lash out at old ally Pakistan, which Washington now blames for its humiliating failures to crush al-Qaida or defeat Taliban resistance forces in Afghanistan. Limited “hot pursuit” ground incursions, intensive air attacks, and special forces raids by U.S. forces into Pakistan's tribal are being studied.

The U.S. claims the 27,200- sq.-km region, home to 3.3 million Pashtun tribesmen, is a safe haven for al-Qaida and Taliban, and a hotbed of anti-American activity. Indeed it is, thanks mostly to the U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan.
Full Article : commondreams.org

Lockerbie: Evidence Fabricated by CIA
Posted: Tuesday, July 24, 2007

A careful reading of the news release by the SCCRC justifying the commission decision to declare the verdict without reasonable basis, can only led one to conclude that the crown had no evidence, let alone conclusive evidence, in the case against Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi.

Why then did Lord Fraser issue an arrest warrant against him in the first place? The answer to this rather intriguing question is both simple and extraordinary. Lord Fraser indicted Megrahi based on fabricated evidence provided by U.S. authorities.
Full Article : ohmynews.com

$100 Oil Price May Be Months Away
Posted: Tuesday, July 24, 2007

The $100-a-barrel oil that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said would prevail by 2009 may be only a few months away.

Jeffrey Currie, a London-based commodity analyst at the world's biggest securities firm, says $95 crude is likely this year unless OPEC unexpectedly increases production, and declining inventories are raising the chances for $100 oil. Jeff Rubin at CIBC World Markets predicts $100 a barrel as soon as next year.

"We're only a headline of significance away from $100 oil," said John Kilduff, an analyst in the New York office of futures broker Man Financial Inc. "The unrelenting pressure of increased demand has left the market a coiled spring." New disruptions of Nigerian or Iraqi supplies, or any military strike against Iran, might trigger the rise, Kilduff said in a July 20 interview.
Full Article : bloomberg.com

Lockerbie: Evidence Fabricated by CIA
Posted: Monday, July 23, 2007

¤ Gamble pays off as Turkey's PM wins historic landslide
¤ 3 Car Bombs Kill 12, Injure 19 in Iraq
¤ England under water

¤ Giuliani and the Dogs of War
Even as the Iraq war claims yet another casualty, in the form of Senator John McCain, another Republican sets himself up for political destruction by insisting that America, should persist in this unpopular enterprise. McCain, once hailed as his party's all-but-inevitable nominee for the presidency, is near the end, out of money and firing senior members of his campaign staff, who retaliate by denigrating those left on the sinking ship.

¤ Buy Hard
The current Bush administration has sometimes been very frank about the need to sell the 'war on terror', and many of the elements used to sell that attack on Iraq--the intelligence dossiers, the unsourced revelations, the denigration of hard evidence, the cosying-up to prominent exiles--are now being used to sell an attack on Iran. With some 22 minutes out of every hour on US TV given over to advertising, the public is accustomed to being sold things on the promise of nirvana if they only succumb. If the Iraq debacle is anything to go by, the process can be extended--remarkably smoothly, in many ways--to selling (and buying) a war.

¤ The Future of Palestine
¤ The Hidden Injuries of Powerlessness
¤ America, Where is Your Conscience?
¤ Radical Language

¤ America's Next Big Blunder
Fears are growing the U.S. may be planning to attack Pakistan's "autonomous" tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The Bush administration is ready to lash out at old ally Pakistan, which Washington now blames for its humiliating failures to crush al-Qaida or defeat Taliban resistance forces in Afghanistan. Limited "hot pursuit" ground incursions, intensive air attacks, and special forces raids by U.S. forces into Pakistan's tribal are being studied.

¤ Again, We Did Know Better
Everyone makes mistakes. You can hide if a blunder is the result of doing your best and simply having guessed wrong. You can explain away the missing weapons of mass destruction by blaming the CIA or the international intelligence community, and dismiss a growing insurrection by pointing to the support of nearby nations. But there is no place to hide if you were told that things were sure to go badly and then, ignoring the warnings, you still go out and drag the country over that same cliff.

¤ Earmarking the War Machine
¤ President Zyazikov's motorcade attacked in Ingushetia
¤ To all the morons who say Palestine never existed

¤ The Mohamed Haneef case
Very fortunately, thanks to the resolution of his barrister, Stephen Keim, Mohamed Haneef's case has thrown light on one of the key operational techniques used in state frame-ups and false flag operations: control the narrative. Once you've established the "official story" you can be sure that virtually every member of the state apparatus will fall into line behind it – even if it means adjusting the evidence to match it and lying to the judiciary.

¤ Lockerbie: Evidence Fabricated by CIA
A careful reading of the news release by the SCCRC justifying the commission decision to declare the verdict without reasonable basis, can only led one to conclude that the crown had no evidence, let alone conclusive evidence, in the case against Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi.

Why then did Lord Fraser issue an arrest warrant against him in the first place? The answer to this rather intriguing question is both simple and extraordinary. Lord Fraser indicted Megrahi based on fabricated evidence provided by U.S. authorities.

¤ Iran accuses US of overthrow plot
¤ Iran Mulls Filing a Complaint against US
¤ Magnitude 6.2 Quake Strikes Northern Argentina
¤ No wonder the bloggers are winning
¤ Melanin and mammaries - have centuries of struggle come to this?
¤ Stiffen Your Upper Lip
¤ From Iggy to Gigli: my journey to the Proms
¤ Executive Privilege Über Alles
¤ I Told You So: Bush's Damage Staggering
¤ Go to Iraq and fight, Mr. President
¤ Force-Feeding at Guantanamo
¤ Secret Report: No Iraq Oil Deal by September

¤ Neocons Set Stage for Pakistan Attack
"The U.S. would consider military force if necessary to stem Al Qaeda's growing ability to use its hideout in Pakistan to launch terrorist attacks, a White House aide said Sunday," reports the neocon Ministry of Disinformation and Parlor Card Tricks, otherwise known as Fox News. "The president's homeland security adviser, Fran Townsend, said the U.S. was committed first and foremost to working with Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, in his efforts to control militants in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. But she indicated the U.S. was ready to take additional measures," that is to say kill a lot of people and call the dead bodies either "al-Qaeda" terrorists or collateral damage.

Doctoring the News
Posted: Friday, July 20, 2007

¤ Pakistan court reinstates chief justice
¤ Scientists make TV remote redundant with a wave of the hand

¤ Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan
Almost six years ago, U.S. and allied forces toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, paving the way for a pro-Western, interim government and the country's first post-Taliban presidential elections. Throughout the war, however, there has been little focus -- whether from government or watchdog groups -- on its toll on the civilian population of Afghanistan.

¤ Doctoring the News

¤ White Noise and the Black Athlete
"Throw at his head! Throw at his head!"
The egg-shaped man in Milwaukee's Miller Park, who looked like he would be sitting behind a desk by morning, continued the arrhythmic chant as those around him chimed in. They were all pleading to see a 95-mph fastball hit a man in the temple, and felt that their demand was righteous.
The player they wanted to see put down was, of course, San Francisco Giants baseball star Barry Bonds, and it is hard to say what was more shocking: the call for his beheading or the near-collective rapture at the thought.

¤ A Really Bad Case of 'Reality'
¤ After Six Years, al-Qaida Still a Major Threat
¤ Bush puts CIA prisons under Geneva Conventions

¤ Yes, Bush Is Naked, What of It?
President Bush's announcement of a new Middle East summit is being dutifully reported as a move to "revive" the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, designed to culminate in a two-state solution. But the meeting, if it ever comes about, will be nothing of the sort. U.S. officials have already made clear that the gathering's purpose will be "to review progress toward building Palestinian institutions, look for ways to support further reforms and support the effort going on right now between the parties together."

¤ Bush Is al-Qaeda's Strategic Ally
U.S. officials have finally admitted what has long been obvious: that George W. Bush's “global war on terror” has been an expensive failure, costing hundreds of billions of dollars and claiming possibly hundreds of thousands of lives, but making the world no safer and quite likely more dangerous.
Bush's top counterterrorism advisers acknowledged as much on July 17 in releasing a summary of a National Intelligence Estimate that represented the consensus view of the U.S. intelligence community.

¤ Bush alters rules for CIA interrogations
President Bush breathed new life into the CIA's terror interrogation program Friday in an executive order that would allow harsh questioning of suspects, limited in public only by a vaguely worded ban on cruel and inhuman treatment.

¤ U.S. Crimes: Business as Usual in Iraq
After four years of failure in Iraq, the country has learned many lessons from the war. Almost all of them are nearly as wrong as the hallucinations of George Bush and Dick Cheney.
Perhaps the hoariest myth of the mainstream war critics is the claim that the occupation failed because we didn't send enough troops. Closely related is some underlying idea that our troops over there spend their time reading to sick Iraqi orphans while crazy Arabs try to kill them and each other.

Western civilisation?
Posted: Thursday, July 19, 2007

¤ A Wake-up Call
This is a wake-up call that we are about to have another 9/11-WMD experience.
The wake-up call is unlikely to be effective, because the American attitude toward government changed fundamentally seventy-odd years ago. Prior to the 1930s, Americans were suspicious of government, but with the arrival of the Great Depression, Tojo, and Hitler, President Franklin D. Roosevelt convinced Americans that government existed to protect them from rapacious private interests and foreign threats. Today, Americans are more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to government than they are to family members, friends, and those who would warn them about the government's protection.

¤ The Dangers of Bush and Al Qaeda
¤ No Evidence of Iran's role in violence and instability in Iraq

¤ How Presidents & Pundits Are Spinning Us to Death.
The media critic Norman Solomon and the Media Education Foundation have just released a documentary titled "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." The film is based on Solomon's book of the same name. The film features extended commentary by Solomon and is narrated by Sean Penn."

¤ Western civilisation?
August 2005 saw a report published by the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), which brought to light the growth of child prostitution, under the new liberated Iraq and how children as young as thirteen have become victims of this sexual tyranny, which the West has brought to these children's doors.
The report states that extreme poverty has lead to an increase in gangs, who are going around and kidnapping children and forcing them into the sex trade, where hard currencies can be exchanged for the degradation of a young persons body.

¤ One third of displaced Iraqis deprived of humanitarian assistance

¤ Yes, Bush Is Naked, What of It?
President Bush's announcement of a new Middle East summit is being dutifully reported as a move to "revive" the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, designed to culminate in a two-state solution. But the meeting, if it ever comes about, will be nothing of the sort. U.S. officials have already made clear that the gathering's purpose will be "to review progress toward building Palestinian institutions, look for ways to support further reforms and support the effort going on right now between the parties together."

¤ Baghdad for sale
One of the things that visitors to Baghdad notice immediately is the number of "for sale" signs which now cover the capital's buildings.
Many of the four million Iraqi refugees who fled to Syria and Jordan in the past three years have put their houses on the market, hoping to generate some cash to help them while abroad.

¤ Israel's illegal Occupation is violent and ongoing
Ever since the Palestinians were catastrophically dispossessed of most of their homeland in 1948, their situation has gone from bad to worse to disastrous. No other conflict has had such intense involvement from a superpower as actor and broker in all that time and no other Occupying Power has had so much financial and political support as it flagrantly violates every aspect of international law and every UN resolution upholding the rights of the Palestinians.

¤ Three Pakistan suicide bombs kill 52 in one day

¤ Bush's Wooden-Headedness Kills
President George W. Bush is convinced, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that he is on the right course in the war in Iraq and the struggle against terrorism. He says he will not change his mind. Thus, we are at an historic moment; and we would be well advised to see what light historians might shed on our current predicament in Iraq and the basic (but unanswered) question as to why so many people resort to terrorism against us.

¤ Misreading Iraq, Again
George W. Bush and his neoconservative supporters are hailing some signs of cooperation between Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders and U.S. forces in rooting out al-Qaeda extremists in Anbar Province as proof that Bush's military occupation of Iraq is finally working and should not be ended by Congress.

¤ The Surging Costs of the Iraq War
¤ Mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan
¤ Iraq Hasn't Even Begun
¤ Iraqis Will Be the Deciders
¤ CNN Throws in Towel, Admits to Two Errors, and States That All 'Sicko' Facts Are True to Their Source
¤ Why Germans Supported Hitler

How The Bush Admin Uses Fear As A Political Tool
Posted: Thursday, July 19, 2007

With public support for the Iraq war hovering around 30 percent, the Bush administration is falling back on a familiar strategy it loves to use when it find itself in trouble - scaring the American people.

On Tuesday, the National Intelligence Estimate, which reflects the consensus view of the 16 U.S. spy agencies, was released to the press. It states that al-Qaida is stepping up efforts to sneak terror operatives into the United States and has acquired most of the capabilities it needs to strike here.
Full Article : opednews.com

Bush Administration Uses Fear As A Political Tool
Posted: Wednesday, July 18, 2007

¤ New York crude soars above 75 dollars
¤ Hollow Land: Architecture as Military Strategy
¤ 200 feared dead after plane crashes at Sao Paulo
¤ The SIM Card Terror Case

¤ How The Bush Administration Uses Fear As A Political Tool
With public support for the Iraq war hovering around 30 percent, the Bush administration is falling back on a familiar strategy it loves to use when it find itself in trouble — scaring the American people.
On Tuesday, the National Intelligence Estimate, which reflects the consensus view of the 16 U.S. spy agencies, was released to the press. It states that al-Qaida is stepping up efforts to sneak terror operatives into the United States and has acquired most of the capabilities it needs to strike here.

¤ Proof Bin Laden Tape Is 5-Year-Old, Re-Released Footage
Why did IntelCenter, the middleman between "Al-Qaeda" and the media, a group that has government and Pentagon ties, re-release old footage and why did the media report it as new when it had already aired twice before?

¤ Bin Laden Appears in New al-Qaida Video
¤ Possible New Message From Osama Bin Laden
¤ The Salt of the Earth
¤ A Choice, Not An Echo

¤ Shoot First -- Ask Questions (Much) Later?
These days, hardly a week passes without the arrival of another allegation of a U.S. atrocity or other unnecessary killing of civilians in Iraq by Americans.
Just in the past few days we’ve witnessed a McClatchy report from Baghdad revealing that U.S. soldiers have killed or wounded 429 Iraqi civilians at checkpoints or near patrols and convoys during the past year; an extremely troubling Los Angeles Times account of routine brutality, and a plea from Reuters for a military probe of the death of two of its staffers last week, possibly shot by U.S. copters. The Nation just published a massive cover piece by Chris Hedges and Laila al-Arian detailing the disturbing findings of on-the-record interviews with about 50 returning veterans of the war.

¤ Lies, More Lies, and Damn Lies
As Americans turn increasingly against President George Bush’s calamitous war in Iraq, and revolt spreads through Republican ranks, the White House is again resorting to its tried-and-true ploy of fanning grossly inflated fears of terrorism.
The president just made two preposterous claims last week that insult the intelligence of his listeners. First, Bush insisted US forces in Iraq are fighting "the same people who staged 9/11."
Second, withdrawing US forces from Iraq, as the Democratic-controlled Congress is urging, means "surrendering Iraq to al-Qaida."

¤ Bush's big Iran problem
¤ The War Is Lost
¤ Huge steam pipe blast kills one in NYC
¤ Bush's Iraqi endgame
¤ Wrong and White and Read All Over
¤ Ship of fools
¤ The cost and consequence of U.S. foreign policy Video

New York crude soars above 75 dollars
Posted: Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Oil prices in New York surged higher on Tuesday, supported by tight US gasoline supplies, North Sea maintenance and geopolitical tensions, traders said.

New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in August, touched 75.35 dollars per barrel -- which was last seen on August 10, 2006. It later stood at 74.19, up 22 cents from Monday's close.
Full Article : breitbart.com

Harming Civilians is a War Crime
Posted: Wednesday, July 18, 2007

by Cindy Sheehan

The Journey for Humanity and Accountability took a two days hiatus in Charlotte, NC while I traveled home to the Bay Area to attend the memorial service of a dear friend of mine. The rest of the group used the time in Charlotte to repair tires, rest, catch up on emails and help work on the next few stops. In the meantime, to the consternation of the Democratic blogosphere, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has 7 more days to put impeachment back on the table. Very few people on these blogs recognize the fact that it's not my fault that Ms. Pelosi is not doing her job.From the comments on the blogs many people are just pleased as punch to wait until George Bush is gone in January '09 or are happy to give the Dems more time to grow a spine. I would hazard a guess that not too many of these people have a child, parent or spouse in Iraq or have any heart-connection with our brothers and sisters who are being wiped off the face of Mesopotamia so BushCo can control their oil and so that the war profiteers who line the pockets of Democrats and Republicans alike can reap Midas-like fortunes.
Full Article : commondreams.org

They Ran Out of People to Kill
Posted: Tuesday, July 17, 2007

¤ Why Milk Costs More Than Gas

¤ Harming Civilians is a War Crime
The Journey for Humanity and Accountability took a two days hiatus in Charlotte, NC while I traveled home to the Bay Area to attend the memorial service of a dear friend of mine. The rest of the group used the time in Charlotte to repair tires, rest, catch up on emails and help work on the next few stops. In the meantime, to the consternation of the Democratic blogosphere, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has 7 more days to put impeachment back on the table. Very few people on these blogs recognize the fact that it’s not my fault that Ms. Pelosi is not doing her job.From the comments on the blogs many people are just pleased as punch to wait until George Bush is gone in January ‘09 or are happy to give the Dems more time to grow a spine. I would hazard a guess that not too many of these people have a child, parent or spouse in Iraq or have any heart-connection with our brothers and sisters who are being wiped off the face of Mesopotamia so BushCo can control their oil and so that the war profiteers who line the pockets of Democrats and Republicans alike can reap Midas-like fortunes.

¤ We're All Gonna Die

¤ Unshakable Optimism on Iraq
On Thursday, the White House released its latest assessment of the war, and it concluded that on eight of the 18 benchmarks set by Congress, there has been "satisfactory progress." That was enough for a presidential seal of approval. In other words, getting right answers on less than half the exam questions earns a pass. If the standards for No Child Left Behind were that low, we would be descending toward mass illiteracy.

¤ Suicide blast rocks Islamabad, killing at least 12
¤ Gunmen kill 29 villagers north of Baghdad
¤ A fight to the death on Pakistan's border

¤ When Regulators Become Enablers
Americans need to stop and consider how many consumers will be killed and injured by dangerous drugs by the time George Bush heads back to Texas at the end of his Presidency, as a direct result of his allowing the interests of the pharmaceutical industry to take control of the FDA.

¤ America has no surplus democracy to export
"Bush keeps pulling the same canard out of the same neo-con hat even though his own intelligence services have consistently determined that the Mesopotamian insurgency is predominantly made up of Iraqis that choose to resist the American occupation."

¤ Suicide blast kills 12 at Islamabad rally
¤ Political Suppression of Sexuality Syndrome

¤ They Ran Out of People to Kill
One of the pieces of good news we keep hearing from the White House is that sectarian killings are down. One US intelligence officer explained to the Washington Post why that might be the case:
"Now that the Sunnis are all gone, murders have dropped off. One way to put it is they ran out of people to kill."
Wow. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse in Iraq.

¤ Brazilian plane crashes into gas station
¤ Blast strikes Islamabad rally

¤ Privileged Grotesques, Ordinary Monsters and the Iraqi Deathscape
At present, George W. Bush is unpopular with the majority of the American public not because of the murderous mayhem he has unloosed in Iraq; rather, his standing has plummeted, due to the fact, he didn't deliver the goods.
Americans are fine with fueling our republic of road rage using the blood of Iraqis (or any other distant and darker people) as long as "the mission" doesn't drag on too long or reveal too much about ourselves.
How did we come to be a nation of vampires who live by sustaining ourselves on the blood of others? Is our mode of collective being so toxic in the United States that a writer must bandy about metaphors culled from Gothic horror fiction to describe it?

¤ "Same folks that are...in Iraq were the ones who attacked us...on 9/11?
¤ We are the Terrorists !!!!!
¤ A Free Press or a Ministry of Truth?
¤ The War Against The Third World

Wrong Again! Bush's Logic and Ours
Posted: Monday, July 16, 2007

¤ Stop Trying To 'Save' Africa
It seems that these days, wracked by guilt at the humanitarian crisis it has created in the Middle East, the West has turned to Africa for redemption. Idealistic college students, celebrities such as Bob Geldof and politicians such as Tony Blair have all made bringing light to the dark continent their mission. They fly in for internships and fact-finding missions or to pick out children to adopt in much the same way my friends and I in New York take the subway to the pound to adopt stray dogs.
This is the West's new image of itself: a sexy, politically active generation whose preferred means of spreading the word are magazine spreads with celebrities pictured in the foreground, forlorn Africans in the back. Never mind that the stars sent to bring succor to the natives often are, willingly, as emaciated as those they want to help.

¤ Second earthquake hits Japan
¤ Japan hit by powerful earthquake
¤ Nuclear reactor in Japan shut down automatically during earthquake
¤ Bombs kill at least 85 in Kirkuk
¤ Cheney pushes Bush to act on Iran
¤ Occupied Iraq defeats Occupier
¤ No Inquest into the Death of Dr. David Kelly

¤ Plan Iraq - Permanent Occupation
Congress is back from its July 4 break and with it more bluster and political posturing on changing course to keep things the same, including everything not working in place. It's the same old scheme, back again, to fool enough of the people all the time and most all of them long enough to move on to the next change of course mission shift starting the whole cycle over again. Even the blind can see the hopelessness of staying the course in Iraq. Aside from its lawlessness and immorality, pushing on with a failed effort qualifies as a classic definition of insanity - continuing the same failed policies, expecting different results.

¤ Kirkuk carnage fuels calls for US exit
¤ "What are we supposed to do with our Dead”
¤ Deleting Gaza's Economy from the Map
¤ A fight to the death on Pakistan's border
¤ Wrong Again! Bush's Logic and Ours

¤ Excuses Keep on Coming
The evolution of excuses for blundering into and maintaining the Iraq War is becoming comical.
The first excuse was weapons of mass destruction. Do you remember the constant talk about weapons of mass destruction, "the worst weapons in the hands of the worst dictator"? Do you remember how President Bush said the sole reason for the war was to disarm Saddam Hussein? Do you remember how we were warned about a smoking gun that could be a mushroom cloud? Do you remember how Iraq was an "imminent" threat to the world? Do you remember how a 65-year-old dictator, widely acknowledged as not the smartest guy in the world, was compared to Hitler, who had put together a regime and an army that conquered Europe?

¤ Attacks kill troops in Pakistan
¤ Iran demands oil pay in yen not dollars
¤ Aristide Supporters March in Haiti
¤ Hundreds of Iraqis protest draft oil law
¤ Despite education, black workers still face challenges
¤ Zimbabwe: Dell, The guns of Kabul beckon

Zimbabwe: Dell, The guns of Kabul beckon
Posted: Monday, July 16, 2007

The Herald
Opinion & Analysis
July 16, 2007

Six days from now, the man who has been at the helm of the US embassy in Harare, Christopher Dell, will pack his bags and head for Kabul, Afghanistan, to see the fruits of the "democratisation" project he failed to effect here.

We can only say, goodbye, Zimbabwe will not miss you.

Since Dell always accuses the Government of closing democratic space and human rights excesses, among other evils, we hope he will be honest enough to give us a fair assessment of those values as they obtain in Zimbabwe and the "democratised" Afghanistan.

Dell has all the time in the world to do that, provided he lasts the three years in shrapnel-ridden Kabul.

During his tenure here, Dell was supposed to be ambassador between Harare and Washington, but his activities were in no way ambassadorial which is why we find it a bit difficult to address him with that venerated title.

He was supposed to promote relations, but all he managed to do was worsen them in the hope that they would be repaired after the opposition his country sponsors, assumes power.

Only two days ago, Dell was up to his usual gangster behaviour, hurling insults at his hosts, in contravention of the Geneva Conventions that counsel mutual recognition and respect between state parties.

It is not lost to us that Dell is spoiling for a fight.

He clearly wants to leave Zimbabwe under the cloud of a diplomatic row akin to the one that prevailed at the time of his posting following the scandalous comments he made before a congressional hearing ahead of his posting.

Then Dell boasted that he would effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe using his experiences in Angola, Yugoslavia and Kosovo; but alas to be forewarned is to be forearmed, the Government matched him move for move which accounts for his frustration and childish ranting.

In fact, his latest Fishmongers project, the one that made him gloat inflation would hit the 1,5 million percent mark by December, is crumbling like a deck of cards as all sectors that failed to justify their extortionate prices are slashing them like a jumble sale.

The opposition he hoped to use as a battering ram against the Government is in tatters, and was recently chased out of Ghana by angry Africans twice shy after being bitten once over Dr Kwame Nkrumah.

The Government he hoped to have made history by now, continues scoring diplomatic victories, one after another, the latest being Portugal's bold declaration that it would not be used against Zimbabwe as the dispute between former British prime minister, Tony Blair, tried to internationalise, is merely bilateral.

We salute the Government for putting Dell in his place, let that message go forth to his successor.

Zimbabwe is a different ball game altogether, there is no "I came, I saw, I conquered" here for foes, they get only sound defeat. Which is why Dell's reputation as "Mr Fix-it" is in tatters, his ego deflated.

He can spoil for the fight he lost a long time ago; but Zimbabwe wages a principled fight, it never kicks a man when he is already down.

Pick yourself up, Mr Fix-it, the blazing guns of Kabul beckon.

Komphela slams Aussie 'racists'
Posted: Sunday, July 15, 2007

Butana Komphela has described the Wallabies' reluctance to hold the Mandela Plate as an act of racism and disrespect for South Africa's former president.

Komphela, the chairman of the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Sport answered questions put forward by concerned South Africans in the Sunday Times. One reader queried the Australians' attitude, and Komphela pulled no punches in slamming their actions.

"Australia has a history of racism," he said. "If you recall, during the times of the struggle for non-racial sport it was Australia who were pumping apartheid South Africa with rebel tours."
Full Article : keo.co.za

Over the Top - You Ask the Questions
Butana Komphela, chairman of the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Sport, answers readers questions

Despite education, black workers still face challenges
Posted: Sunday, July 15, 2007

by julianne Malveaux
Jul 15, 2007, 04:41

With the unemployment rate at a twenty-eight-year low of 4.5 percent, and discussion of discrimination unpopula in this post-affirmative action era, scant attention has been focused on the unemployment rate gap and the differential status of African American workers. But yes, there is still an unemployment rate gap, and it widened -- not narrowed -- in the face of economic prosperity.

Instead of the traditional 2:1 relationship between Black and White unemployment rates, in August the Black unemployment rate was 9 percent, 2.25 times the White rate of 4 percent.

Wage gaps remain as well. The Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute issued an early copy of its State of Working America this past Labor Day. According to EPI, the 1997 hourly wage for White women was $10.02, compared to $8.49 for African American women. The wage gap has worsened over time: in 1989 the White female wage was $9.84, while the Black wage was $8.76. Regardless of educational level, White wages grew from 1989 to 1997, while wages for African Americans fell.

College-educated African American women saw their wages drop 3.2 percent in the last five years, while White women who were college graduates saw their wages grow by 4.4 percent.

Among men, the situation was somewhat different, although gaps remain. White men earned $18.20 an hour, compared to the $12.92 that African American men earned. Overall, men saw their wage levels drop in the 1989-97 period, but African American men saw their wages drop more precipitously. However, among college-educated men, there was slight wage growth -- with Black men's wages growing twice as rapidly as White men's from 1989 to 1997. Nevertheless, White men earn $21.45 to the $16.53 that Black men earn. Further, wage growth among White men was far more pronounced than that of Black men in the past five years -- when White men's wages grew by 2.5 percent, and Black men's by just 0.1 percent.
Full Article : diverseeducation.com

Parasitic Imperialism
Posted: Sunday, July 15, 2007

¤ Kenyan fury at threat to organic trade

¤ Two UK bomb suspects released
Two men arrested and held for two weeks in connection with so-called failed car bombs in London and Glasgow have been released without charge, British police said.
The men released on Sunday, aged 28 and 25, were arrested on July 2 in Paisley, Scotland, police said.
Mohammed Asha, 26, was the only suspect remaining in custody without charge.

¤ A vote for Bush was a vote for the terrorists

¤ White House tells some whoppers in bid to depict wars as battles against al-Qaida
The latest whoppers from the White House's fib factory came this week as President George W. Bush (A) claimed U.S. forces in Iraq are fighting "the same people" who staged 9/11, and, (B) withdrawing U.S. forces means "surrendering Iraq to al-Qaida."
These absurd assertions mark the latest steps in the administration's evolving efforts to depict the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as battles against al-Qaida.
When marketers want to change the name of an existing product, they first place a new name in small type below the existing one. They gradually shrink the old name, and enlarge the new one until the original name vanishes.

¤ US renting Pak army for $ 100 million a month

¤ Not so Kind...

¤ Parasitic Imperialism
How recent U.S. wars of choice, driven largely by war profiteering, are plundering not only defenseless peoples and their resources abroad, but also the overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens and their resources at home.
Although immoral, external military operations of past empires often proved profitable, and therefore justifiable on economic grounds. Military actions abroad usually brought economic benefits not only to the imperial ruling classes, but also (through "trickle-down" effects) to their citizens. Thus, for example, imperialism paid significant dividends to Britain, France, the Dutch, and other European powers of the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. As the imperial economic gains helped develop their economies, they also helped improve the living conditions of their working people and elevate the standards of living of their citizens.

¤ Bush Cornered --Cannot Stay, Cannot Pull Out of Iraq

¤ Iraq's 1958 revolution and the US propaganda
Today we celebrate the event of 1958's revolution in Iraq, a good opportunity to watch this US propaganda clip from that time, and see how the Iraqi revolution busted the Imperialists agenda in the Middle-East.

¤ One in a Million: More on the Killing of Khalid Hassan

¤ The "Other War" in Iraq

¤ Osama: More Bounty, More Baloney
It is politics as usual. In order to hype the "war on terror" angle over what is perceived as a floundering effort in Iraq—in fact, the effort in Iraq is a smashing (no pun intended) success, as it has destroyed the country—the "U.S. Senate on Friday voted to double the bounty on Osama bin Laden to $50 million and require President George W. Bush to refocus on capturing him after reports al Qaeda is gaining strength," according to Reuters. "By a vote of 87-1, the Senate set the reward for the killing or capture, or information leading to the capture, of the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States."

Bush-Cheney Making Things Worse Day by Day
Posted: Saturday, July 14, 2007

¤ African Union failed the crucial test
No one denies that it is only through a Union government and unity of purpose that Africa can claim its rightful stake in the world.
Barring unity, Africa would continue suffering the depredations of Western nations bent on exploiting its vast resources for self-enrichment.
But so vast are the challenges Africa has to overcome that a really radical approach is needed if the dream of a United States of Africa is to be realised, which means there is no room for placating the West in this revolutionary undertaking.

¤ Libby Judge "Perplexed" by Clemency
¤ Conrad Black faces jail after being convicted on four counts of fraud and obstruction
¤ Gitmo's Tangled Web
¤ Lawlessness, Waste and Incompetence

¤ The Illegalities of the Iraq War
In the four years since the United States and its so-called 'Coalition of the Willing' invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq, only one stated goal has been accomplished: the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Peace and democracy are simply pipe dreams, the continued fantasies of a deluded U.S. president and his gaggle of yes-men who all choose to remain oblivious to Iraq's bloody civil war.

In its perpetration of unspeakable terror upon the people of Iraq, the United States and its willing and/or coerced cohorts have violated international law at almost every turn. A few shocking examples are instructive.

¤ Eat, Fight, Screw, Pray
¤ Bush, Impeachment, Strong Women and Dallas, Texas
¤ An Open Letter to CNN
¤ Bush-Cheney Making Things Worse Day by Day
¤ Cheney's Actions Put Impeachment on the Table
¤ TE Lawrence Had It Right About Iraq
¤ Bush Distorts Qaeda Links, Critics Assert
¤ 24 troops die in Pakistan suicide attack
¤ Iraq: Arrowhead Ripper Rips Baquba Farmland
¤ Chalabi survives assassination attempt
¤ NYUK! NYUK! NYUK!
¤ Elite Propaganda and U.S. Policy in the Middle East

Zimbabwe: Death penalty not the solution
Posted: Saturday, July 14, 2007

The Herald
Opinion & Analysis

Zimbabwe has been very reluctant since independence to use the death penalty, and the majority of those sentenced to death have had their sentences commuted to life in prison, with the apparent proviso that this does mean the rest of their lives behind bars.

There is a growing group who feel the time has come to formally abolish the death penalty, and this week the supporters of abolition received support from a very influential quarter — the Council of Chiefs.

The chiefs in favour of abolition used traditional arguments, as is their function, but these arguments are frequently reflected in the views of modern proponents of abolition.

Both traditional and modern proponents of the abolition of the death penalty argue that those who kill, even when this is permitted by law, are tainted by the same horror they are trying to deter, that of killing another human.

By hanging those who wilfully take the life of another in order to remove an obstacle, society accepts the argument that killing can indeed solve a problem.

We lower ourselves to the same level as those we hang.

Of course, there are crimes that are so terrible that the perpetrators have removed themselves totally, and forever, from the society of their fellows.

Wilful murder is one such crime and, in certain circumstances, so is treason.

Zimbabwean law acknowledges this by making these two crimes, along with mutiny, the only possible capital crimes. The Zanu-PF Government removed all other crimes from the old colonial list that attracted a death penalty.

The system of safeguards to ensure that murder was indeed the crime committed was also strengthened after independence.

Not only is it impossible to plead guilty to a capital crime, ensuring that the prosecution must prove its case, but appeal is automatic.

Where death sentences are passed and confirmed, judges have to submit detailed reports to the Cabinet and the final decision to execute the sentence or commute the sentence is one for the Cabinet as a whole, not just one person as is common in the rest of the world.

Zimbabwe has probably reached the stage now where the only argument in favour of retaining hanging is that of deterrence. There is a feeling that abolishing the death sentence might encourage those committing robbery or other serious crimes to kill possible witnesses.

But experience in other jurisdictions suggests that so long as non-murderers receive fixed sentences and killers get "life without parole" there is a sufficient gap to deter killing.

What is also important — and Zimbabwe follows this rule — is that the chance of arrest and conviction for a murderer must be high. There are very few unsolved murders in Zimbabwe.

The police pour vast amounts of man-hours by talented detectives into solving murder cases.

That near certainty of arrest, followed by a life sentence, is likely to retain the deterrent. After all, a killer will know he will die in jail.

Whether this is next year on the gallows or in decades to come after a miserable life behind bars is not that important.

What is critical is that we, as individuals and as a society, will relinquish the right to decide who lives and who dies.

We will preserve life and let God dispose. We will rise above the morality of those who believe that killing can solve anything.

When Dictators Serve US Interests
Posted: Friday, July 13, 2007

¤ The Decider in Denial
Scrambling to shore up crumbling support for the war in Iraq, President George Bush released a report yesterday claiming sufficient political and military progress to justify the presence of 170,000 US troops in the country.
President Bush said he still believed victory in Iraq was possible.
"Those who believe that the battle in Iraq is lost will likely point to the unsatisfactory performance on some of the political benchmarks," he said.

¤ When Dictators Serve US Interests
Over recent days, news from Pakistan has been dominated by the siege at the Red Mosque, which ended late yesterday. Scarcely a mile from the seat of power in Islamabad, the madrasa students and their two leading clerics inside the mosque first claimed attention with kidnappings, threats of suicide bombings and demands for the imposition of sharia law. The Musharraf regime mounted a military operation against the militants which led to the loss of numerous lives, among them one of the clerics, Abdul Rashid Ghaz. A number of questions arise. Why was action not taken immediately? How were militants and arms able to get in under the gaze of the police and intelligence services? And why were other measures, including shutting off electricity at the mosque, not exhausted earlier?

¤ Mosque protests erupt in Pakistan
Thousands have protested across Pakistan against a government raid on Islamabad's Red Mosque that left more than 100 dead.
Police tightened security nationally on Friday in an effort to foil possible revenge attacks and seized three suspected suicide bombers and a car filled with explosives in the northwest town of Dera Ismail Khan

¤ After Iraq, Pakistan? Is Worrying About Pakistani Nukes Serving To Keep Us In Iraq?
The bloody assault by Pakistani troops on the Islamic militants occupying The Red Mosque in Islamabad just might mark the beginning of the end of the Musharraf regime and the beginning of a period of radical destabilization for Pakistan — a prospect that causes great consternation in the West where commentators remind us that Pakistan is nuclear-armed and bin Laden has remained at large in its untamed northern provinces.

¤ The Mainstream Media’s Michael Moore Inferiority Complex
In a world full of political provocateurs and public hotheads, why is it that only Michael Moore triggers the media’s all-too-absent obsession with factual accuracy? Because he scares them.

“Facts,” Ronald Reagan famously said, “are stupid things.” But that may be too harsh. They can just be made to do stupid things. For instance, if I told you that the American economy had grown by a robust 3.2 percent in 2004 and 2005, you’d think it had done pretty well. If I told you that the bottom 90 percent of American workers actually lost income over that same period because so much went to the very rich, you might think differently. Both facts are true. They just need context.And context is what facts so rarely get. Here at The American Prospect, the economist Dean Baker writes a blog dedicated to providing some of that sorely needed context in the media’s reportage of economic and social policy data. It’s a big job, because he’s one of the few people doing it. Except when a new Michael Moore movie comes out. Then, suddenly, the press becomes obsessed with facts and context and the relevance of omissions.

¤ Iraq on My Mind: Thousands of Stories to Tell — And No One to Listen
¤ Terror suspect's wife released

¤ Iraq Reporter Schizophrenic in Disneyland
What if you spoke regularly of "haji food," "haji music" and "haji homes"? What if your speeding convoys ran over civilians often enough that no one thought to report the incidents? What if your platoon was told pointblank: "The Geneva Conventions don't exist at all in Iraq, and that's in writing if you want to see it"; or, when you shot noncombatants, it was perfectly normal to plant "throwaway weapons" by their bodies, arrest those civilians who survived, and accuse them all of being "insurgents"? What if your buddy got his meal-ready-to-eat standard spoon and asked you to take a photo of him pretending to scoop the brains out of a dead Iraqi? Or what if the general attitude among your buddies was: "A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi.... You know, so what?"

¤ "The Chaos in Iraq You Now Decry was Caused By You!"
¤ Media mogul Black guilty of fraud
¤ U.S. troops shot 429 Iraqi civilians at checkpoints
¤ The Media on ‘Global Terror’
¤ The Central Role of Al Qaeda in Bush's National Security Doctrine
¤ Video - Iraqi girls as young as six forced into prostitution

U.S. troops shot 429 Iraqi civilians at checkpoints
Posted: Friday, July 13, 2007

Pentagon officials have declined repeatedly to reveal the numbers of civilian deaths and injuries caused by American troops. The escalation-of-force statistics, however, were part of a recent briefing given to Army Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of coalition forces in Iraq. A person familiar with the briefing provided the statistics to McClatchy.

They cover 3,200 incidents since July 2006 in which U.S. troops fired warning shots at Iraqi civilians. Such incidents led to injury or death 36 times a month on average – more than once a day,
Full Article : mcclatchydc.com

EEOC, Walgreen Resolve Race-Discrimination Lawsuit
Posted: Friday, July 13, 2007

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said it and Walgreen Co. (WAG) resolved a race-discrimination lawsuit brought against the drugstore chain with a $20 million proposed consent decree.

The suit against Walgreen alleged widespread bias against African-American workers by assigning them to low-performing Walgreen's drugstores and stores in communities with large African-American populations. The suit, which also claimed African-Americans were denied promotional opportunities based on race, sought back pay and compensatory and punitive damages.
Full Article : money.cnn.com

BBC's grovelling apology to Queen over 'tantrum' film
Posted: Friday, July 13, 2007

The BBC was forced to offer a humiliating apology to the Queen over claims that she stormed out of a photo shoot.

She is said to be livid at the way documentary footage was manipulated to make it appear she had flounced out of a portrait sitting with American photographer Annie Leibovitz.

The corporation has admitted that the footage of her alleged exit was in fact filmed as she arrived for the session.

Phone lines between Buckingham Palace and the BBC were said to have been "red-hot" amid fears that the corporation had turned the Queen into a laughing stock.

Politicians and senior BBC figures have called for heads to roll, claiming the trailer footage unveiled on Wednesday showed a flagrant lack of respect for the monarch.

The BBC Trust, which replaced the board of governors earlier this year, has called on director-general Mark Thompson to explain how the blunder happened.
Full Article : dailymail.co.uk

Abusing Iraqi Civilians
Posted: Thursday, July 12, 2007

¤ The Siege of the Red Mosque and the Cries of the Suffering
For my first three days in Pakistan, no conversation could go more than a few minutes without a reference to the crisis at the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) compound. I had landed in Islamabad on July 8, and by then it seemed clear that government forces would eventually storm the mosque and the attached women's seminary to end the confrontation with fundamentalist clerics and their supporters.
The final assault was finally unleashed as two companions and I drove to Lahore as part of a lecture tour. During several hours of intense discussion in the car, they gave me background and details that explained the real tragedy of the conflict.

¤ Musharraf vows 'war on extremists'
¤ Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) Saga has a history
¤ As Usual, Pakistan About to Explode
¤ The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness

¤ How Terror Lost Its Meaning
Why does terror dominate our headlines and the attention of our governments going on six years after 9/11? The answer cannot be what George Bush says that it is: it is not the fault of people who hate democracy and freedom.
We know this for a great many reasons. One of the world's oldest terrorist organizations, the IRA, had no interest in British government and society. It was interested only in being free of their control.
We know Bush is wrong also because the people who genuinely hate democracy and freedom--the world's oligarchs, dictators, and strongmen--are people who hate terror themselves because it threatens their security.

¤ Lebanese army pounds refugee camp
¤ Bush and Cheney’s Tortured Secrecy
¤ A Modest Proposal
¤ Privileged Grotesques, Ordinary Monsters and the Iraqi Deathscape
¤ The core misconceptions in the 'war on terror'
¤ Bush dismisses CIA leak as old news
¤ Case against God dismissed in Romanian court

¤ Six killed in Swiss avalanche

¤ Abusing Iraqi Civilians
With no end yet in sight for the long dark night of the Iraq war, The Nation magazine is coming out this week with an article that goes into great and disturbing detail about the brutal treatment of Iraqi civilians by some U.S. soldiers and marines.
The article does not focus on the handful of atrocities that have gotten substantial press coverage, like the massacre in Haditha in November 2005. Instead, based on interviews conducted on the record with dozens of American combat veterans of the war, the authors address what they describe as frequent acts of violence in which U.S. forces have abused or killed Iraqi civilians - men, women and children - with impunity.

¤ The Bloodthirsty Murderers of a Million

¤ Interim Assessment of the Highly Successful Destruction of Iraq Due
Once again, they take us for complete idiots. "A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reform, speeding up the Bush administration’s reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday," reports NBC News, the corporate media propaganda outlet owned and operated by General Electric, makers of cruise missiles, Stealth bombers, B-52 bombers, AWACS, and the NAVSTAR spy satellite system, the sort of stuff used up in record numbers inside Iraq and Afghanistan, thus ensuring mega-profits for the merchants of death and destruction.
In fact, the "U.S.-backed government in Baghdad," that is to say the U.S. puppet government in Baghdad, is doing precisely what it was cobbled together to do under the dog and pony show of purple finger democracy—absolutely nothing short of avoid car bombs and assassination attempts.

¤ 'Al Qaeda': they get around.
They're like Shaolin shadow-boxers, ninjas, the Wu-Tang Clan, and they aint' nuttin ta fuck wit. They can slip into any situation unnoticed and fuck you up, Jack. There's 'Al Qaeda' in Iraq, there's 'Al Qaeda' in Somalia, there's 'Al Qaeda' in Afghanistan, there's 'Al Qaeda' in Europe, there's 'Al Qaeda' in London, there's 'Al Qaeda' in Indonesia, there's 'Al Qaeda' in China, there's 'Al Qaeda' in Palestine...

¤ The giant man-eating badgers of Basra

¤ Zimbabwe: MDC must be responsible
IT is unbelievable, indeed shameful that at a time we should all be ganging up against imperialist forces bent on destroying our nationhood, there are some among us who are not only doing nothing but shamelessly availing themselves at the disposal of the brutal forces working against us.
It is mind boggling to imagine that those in the MDC have chosen to showcase their usual double-minded approach to everything by trying to undermine the Sadc initiative, being spearheaded by South Africa.

¤ Brown downplays Iraq terror link

Zimbabwe: MDC must be responsible
Posted: Thursday, July 12, 2007

By Reason Wafawarova
July 12, 2007

IT is unbelievable, indeed shameful that at a time we should all be ganging up against imperialist forces bent on destroying our nationhood, there are some among us who are not only doing nothing but shamelessly availing themselves at the disposal of the brutal forces working against us.

It is mind boggling to imagine that those in the MDC have chosen to showcase their usual double-minded approach to everything by trying to undermine the Sadc initiative, being spearheaded by South Africa.

That feuding MDC leaders have teamed up with the self-anointed representative of the church, a self-styled activist running an organisation claiming to have the mandate to write a national constitution and an overzealous student under the illusion he is the custodian of all students, testifies to this.

That this is happening at a time talks meant to help Zimbabwe pull in the same direction only goes to show that the so-called democratic forces are nothing more than destructive forces that every well-meaning Zimbabwean should be wary of.

It is amazing that MDC leaders and their allies in the so-called civil society have the temerity to brag about their shameful trip meant during which they sought to outdo each in selling-out.

In reality, the European tour by the feuding opposition forces was a mere competition for recognition by the members of the delegation; a competition meant to get gullible westerners to loosen the purse strings.

The Save Zimbabwe Campaign team was made up of renegades who need to be educated on the basics of serving Zimbabwe before they can even think of saving it. The important question begging a speedy answer is how MDC leaders and their allies intend to save Zimbabwe by teaming up with the same people working to bring the country to its knees?

They may be pleasing themselves, their masters and their supporters but they should rest assured that they are not doing their 2008 campaign any good as their tour was viewed as the epitome of treachery by discerning Zimbabweans.

MDC leaders were also insulting Sadc as their Western campaign was a direct slap in the face of those working at finding common ground between the main political players in Zimbabwe.

The same goes for the African Union that recently reiterated its support for Zimbabwe in Accra.

MDC leaders are also slighting the United Nations by undermining the world body’s position that Zimbabwe is not an acceptable candidate for sanctions.

However, they are doing the hawks in the European Union a world of good by proving to be good, faithful stooges.

Those who have played similar roles in the Middle East, some parts of Africa, South America and even Asia have traditionally operated as exiled politicians, carrying out their treacherous missions from the bases of their masters. The situation is, however, quite different for the MDC in that it operates from the same Zimbabwe it is working to destroy, and in the process confirm the country’s democratic credentials.

Of course, none of the quislings will ever admit that Zimbabwe is a democracy that tolerates divergent views, which is why they can pursue their ruinous mischief at will.

Zimbabweans have the freedom to form political parties of their choice, even treacherous ones. MDC leaders are free to openly deride the living and fallen heroes of our liberation struggle at will, hiding their mischief under the cover of freedom of expression.

MDC leaders have no qualms vilifying the same system that makes it possible for them to exist as a political party, even though their activities would have invited a ban in less democracies.

Tsvangirai and Mutambara flying in and out of Zimbabwe, because they have freedom of movement and association, they back rabid online websites that tell the world everything but the truth, all in the name of Press freedom.

They associate with all sorts of subversive characters, because they enjoy freedom of association. They are blissfully unaware that their Western masters outlawed Communist Parties in their countries, simply because they were identified with the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

In fact, the MDC and its allies enjoy so much freedom and rights that they are now convinced that it is their "democratic" right to unconstitutionally unseat an elected government. They believe that to the extent of publicly declaring a "defiance campaign" and a war against the police. They are even more than convinced that a speech that threatens the violent removal of a sitting President is well within their "democratic" rights.

MDC leaders will tell their supporters that urban orgies of violence disguised as mass actions are a "democratic" attempts to unseat a Government in a country where the majority of people, over 70 percent, live in the rural areas.

They are convinced that putting screws on one’s own economy by way of campaigning for isolation is well within "democratic" rights.

It is high time the MDC and like-minded organisations and individuals are reminded that yes, they do have a lot of legitimate rights under the international human rights regime but those rights will only yield benefits if one takes up the responsibility that goes with the enjoyment of such rights.

Irresponsible people should not expect to benefit from the rights at their disposal. It is the simple rule of sowing; you can’t sow a mango seed and expect to see a guava tree germinating.

The MDC needs to be reminded that the right to gather or assemble comes with a lot of responsibility and most certainly, planning violent protests and inciting people to revolt against the Government is not responsibility. MDC leaders need to know that they have every right to hop in and out of Zimbabwe at will but that their forays also demand responsibility.

Again, flying out to campaign for sanctions and increased suffering for one's own people is being responsible, it is simply unacceptable and Zimbabwe has had enough of such shameless betrayal.

The right to free expression is at everyone’s disposal but it comes with responsibility. Certainly, lies, exaggerations, foul language and running "houses of lies" in the name of media houses is not part of the expected responsibility.

Fighting police officers in an attempt to effect illegal regime change cannot pass for the responsibility expected under freedom of expression, assembly or protest.

The current double standards being shown by MDC leaders that see them pretend to be willing participants in inter-party talks on one hand, while embarking on an anti-Zimbabwe campaigns in Europe on the other is just what we have all along seen of this quisling party.

MDC leaders hail election results that go in their favour as free and fair, and reject all outcomes that go against them as fraudulent. They purport to love the very people for whom they create massive suffering by grovelling for ruinous Western sanctions.

They take part in parliamentary elections and conveniently boycott elections where they see pending defeat and claim to be doing so out of commitment to democratic principles.

They say the land reform programme is failing because it is not well supported with machinery and inputs and loudly cry in protest when the inputs and machinery are delivered.

They cry that the economy is bad but stand up to protest every effort to turn around the same economy. To them, the only legitimate economic growth that Zimbabwe can ever have must be under an MDC government.

MDC leaders must assure Zimbabweans where they are going to get interest for Zimbabwe’s national interest if ever they are elected to power. Right now, they do not only lack appreciation for the national interest, they actually stand as prime enemies to the national interest in all its forms, that is the economic interest, the ideological interest and the cultural interest.

What drives their hearts, souls and spirits are western interests, all because of the motivation they derive from the power of treacherous silver in the form of foreign donations.

Agreed, this is a one-sided analysis of part of the political process in Zimbabwe and that is deliberate and for a purpose. That purpose is to tell the MDC that Zimbabwe is getting sick and tired of bei ng taken for a ride in circles of treacherous madness.

People may want change, indeed they do, but not the MDC kind of change geared at destroying the economy in the hope of rebuilding it under an opposition dispensation. Zimbabweans want economic development and ownership of their economy in all its forms.

If Zimbabwe is to have a change of government then the alternative government must be made up of well-meaning and loyal citizens who have the national interest at heart; not the hopeless donor mongers who are masquerading as opposition politicians today.

It is a tragedy to have an opposition party that takes part in elections as a civilised political party that then turns itself into a rebel movement seeking to topple the sitting government between elections. That is what we have seen of the MDC since 2000 and one wonders what would happen if Zanu-PF was organising counter-violent marches to overthrow local governments in places like Bulawayo, Masvingo and other urban areas under MDC control.

It is high time the MDC started acting in good faith and Zimbabwe hopes for a better opposition sooner than later.

Reason Wafawarova is a Zimbabwean writer living in Australia; he can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk.

Toddler Sexually Assaulted by Pitbull...
Posted: Thursday, July 12, 2007

LOCKPORT: Pitbull attacks toddler

Lockport police are investigating an apparent attack by a pit bull on a small boy.

The 2-year-old is recovering at Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo after police say he was attacked and sexually assaulted by his family's pit bull.

Police said the toddler was in his home on Washburn Street about 2 p.m. Sunday when the pill bull attacked. According to police, the dog sodomized the boy.

"The dog sexually attacked the kid and caused some pretty significant injuries," said Lockport Police Detective Capt. Larry Eggert.

Eggert said the boy's family members, who were reportedly home at the time, and neighbors had to beat the dog to get him off the boy.
Full Article : tonawanda-news.com

Dog Attacks Lockport 2-Year Old
Det. Capt. Larry Eggert
Exclusive WBEN Windows Media Audio
Full Article : wben.com

Brown downplays Iraq terror link
Posted: Thursday, July 12, 2007

Asked about the future of British troops in Iraq he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the UK had an "obligation" to the United Nations and Iraq's government not to withdraw.

He said troop numbers there had already fallen from 44,000 to 5,500 and ruled out an "artificial timetable" for withdrawing UK troops from Iraq.
Full Article : news.bbc.co.uk

Military Prostitution and the Iraq Occupation
Posted: Wednesday, July 11, 2007

¤ It's What Bush Craves!
We observe the modern American political theme - global democracy, global freedom, global security, global planning - from afar, as if on a big screen, framed and shaped for our consumption, neat.
Americans watch and wonder. George W. Bush speechwriters, neoconservatives and the odd state-worshipping evangelical - or do I repeat myself - nod encouragingly in our direction, in Paris Hilton-style and say, "Do you love it?"
Sadly, overwhelmingly, we do not.

¤ Iraq and The Madness of King George
How delusional is President Bush when it comes to the Iraq war?
In a recent speech at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., Bush called al-Qaida "the main enemy" in Iraq, even though his own intelligence agencies have rejected that assertion.
According to the McClatchy News Service, Bush referred to al-Qaida 27 times in the speech in a calculated attempt to tie the lingering outrage of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks with the ongoing "surge" of U.S. forces in Iraq.
The problem is that al-Qaida had no presence in Iraq until the U.S. invasion in 2003. U.S. military and intelligence officials say the group calling itself "Al-Qaida in Iraq" represents only a small fraction of the threat to American soldiers and is not under the control of Osama bin Laden or his top aides.

¤ China executes former food safety chief over fake medicines

¤ Dollar plunges to fresh lows
The dollar has plunged to its lowest level ever against the euro amid evidence that the American housing market slowdown may be leaching into other areas of the economy.

And sterling also hit a fresh 26-year high against the US currency, with £1 at one point buying close to $2.03.

The dollar's decline came amid warnings of worsening conditions in the housing market. The rating agency Standard & Poor's predicted more defaults among low-income borrowers who have taken out so-called "sub-prime" mortgages, while the biggest home improvement chain, Home Depot, issued its second profit warning in two months.

¤ Presidential Scholars Tell the President ‘No' on Torture

¤ Bush's Pakistan Paradox
As Iraq continues to disintegrate, and our top generals and in-country ambassador predict that U.S. troops will need to die there for decades in order to prevent a full-scale regional blood bath, it is important to recall the reasons why we got into this mess. The marker of what will go down in history as "Bush's folly" is that this idiot of a president invaded a country that had absolutely nothing to do with terrorist attacks on the United States or WMD threats to America while coddling the military junta in Pakistan, which was guilty on both counts.

(For newspaper editors inclined to strike my reference in this syndicated column to our "idiot president" as excessively pejorative, I refer them to one definition of idiot in Webster's New Riverside University Dictionary: "being unable to guard against common dangers and being incapable of learning connected speech.")

¤ Is the U.S. Responsible for the Death of Nearly a Million Iraqis?
¤ Military Prostitution and the Iraq Occupation
¤ Monitor Radio vs. RCTV

¤ The Real News is that the Movement Still Exists
Sunday, July 1 saw about 100,000 people march through the streets of Mexico City to the city's central plaza, the Zócalo, one year after the election that put right-wing candidate Felipe Calderón in power via old-school and new-school fraud. Ex-candidate Andrés López Obrador took the stage after an endless array of boring speakers and low-key musical acts that the crowd tolerated in the sun. His new book, the subtly-entitled THE MAFIA STOLE THE PRESIDENCY, is one of many on the subject that have been released in the past few weeks. His Ibsenian spirit of resistance intact, he didn't say anything particularly new at the rally. (The day before, one of his key advisors had suggested that the public be ready for an announcement of new actions to take: the ballots haven't been burned yet, and there's still time to trace the trail of corruption, he said.) The real news, participants and many media people agree, is that the movement still exists.

¤ 27 Afghan civilians killed in NATO strikes, local officials say
¤ 'A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi... You know, so what?'
¤ Media barred from mosque victims
¤ Freedom Next Time: An Evening with John Pilger and Amy Goodman - Video

¤ The new drumbeat on Iran
Why attack Iran? War hawks in Washington are having trouble answering that question. Even their dire warnings about Iran's nuclear program have not been enough to alarm Americans already weary of Middle East conflicts.
Now the war drums have taken on a different tone. The Bush administration is testing a new rationale for attacking Iran: We must strike because Iranians are killing our soldiers in Iraq.
This is not simply a charge made by one state against another in the hope that a misguided policy will be changed. It is also part of a calculated effort to find an argument for bombing Iran that Americans will accept.

¤ U.S.: Iran's Quds Force involved in attack on U.S. soldiers in Iraq
¤ "Accidents" of War
¤ Jena, Louisiana: Nooses and White Supremacy

¤ Venezuelan-Iranian Car Company Releases First Models
As a product of economic agreements between Venezuela and Iran, the joint car company Venirauto released its first 300 units at an event in Caracas yesterday. The factory, located west of Caracas in Maracay, will produce some 25,000 cars per year using Iranian technology. The two countries are also making tractors and farm equipment for the Venezuelan market with the intention of eventually transferring 100 percent of the production to Venezuela.

¤ African Union failed the crucial test
No one denies that it is only through a Union government and unity of purpose that Africa can claim its rightful stake in the world.
Barring unity, Africa would continue suffering the depredations of Western nations bent on exploiting its vast resources for self-enrichment.
But so vast are the challenges Africa has to overcome that a really radical approach is needed if the dream of a United States of Africa is to be realised, which means there is no room for placating the West in this revolutionary undertaking.

Jena, Louisiana: Nooses and White Supremacy
Posted: Wednesday, July 11, 2007

By Alice Woodward

On a late summer day in 2006, in Jena, Louisiana, a Black high school student asked permission to sit beneath the “white tree” in front of the town’s high school. It was unspoken law that this shady area was for whites only during school breaks. But a student asked, and the vice principal said nothing was stopping them. So Black students sat underneath the tree, challenging the established authority of segregation and racism. The next day, hanging from the tree, were three ropes, in school colors, each tied to make a noose.
Full Article : revcom.us

Venezuelan-Iranian Car Company Releases First Models
Posted: Wednesday, July 11, 2007

As a product of economic agreements between Venezuela and Iran, the joint car company Venirauto released its first 300 units at an event in Caracas yesterday. The factory, located west of Caracas in Maracay, will produce some 25,000 cars per year using Iranian technology. The two countries are also making tractors and farm equipment for the Venezuelan market with the intention of eventually transferring 100 percent of the production to Venezuela.

Defense Minister Raul Isaias Baduel, together with Iranian Ambassador Abdolah Zifan, handed over the first 227 vehicles to recent graduates of the Military Academy in the Caracas military base Fuerte Tiuna. These vehicles were among the first to be assembled in the Venirauto factory that was inaugurated last November.
Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com

Toddler-Ecstasy Video Investigated
Posted: Wednesday, July 11, 2007

A group of young women videotaped themselves laughing at a toddler and joking that the child had taken Ecstasy, though it's unclear whether the girl had actually been given the drug, authorities said.
Full Article : breitbart.tv

African Union failed the crucial test
Posted: Wednesday, July 11, 2007

By Caesar Zvayi
The Herald
July 12, 2007

No one denies that it is only through a Union government and unity of purpose that Africa can claim its rightful stake in the world.

Barring unity, Africa would continue suffering the depredations of Western nations bent on exploiting its vast resources for self-enrichment.

But so vast are the challenges Africa has to overcome that a really radical approach is needed if the dream of a United States of Africa is to be realised, which means there is no room for placating the West in this revolutionary undertaking.

Radicalism, however, does not mean haste, which is where Libyan President, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, appears to have got it wrong. Col Gaddafi wanted a Union government elected at the African Union Summit in Accra, and did not make it a secret whom he believed should lead it.

A few examples of the hurdles to be overcome will suffice here; all of which are linked to the colonial legacy of divide-and-rule politics.

The biggest obstacle of all is, of course, crunching poverty. That and differential development are major stumbling blocks to the proposed Union government, which would demand, among other things, a vibrant unified economy with economic parity. This does not exist on a continent that largely plays host to economies dominated by multinational corporations and foreign investors.

Even where the impressive economic indicators exist, they do so on paper only as the profits are repatriated to the metropole. In fact, most African countries, with the notable exception of South Africa, rely on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund for alms, two organisations that are used by the United States and the European Union to entrench their interests in the developing world.

This dependence is also manifest in the AU institutions, some of which are African in name only; this is why it is vital that all institutions are truly African before they can be trusted with propping up the envisaged Union government.

It is also unforgivable that in this day and age, if one wants to go to the so-called Francophone West Africa, from, let's say, largely Anglophone Southern Africa, one is forced to pass through that region's former metropolis, France, unless the flight is charter. Likewise, if one wants to travel from Francophone West Africa to Anglophone East Africa, one has to go via London.

In short, there are no direct flights between most African countries, yet there are direct flights from nearly every African country to the capitals of the countries' former colonisers.

What this means is that the transport links existing in much of Africa today were not developed to promote intra-continental communication, but to make it easy for settlers to siphon the continent's resources to their home countries since most of them lead either to the coast or directly to Europe.

In fact, to this day, some poor countries route their international calls through former colonial capitals.

Similarly, if one wants to know about, say Malawi, one has to rely on Associated Press, CNN, BBC, AFP, and many other Western news agencies that never really mediate accurately, but always package their news in the service of Western interests.

While Africa saw the dangers of this and sought to address the problem through the Pan-African News Agency, perennial dependency saw Westerners compromise the agency with their ruinous conditional funds. To this day, PANA has failed to live up to expectations, which is why Africa continues relying on Western news agencies. Any wonder then, that at the just-ended AU Summit in Accra, Ghana, Western news agencies were given royal treatment where African media was treated like trash?

The organisers saw it fit to give Western media organisations unfettered access into the Accra International Conference Centre, while African journalists were barred, save for those from the host country, of course.

In fact, the officials in charge of media liaison read out the names of the agencies from a list they had, and did not even have time to hear the protests of the African media personnel present. African journalists had no choice but to picket the Conference Centre to present a strongly worded petition to the General Assembly.

What this simply showed was that the organisers were keen to ensure that the West was kept well-informed of deliberations, while Africans, whose lives were bound to be changed by the decisions reached in Accra, were kept largely in the dark.

Africa must really be wary of such signs that simply confirm that Western approval is still highly valued by some, meaning Western tentacles are still very much alive on the continent.

This brings in the question, for whose interests are some leaders pushing for hasty continental unity, even when it is apparent that as currently constituted, some of the AU institutions supposed to prop up the Union government are African in name only, with many others existing only on paper?

This writer will not mention names here, but neither will he draw punches. Some African leaders known to be darlings of the West even threatened to go it alone in a Union government if those counselling a bottom-up approach remained adamant.

Again, no names here, others questioned the similarity between the Africa itinerary of former British prime minister Tony Blair's last tour, and the countries that a certain African leader visited as part of his grand campaign for a Union government.

Again there is no finger pointing at anyone, but eyebrows were also raised as to why a certain African government appears to have bought all copies of New African's May edition that had a splash on Zimbabwe.

The jury is still out on whether the government in question bought the copies because of an unflattering article therein that questioned its cosy relationship with the West, or whether it had to do with an attempt to obliterate the truth about the situation in Zimbabwe?

Whichever reason one wants to believe, in Accra, the AU failed one major test that would have confirmed it was man enough to face the Western bullies on equal footing.

Granted, the Assembly made it unequivocally clear that Zimbabwe has every right to attend the EU-Africa Summit set for Lisbon, Portugal, in December; but that does not remove the fact that the AU failed where it matters most, that is in condemning the illegal Western siege on Zimbabwe.

What is more, it was actually Portugal, an EU state, that came closest to speaking like an African when it said the dispute between Harare and London was merely bilateral and should not be allowed to scupper engagement between Africa and Europe.

The irony was too deafening to ignore, here were 51 African heads of state and government, convening in Accra to deliberate on forming a Union government, yet those mandated to speak on the continent's behalf had nothing to say over the attempted siege on one of their own.

The satire did not end there. The AU Summit was in Ghana as part of that country's golden jubilee celebrations, and also in recognition of the legacy of Ghana's founding president, Dr Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, a man cut from the same cloth as Cde Robert Mugabe.

In fact, as far as Africa is concerned, the script the West is trying to direct in Zimbabwe was first tried in Ghana against Dr Nkrumah. The mediation the Western media is exercising over Zimbabwe was honed on Dr Nkrumah's Ghana.

The similarities between what is obtaining in Zimbabwe and what obtained in Ghana from 1960 are so striking.

Ordinary Ghanaians, civil society organisations and university students saw it fit to speak boldly in solidarity with Zimbabwe to the extent of organising a resounding welcome for President Mugabe at Kotoka International Airport on June 30, and a day later, July 1, a solidarity rally at Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park where the great African statesman lies today.

In fact, due to his tight schedule, President Mugabe ended up failing to feature at another rally, dubbed "International Solidarity Forum on Zimbabwe", that had been organised by the Pan-African United Front at Osu Presby Hall on July 2. Part of the flyers for that rally boldly declared:

"Africa is under severe attack from the forces of our anti-colonial struggles. Zimbabwe is a symbol of our struggle for sovereignty and ownership of our land and all the resources therein. Zimbabwe's fight is Africa's fight! Touch one! Touch All! African Liberation, no compromise!"

The editor of New African magazine, Baffour Ankomah, in his piece, said, among other things:

"... Now please come with me to my own country Ghana. At least we have no hunches there, sorry, the people have no hunches but some officials in government have. And we shouldn't allow them any longer. I know if Nkrumah can read this where he lies at the Old Polo Ground in Accra, he will turn and turn and turn in his grave.

"To the shame of all discerning Ghanaians, our country, the land of Nkrumah, the torchbearer of African liberation, our beloved Ghana, is fast becoming the ‘weakest link' in the African liberation/solidarity chain. And it is time members of the current government in Accra sat up in front of huge mirrors and had a good look at themselves. We have had seven years of ambling along, seemingly oblivious of our high place in Africa ..."

In fact, one Ghanaian student could not have put it any better: "We should not delay the Union government in Africa much longer, for we already have the President, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe."

This writer concurs. If Africa had the courage of its convictions, that is the only man with the stature to lead a Union government.

Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and the Politics of Naming
Posted: Tuesday, July 10, 2007

¤ The Chagos islands: the British government's recipe for dehumanisation
¤ Dozens dead in Red Mosque assault
¤ Wars cost US $12 billion a month
¤ 17 killed, 30 wounded in Afghan suicide blast
¤ Iraq oil industry hit hard by violence, official says
¤ An American soldier boasts of having tortured Iraqis

¤ Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and the Politics of Naming
When Africa scholar Mahmoud Mandani looks at the slaughter and displacement of civilians in Darfur he notices something odd. The mass death of civilians in Darfur has been called a genocide, but slaughters of civilians of similar magnitude in Iraq and on a larger scale in Congo have not.
According to the World Food Program, about 200,000 civilians have died in Darfur, 80 percent from starvation and disease, and 20 percent from violence. Close to 700,000 have been displaced. This, the US government, calls a genocide.
But 600,000 Iraqis have died since 2003 as a result of violence related to the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq and 3.7 million have either fled to neighboring countries or are internally displaced.

¤ Iraq Awakenings, Four Years Late
¤ Every Day is Christmas For Big Energy

¤ Mainstream Media Where Are You?
A group of teachers in Chicago recently started an initiative to inform college and high school students about critical global issues. The initiative deals with young people who have a wide range of academic skills, who are generally hard-working and eager to find a suitable career, and whose savvy about modern culture makes up for their lack of life experience. But they know almost nothing about their country's relationship with the world. They know there's a war going on, they've heard about genocide in Africa, they suspect that Iran is a threat to the United States. But ask them to provide some details and they return a blank stare.
It is understandable that today's youth, with so many entertainment options and electronic distractions, and with the pursuit of good times high on their list of priorities, can't be sufficiently aware of world issues. But they do read newspaper headlines and occasionally watch the news. They simply don't get enough information from these sources. If they hear at all about controversial issues, the information is oversimplified, incomplete, and often one-sided.

¤ Prescribing World Terrorism
Pundits and self-appointed experts on Islam are wringing their hands and trying to explain why two Muslim doctors and at least six other medical workers were involved in this week's failed bombings in London and Glasgow.
It certainly sounds horrific and counter-intuitive. Physicians, trained to heal, turned into would-be mass murderers with cars packed full of explosive materials and nails. Since I'm writing a book on why the Muslim world is so angry at the West, let me venture some heretical thoughts.
First, there is nothing sacrosanct about doctors. Behind carefully cultivated veneers of icy detachment, they have the same emotions as ordinary mortals. The most evil, frightening man I ever met - and I've met a lot - was Haiti's tyrant, "Papa Doc" Duvalier, who was a crusading country doctor before he turned into a Voodoo-crazed despot.

¤ Michael Moore slams CNN, Wolf Blitzer on live TV
¤ 66 killed as Ghazi goes down fighting
¤ Three killed, 18 injured in Baghdad Green Zone attack
¤ Getting ready for the next Iraq spin cycle

¤ Iraq: Mixing Oil & Blood - Video
A controversial new Middle East oil law could lead to the "disintegration" of Iraq as a nation state. Two of the region's most respected commentators, including the co-author of the new Iraq Oil Law and a former oil minister, have each expressed their "gravest concern" at what they believe could happen within their country if the law is approved in its current form.

¤ The Killing Machine
It was announced that the CIA would be declassifying hundreds of pages on illegal actions that included plans to eliminate the leaders of foreign governments. Suddenly the publication is halted and it is delayed one day. No coherent explanation was given. Perhaps someone in the White House looked over the material.
The first package of declassified documents goes by the name of "The Family Jewels"; it consists of 702 pages on illegal CIA actions between 1959 and 1973. About 100 pages of this part have been deleted. It deals with actions that were not authorized by any law, plots to assassinate other leaders, experiments with drugs on human beings to control their minds, spying on civil activists and journalists, among other similar activities that were expressly prohibited.

¤ A President Transformed
It has been a truly moving experience to witness the concern and compassion the president of the United States can show towards a convicted felon. Particularly someone accused of such grave offences as Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. On March 6 2007 Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice, making false statements to the FBI, and twice committing perjury before a grand jury. According to the charge sheet, Libby "did knowingly and corruptly endeavour to influence, obstruct and impede the due administration of justice by misleading and deceiving the grand jury". So it wasn't a case of absent-mindedness, then.

¤ Occupation Forces Bombs the Civilians
¤ Pakistan's Red Mosque leader killed

The London bombs also belong to Gordon Brown
Posted: Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Just as the London bombs in the summer of 2005 were Blair's bombs, the inevitable consequence of his government's lawless attack on Iraq, so the potential bombs in the summer of 2007 are Brown's bombs.

Gordon Brown, Blair's successor as prime minister, has been an unerring supporter of the unprovoked bloodbath whose victims now equal those of the Rwandan genocide, according to the American scientist who led the 2006 Johns Hopkins School of Public Health survey of civilian dead in Iraq. While Tony Blair sought to discredit this study, British government scientists secretly praised it as "tried and tested" and an "underestimation of mortality". The "underestimation" was 655,000 men, women and children. That is now approaching a million. It is the crime of the century.

In his first day's address outside 10 Downing Street and subsequently to Parliament, Brown paid not even lip service to those who would be alive today had his government - and it was his government as much as Blair's – not joined Bush in a slaughter justified with demonstrable lies. He said nothing, not a word.
Full Article : pilger.carlton.com

Bush says a pullback will occur 'in a while'
Posted: Tuesday, July 10, 2007

WASHINGTON: Fearful of a Republican rebellion over Iraq that his own aides believe could force him to change course, President George W. Bush said Tuesday that the United States would be able to pull back troops "in a while," but called on Congress to wait until September to debate the future military presence there.

The president, speaking to an economics club in Cleveland, sharply rejected a new round of efforts by Senate Democrats, as part of a two-week debate on a military spending bill, to force the withdrawal of American troops.

"We can accomplish and win this fight in Iraq," Bush said, urging an increasingly restive Congress to wait until top U.S. military and diplomatic officials report back from Iraq in September before revisiting the war debate.
Full Article : iht.com

Peru 'closes' popular racist restaurant
Posted: Monday, July 9, 2007

Peru closes popular Lima restaurant, imposes stiff fine for turning away dark-skinned people

Human rights activists cheered a rare decision by a Peruvian consumer protection agency Friday to close a popular restaurant and impose a stiff fine for repeatedly turning away dark-skinned people.
Full Article : iht.com

White House Denies Debating Troop Withdrawal
Posted: Monday, July 9, 2007

by Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush has no plans to withdraw troops from Iraq now, the White House said on Monday, despite increasing pressure from members of his own Republican party for a change in war strategy.

The New York Times reported on Monday that debate was intensifying inside the White House over whether Bush should try to prevent more Republican defections by announcing intentions for a gradual withdrawal of troops from high-casualty Iraqi areas.
Full Article : commondreams.org

Life in Iraq Under U.S. Occupation
Posted: Sunday, July 8, 2007

¤ 237 Iraqis, 7 GIs, 2 Britons Killed; 316 Iraqis Wounded
¤ Violent weekend in Iraq kills over 220

¤ Musharraf's bloodbath at the Masjid
The intensification of fighting between the students of Lal Masjid and the Pakistani army has left hundreds dead and many injured. This has prompted President Musharraf to issue the following provocative statement: “If they do not surrender so I am saying here today that they will be killed. They should not force us to use force. They should come out voluntarily; otherwise they will be killed...” Even before Musharraf’s ultimatum, his government was swift to attribute the entire blame for the current crisis on Abdul Rashid Ghazi--the principal of the seminary. However, a close examination of the events preceding the current standoff, suggests that the entire saga has been engineered by the Pakistani government.

¤ For Putin, little but a lobster dinner

¤ AFGHANISTAN: Over six million face food insecurity
Three out of 10 Afghans suffer from chronic food insecurity, which badly affects the health and well-being of the estimated 27-million nation, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
According to FAO, 6.5 million people face food insecurity in Afghanistan in 2007.
"Food insecurity means that people do not have access at all times to the quality and quantity of food they require to lead a healthy life," said Charlotte Dufour, an adviser to FAO, on 4 July.

¤ BAGHDAD’S WHITE ELEPHANT
¤ Israeli Occupation Violations Continues On Palestine Territories
¤ Lessons Bush Learned from Hitler

Scores die in Iraq violence
Posted: Sunday, July 8, 2007

More than 100 people were killed and 250 wounded yesterday when a truck bomb exploded in a crowded market in northern Iraq in one of the deadliest attacks in the country this year.

Colonel Abbas Mohammed Amin, the police chief in the town of Tuz Khurmato, scene of the explosion, said he feared the toll was set to rise: 'There are still bodies under rubble, we are trying to dig them out,' Amin said.
Full Article : guardian.co.uk

How Chavez Changed Life in the Tribal Territories
Posted: Saturday, July 7, 2007

¤ Hillary's Bizarre History of the Iraq War
¤ The President Fails American History, Again
¤ An Army of None
¤ Americns, Honestly!
¤ From Clausewitz to Clinton and Bush
¤ IS THE UNITED STATES KILLING 10,000 IRAQIS EVERY MONTH? OR IS IT MORE?
¤ Reporters Without Borders and RCTV
¤ Suicide bomb kills over 100 in Iraq
¤ Librarians Describe Life Under An FBI Gag Order

¤ Shame on Bush — and Us
The Media's Stockholm syndrome finally seems to be wearing off.
Like freed hostages who gradually cease to identify with their captors, mainstream media outlets seem to have been seized by a new spirit of liberation in their coverage of the Bush administration. Lately, we've seen a rash of astonished, outraged stories and editorials relating to the administration's recently discovered malfeasance.

¤ Those So-Called Oil Contracts in Iraq
So-called "oil contracts" have been on the table of the Iraqi Parliament for months, and the fluff of lies printed about them in U..S. media is nauseating.
Every report I have been able to find in the general media has been long on inferences and short on facts. The result is that the average American knows nothing about them, and even those of us who try to follow important policy matters cannot find out more than the simple assertion that there are such things as Production Sharing Agreements, and that their signing is one of the "benchmarks" the US has put up as a requirement for our withdrawal of military forces.

¤ Musharraf's plane targeted by gunman
¤ Faced with the failure of Bush's "surge"
¤ Divide~Conquer~Then Kill!!
¤ How Chavez Changed Life in the Tribal Territories
¤ Strike at the Root!
¤ Safawive interior commandos torture a Sunni Muslim body in Samarra

In Somalia, It's The Blood Money, Stupid!
Posted: Friday, July 6, 2007

¤ In Somalia, It's The Blood Money, Stupid!
If the above image of Meles Zinawi, shoulder to shoulder with two other African leaders, seeks to project an image of a statesman, below is another image of Zinawi. The image in the next caption was on display at a 30 June 2007 demonstration in front of the office of the new British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown at #10 Downing Street. The image is a caricature, a work of art and not an actual photo of Zinawi. Thus its meaning is symbolic and therefore more powerful. This is important because the caricature of Zinawi in this image expresses the true sentiment of the Somali people in that demo in response to the unmitigated death and destruction Zinawi's Tigre army has been wreaking in Somalia.

¤ Whose Bombs?
"British officials are denying what the Americans are confirming. But the Americans do not merely share all their intelligence with the British as a matter of routine; their intelligence operations are fundamentally inter-coordinated, and have been increasingly so after 9/11. There are more problems. How on earth did foreign trainee doctors logged by MI5 as al-Qaeda associates manage to pass “their security checks” to receive “official approval to practice in the UK”?

¤ As major events unfold, the media keeps us ignorant and distracted
To illustrate the willful ignorance that plagues mainstream news reporting—as if further proof were necessary—I’d like to describe the bizarre behaviour of a local radio station after I called to inquire about its international coverage.
During the noon newscast, I heard yet another negative story about Iran, this time concerning the country’s high execution rate of minors. What bothered me was not the story itself, but why CKNW decided to inflict this particular one on its listeners. True, every news story is worth telling if it’s accurate and can be justified to the station’s audience, but there are dozens of stories out of the Middle East far more important and relevant than this one.

¤ Bush's Real Fourth of July Message to Nation: Unprintable
¤ Time for Cable News That Respects the American People
¤ We almost forgot!
¤ ISRAELI TERRORISM CAPTURED ON FILM

¤ Occupation soldiers kill a Mom from Sunnis and amputate her baby leg in Qadiriyah
In another horrible crime committed by the American occupation forces against Sunnis in Iraq a baby under one year of age lost his left leg and his mother, his uncle and one of their neighbors killed when the occupation soldiers raided "al-Qadiriyah" village at yesterday dawn, which is related to al-Tajiyat area north of Baghdad, and opened fire randomly at the villagers.

¤ Hilariously delirious...
¤ CNN’s image fetish

¤ The London bombs also belong to the new Prime Minister
Just as the London bombs in the summer of 2005 were Blair's bombs, the inevitable consequence of his government's lawless attack on Iraq, so the potential bombs in the summer of 2007 are Brown's bombs.
Gordon Brown, Blair's successor as prime minister, has been an unerring supporter of the unprovoked bloodbath whose victims now equal those of the Rwandan genocide, according to the American scientist who led the 2006 Johns Hopkins School of Public Health survey of civilian dead in Iraq. While Tony Blair sought to discredit this study, British government scientists secretly praised it as "tried and tested" and an "underestimation of mortality". The "underestimation" was 655,000 men, women and children. That is now approaching a million. It is the crime of the century.

¤ The stolen African voice
¤ Pakistan's crisis deepens
¤ Congress and Libby give Bush the birthday blues
¤ Israeli troops pull out of Gaza after deadly raid
¤ Blair go home
¤ Curfews imposed in 2 Iraqi towns as violence surges
¤ Mugabe warns Zimbabwe manufacturers
¤ When the Crimes of the White House are Unpunishable

¤ Ignoring Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan
Noam Chomsky has always remarked that American produced body counts are never counted. We just never know how many innocent people we have killed in any one attack. While our own body counts are always tallied and shown on television with somber music playing in the background or are written in bold headlines on the homepages and front pages of our national news media, the death counts of those innocent people in foreign lands who have been the victims of our military's wrath are rarely reported.

¤ One killed, 45 hurt as police clash with Kashmir protesters

Ghanaians proud of Mugabe
Posted: Thursday, July 5, 2007

¤ Ghanaians proud of Mugabe
The Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, won the admiration of Ghanaians when he maintained being the disciple of Ghana's founding father of independence, Kwame Nkrumah. Mr Mugabe said the legendary leader's teachings had bolstered his spirits to liberate Zimbabwe from the British colonial rule in 1980.
President Mugabe and the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Ghaddafi were given tumultuous welcome by Ghanaians while they set foot in the country for the 9th African Union Summit.
Mr Mugabe delivered the speech at the tomb of Kwame Nkrumah - the scene of Dr Nkrumah's famous independence speech in 1960.

¤ Ghana no go area for the MDC
What followed, during the question and answer session, stunned the presenters and those who were officiating as they expected supportive questions from the audience. The pointed questions and incisive comments from the audience left the MDC activists flustered and stuttering.

A few examples will suffice here:

* "I have noted with interest, the passion with which you have highlighted the alleged gross human rights violations in Zimbabwe, but I have not seen equal passion on the issue of land, the right of black people to land, which we believe is right?"

* "I worked in Zimbabwe in the 1980s in the Ghanaian foreign service, I know for sure that the British and Americans were supposed to pay for the land to be acquired from the white commercial farmers and they have reneged on this. Unfortunately, we have not seen the NGOs coming into the streets with a passion and make a clarion statement that they think the West was wrong on that."

* "Forty years ago, Kwame Nkrumah was called a dictator and had to go at all costs, now he is a hero for Africa. Are we not witnessing the same thing with President Mugabe?"

* "What kind of a hearing is this where only the opposition is invited to tell their story? We have a Zimbabwean embassy here, why have they not been invited to give the Government side for the intellectual minds to benefit?"

¤ A Bloody Media Mirror
Many of America’s most prominent journalists want us to forget what they were saying and writing more than four years ago to boost the invasion of Iraq. Now, they tiptoe around their own roles in hyping the war and banishing dissent to the media margins.
The media watch group FAIR (where I’m an associate) has performed a public service in the latest edition of its magazine Extra. The organization’s activism director, Peter Hart, drew on FAIR’s extensive research to assemble a sample of notable quotations from media cheerleading for the Iraq invasion. One of the earliest quotes to merit special attention came from ace New York Times reporter — and chronic Pentagon promoter — Michael Gordon. In a CNN appearance on March 25, 2003, just a few days into the invasion, Gordon gave his easy blessing to the invaders’ bombing of Iraqi TV.

¤ Body Count In Baghdad Up in June
¤ Most Druids are crazy, so why don't they attack us?

¤ Bush and the Libby Case
It would appear that President Bush has lied once again, this time with respect to the Scooter Libby case. You'll recall that Bush repeatedly said that he would not interfere with the case until the appeals were decided. Of course, at the time he was saying this, he assumed that by the time the appeals were over, the November 2008 elections would be over as well. In that way, Bush could mislead people into thinking that he was doing the right thing--until after the November 2008 elections, when it would be too late for voters to punish the Republicans at the polls.

¤ Killing 10,000 Iraqis Every Month
¤ If Iran Were America (And We Were Iran): A Timeline

¤ Israel raids kill 11 Palestinians
Nine fighters from the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, have been killed during an Israeli incursion into al-Barij and al-Maghazi refugee camps in central Gaza.
Hours later, witnesses said a member of the smaller fighter group, Islamic Jihad, was killed by an Israeli rocket fired at civilians trying to rescue a wounded person.
Medics said an eleventh person killed was a civilian.

¤ Iraq deployment linked to oil: Nelson

¤ Al-Qaeda In Iraq Bush's Creation
President George W. Bush's political capital is about as low as it can go, with only dead-end Bushists clinging to his failed regime. The erosion of support, however, can actually make the madman even more isolated from reality, arrogant and impetuous.
The final 18 months of his presidency will be an increasingly dangerous time for the world. Bush is wrapping himself in his messianic blanket, still bound to convince the infidels at home and abroad that he is a gifted visionary who can reshape the Middle East.
Vice President Dick Cheney makes Dr. Strangelove seem like Gandhi. Cheney operates above the Congress, the Constitution, the law and human decency -- at times, above the presidency. He does as he pleases and is answerable to no one.

¤ Afghanistan: Over six million face food insecurity
¤ The Mess They Made by Gwynne Dyer
¤ Fatwa: It is Forbidden to Approve "Law of Oil and Gas"

Ghanaians proud of Mugabe
Posted: Thursday, July 5, 2007

The Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, won the admiration of Ghanaians when he maintained being the disciple of Ghana's founding father of independence, Kwame Nkrumah. Mr Mugabe said the legendary leader's teachings had bolstered his spirits to liberate Zimbabwe from the British colonial rule in 1980.

President Mugabe and the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Ghaddafi were given tumultuous welcome by Ghanaians while they set foot in the country for the 9th African Union Summit.

Mr Mugabe delivered the speech at the tomb of Kwame Nkrumah - the scene of Dr Nkrumah's famous independence speech in 1960.

The Zimbabwean leader, who has been showered with criticisms home and abroad, especially in the west, took his audience down the memory lane when he flew to Ghana to borrow Dr Nkrumah's wisdom and sea of knowledge on freedom fighting.
Full Article : afrol.com

Ghana's ex President hits out at Foreign Office for 'disrespecting' Robert Mugabe

Colonial days are over, says Rawlings

Jerry Rawlings, the former president of Ghana, condemned the statement said to be written by a Foreign Office official, which said that President Robert Mugabe would suffer a similar fate to Charles Taylor of Liberia, who is currently standing trial in the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Rawlings, who leads Ghana's main opposition party, the National Democratic Party (NDC), said it was "disrespectful" for Britain to make such a statement about President Mugabe. "No British official, be he a politician or Royalty has the right to say those words about a Pan-Africanist like Robert Mugabe" Rawlings said in an exclusive interview with The Lens, a local Ghanaian newspaper.

Whilst acknowledging that the Zimbabwean president might have made some mistakes in governance, Rawlings said Britain should recognise that the days of colonialism are over and as such must relate with former colonies in Africa in the light of what they are - sovereign and independent states.

"Do they think we are back to those primitive eras when the colonialists could arrest and exile leaders of Africa any time they felt like it?" he questioned.
Full Article : blackbritain.co.uk

The High Cost of Libby's Silence
Posted: Thursday, July 5, 2007

by Amy Goodman

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal," says the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Unless, of course, you are a friend of the president. By commuting "Scooter" Libby's sentence, President Bush is also protecting himself and Vice President Dick Cheney.

I asked former Ambassador Joe Wilson what he thought about the commutation. It was his 2003 opinion piece that refuted Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa. In retaliation, the White House leaked the name of his wife, Valerie Plame, and her CIA identity. Wilson said, "It casts a cloud of suspicion over the president and begs the question whether the president is participating in an ongoing obstruction of justice and cover-up of criminal activity within the White House." I asked him how: "By ensuring that Libby will have no incentive to talk with the special prosecutor."

Prisoners often cooperate with government prosecutors in exchange for leniency. With the prison sentence gone, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald loses his leverage over Libby. While Bush and his subordinates stress that Libby still faces a $250,000 fine, the Libby Legal Defense Trust was set up to help him out.
Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com

Girl could give birth to her sister
Posted: Wednesday, July 4, 2007

A seven-year-old girl could one day give birth to her biological half-brother or half-sister after her mother became the first woman to donate eggs to her infertile daughter.

Melanie Boivin, 35, from Montreal, has placed 21 of her eggs on ice for Flavie Boivin to use when she grows up.

Flavie has Turner syndrome, a condition in which one of the two X chromosomes normally carried by women is missing. It almost always causes infertility, though women who have the condition can conceive with donated eggs.
Full Article : timesonline.co.uk

Editorials Hit Libby's Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card
Posted: Wednesday, July 4, 2007

¤ Dumb "al-Qaeda" Doctors
If we believe the corporate media, the dark under current of Islamic extremism, and that of the "al-Qaeda" database, is so strong it was able to sweep up promising neurologist Mohammed Asha, who became a would-be terrorist apparently more adept at brain surgery than cooking up bombs.

According to the cheesy British tabloid the Mirror, however, Asha and his wife, Marwah, are your garden variety Palestinian terrorists, the sort who throw away their lives, including an infant son, Anas, due to a self-destructive "hate against the West over Palestine.... The couple, from Palestinian families, blamed Britain and the US for backing Israel's 'occupation', relatives said." According to Asha's father Yunis Dana, the couple "aren't the type to be interested in political Islam," so it remains a mystery why they would team up with so-called Muslim radicals. As well, Marwah was radicalized because people made fun or her veil.

¤ The Ghosts of Texas
¤ What Israel's Defeat in Lebanon Means for Defense Industry Fat Cats
¤ Bush-Cheney for Dummies

¤ When Presidents Pardon Their Own Crimes
Of course, Bush has long been connected in a suspicious manner to Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, and others. Madison would probably have called for Bush's impeachment when Bush first refused to investigate or hold anyone accountable for leaking Valerie Plame's identity, or rather when Bush lied us into the war in the first place, or when he confessed to illegal spying, or when he detained people without charge and tortured them, or when he overturned laws with signing statements or refused to comply with subpoenas, and so on and so forth. Madison wouldn't have wanted to see his Constitution tossed aside until the moment Bush commuted Libby's sentence. But he certainly would have acted now if not before.

¤ Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'
¤ Contractor numbers outstrip US troops
¤ For Most Americans the War in Iraq is Already Lost

¤ Paris Hilton Is Now A Martyr
It’s official: Paris Hilton has served more jail time at the hands of an overzealous judge, seen more of the inside of a jail cell, eaten more prison food than Lewis Libby ever will. The Dictator In Chief again has proved that you don’t mess with his boys, and if you do, he’ll ride in and rescue them; they can do no wrong. And if they do, so what, they’re the ruling class and nothing bad can happen to them.

¤ Editorials Hit Libby's Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card
¤ Over 17 killed, hundreds wounded in Pakistan mosque crisis
¤ Troops seal off Pakistani mosque after 11 killed
¤ Bush is Bluffing: The Farce of 'Executive Privilege'
¤ Venezuela sells petrol to Iran to reinforce front against US
¤ The High Cost of Libby's Silence
¤ Health Ministry issues warning on waterborne diseases
¤ Why do we hate them?
¤ Venezuela and Iran Increase Economic Integration

Venezuela and Iran Increase Economic Integration
Posted: Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez met his Iranian counterpart, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, in the Islamic Republic of Iran this weekend, where he signed at least 17 agreements and formalized the construction a new joint petrochemical complex on the Iranian coast, further strengthening the growing relationship between the two nations in recent years.
Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com

US Continues Destabilisation Push in Venezuela
Posted: Monday, July 2, 2007

In the wake of widely covered opposition protests against the Venezuelan government's decision not to renew Radio Caracas Televison's (RCTV) broadcasting licence following its countless violations of the law and its role in the 2002 coup attempt against the democratically elected government, Green Left Weekly's Sam King spoke with lawyer and writer Eva Golinger in Caracas. Golinger is the author of The Chavez Code and Bush Versus Chavez, which expose US intervention into Venezuela aiming to overthrow Chavez.
Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com

Venezuela Strengthens Ties to Russia and Belarus
Posted: Monday, July 2, 2007

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez arrived in Moscow Thursday and in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, Friday as part of his three-nation tour of Russia, Belarus, and Iran that began on Wednesday. Meetings in Moscow and Minsk have the intention of strengthening economic and military cooperation with Venezuela as well as the construction of strategic political alliances.

Beginning his activities in Russia on Thursday, where he discussed increasing Russian investment in Venezuela as well as the purchase of several Russian submarines, the Venezuelan President first praised the role, in his opinion, that Russia plays in counterbalancing U.S. power.
Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com

Bush Commutes Libby Prison Sentence
Posted: Monday, July 2, 2007

President Bush spared former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby from a 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case Monday, stepping into a criminal case with heavy political overtones on grounds that the sentence was just too harsh.
Full Article : apnews.myway.com

Grant of Executive Clemency

Obama statement on Bush decision to commute Libby's sentence
"This decision to commute the sentence of a man who compromised our national security cements the legacy of an Administration characterized by a politics of cynicism and division, one that has consistently placed itself and its ideology above the law. This is exactly the kind of politics we must change so we can begin restoring the American people's faith in a government that puts the country's progress ahead of the bitter partisanship of recent years."

Castro: US is still a 'killing machine'
Posted: Monday, July 2, 2007

¤ Numbskull 'al-Qaeda' Patsies Flub in Glasgow
Obviously, the British and Scotland branch of "al-Qaeda" need to call the home office, as "al-Qaeda in Iraq" is far more effective at car bombs and the UK version need a bit of tutoring. "A vehicle that crashed into Scotland's largest airport was being treated as a potential terror attack linked to two car bombs found in London, police said Saturday," reports MSNBC. "Britain raised its security alert to 'critical'–the highest level possible and an indication that terrorist attacks are imminent. U.S. airports increased safety precautions." In other words, goons with automatic weapons and dogs, reminiscent of Nazi soldiers on train platforms demanding to see papers, will be sending a message to holiday commuters next week, as America celebrates its independence to shop, eat hot dogs, and blow off fireworks made by slaves in China.

Flashback ¤ MI5 'helped IRA buy bomb parts in US'

¤ Scotland Yard: Bombers 'laughable', likely not 'al Qaeda'

¤ Bush commutes Libby's prison term
The US president has pardoned former vice-presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby from going to prison for 2 1/2 years for obstructing a CIA leak investigation.
"I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr Libby is excessive," George Bush said on Monday. "Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr Libby's sentence that required him to spend 30 months in prison."

¤ Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan No Coincidence

¤ 'Abu Henry' and the mysterious silence
¤ Iraqi faction alleges 350 dead in US military operation
¤ Civilians Die In U.S.-NATO Air Assault In Afghanistan
¤ US admits killing Afghan civilians
¤ Castro: US is still a 'killing machine'

¤ Britain under Gordon Blair
"Many people in Britain and around the world still hope that Blair’s replacement Gordon Brown will lessen Britain’s involvement in foreign affairs, and guide Britain to tread a foreign policy path independent of US interests. They are gravely mistaken."

¤ America Has Two Dictators!
¤ When the Vice President Does It, That Means It’s Not Illegal
¤ Bush Turns Iraq into Israel/Palestine

¤ Caught Red-Handed: Media Backtracks on Iran's 'Threat'
For close to two years, the media has stubbornly clung to a long discredited story about the Iranian president's alleged threat to "destroy Israel" with nuclear weapons Iran doesn't have and denies any intent to acquire. "Wiped off the map, wiped off the map," they bleat incessantly, even though his actual words, "The Imam [Khomenei] said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time," were paralleled with the fall of regimes like the Soviet Union and Iran's former U.S.-installed monarchy (see this for a thorough refutation of this claim). From the start of his presidency, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has rhapsodized regularly about the demise of the "Zionist regime" in various metaphorical terms. He and his associates in the Iranian government have compared its fate to that of the pharaohs of Egypt and the former apartheid regime in South Africa (which they also did not recognize), but never have they threatened to start a war with any country.

¤ The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases
¤ Compiling Zionist Lies

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