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August 2007A Legacy of Legitimizing TorturePosted: Thursday, August 30, 2007 ¤ Al-Sadr suspends militia activity in Iraq ¤ Iraq: Divide et Impera A US-financed program to build a Sunni paramilitary Guardian organization in Iraq, and US proposals for a soft partition of the country, are the latest steps in a divide and rule strategy the US is pursuing to keep Iraqis fighting among themselves so they won't fight the occupation. Sectarian strife also provides the US with the pretext it needs to establish a long-term military presence in the country. ¤ Europeans back Hillary Clinton for US president: poll ¤ Bhutto close to deal with Musharraf ¤ Echoes of 9/11 ¤ Will Bush Take Everything Down With Him? ¤ Confronting Katrina ¤ The Costs of the Afghanistan War Telling us how many dollars have been spent on the war in Afghanistan is fundamental to the Department of Defense's (DOD) effort to garner public and congressional support for prosecution of the war. It should also be a simple question. It is not. The Department of Defense (DOD) testified to Congress on July 31, 2007 that the war in Afghanistan had cost $78.1 billion. The seeming precision of the decimal point notwithstanding, the number is laughably inaccurate. ¤ Who Owns the Media and How the People Can Take It Back ¤ After Oil Supplies Dry Up, What's Plan B? When Hurricane Katrina struck two years ago, Americans learned just how ill-equipped the government is to respond effectively to natural disasters. But if you think the government's response to Katrina was inept, brace yourself for peak oil. Global oil production will hit its peak in the next few years, at which point oil prices will skyrocket and voracious consumers like the United States, China and Europe will quickly drain every last barrel they can afford to buy. Our per-capita oil consumption is double that of most European nations and more than triple Mexico's, and shows no sign of slowing. As supplies dwindle, an economic disaster on a par with Katrina will start to unfold. ¤ A Legacy of Legitimizing Torture ¤ History Will Tell Lies, Sir, As Usual ¤ The President's Escalating War Rhetoric On Iran Leave aside all of the dubious premises - the fact that the U.S. is supposed to consider Iran "the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism" because of its support for groups that are hostile to Israel; that Iran is arming its longstanding Taliban enemies; that Iran is some sort of threat to Iraq's future even though it is an ally of Iraq's government; and that Iran's detention of American-Iranians inside its own country is anything other than retaliation for our own equally pointless detention of Iranians inside of Iraq, to say nothing of a whole slew of other provacative acts we have recently undertaken towards Iran. Leave all of that aside for the moment. Viewed through the prism of presidential jargon, Bush's vow - "We will confront this danger before it is too late" - is synonymous with a pledge to attack Iran unless our array of demands are met. He is unmistakably proclaiming that unless Iran gives up its nuclear program and fundamentally changes its posture in the Middle East, "we will confront this danger." What possible scenario could avert this outcome? ¤ Abu Ghraib: One of Al's Claims to Fame ¤ Has America Become...Irrelevant? ¤ American nightmare: Gonzales "wrong and illegal and unethical" China has banned Buddhist monks from reincarnating Posted: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering. Full Article : msnbc.msn.com Al-Sadr suspends militia activity in Iraq Posted: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 BAGHDAD - Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered a six-month suspension of activities by his Mahdi Army militia in order to reorganize the force, and it will no longer attack U.S. and coalition troops, aides said Wednesday. The aide, Sheik Hazim al-Araji, said on Iraqi state television that the goal was to "rehabilitate" the organization, which has reportedly broken into factions, some of which the U.S. maintains are trained and supplied by Iran. Full Article : news.yahoo.com US Army Adds Farce to Abu Ghraib Shame Posted: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 ¤ Zimbabwe: Let's cut ties with Australia There comes a time in everyone's life when one says enough is enough and that time has come for Zimbabwe to say to the Australian government let's part ways and fight in the battlefield. There is no need to continue keeping up appearances when diplomatic ties between the two countries have irrevocably broken down. For the past seven years, Zimbabwe has continued to suffer extreme forms of abuse from an Australian government determined to show imperial Britain that it is a good lackey. ¤ The Language of Force Soon after coming to power, Ariel Sharon started to commission public opinion polls. He kept the results to himself. This week, a reporter of Israel's TV Channel 10 succeeded in obtaining some of them. Among other things, Sharon wanted to know what the public thought about peace. He did not dream of starting on this road himself, but he felt it important to be informed about the trends. ¤ Katrina, Two Years Later ¤ Smoking Guns, Mushroom Clouds and Fog ¤ Displacements in Iraq soar as humanitarian situation worsens, UN agency reports ¤ The tip of the iceberg ¤ Even I question the 'truth' about 9/11 ¤ Afghan opium crop 'at record high' ¤ US Army Adds Farce to Abu Ghraib Shame The Army officer in charge of the interrogation/torture operation at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 is being court-martialed. My first thought was: Finally an officer is being held accountable. In view of the repeated rebuff to my own attempts to stop the torture and identify those responsible, however, you will perhaps excuse my skepticism that justice will be done. ¤ How Did We Get Into This Neoliberal Mess? For the first time, the United Kingdom's consumer debt now exceeds our gross national product: a new report shows that we owe £1.35 trillion(1). Inspectors in the United States have discovered that 77,000 road bridges are in the same perilous state as the one which collapsed into the Mississippi(2). Two years after Hurricane Katrina struck, 120,000 people from New Orleans are still living in trailer homes and temporary lodgings(3). As runaway climate change approaches, governments refuse to take the necessary action. Booming inequality threatens to create the most divided societies the world has seen since before the first world war. Now a financial crisis caused by unregulated lending could turf hundreds of thousands out of their homes and trigger a cascade of economic troubles ¤ Bush threatens to confront Iran over alleged support for Iraqi insurgents ¤ Middle East turmoil could cause world war: U.S. envoy ¤ The Great Iraq Swindle ¤ Options on the table ¤ About-face on Iran coming? ¤ Bush Reacts To Gonzales Resignation ¤ CheneyBush's "Mercenary" Legions Zimbabwe: Let's cut ties with Australia Posted: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 The Herald There comes a time in everyone's life when one says enough is enough and that time has come for Zimbabwe to say to the Australian government let's part ways and fight in the battlefield. There is no need to continue keeping up appearances when diplomatic ties between the two countries have irrevocably broken down. For the past seven years, Zimbabwe has continued to suffer extreme forms of abuse from an Australian government determined to show imperial Britain that it is a good lackey. Zimbabwe has no quarrel with Australia, but the latter has seen it fit to assume Britain's colonial fight with Zimbabwe as its own. Australia – which is home to racist Rhodesians who fled the country at independence in fear of black majority rule and at the advent of land reforms in 2000 – has done everything it can to effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe in favour of imperial Britain's puppet opposition MDC. True to form, the puppet is in Australia being congratulated for being a good boy and confirming Africa's fears that he is nothing but a Trojan horse doing its master's bidding. Diplomatic relations with Australia cannot be salvaged anymore under the present Australian regime of John Howard. The only remaining option for Zimbabwe is to shut down our mission in Sydney and ordering the Australian Embassy in Harare to pack up and go. The Australian government has not made it a secret that it is working to subvert the same Government it purports to have relations with while we have continued to pretend that bilateral relations still exist between the two countries. The question is, what do we stand to benefit by maintaining diplomatic relations with such a racist country that imposes barbaric sanctions on innocent children and sports people. Like good Africans, we are expected to ignore the incessant hostility and financial sanctions against our country and smile at the token aid thrown at us. For whose benefit are we exchanging missions? Aren't we simply abetting the illegal regime change agenda by providing Rhodesian, and rightwing elements in Australia with consular services that facilitate their subversive activities? And what are we doing sending our children to enemy territory, where their fees contribute to enemy GDP? Isn't it better to send them to friendly countries in line with our Look East policy, where their fees can go a long way in enhancing synergies with partners that respect not only our sovereignty, but also our right to chart our own destiny. It is high time we reconsidered our relations with nations that don't respect our sovereignty. We have nothing to lose by closing our mission in Sydney; and kicking out the reactionaries they post here at three-year intervals. In fact, it is only the illegal regime change agenda that stands to suffer. US preparing 'massive' military attack against Iran Posted: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 The United States has the capacity for and may be prepared to launch without warning a massive assault on Iranian uranium enrichment facilities, as well as government buildings and infrastructure, using long-range bombers and missiles, according to a new analysis. The paper, "Considering a war with Iran: A discussion paper on WMD in the Middle East" – written by well-respected British scholar and arms expert Dr. Dan Plesch, Director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, and Martin Butcher, a former Director of the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) and former adviser to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament – was exclusively provided to RAW STORY late Friday under embargo. Full Article : rawstory.com Mandela's message to black Britain Posted: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 Nelson Mandela, the hero of the global battle for racial equality, last night made an impassioned appeal for leading black Britons to take a lead in countering violence and low achievement in the inner cities. At the start of a visit to Britain to celebrate his own life, the former South African president said it was vital that the achievements of the UK's successful black people were harnessed to inspire those "who scale the mountains with you". The challenge from the 89-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, who will today unveil a 9ft statue of himself in Parliament Square, comes at a time of intense debate about the need for a new generation of role models for black teenagers. Full Article : independent.co.uk US judge approves Noriega's extradition to France Posted: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 Panama's former dictator, Manuel Noriega, can be extradited to France for a money laundering trial after he completes a lengthy jail sentence in Miami next month, a US judge ruled yesterday. Judge William Turnoff said Noriega's status as a prisoner of war under the Geneva conventions did not mean he should immediately be sent back to the central America country he ruled in the 1980s. An extradition order would be issued today, said the judge. Full Article : guardian.co.uk US Most Armed Country with 90 Guns per 100 People Posted: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 GENEVA - The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a report released on Tuesday said. U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world’s 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies. About 4.5 million of the 8 million new guns manufactured worldwide each year are purchased in the United States, it said. Full Article : commondreams.org US Army Adds Farce to Abu Ghraib Shame Posted: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 by Sam Provance The Army officer in charge of the interrogation/torture operation at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 is being court-martialed. My first thought was: Finally an officer is being held accountable. In view of the repeated rebuff to my own attempts to stop the torture and identify those responsible, however, you will perhaps excuse my skepticism that justice will be done. An Army intelligence analyst, my job at Abu Ghraib was systems administrator (”the computer guy”). But I had the bad luck to be on the night shift. And so I saw the detainees dragged in for interrogation, heard the screams, and saw many of them dragged out. Full Article : commondreams.org France's Sarkozy raises prospect of Iran airstrikes Posted: Monday, August 27, 2007 In his first major foreign policy speech, French president says diplomatic push by world's powers to rein in Tehran's nuclear program is only alternative to 'Iranian bomb or bombing of Iran' Full Article : ynetnews.com COMMENT: "...diplomatic push by world's powers..." "World's powers" is a racist euphemism for European and U.S. governments. They certainly do not consider the governments of China, India, Africa, South America and the Caribbean to be part of "World's powers". --Ayinde Eyes Closed to History Posted: Saturday, August 25, 2007 ¤ An intensifying US campaign against Iran ¤ More War on the Horizon The Bush regime says it is going to designate part of Iran's military -- the Revolutionary Guards -- a terrorist organization, whose bases and facilities Bush intends to bomb along with Iran's nuclear energy sites. Three US aircraft carrier strike forces are deployed off Iran. B-2 Stealth bombers are being fitted to carry 30,000 pound "bunker-buster" bombs to use against hardened sites. Politicized US generals assert that Iran is providing arms and aid to the Iraqi resistance to the US occupation. The media are feeding the US population the same propaganda about nonexistent Iranian weapons of mass destruction that they fed us about nonexistent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. A former CIA Middle East field officer, Robert Baer, has written in Time magazine that the Bush regime has decided to attack the Revolutionary Guards within the next 6 months. Remember the "cakewalk war"? Well, this time the neocons think that an attack on the Revolutionary Guards will free Iran from Islamic influence and cause Iranians to back the US against their own government. ¤ Troops argue Iraq is 'unwinnable' ¤ A Cruel and Unusual Excuse ¤ Eyes Closed to History The facts, however, are at variance with Mr. Bush's statements concerning the suffering of Southeast Asians. Millions of Cambodians died on the "killing fields" because secret American carpet bombing destroyed their nation and created an environment in which armed thugs led by Pol Pot took over unchallenged. In 1969, President Nixon ordered every available American plane into Cambodia to "crack the hell out of them." He wanted them to "hit everything." Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, subsequently transmitted the order to his top aide, Alexander Haig, this way: "Anything that flies on anything that moves." When Cambodia collapsed under the weight of the American Air Force, Prince Sihanouk fled to China, and the bad guys took over. Cambodian life under the bloody rule of the Khmer Rouge is well documented. ¤ 3rd youth arrested in UK boy's killing ¤ 'US friendly fire' kills British soldiers in Afghanistan ¤ The Carnage in Iraq - Past, Present, and Future ¤ TOGA, TOGA, TOGA! The Tyranny of George Almighty ¤ Hurricane George: How the White House Drowned New Orleans It's been two years. And America's media is about to have another tear-gasm over New Orleans. Maybe Anderson Cooper will weep again. The big networks will float into the moldering corpse of the city and give you uplifting stories about rebuilding and hope. Now, let's cut through the cry-baby crap. Here's what happened two years ago - and what's happening now. ¤ Bush's Bogus Vietnam History Kills It is often said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. But a much worse fate may await countries whose leaders distort and falsify history. Such countries are doomed to experience even bloodier miscalculations. That was the case with Germany after World War I when Adolf Hitler's Nazis built a political movement based in part on the myth that weak politicians in Berlin had stabbed brave German troops in the back when they were on the verge of victory. ¤ Following Churchill's Folly In Iraq "When Iraq becomes strong enough in our opinion to stand alone, we shall be in a position to state that our task has been fulfilled, and that Iraq is an independent sovereign state. But this cannot be said while we are forced year after year to spend very large sums of money on helping the Iraqi government to defend itself and maintain order." Sound familiar? Perhaps like something you've heard from a stay-the-course advocate, circa 2004-7? Nope, it's Winston Churchill, writing in 1922 as head of Britain's Colonial Office. At the time, Prince Feisal - whom Churchill had appointed king of the nascent nation of Iraq, whose borders Churchill had drawn up the previous year - was balking at the protectorate agreement the British wanted. To rule a land and people with whom he was largely unfamiliar, Feisal, a native of the Arabian Peninsula and not the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, and who had spent much of his life in Turkish Constantinople, needed legitimacy - and as much independence from the British as he could get. Which is much the same problem that the American-supported government and army of Iraq are having today. ¤ History Is The Last Refuge of Scoundrels ¤ Forest fires kill 37 in southern Greece ¤ Where Did the Katrina Money Go? ¤ The Unending Humanitarian Nightmare ¤ George Bush Meets Graham Greene ¤ Iraq And Vietnam Comparison / Refuting Bush ¤ Liberals, Bush Unite in Ethnic Cleansing of Iraq Bush Rewrites History of Vietnam War Posted: Thursday, August 23, 2007 ¤ American Citizen Tortured, Convicted of Thought Crime ¤ Vietnam By Dummies (Prof. G.W. Bush Lecturing) President Bush finally got something right by comparing the US war in Iraq with the disastrous US war in Vietnam. After five years of denying there were any similarities at all, Bush lectured us on the lessons he says we should have learned from that war and apply them to Iraq. So far so good. Trouble is the lesson Bush suggested we should learn from our failure in Vietnam four decades ago goes something like this: We cut and ran in Vietnam. We let our allies down. We allowed a rag tag group of insurgents to win against the great American military. And that's why we're in the mess we're in today. Our enemies today, another group of rag tag insurgents called al-Qaeda - have been emboldened by our retreat from Vietnam. ¤ Why is George Bush suddenly making parallels between Iraq and Vietnam? ¤ Distorting the Truth ¤ The Forgotten Vietnam - Iraq Parallel ¤ Bush Rewrites History of Vietnam War ¤ Toll in Iraq Bombings Is Raised to More Than 500 ¤ How can this bloody failure be regarded as a good war? ¤ America and Venezuela: Constitutional Worlds Apart Although imperfect, no country anywhere is closer to a model democracy than Venezuela under President Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias. In contrast, none is a more shameless failure than America, but it was true long before the age of George W. Bush. The difference under his regime is that the mask is off revealing a repressive state masquerading as a democratic republic. This article compares the constitutional laws of each country and how they're implemented. The result shows world's apart differences between these two nominally democratic states - one that's real, impressive and improving and the other that's mostly pretense and under George Bush lawless, corrupted, in tatters, and morally depraved. ¤ The Iraqis don't deserve us. So we betray them.. Karl Rove, interchangeably known as "Boy Genius" or "Turd Blossom," has left the White House. The press conference announcing his decision to resign has been given front-page treatment by most major media outlets, but the fact of the matter is the buzz surrounding Rove's departure is much ado about nothing, especially in terms of coming to grips with the remaining 16 months of the worst presidency in the history of the United States. ¤ The Path Towards War With Iran ¤ The Ongoing Tragedy of Afghanistan ¤ Bush's House of Snakes ¤ Denmark completely out of Iraq! ¤ Iraq: The vanishing coalition President George Bush invoked the spectre of Vietnam for the first time yesterday as 15 more American soldiers died and increasing evidence emerged that the coalition of the willing that invaded Iraq four years ago has begun to fracture irreparably. As the US death toll moved to 3,722, Iraq's Prime Minister engaged in an angry war of words with his critics in Washington. Meanwhile, a senior US general issued a dark warning that American troops may have to be sent to the south of the country to fill the vacuum left by a projected British withdrawal. ¤ Mbeki defends his stance on Zimbabwe ¤ Eyes Wide Shut: The International Media Looks at Venezuela ¤ The Washington Post's Bias Against Democracy in Latin America Eyes Wide Shut: The International Media Looks at Venezuela Posted: Thursday, August 23, 2007 Most consumers of the international media will be surprised to find that the controversy over Venezuela's oldest TV station, RCTV, is still raging. We were repeatedly informed that President Hugo Chavez "shut down" the station on May 27th. But in fact the station was never "shut down" - since there is no censorship in Venezuela. Rather, the Venezuelan government decided not to renew the broadcast license that granted RCTV a monopoly over a section of the publicly-owned frequencies. This is a big distinction, although the U.S. and international press blurred it considerably. Jose Miguel Insulza, the head of the Organization of American States, noted last month that the "Venezuelan government is empowered to do what it did (non-renewal of the license)" and cited Brazilian President Lula Da Silva's statement that not renewing RCTV's broadcast license was as democratic an act as granting it. Insulza added that "democracy is very much in force in Venezuela." Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com The Washington Post's Bias Against Democracy in Latin America Posted: Thursday, August 23, 2007 In the 1980s the Washington Post honed an editorial page style to attack the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua that involved complex and convoluted editorials weaving half truths, total lies, innuendo, and unsupported speculation. These editorials were impossible to respond to with letters to the editor limited to 200 words. The "big lie" strategy is effective because to respond with the truth takes even more words than the original lie. The Washington Post is now using the "big lie" strategy against the Bolivarian process in Venezuela and its democratically elected president Hugo Chavez. An editorial on August 17, 2007 is a textbook example of this strategy. It is entitled "Cash-and-Carry Rule" with a sub heading "Venezuela's Hugo Chavez cements his autocracy with petrodollars and another push for 'reform.'" Full Article : zmag.org Beyond the Rhetoric of Withdrawal Posted: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 ¤ 'The War on Democracy' 'The War on Democracy' is John Pilger's first major film for the cinema - in a career that has produced more than 55 television documentaries. Set in Latin America and the US, it explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. "The film tells a universal story," says Pilger, "analysing and revealing, through vivid testimony, the story of great power behind its venerable myths. It allows us to understand the true nature of the so-called war on terror". ¤ Following Us Home... ¤ African countries slam UN over Somalia war ¤ Somalia's Crisis ¤ US criticism of IAEA-Iran deal unhelpful, diplomats say ¤ Most US adults in the dark about world politics ¤ IAEA welcomes UN-IRAN nuclear deal ¤ The Warfare State is Part of Us ¤ 14 U.S. troops die in Iraq copter crash ¤ Beyond the Rhetoric of Withdrawal: Our Unknown Air War Over Iraq ¤ Crisis in the Green Zone ¤ Bush gambles with Vietnam reference over Iraq ¤ YouTube videos to have 'overlay' ads Most US adults in the dark about world politics Posted: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 Two-thirds of US adults admit to being in the dark about political issues outside the United States, and only a third are well-versed in US politics, the results of a poll published Tuesday showed. Candidates in the US presidential primaries "may have their work cut out for them as they work to get people interested in the election," wrote the Harris Poll group, which surveyed 2,225 adults between July 6 and 13 for the poll. A separate survey gave New York Senator Hillary Clinton a healthy lead over her main rival Barack Obama for the Democratic primary race. Full Article : breitbart.com African countries slam UN over Somalia war Posted: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 African countries within the UN security council have broken ranks and criticised the organisation's powerful organ for no action taken regarding the ravaging war in Somalia. This came after the council adopted a resolution that renews its authorisation of the African Union (AU) Mission in Somalia known as Amisom. The resolution however falls short of making any intervention in the crisis troubling that country. In February this year, the security council gave the AU a green light to establish a peacekeeping mission in Somalia for a period of six months, to quell the war crippling that country and create conducive climate for a negotiated settlement between the rival groups. The council further committed itself to taking over the Somalia mission at the end of the AU deployment. Six months have now elapsed - with the AU having made little impact on the escalating crises. However, the security council is not about to deploy any troops in that country. Instead, it adopted a resolution that extends its authorisation of the rather struggling African Union force there for another six months. South Africa's Ambassador to the Security Council says they are disappointed. Full Article : sabcnews.com France shifts its stance on the conflict in Iraq Posted: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 PARIS: After years of shunning involvement in a war it said was wrong, France now believes it may hold the key to peace in Iraq, proposing itself as an "honest broker" between the Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions. The shift was one of the most concrete consequences yet of the thaw in French-American relations following the election in May of President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose administration no longer feels bound by the adamant refusal to take a role in Iraq that characterized the reign of his predecessor, Jacques Chirac. Full Article : iht.com Russia steps up military expansion Posted: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 Vladimir Putin announced ambitious plans to revive Russia's military power and restore its role as the world's leading producer of military aircraft yesterday. Speaking at the opening of the largest airshow in Russia's post-Soviet history, the president said he was determined to make aircraft manufacture a national priority after decades of lagging behind the west. Full Article : guardian.co.uk Blaming All Americans for Bush's Debacle in Iraq? Posted: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 ¤ Mexico's Broken Ballot Boxes In its most revealing set of elections since the July 2006 fraud-marred presidential balloting, this not-so-distant neighbor nation proved conclusively that its electoral system is irreparably broken. The August 5th vote-taking in Baja California Norte, the nation's wealthiest state, to select a cohort for Upper California's action figure governor featured an eccentric candidate given to wearing vests fashioned from the penises of donkeys and a shaved-headed bureaucrat from a party that has controlled the electoral machinery for 18 years, in one of the filthiest electoral face-offs yet in a country where bad elections are a fine art. ¤ Iraq: the Gift That Keeps on Bleeding Shortly after the November 2006 election the Democracy Alliance, an exclusive group of about 100 Democratic Party millionaire activists, met in Miami, Florida. Members and their guests heard their keynote speaker and liberal legend Mario Cuomo, former New York governor, analyze the Democratic Party in the wake of its stunning electoral victories that had given Democrats control of the US Congress. Cuomo criticized the Democratic Party for lacking vision, big ideas and a winning political argument. His recipe for future Democratic victories was simple: "You seize the biggest idea you can, the biggest idea you can understand. And this is what moves elections." ¤ How Super Was Our Power Anyway? Pick up the paper any day and you'll find tiny straws in the wind (or headlines inside the fold) reflecting the seeping away of American power. The President of the planet's "sole superpower" and his top diplomats and commanders have been denouncing Iran for months as the evil hand behind American disaster in Iraq as well as Afghanistan. So imagine, when President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan arrived in Washington a couple of weeks back and promptly described Iran as "a helper and a solution" for his country, even as President Bush insisted in his presence: "I would be very cautious about whether or not the Iranian influence in Afghanistan is a positive force." At almost the same moment, Iraq's embattled Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki paid an official visit to Iran, undoubtedly looking for support in case the U.S. turned on his government. Maliki "held hands" with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, met with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini, and called for cooperation. In response, all President Bush could do was issue a vague threat: "I will have to have a heart to heart with my friend, the prime minister, because I don't believe [the Iranians] are constructive.... My message to him is, when we catch you playing a non-constructive role, there will be a price to pay." (Later, a National Security Council spokesman had to offer a correction, insisting the threat was aimed only at Iran, not Maliki.) Then, to add insult to injury, just a week after Bush and Karzai met in Washington, Ahmadinejad headed for Kabul with a high-ranking Iranian delegation to pay his respects to the Afghan president "in open defiance of Washington's wishes." Think slap in the puss. ¤ A Dangerous Acquiescence That August day four years ago in Baghdad, I was standing in the rubble of Canal Hotel, the UN headquarters that had been devastated by a huge terrorist bomb. In a break from my non-stop media briefings - I was spokesman for the UN's Baghdad mission - I was talking to Ronnie Stokes, a senior American colleague. Then, abruptly, I turned around. In front of me lay 12 neatly-draped white sheets. I found myself becoming breathless, and in the panic did not know what to feel, think or say. I saw the tips of a pair of feet sticking out from under a sheet. I remember thinking how pale and white they were. ¤ Padilla Jury Opens Pandora's Box José Padilla's conviction on terrorism charges on August 16 was a victory, not for justice, but for the US Justice (sic) Department's theory that a US citizen can be convicted, not because he committed a terrorist act but for allegedly harboring aspirations to commit such an act. By agreeing with the Justice (sic) Department's theory, the incompetent Padilla Jury delivered a deadly blow to the rule of law and opened Pandora's box. ¤ The Power Goes On ¤ Bush lashes out at Iraq war critics ¤ Partition Iraq? Over Their Dead Bodies There is one thing you must never do if you want to be considered a Serious Foreign Policy Thinker in Washington: Don't stop to consider the lessons of history before proposing massive redesigns to another part of the world. Michael O'Hanlon and other Iraq war backers were wildly incorrect in their last set of predictions, but that hasn't stopped them from promoting still more grand schemes. Now O'Hanlon wants to partition Iraq. ¤ NYPD's Homegrown Hysteria ¤ Rising powers have the US in their sights ¤ Russia steps up military expansion ¤ Asking the Wrong Questions on Iran Imagine, for a moment, that U.S. troops invading Iraq had, as they neared Baghdad, been fired on by an artillery unit using shells filled VX nerve gas — an attack that would have lasted minutes before a U.S. aircrew had taken out the battery, and may have brought a horrible death to a handful of American soldiers. Imagine, further, that the conquering troops had later discovered two warehouses full of VX and mustard gas shells. And later, that inspectors in a science lab had discovered a refrigerator full of Botulinum toxin or even anthrax. ¤ City in a Time Warp ¤ Why Iraqis oppose U.S.-backed oil law ¤ African countries slam UN over Somalia war ¤ The Empire And The Independent Island The history of Cuba during the last 140 years is one of struggle to preserve national identity and independence, and the history of the evolution of the American empire, its constant craving to appropriate Cuba and of the horrendous methods that it uses today to hold on to world domination. Prominent Cuban historians have dealt in depth with these subjects in different periods and in various excellent books which deserve to be readily available to our compatriots. These reflections are addressed especially to the new generations with the aim of helping them learn about very important and decisive events in the destiny of our homeland. ¤ Starving Gaza ¤ Contractors in Iraq Have Become U.S. Crutch ¤ Family of coal miners vent frustration ¤ An Independent hoax ¤ Blaming All Americans for Bush's Debacle in Iraq? Take a look at the September/October 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs and you'll find a fascinating article by James Dobbins: "Who Lost Iraq? Lessons From the Debacle." An Assistant Secretary of State under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Dobbins candidly admits that Bush's invasion of Iraq qualifies as a "national catastrophe," and notes that the changes made thus far, including the so-called "surge," have not "reversed a worsening situation." But his main objective is to assure that the "current debate over the United States' failure in Iraq…yield[s] constructive results" for future administrations. ¤ Suicide Bombings - A Favourite US Counter-Insurgency Tactic Death by Numbers Posted: Monday, August 20, 2007 ¤ Six Utah miners 'may not be found' ¤ What Will Clueless and Hopeless Do Next? ¤ Iraq governor dies in bomb attack ¤ Suicide blast kills Pakistan troops ¤ Exit Karl Rove, Everyone's Useful Demon The uproar over Karl Rove's resignation as George Bush's political advisor is stupendous, but in truth he was no great shakes as Svengali and his exit is of scant consequence. Though they profess joy that the nation has been freed at last from his malign supervision the Democrats have lost one of their most useful alibis. By inflating Rove into a blend of Macchiavelli and Sir Francis Walsingham, a nonpareil political manipulator, they sought to explain how they failed to stop a mediocre Texas governor and incoherent campaigner from capturing the White House in 2000 and holding onto it in 2004. ¤ A Bloody Week in Iraq ¤ Tossing Fuel on a Fire ¤ Reflections on Cuba ¤ The Dodo Never Had a Chance ¤ Death by Numbers ¤ Military commanders tell Brown to withdraw from Iraq without delay Senior military commanders have told the Government that Britain can achieve "nothing more" in south-east Iraq, and that the 5,500 British troops still deployed there should move towards withdrawal without further delay. Last month Gordon Brown said after meeting George Bush at Camp David that the decision to hand over security in Basra province - the last of the four held by the British - "will be made on the military advice of our commanders on the ground". He added: "Whatever happens, we will make a full statement to Parliament when it returns [in October]." ¤ A free-for-all over oil money in Nigeria ¤ Military commanders tell Brown to withdraw from Iraq without delay ¤ The Politics of Self-Destruction ¤ War Profiteering and Corruption ¤ Iraq, Iran & the Vanishing Context in American News It's no coincidence that the American corporate media is the wealthiest communication systems in the world, yet also one of the worst in terms of educating its citizens. Extraordinary riches require extraordinary efforts to divert public attention from extreme inequality and the democratic deficit under which Americans suffer. Despite the abundance of media sources throughout this country, Americans still endure a staggering ignorance regarding the reality of U.S. foreign policy. Horrendous media coverage no doubt accounts for much of this ongoing tragedy. While there may be more information available today than at any time in history (in light of the rise of cable news, the Internet, and other technological developments), the quality of that news leaves much to be desired. ¤ Tornado kills nine in China ¤ Wikipedia and the art of censorship Castro: US must leave Guantanamo Bay Posted: Sunday, August 19, 2007 Cuban President Fidel Castro says the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay is occupied 'illegally' and the US must hand it over to Cuba. According to international laws, the United States' occupation of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in the southeast of Cuba is illegal and unacceptable, Fidel Castro told reporters on Friday. Castro called the base a constant center of crisis, which threatens Cuba's security. Full Article : presstv.ir Top clan elder killed as Somalia strife deepens Posted: Sunday, August 19, 2007 A top clan elder from embattled Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi's clan was gunned down in Mogadishu overnight Saturday, dealing a blow to a laborious month-old peace initiative. The killing -- one of the most high-profile assassinations in years in the capital -- came a day after clashes between sub-clans fighting for access to resources in central Somalia left at least 20 dead. "May Allah bless him, Moalim Harun Moalim Yusuf was one of the prominent Somali clan chiefs and he was killed by two men armed with pistols as he returned from evening prayers," a spokesman from gedi's office said. "He died instantly," Abdullahi Mohieddin Odka told AFP. Full Article : france24.com Concern Over Wider Spying Under New Law Posted: Saturday, August 18, 2007 WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 – Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include – without court approval – certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans' business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said. Administration officials acknowledged that they had heard such concerns from Democrats in Congress recently, and that there was a continuing debate over the meaning of the legislative language. But they said the Democrats were simply raising theoretical questions based on a harsh interpretation of the legislation. Full Article : nytimes.com Marcus Garvey Finally Wins Respect at Home Posted: Saturday, August 18, 2007 KINGSTON, Aug 16 (IPS) - The gates to Marcus Garvey's Liberty Hall on King Street in downtown Kingston are imposing. Tall, red bars tower above visitors, and between the bars, black birds can be seen peering backwards at intervals. The are the backward-looking Sankofa birds, which are "an Asante symbol meaning that it is alright to go back to your past to retrieve pertinent information to assist us to move forward to the future," says Donna McFarlane, Liberty Hall director and curator. In a sense, that is what the renovated Liberty Hall is all about, a multi-media museum-library-inner city community centre where Marcus Garvey's philosophies become a tool for educating people about the past, while helping them to move forward, in much the same way that Garvey did in that same space decades before. Full Article : ipsnews.net Mugabe: When a cheer jars the West, rings farthest Posted: Saturday, August 18, 2007 The Herald Exactly as one would have ever wished it! After the historic Dar Summit held towards the end of March this year, I made it clear Southern Africa had reached a turning point, and with it, the Zimbabwean situation. I made it clear the significance of the resultant communiqué was the fact of the 14-member grouping had for the first time taken a collective stance against illegal sanctions imposed by the West, led of course by Britain and America. I made it clear that from that day on, the fight would achieve exactly what Britain had always wished, namely the internationalisation of its fight with Zimbabwe, but only in ways not so palatable to Britain and her bankrupt foreign policy. I argued that from that historic day, Britain, America and the pro-sanctions segment of the EU would have to confront Sadc as a block, itself quite an escalation in the situation. The fight would become sub-regional, indeed would pit a sub-region against its historical adversary. I suppose many thought Manheru was politicking. I know that those who mistakenly thought so are beginning to wake up to this hard-hitting fact. But grant it to the British. Correctly, they panicked, and used their man in Gaberone to express this panic. Much later, they also used their Ghanaian-turned Briton, one Boateng who is their man in South Africa, to express the same disquiet. This shameful man from the womb of so respectable a people, did not mind being foolish on behalf of the Empire. The Zim migrant peril As already indicated in previous installments, from that month of March, the British were peddling frantically, hoping a big TB (Tony Blair) bang would visit and demolish Mugabe before a change of guard at No. 10, indeed before the next Sadc Summit. They enlisted the support of the Americans, an assignment made easier by America’s man here – Dell – so gifted with a long mouth, so backed by a stub of intellect. The whole hype on illegal immigrants was meant to use the people-to-people magnitude as a subtle instrument for British foreign policy goals. Repeated claims of a Zimbabwean migrant peril, edified by a Parliamentary Committee, the white opposition Democratic Alliance and much else, would have not only nudged Mbeki out of the "slumber" of "quiet diplomacy"; it would have generated violent xenophobia which would have forced the South African government to act. Or better still, create refugee camps, in which case the Sadc Summit would have had no choice but to deal with a supposedly ever snowballing Zimbabwe situation. The connection with the price madness which should have provided the trigger both at home and abroad, is too obvious to be missed. Re-editing Dar Meanwhile the West’s captive media, especially their beachhead in South Africa, kept harping on the dim prospects of the political dialogue the Dar Summit had assigned President Mbeki to mind. Regardless of the progress on the ground, everything had to read dim, very dim, to warrant a hard-ball which Sadc was supposed to play against Zimbabwe. It is this hard-ball scenario which the daft Muleya writing on the eve of the Summit harped wild, to look very foolish a little later. Under such a scenario, Sadc did not have to do much: It only needed to acknowledge that there is a crisis in Zimbabwe, a crisis solely caused by its "mis-governors". That would have re-edited Dar. That would have also provided a pretext for intervention at a higher level, including the UN, itself the dignified plate Britain badly needs to legitimise an armed pursuit and enforcement of its interests in Zimbabwe. Needless to say all this crumbled and nothing dramatic happened, both inside and outside Zimbabwe. Pawning aid pound for politics Faced with a consuming implosion of the supposedly delivering scenario, the British and Americans grew even more desperate, and therefore more open and unguarded in their political subterfuges. They have been lobbying some governments within Sadc, hoping to turn their aid pound into a pawn for foreign policy support. They won two or three states, and staked it all on these leaders’ readiness to tackle Zimbabwe and its President. Beyond an embarrassing blip and blunder, nothing much happened. The British did much more. They generously mobilised their puppet NGOs here, all under the rubric of the so-called "social forum", to generate a din that would drown and hopefully move heads at the Summit. There was an attempt to bus "demos" from Zimbabwe, and from two other neighbouring countries, so these would mount demonstrations in Lusaka. Imperialism had mobilised its askaris, many of them literate but not conscious enough to be anything nationally helpful. These schooled lumpens, many affiliated to the NCA and external chapters of Crisis, never made it to the venue, leaving their hapless linkman already in Lusaka, quite angry and frustrated. Of course the limping MDC was deployed by both the British and Americans, led by Khupe, to perform so dismally that one within their ranks – Professor Eliphas Mukonoweshure, sorry, -weshuro - ended up breaking ranks. He traded his tattered MDC cap for a more dignified one as an academic on regional integration. Simply put, Khupe was an unremitting disaster on Zambia’s FM stations, ungainly confirming that her party brought sanctions on Zimbabwe. It was not a helpful message to a politically mature society that Zambia is. From carnival to the carnal The NGO rubble which had flown ahead, was characteristically in sixes and sevens, redirecting its frustrated political ardour into open and unmitigated debauchery: A sure sign that the billed Lusaka opposition carnival had degenerated to bare carnality. As always, their pockets are always sound for such base pursuits. They lived in mortal fear of a security crackdown that none in Lusaka had heart or reason for. Clear juvenile politics, much of it quixotic to win girlish hearts. Changing tack In the world of high politics, the British deployed their most hardened propagandists, including the usually suave Tony Hawkins. A "Zimbabwe-unmasked" media psyche had to be evoked. Not quite new; not quite news. The real news was a piece in the British Guardian by one Simon Tisdall, titled "Mbeki’s backing for Mugabe may make west change tack". The article vicariously expressed British consternation at Mbeki’s liberation rhetoric on Zimbabwe, particularly his identifying Britain as "a principal protagonist in the Zimbabwean issue. The writer then brings in the American angle by way of a right wing James Kirchick of the New Republican magazine who attacks Mbeki for playing "heir" to "anti-imperialist intellectual tradition heroically opposed to the western democracies". The gist of the article is to warn that the just-ended Sadc Summit could deepen the West’s misgivings about a radical South Africa’s role in safeguarding "wider US and western interests", presumably in Southern Africa, forcing a disenchanted West to adopt a military strategy against Harare. "A detachment of US marines could do the job on its lunch break", adds Boston Globe columnist, Jeff Jacoby, seemingly well beyond any learning from the shock and awe America is getting from post-Saddam Iraq. At another level, Michael Evans and Fred Bridgland (remember apartheid South Africa in Angola?) were busy recycling the British military evacuation plan story for 22 000 Britons who are said to be in Zimbabwe. It is a weary story, but one indexical to British propaganda designs. Paradox of impoverishing growth Lusaka has consolidated Dar es Salaam. Lusaka has thoroughly upset the British and Americans, forcing both into a Southern African foreign policy posture sure to upset and alienate Southern Africa, in the process reinforcing the already strong pro-Zimbabwe sentiment which is showing no sign of abating. And if any had any doubts, the wild cheers that President Mugabe drew in Zambia, rammed the message home, much to their utter disbelief and disappointment. It is clear the Mugabe sentiment is strong as ever, making him intractable. And of course these envoys think Mugabe is a talisman. He does not need to be. The material circumstances for deep resonance to Mugabe’s politics are both abundant and ubiquitous in Southern Africa. After all, is it not a fact that the principal paradox of Southern Africa lies in a regional economy which makes its people poorer and poorer each time it registers bigger and bigger growth? What politics does the West expect in a mining economy which attracts well over US$3bn in new investments but rewarding its citizens a mere 0.006% by way of royalties? In such a despicable environment, would a Mugabe who preaches indigenisation in the mining sector, be a reviled loner, a leper? When back is futuristic And that is the essence of Mugabe-ism in regional politics: politics validated by deepening poverty. Increasingly, the West is waking up to the fact that the politics they blamed for dragging Zimbabwe back to the stone age, are in fact a compelling peep into the future politics of Southern Africa. In the so-called Zimbabwe crisis is read the future politics of a new Southern Africa in which the West has no place. Which is what makes the Guardian reporter dead right; which is what makes British and American wiles here quite deadly. Cheering Lisbon But one more point. Sadc has re-stoked the African sentiment ahead of Portugal, itself the setting for the EU-Africa Summit. And it’s not accidental that the western envoys who expressed shock at Mugabe’s popularity are from Lisbon. They know what they will be up against should they ever buckle to British fears of the potential hazard of a Brown accidental hand-shake with the "coarse" Mugabe in a dimly lit Lisbon corner. And Lusaka is the tonic which shall get Lisbon to get EU to come to terms with their illegal sanctions against Harare, in the process heading the call of Dar. Something in me tells me we are close - very close – to a resolution. Something gotta give in, and looking at the sinewy muscles that prop the Great Zimbabwe, I have not the slightest doubt what shall! Gobbling Zanu (PF)’s reformersIs anyone getting what is reaching my ears? Strange reconfiguration of national politics is taking place, seemingly without a din. I hear Tsvangirai – which means the British – is extracting his pound of flesh. Apart from tackling Mutambara - which is not quite the same thing as tackling Welshman Ncube and his trenchantly loyal urban Ndebele vote – Tsvangirai has turned on the so-called Zanu (PF) reformers he has been courting for a broad and miscegenated anti-Mugabe front. The so-called Zanu (PF) reformers were supposed to cause a rapture from within – relying both on political dissidence and a military putsch. The former would have enabled a palace coup; the later a real one. The former would have delivered Zanu (PF) structures to a re-made MDC; the latter would have pacified and cowed a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe. Neither happened and Tsvangirai, speaking the frustration of the British and the always skeptical Americans, is now accusing these reformers of having neither the nerve nor the mob to make change happen. He is charging they wield no power enough to influence both the military and the structures of Zanu (PF). If anything, he further charges, they are actually struggling to retain influence in their little constituencies, let alone wielding the muscle to decisively project their influence at national level. Then, the bombshell. Tsvangirai is telling them that if they want anything to do with his faction, they must join it as humble individuals who hold nothing for the table. This side of intrigue which Mukonoweshuro was leading, is set to founder, and with it, his own political career. Biti should be happy, very happy I tell you! Now, Tsvangirai is expecting big egos to swallow humble pie. Ane chokwadi? Great perturbations. Watch this column. Icho! Hotel mistakes Nobel laureate for bag lady Posted: Friday, August 17, 2007 She was wearing a Mayan dress, the traditional attire of indigenous people in central America, and the hotel's response was also traditional: throw her out. Staff at Cancun's five-star Hotel Coral Beach appear to have assumed this was another street vendor or beggar, so without asking questions they ordered her to leave. Except the woman was Rigoberta Menchú, the Nobel peace prizewinner, Unesco goodwill ambassador, Guatemalan presidential candidate and figurehead for indigenous rights. The attempted eviction, an example of discrimination against indigenous people common in central and south America, backfired when other guests recognised Ms Menchú and interceded on her behalf. Full Article : guardian.co.uk BBC loses last Russian FM outlet Posted: Friday, August 17, 2007 Maria Esposito Friday August 17, 2007 MediaGuardian.co.uk The BBC World Service has lost its last FM radio outlet in Russia today, adding further substance to claims of a clampdown on foreign media by the country's authorities. Russian station Bolshoye Radio today notified the BBC World Service that it plans to stop transmission of BBC programming in Russian as of this afternoon. Bolshoye Radio was due to air BBC content at 5pm but was ordered by its owner, the financial group Finam, to pull the shows or risk being taken off air altogether. Today's decision to drop the BBC World Service, which is funded by the Foreign Office, comes a month after the UK and Russia each expelled four diplomats in a row over the assassination of London-based dissident Alexander Litvinenko. Full Article : guardian.co.uk Ayinde's comment: BBC is part of the British government so any country that has tensions with Britain has to also examine the role of BBC in their country. The Zimbabwe government did the same with respect to BBC and other Western media for a similar reason. Of course, BBC and other Western media report this as just a clampdown on foreign media by the country's authorities; an attempt to erode democratic freedoms and the rights of the people. In other words, the Western media fights tooth and nail to maintain their propaganda activities globally and they expect countries that they are engaged in disputes with to allow them unfettered access to publish biased, hostile and subversive reports. Nearly All the War Crimes Were Israel's Posted: Friday, August 17, 2007 ¤ Peru quake death toll rises to 510 ¤ Series of quakes rock Tokyo area ¤ US gambles on Iran's 'soldiers of terror' The White House's plan to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization could deal a double blow to efforts to use diplomacy with Iran to stabilize Iraq. Not only would the designation risk undermining the important yet limited talks between the United States and Iran in Baghdad, but it might also negatively impact the next US president's ability to seek diplomacy with Tehran by further entrenching US-Iran relations in a paradigm of enmity. ¤ US and Israel agree $30bn arms deal The US has agreed to provide Israel with $30bn in defence grants over the next decade, a 25 per cent boost aimed at countering a "resurgent" Iran and its allies. At a signing ceremony in Jerusalem on Thursday, Nicholas Burns, US undersecretary of state, said the US would help Israel to maintain a military advantage over its enemies. ¤ 9 killed, 17 wounded in Baghdad bombing ¤ Ponzi Capitalism ¤ Tool Time: Rove Goes But the Malevolent Machine Rolls On ¤ Declare War... on Italy! ¤ Feds pay $80,000 over anti-Bush T-shirts ¤ The Surge's Short Shelf Life ¤ The Cult of 9/11 ¤ Hotel mistakes Nobel laureate for bag lady ¤ The Epic Struggle of Indigenous Andean / Amazonian Cultures ¤ Rove's Science of Dirty Tricks ¤ An Inside Look at How U.S. Interrogators Destroyed the Mind of Jose Padilla ¤ A travesty of justice: Jose Padilla found guilty ¤ Iran and Great Power Politics ¤ Puppets on a String... ¤ Understanding And Misunderstanding Iraq ¤ Britain: Guantánamo detainee details years of torture A British resident, Omar Deghayes, detained at Guantánamo Bay as an alleged terrorist, reports that he has suffered years of torture, sexual abuse and death threats. Last week, Omar's family released a dossier documenting his terrible ordeal, which he dictated to a lawyer visiting the United States-run military prison. ¤ Nearly All the War Crimes Were Israel's ¤ The Convenience of Denial The man who ran CNN's news operation during the invasion of Iraq is now doing damage control in response to a new documentary's evidence that he kowtowed to the Pentagon on behalf of the cable network. His current denial says a lot about how "liberal media" outlets remain deeply embedded in the mindsets of pro-military conformity. ¤ Iraq Trauma: "children grow up, people grow old" ¤ Ahmadinejad to join Chinese, Russian leaders for regional security summit ¤ Two Legs Good, Four Legs Equal Despite the trappings of a civilized culture and the incredibly persistent myth of our moral exceptionalism, we in the United States are collectively a group of mean-spirited, depraved barbarians. Sparing our psyches the pangs of conscience by ferociously devouring the corporate media's seemingly endless supply of rationalizations, euphemisms, historical revisions, distractions, denials, distortions, and affirmations of our pathological self-absorption, we each carry a degree of responsibility in the infliction of immeasurable unnecessary pain and suffering upon the rest of the Earth's sentient beings. ¤ "An Attempt to Deceive Americans Into Yet Another War" ¤ Do the Neo-Cons Need Karl Rove When They Can Count on the Democrats? Backlash Over Book on Policy for Israel Posted: Thursday, August 16, 2007 "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" is not even in bookstores, but already anxieties have surfaced about the backlash it is stirring, with several institutions backing away from holding events with the authors. John J. Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, were not totally surprised by the reaction to their work. An article last spring in the London Review of Books outlining their argument - that a powerful pro-Israel lobby has a pernicious influence on American policy - set off a firestorm as charges of anti-Semitism, shoddy scholarship and censorship ricocheted among prominent academics, writers, policymakers and advocates. In the book, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and embargoed until Sept. 4, they elaborate on and update their case. Full Article : commondreams.org Iran's Revolutionary Guards Scoff At US Blacklist Plan Posted: Thursday, August 16, 2007 TEHRAN - Iran's Revolutionary Guards Thursday dismissed US plans to list the elite force as a terror group in order to strangle its growing economic power, warning that its "iron will" would not be deterred. A US official revealed on Wednesday that President George W. Bush was set to issue an executive order blacklisting the group in order to block the assets of what is one of the Islamic republic's key institutions. Full Article : commondreams.org U.S. to Expand Domestic Use of Spy Satellites Posted: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 The U.S.'s top intelligence official has greatly expanded the range of federal and local authorities who can get access to information from the nation's vast network of spy satellites in the U.S. The decision, made three months ago by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, places for the first time some of the U.S.'s most powerful intelligence-gathering tools at the disposal of domestic security officials. The move was authorized in a May 25 memo sent to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asking his department to facilitate access to the spy network on behalf of civilian agencies and law enforcement. Full Article : online.wsj.com No American President can stand up to Israel Posted: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 ¤ "No American President can stand up to Israel." The power of the Israel Lobby over American foreign policy is considerable. In March 2006, two distinguished American scholars, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, expressed concern in the London Review of Books [ http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html ] that the power of the Israel Lobby was bending US foreign policy in directions that serve neither US nor Israeli interests. The two experts were hoping to start a debate that might rescue the US and Israel from unsuccessful policies of coercion that are intensifying Muslim hatred of Israel and America. The Israel lobby was opposed to any such reassessment, and attempted to close it off with epithets: "Jew-baiter," "anti-semitic," and even "anti-American." Today Israeli citizens who oppose Zionist plans for greater Israel are denounced as "anti-Semites." ¤ Iran winning more friends in region ¤ 500 killed in Iraq suicide bombings ¤ The American occupation army commits detaining about 750 Iraqi children ¤ Takes One to Know One The idea that the US could be considering classifying the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist" organization, based upon some dubious evidence that the organization is supplying some weapons-in particular those shaped charges that have been so effective in roadside bombs against US military vehicles-is pretty preposterous when you consider the source. Whatever the truth about the activities of the Iranians, certainly when it comes to terror, the US is unrivalled in the world today. ¤ FDA Approved Drug Makes You Hypersexual and a Compulsive Gambler ¤ Army suicides highest in 26 years Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new military report. The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its scheduled release Thursday, found there were 99 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers during 2006, up from 88 the previous year and the highest since the 102 suicides in 1991. ¤ US 'surges', soldiers die. Blame Iran ¤ There is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? ¤ Our War Crimes I've always been fascinated by the concept of "administrative evil" – a term that describes how ordinary and decent people can end up committing horrific acts and oftentimes think they are doing the right thing as they commit them. I recall a concentration camp survivor who described his Nazi-saluting neighbors as regular Joes. A frighteningly large percentage of the population in communist nations served as informers. The people who spied on their neighbors and had them sent to prison camps were doing what they thought to be their patriotic duty. Here on the editorial pages, we still talk about an interview we once had with an Israeli official who described the terrorist plotters he knew as rather normal people who "were nice to their pets." ¤ Who Cares? ¤ Rove’s Science of Dirty Tricks Escalation by the Numbers Posted: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 ¤ Of Lies, History & Throwing Flowers Remember the British Raj and their Residents? Remember what they wanted to control? 1.Foreign policy – We will decide which state you will befriend and which one you will not. 2.Defense – Don’t worry about your own defense. We will defend you. You are not allowed to do anything that has the danger of making you strong as you don’t know how to use your power. Imagine; we used to call that ‘colonialism’. But obviously we were wrong. Gandhiji and all those who fought for ‘Independence’ along with him had it wrong all the time. We were not enslaved at all. What a waste of time and energy!! And on top of it Jawaharlal inflicted the non-aligned theory on us. Not that we were all that non-aligned at that time. But we did support freedom movements in Palestine and South Africa. But then we did not realize the value of friendship with Israel, did we? Today we do. After all trust an Indian to recognize a bargain. And South Africa became free conveniently on its own so today we don’t have to decide whether or not to support apartheid in yet another form. ¤ Learn from the fall of Rome, US warned ¤ Bush's Booming Economy -- For The Rich ¤ Iraq: Violence taking toll on pregnant mothers, infants ¤ In Iraq, sex is traded for survival ¤ Sectarian 'cleansing' in Baghdad ¤ Four Suicide Bombings Kill 175 in Iraq ¤ Bush Warns Puppets Not to Praise Iran ¤ Ahmadinejad's first Afghan visit ruffles US feathers ¤ 22 dead as Chinese bridge collapses ¤ Tuesday: 247 Iraqis Killed, 6 GIs; 260 Iraqis Wounded ¤ Escalation by the Numbers ¤ Do US, Iraqi Officials Undercount Detainees? ¤ The Useful Fools of Empire Most inhabitants of Western countries are afflicted by nefarious delusions about the nature of their societies and government policy; the public at large is led to believe that their societies are superior, and their governments' policies are noble and generous. The illusions have to do with the dissonance between the fabricated image and the reality of state power, especially when it entails wars waged against third world countries. Awful wars are waged for crass motives, yet they are sold on the basis that they are driven by benevolent intent. Promotion of democracy, freedoms, human rights, women's rights, and even religious tolerance are some of the purported motives for current interventions, subversion or wars. ¤ Pesticides in the Plantations ¤ What Is Karl Rove Hiding? ¤ Stealing A President's Spotlight The U.S. Normalization of Mass Murder Posted: Monday, August 13, 2007 ¤ Obstructing the War on Iran ¤ The U.S. Normalization of Mass Murder Given the nation's tottering infrastructure, imperial overreach abroad and vandalized constitutional process by a lawless executive branch, what will it take to scare the general public, mainstream press and political classes into immediate action to bring about meaningful change? At this twilight hour of the American republic, there must come a paradigm shift of seismic proportions or else the republic will perish. I'm less than optimistic. Insomuch as, I suspect, that if, during a rare press conference, George W. Bush's face were to suddenly shed its skin, right on camera, live on national television, on all channels, broadcast and cable, to reveal the countenance of a Gila Monster -- the elitist beltway punditry would begin to catalog the merits of his reptilian single-mindedness. Then proceed to an interview with an "expert" from a right-wing funded, zoological think tank, "The American Institute for the Advancement of Predatory Policy," who would assure us that: "...in an era when evil is as proliferate as flies around the stinking dumpster of the world, Americans will be kept safe by a lizard-faced leader who eats flies for breakfast." And the general public would only be concerned because the broadcast happened to preempt the finals of American Idol. ¤ An Occupation of Iraq is Not Ours to Choose ¤ Ethiopia accused of using white phosphorus bombs in US-backed occupation of Somalia ¤ NKorea: Hundreds dead, missing in rain ¤ Military Families Live in Dread ¤ Exit, Karl Rove, Stage Right ¤ Who Cares? The most important issue facing America is not even being debated by the presidential candidates. With the exception of Ron Paul, all of the candidates are acting on the assumption that America's interventionist foreign policy should continue. They only differ on the details of the intervention. Since Dr. Paul doesn't have a chance of winning, I can therefore guarantee you that regardless of who wins the nominations and regardless of who ends up in the White House, you will be saddled with same failed interventionist policy. As in the past, it will preclude peace and result in conflicts that ultimately will bring America down. We can squander blood and treasure only so long before we collapse. Then we will join the heap of has-been empires like the British, French, Dutch and Soviets. ¤ The Language of Dominion ¤ First Pullout, Then Bloodbath ¤ The Hidden Agenda Behind Bush's Biofuel Plan ¤ Politics Unmercifully Trespass Humanitarian Borders in Gaza ¤ US tumbles down the world ratings list for life expectancy ¤ South Africa blames UK for Zimbabwe crisis ¤ Karl Rove to leave the White House ¤ Dick Cheney '94: Invading Baghdad Would Create Quagmire ¤ Chavez deepens Petrocaribe oil pledges Zimbabwe: Never betray our heroes Posted: Monday, August 13, 2007 The Herald Today is Heroes' Day – a special day set aside to commemorate Zimbabwe's gallant freedom fighters – both dead and alive whose sacrifices brought us independence, which we must continue to guard jealously. This is indeed an occasion to recall our heroes' selfless deeds that brought about a new system, which recognised the rights of the majority and gave way to a fair re-distribution of the country's resources. The history of the struggle for the liberation of this country against colonial white settlers dates back to the 1890s. White colonial settlers under Rhodes invaded this country and defeated freedom fighters of the First Chimurenga. They send to the gallows Mbuya Nehanda, Sekuru Kaguvi and many others. This gave them a false and dangerous belief, which allowed them to create a set of values that recognised and justified white supremacy, laying hands on the enormous wealth the country possessed. And the majority black people were relegated to second class citizens in their country of birth, being subjected to semi-slavery and condemned to live on barren land. But it was only a question of time before the tables were turned against the colonial settlers when the Second Chimurenga was launched, which thus brought to an end white minority rule. To the majority of us, those who gallantly fought the white settlers for the freedom from diverse forms of colonial bondage will forever be remembered as Zimbabwe's heroes and heroines. Tens of thousands died. Some of them lie at the national Heroes Acre, district and provincial heroes acres, while the bodies of many others lie in scattered and mass graves, down mine shafts across Zimbabwe and in neighbouring countries. But sadly, many of the final resting places of the dead of our liberation war will never be known. Likewise, the colonial settlers who fought to maintain and perpetuate minority privileges will forever remain villains. Today, we remember our liberation war heroes against the background of sinister moves and efforts aimed towards the restoration of the old order. This is happening with the overt support of the former colonial masters who are doing everything to condemn the heroes and the revolution of the Second Chimurenga that brought us our much-cherished independence. Currently, we have organisations and movements that are trying to redefine the objectives of the liberation struggle and produce substitute heroes and heroines. But the heroes and heroines of Zimbabwe's liberation struggle are irreplaceable and will remain as such. We will never betray our heroes and we must not forget them. Independent Zimbabwe should live forever and the colonial past must never be allowed to come back under any guise. Not even a black skin. Zimbabwe: BBC lies exposed Posted: Monday, August 13, 2007 EDITOR – The article by Stephen T. Maimbodei (The Herald, August 8 2007) made interesting reading particularly as we celebrate our Heroes Holiday. As Zimbabweans we should not fail to sleep over the programme because there are so many of them these days from CNN, BBC and other radio and TV stations. Zimbabwe is a great country that is why we had to fight for it to liberate ourselves. Ian Smith rebelled against Her Majesty, the Queen of England, and nothing happened and just like what happened in the film "Hotel Rwanda" they said: "We have been sent to collect whites only", the British government did not act against their kith and kin. Our greatest "sin" was to take land from their kith and kin and they will not forgive us for that. Ko vanombodei muZimbabwe? There are a lot of countries where things are happening and the world is doing nothing and in our beloved Zimbabwe sanctions have been the source of our challenges. The playing field is not even and is openly and deliberately violated by those sponsoring regime change. The BBC programme is nothing but racist bigotry bent on trivialising the war of liberation and the living liberation war heroes. For decades the history of a black person has been that of subservience, abused and humiliation. He has been denied his rightful place. He must always say baas to "superhuman" beings. Maybe the BBC should do a special programme on how they toppled Kwame Nkrumah, and how they threw Patrice Lumumba into sulphuric acid. Did Tom Mboya of Kenya have to be assassinated if the British are so democratic as they claim to be? What about the fraud they committed against King Lobengula? The BBC and their government wanted the black man to have remained confined to the "mukwenyashuro" type of soil in Chivi, Mberengwa, Gutu and other rural areas. This is why economic rights have been relegated to the dustbin by the white man. The black man is made to believe that civil and political rights are more important than economic rights and the end result is perpetuation of poverty. What the programme is meant to achieve will certainly not perturb us. We know we are under sanctions and we know they imposed them on our country and our sin was taking what rightly belongs to us. God gave us Zimbabwe to enjoy its fruits not to be treated like second-class citizens. The kith and kin of the British owe it to President Mugabe for his generous commitment to reconciliation. When Father Zimbabwe, Dr Joshua Nkomo said: "Nxa ufuna imali pendulela ivala elithi lima uzayithola imali", he simply meant that money comes from the soil. To my brothers and sisters the fastest way to get rich is to work hard in the fields. Just like the Israelis and Palestinians have the right to their land, Zimbabweans are no exception. The late Stanlake Samkange wrote the book "On Trial for My Country", indeed our President is on trial for giving land to his people. The BBC lies have been exposed and they will continue to be exposed. The Bible says the truth shall set you free. C. Zhou. Gweru. Oil and occupation Posted: Sunday, August 12, 2007 ¤ Countering The Big Lies Syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer's most recent article (Promoting Dangerous Divisions in Middle East) is the same old re-hashing of opinions of what is happening in Iraq. It is dull and laden with self-praise for her superior intuition about events in the Middle East. Among all her tired opinions, one statement stuck out like a black person at a Ku Klux Klan rally. Geyer wrote about being in Saudi Arabia in the fall of 1990, just across the border from occupied Kuwait: She reminisced: "What was happening with Iraqi troops all over the place? We found out soon enough. It was horror on a mass scale: piles of women's breasts were found in bags ..." I thought I had heard all the lies about the Iraqi regime, but this one is new. ¤ Is bin Laden Responsible for the 9/11 attacks? ¤ Just Another Vacation From Reality ¤ Oil and occupation The US administration feigned outrage when former US president Jimmy Carter said on 2 February 2007 that some people in Washington wanted US troops to stay in Iraq for 10 years, if not more. The US invaded Iraq in order to secure a permanent military base in the Middle East, the former president argued. Time has proved him right. A White House spokesman recently admitted that the US was planning a long-term military presence in Iraq: the ongoing war, as well as the war on terror, would, he said, last a long time. Washington was less ambiguous about its goals when it first attacked Iraq. Then US officials went on record to say the fight against international terror could last for 10 years, involve nearly 40 countries and 60 political movements. Washington also claimed that it wanted to destroy weapons of mass destruction, free Iraqis from dictatorship, and create a lasting democracy in Iraq. ¤ The Joyride That Was The American Empire ¤ A New Cold War Over Oil In February, George W. Bush announced the creation of a new unified combatant command for Africa. After several years of deliberation, the Pentagon finally agreed to create the African Command (AFRICOM), which will relieve the European Command (EUCOM) and the Central Command (CENTCOM), which earlier shared responsibility for Africa. In July, Bush appointed General William "Kip" Ward to run AFRICOM, which will be based in Germany until it finds an African home (Liberia, home to an Omega surveillance system from 1976 to 1997, is openly lobbying to play host). Sensitive to criticism that AFRICOM seeks military solutions to African problems, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs, Theresa Whelan, said, "Africa Command is not going to reflect a U.S. intent to engage kinetically in Africa. This is about prevention. This isn't about fighting wars." ¤ Sudan, Oil, and the Darfur Crisis ¤ Faith in UN Intervention in Darfur Misplaced ¤ Permit Sharon a Comatose Smile… You don't hear much about Ariel Sharon, these days, quietly passing his days on a life-support machine with no indication of when or how his coma will end. But were Sharon capable of comprehending and appreciating his legacy, right now he'd be laughing his head off. When everyone else was talking of peace with the Palestinian leadership, Sharon was doing his best to sabotage it, arguing instead that Israel needed to come to mutually beneficial arrangements with Palestinian warlords in discreet fiefdoms. And the source of his delight, today, would be the willingness of Mahmoud Abbas to accept the role of Marshal Petain in a Palestinian Vichy regime. Today, Abbas dines in Jericho with the leader of the occupation, while personally insisting on the maintenance of a blockade on Gaza to starve its people (his people) into rejecting Hamas. ¤ The Mercenary Revolution If you think the U.S. has only 160,000 troops in Iraq, think again. With almost no congressional oversight and even less public awareness, the Bush administration has more than doubled the size of the U.S. occupation through the use of private war companies. There are now almost 200,000 private "contractors" deployed in Iraq by Washington. This means that U.S. military forces in Iraq are now outsized by a coalition of billing corporations whose actions go largely unmonitored and whose crimes are virtually unpunished. ¤ US and French Oil Conglomerates Share the Spoils of War Editor's Note What this agreement suggests is that US oil interests are sharing the spoils of war with Europe's largest oil giant, the Franco-Belgian oil conglomerate Total. This rapprochement between Chevron and Total is consistent with the shift in French politics. President Nicolas Sarkozy is broadly representative of the interests of the Franco-Belgian conglomerate. The current situation is in overt contrast to that prevailing prior to the invasion of Iraq, characterised by the conflict in the United Nations Security Council between the US and Britain on the one hand and France (backed by Germany) on the other. The building of a US-French consensus on Iraq (e.g. between Sarkozy and Bush) is largely the result of the willingness of US oil interests to share the spoils with their European counterparts in exchange for their political and military backing of Washington's foreign policy in the Middle East. Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 9 August 2007 ¤ BAE profits soar on Iraq conflict Work to re-equip UK and US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has helped profits to soar at defence group BAE Systems. The UK's largest defence firm, BAE made a pre-tax profit of 657m pounds sterling ($1.4bn), compared with 378m pounds sterling a year earlier. BAE said the "high tempo" of UK and US military operations was increasing demand for land systems to support armed forces overseas. ¤ Well-Off Fleeing Iraq Find Poverty and Pain in Jordan ¤ The Fog of Fame: Part Two How Pat Tillman Died ¤ Myths of Mideast Arms Sales Flashback ¤ No End in Sight ¤ U.S. backs Maliki, avoids talk of Iraq government collapse ¤ Oh well. At least losing all those AK-47s builds a market ¤ Separation of oil and state On several occasions I've been presented with the argument that contrary to widespread opinion in the anti-war movement and on the left, oil was not really a factor in the the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq. The argument's key, perhaps sole, point is that the oil companies did not push for the war. Responding to only this particular point: firstly, the executives of multinational corporations are not in the habit of making public statements concerning vital issues of American foreign policy, either for or against. And we don't know what the oil company executives said in private to high Washington officials, although we do know that such executives have a lot more access to such officials than you or I, like at Cheney's secret gatherings. More importantly, we have to distinguish between oil as a fuel and oil as a political weapon. ¤ How the Democrats Blew It in Only 8 Months ¤ Fighting the Democrats' Complicity with Bush Despite the massive, overwhelming repudiation of the Iraq war and the Bush Jr. administration by the American people in the November 2006 national elections conjoined with their consequent installation of a Congress controlled by the Democratic Party with a mandate to terminate the Iraq war, since its ascent to power in January 2007 the Democrats in Congress have taken no effective steps to stop, impede, or thwart the Bush Jr. administration's wars of aggression against Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, or anywhere else, including their long-standing threatened war against Iran. To the contrary, the new Democrat-controlled Congress decisively facilitated these serial Nuremberg crimes against peace on May 24, 2007 by enacting a $95 billion supplemental appropriation to fund war operations through September 30, 2007 ¤ Nearly half US murder victims are black: report ¤ It's Official: Sheehan runs against Pelosi! ¤ Visible Secrets ¤ Fatigue cripples US army in Iraq ¤ The Cracks in Saddam's Dam ¤ Tucker Carlson and his Whitewashed Panel Discussing "Blackness" ¤ A New Tactical Twist in the Coming War on Iran Bush, Congress Could Collide On Iran Posted: Saturday, August 11, 2007 WASHINGTON -- Taking military action against Iran could put President Bush on a collision course with Congress, leading Democrats and a Republican lawmaker cautioned Friday following Bush’s threat of unspecified consequences for alleged Iranian meddling in Iraq. It’s been the consensus for months among the Democrats who hold the majority that Bush must get congressional authorization before any military strike. But the authorization would be no easy sell. Two knowledgeable U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because intelligence on Iran is highly classified, said that the administration so far doesn’t have "smoking-gun" evidence that could be used publicly to justify an air attack. Full Article : commondreams.org It's Official: Sheehan runs against Pelosi! Posted: Saturday, August 11, 2007 US peace activist Cindy Sheehan, famous for her criticism of the Bush administration, is now running for Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's seat in Congress. Sheehan, who lost her son Casey in the Iraq war in 2005, officially announced her plan to run against the San Francisco Democrat in 2008 on Thursday, in order to represent her fellow citizens of California. Full Article : wakeupfromyourslumber.com Chinese Launch High-Tech Plan to Track People Posted: Saturday, August 11, 2007 By Keith Bradsher SHENZHEN, China, Aug. 9 — At least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets here in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software from an American-financed company to recognize automatically the faces of police suspects and detect unusual activity. Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens. Data on the chip will include not just the citizen's name and address but also work history, educational background, religion, ethnicity, police record, medical insurance status and landlord's phone number. Even personal reproductive history will be included, for enforcement of China's controversial "one child" policy. Plans are being studied to add credit histories, subway travel payments and small purchases charged to the card. Full Article : nytimes.com US doles out millions for street cameras By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | August 12, 2007 WASHINGTON -- The Department of Homeland Security is funneling millions of dollars to local governments nationwide for purchasing high-tech video camera networks, accelerating the rise of a "surveillance society" in which the sense of freedom that stems from being anonymous in public will be lost, privacy rights advocates warn. Cheney Urging Strikes On Iran Posted: Friday, August 10, 2007 WASHINGTON - President Bush charged Thursday that Iran continues to arm and train insurgents who are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and he threatened action if that continues. At a news conference Thursday, Bush said Iran had been warned of unspecified consequences if it continued its alleged support for anti-American forces in Iraq. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had conveyed the warning in meetings with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad, the president said. Full Article : commondreams.org Squalid End to Empire: British Retreat from Africa Posted: Friday, August 10, 2007 ¤ Squalid End to Empire: British Retreat from Africa Colonial history, seen from the side of the colonists, can be summarised as follows: I came, I saw, I conquered. Then I lied about it. The BBC radio 4 website has a story called Rigging Nigeria. I have not actually listened to the documentary, but I was intrigued, as you might imagine, by the title. The website claims that the British rigged the elections in Nigeria in 1960 to counter the threat of communism. You will have heard the recent outcry about the Nigerian elections and how deeply flawed they allegedly were. I decided to do a bit of digging, and came up with a mother lode of corroboration of this tale of British duplicity in dealing with its colony. All things are revealed in the fullness of time, in spite of official secret acts, hundred-year gagging orders and that sort of thing. I have been struck, in writing this, about just how little I really know about what went on in colonial times. I think this is dangerous ignorance on my part, and I have resolved to do something about it...starting with force-feeding you the results of my peregrinations in the ether. ¤ WHO WILL BE THE FIRST? ¤ The Jail ¤ American Genocide In The Middle East: Three Million and Counting Deaths directly and indirectly attributable to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq have neared one million people, a body count higher than the genocides in Rwanda and Sudan combined, according to a new report released by Just Foreign Policy. That brings the U.S. caused death count in the Middle East to over three million people, and that’s not even counting fatalities in Afghanistan or Palestine. ¤ US Hegemony Spawns Russian-Chinese Military Alliance This week the Russian and Chinese militaries are conducting a joint military exercise involving large numbers of troops and combat vehicles. The former Soviet Republics of Tajikistan, Kyrgkyzstan, and Kazakstan are participating. Other countries appear ready to join the military alliance. This new potent military alliance is a real world response to neoconservative delusions about US hegemony. Neocons believe that the US is supreme in the world and can dictate its course. The neoconservative idiots have actually written papers, read by Russians and Chinese, about why the US must use its military superiority to assert hegemony over Russia and China. ¤ The Psychology of the $14,000 Handbag ¤ "Terror War" Terrorizes Spineless Democrats ¤ British generals blast 'cowboy' US troops ¤ Whites minority in 1 in 10 US counties ¤ Chávez opens his wallet wider to boost Latin American influence ¤ US Hegemony Spawns Russian-Chinese Military Alliance ¤ The Hiroshima Cover-Up A story that the U.S. government hoped would never see the light of day finally has been published, 60 years after it was spiked by military censors. The discovery of reporter George Weller's firsthand account of conditions in post-nuclear Nagasaki sheds light on one of the great journalistic betrayals of the last century: the cover-up of the effects of the atomic bombing on Japan. On Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima; three days later, Nagasaki was hit. Gen. Douglas MacArthur promptly declared southern Japan off-limits, barring the news media. More than 200,000 people died in the atomic bombings of the cities, but no Western journalist witnessed the aftermath and told the story. Instead, the world's media obediently crowded onto the battleship USS Missouri off the coast of Japan to cover the Japanese surrender. ¤ Academic freedom doesn't extend to those who speak out against Israel The Psychology of the $14,000 Handbag Posted: Thursday, August 9, 2007 What is too much to spend on a suit? The question weighed on Barry Schwarz as he scanned the racks at Boyds men's store in Philadelphia, which were laden with $3,000 Brioni suits. "Their prices were just out of the world," recalls Mr. Schwarz, a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College. We've all been there: A window display or a recommendation lures us into a store -- and we face unexpectedly astronomical price tags. It seems to happen more often these days as many luxury brands -- selling everything from $14,000 Ralph Lauren handbags to $899 Bugaboo baby strollers and $6,900 Beefeater barbecue grills -- push their top price points higher than they've ever gone before. What's priced below falls into that ever-expanding category: "affordable luxury." Full Article : online.wsj.com Nearly half US murder victims are black: report Posted: Thursday, August 9, 2007 African-Americans are victims of nearly half the murders committed in the United States despite making up only 13 percent of the population, a report published Thursday showed. Around 8,000 of nearly 16,500 murder victims in 2005, or 49 percent, were black Americans, according to the report released by the statistics bureau of the Department of Justice. Full Article : breitbart.com The Terror America Wrought Posted: Wednesday, August 8, 2007 ¤ Britain is protecting the biggest heroin crop of all time ¤ Occupation 101 Video Award-winning documentary film on the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The film depicts life in occupied Palestine under Israeli military occupation. Synopsis: A thought-provoking and powerful documentary film on the current and historical root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unlike any other film ever produced on the conflict -- 'Occupation 101' presents a comprehensive analysis of the facts and hidden truths surrounding the never ending controversy and dispels many of its long-perceived myths and misconceptions. The film also details life under Israeli military rule, the role of the United States in the conflict, and the major obstacles that stand in the way of a lasting and viable peace. The roots of the conflict are explained through first-hand on-the-ground experiences from leading Middle East scholars, peace activists, journalists, religious leaders and humanitarian workers whose voices have too often been suppressed in American media outlets ¤ Iraq Is About to Become a Lot Worse The war in Iraq is about to get worse -- much worse. The Democrats' decision to let the war run its course, while they frantically wash their hands of responsibility, means that it will sputter and stagger forward until the mission collapses. This will be sudden. The security of the Green Zone, our imperial city, will be increasingly breached. Command and control will disintegrate. And we will back out of Iraq humiliated and defeated. But this will not be the end of the conflict. It will, in fact, signal a phase of the war far deadlier and more dangerous to American interests. ¤ Continuing violence boosts funeral industry in Baghdad ¤ Uncle Sam, Your Banker Will See You Now Early this morning China let the idiots in Washington, and on Wall Street, know that it has them by the short hairs. Two senior spokesmen for the Chinese government observed that China's considerable holdings of US dollars and Treasury bonds "contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency." Should the US proceed with sanctions intended to cause the Chinese currency to appreciate, "the Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar." If Western financial markets are sufficiently intelligent to comprehend the message, US interest rates will rise regardless of any further action by China. At this point, China does not need to sell a single bond. In an instant, China has made it clear that US interest rates depend on China, not on the Federal Reserve ¤ Racism against Black Dominicans has become epidemic ¤ Racism 'may harm black pupils' education' ¤ Venezuela Signs New Economic Agreements in Argentina ¤ Tsvangirai a hopeless leader – Mutambara ¤ Zimbabwe: The DNA of illegal regime change The current flurry of international media activity is hard to ignore as we approach the national Heroes commemoration on August 13 and the subsequent Sadc heads of state and government summit in Zambia and the UN General Assembly in September. The BBC World Service is airing a 'special' documentary on Zimbabwe on August 13, titled, "The BBC investigating a country on the brink: Zimbabwe, a country out of control", a day when the nation commemorates its 27th National Heroes' holiday. ¤ The Terror America Wrought During a week of mayhem in Iraq, in which terrorists have rightly been condemned for targeting schoolchildren, it is sobering to recall that this week is also the 62nd anniversary of a U.S. attack that deliberately took the lives of thousands of children on their way to school in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As noted in the Strategic Bombing Survey conducted at President Harry Truman's request, when the bomb hit Hiroshima on April 6, 1945, "nearly all the school children ... were at work in the open," to be exploded, irradiated or incinerated in the perfect firestorm that the planners back at the University of California-run Los Alamos lab had envisioned for the bomb's maximum psychological impact. ¤ Welcome To Siberia, Santa ¤ The Unseen Lies: Journalism As Propaganda ¤ The Myth of Mistrust ¤ The United States and "Regime Change" in Iran Though the Bush administration has repeatedly emphasized its desire for democratization and regime change in Iran, there are serious questions regarding how it might try to bring this about. There is, however, little question about the goal of toppling the Islamist government, with the Bush administration threatening war, arming ethnic minorities, and funding opposition groups. These efforts come in spite of the 1981 Algiers Accords, which led to the release of American hostages seized from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, in which the United States pledged to never again attempt to overthrow the Iranian government. The failure of the United States to honor this signed bilateral agreement has contributed to the Iranians' lack of trust in the U.S. government and overall anti-American sentiment in that country. ¤ Powerful earthquake hits Indonesia ¤ Rain cripples New York City transit ¤ Pakistan to impose 'emergency rule' Zimbabwe: The DNA of illegal regime change Posted: Wednesday, August 8, 2007 By Stephen T. Maimbodei The Herald August 08, 2007 The current flurry of international media activity is hard to ignore as we approach the national Heroes commemoration on August 13 and the subsequent Sadc heads of state and government summit in Zambia and the UN General Assembly in September. The BBC World Service is airing a 'special' documentary on Zimbabwe on August 13, titled, "The BBC investigating a country on the brink: Zimbabwe, a country out of control", a day when the nation commemorates its 27th National Heroes' holiday. This analysis is an attempt to pre-empt the documentary and its intended impact. What is their motive or agenda? Has something new been added to the all familiar picture we are accustomed to? Is the picture getting larger since there is a new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in the UK who says his policy on Zimbabwe will not be different from his predecessor's? For the superstitious, the figure 13 spells doom, but for the patriot, airing this programme on August 13 is a smack on the face for it is not sheer coincidence that this programme, whose trailers started airing more than two weeks ago and is building up momentum, was poignantly slotted on this date in order to make our defence forces react to the current hardships. It is like the BBC is spoiling for a real fight. What is there about Zimbabwe that they are investigating when it is their former colony, and when they have an embassy in the country, and when Zimbabwe is equally represented in the UK? Their disclaimer that 'the BBC is not allowed to operate in Zimbabwe, so they used their correspondent in South Africa or entered the country secretly' is quite annoying because the BBC is a state sponsored media house. Why again should they sneak into the country when they have the full services of their embassy? Where do people like Brian Hungwe and sometimes Steve Vickers report from? In this highly technological environment, does the BBC need correspondents on the ground in Zimbabwe? Peter Bailey has interviewed Zimbabweans many times for radio, TV and the Internet. Therefore, who is fooling whom? Some of the highlights of the programme are Zimbabwe's hyperinflation and its effect on ordinary people. They claim that about 3 000 starving Zimbabweans cross into South Africa every day as border jumpers. They also claim that thousands are crossing into Botswana and Zambia to buy basic commodities, and that according to Zimbabwean opposition MPs and activists, some people are already dying of hunger. Number crunching when it comes to Zimbabwean issues is quite problematic. When one adds up the HIV and Aids deaths, the economic migrants in various parts of the world, then Zimbabwe is empty, save for government officials. In one of the trails, a reporter struggles to make a Zambian minister want to admit that the Zimbabweans crossing over into Zambia are refugees, but he could not budge. Christopher Dell, former US ambassador to Zimbabwe must be singing: " ... Diplomatic etiquette was not necessary nokuti basa ndakasiya ndapedza." The last article he did for The Guardian newspaper, and the subsequent interview on the BBC World Service were those of a man who had accomplished his mission. Where other men had feared to tread, including Sir Brian, he had, and he had even made sure that he had himself detained by Zimbabwean police, just to show the world the 'gross human rights violations by the Mugabe Government.' And sure enough most brainwashed Zimbabweans and the gullible international community bought into that. In his valedictory interview, he admitted their failure to effect regime change through all the methods that they had used since the formation of the MDC. But, he was very confident that the hyperinflation would do the job, and that President Mugabe would not be in power for much longer since the people were suffering immensely. Please! This is the ambassador of the so-called most powerful nation in the world bragging so unashamedly about a problem they aggravated in a sovereign state. And this is also an ambassador prophesying doom and gloom for our nation, making it sound like he was saying that all Zimbabweans will be millionaires. He forgets that his own president – George Bush – cannot clean up the mess he caused in different parts of the world. Right now, Iraq and Afghanistan are burning, in some cases with American weaponry that was 'carelessly' distributed to soldiers turned insurgents. So much for lectures in western democracy, human rights and the global village where the village bullies lord it over the weak. But as a nation we also have discerning people. A few years ago Professor Sheunesu Mupepereki kept on telling the nation on a TV talk show programme moderated by Professor C. Mararike as a people, "takagarigwa pasi." On each programme he reiterated, "VaMararike, takagarigwa pasi!" (Professor Mararike, our fate was determined by westerners.) This figurative statement is very true and telling, but because many of us suffer from tunnel vision, and that we have selective amnesia regarding matters of state, we did not take him seriously. We thought that it was the usual ZTV propaganda. Instead we were happy to see the cut and paste BBC panorama programme. In the same vein, those who will have the opportunity to listen to this programme next week will realise that some of the so-called border jumpers speak with a very distinct South African accent, and that one of the young men struggles to speak in broken English. It is quite surprising because in most BBC programmes, they use translators for people who are not very conversant in the English language. What Prof Mupepereki meant was that on foreign policy issues, especially on Africa, the western nations (the UK, EU and the USA) work hand in glove. On Zimbabwe, takagarigwa pasi; on slavery takagarigwa pasi; on the partition of Africa takagarigwa pasi; colonialism takagarigwa pasi; post-colonial/neo-colonial state, takagarigwa pasi; globalisation, takagarigwa pasi; etc, etc. They will continue kutigarira pasi kusvika ameni, isu tichingoti, bva rega ndione (lets see). To them, Zimbabwe is a stage, and they are playacting. Their aim is to upstage and receive standing ovations. To them, what they are doing in the name of effecting good governance is even more legitimate because some of our own are supping with them, although they just receive breadcrumbs. The resources so far used in the regime change game plan mean that there is a lot more about Zimbabwe than their kith and kin that were displaced from the land. That diamonds were found in a poor village in Marange shocked them and this was an indicator to them that there are vast natural resources in this country, and they want them, come rain come fire. Remarking that 'for a country that used to be the bread basket of Africa' to have such levels of poverty is a naïve and myopic analysis of a problem that dates back more than a century. It is a fact that as a nation, we are facing serious challenges, but they actually aggravate the problem by working with some of our sons and daughters who are supposed to be part of the long-term solutions. This is why the timing of this programme is a real smack in the face for all those who love this nation, and who wish that these problems should be resolved by Zimbabweans through a unity of purpose approach. Don't they also realise that such an action is a deliberate ploy at "placing the devil in the detail?" Just as they resolved the problems in the former Yugoslavia on their own and right now, Tony Blair waited less than a day to get a job as a Middle East envoy, Africa did not complain. So, why the continued bully tactics on Zimbabwe when the people are suffering the way they are? We refuse to be treated as poodles. We will soldier on as we commemorate the gallant work done by our sons and daughters throughout the three Chimurengas. Yes, you say that we should not tempt fate, but the truth of the matter is that Zimbabwe will never be a colony again! The BBC can do a zillion programmes on us, but this will be just like chasing the wind. Tsvangirai a hopeless leader – Mutambara Posted: Wednesday, August 8, 2007 By Bulawayo Bureau The Herald August 08, 2007 PROFESSOR Arthur Mutambara, who heads a faction of the opposition MDC, yesterday poured scorn on the leadership qualities of Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, saying Zimbabwe does not deserve "another Chiluba". Speaking in a television interview on the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Hardtalk programme, Prof Mutambara dismissed Mr Tsvangirai as a hopeless leader, remarking that even though he may be viewed by some as "brave", the truth is that he certainly lacks the "strategic vision" to transform Zimbabwe into a globally competitive economy. Likening Mr Tsvangirai to Mr Frederick Chiluba – a former bus conductor and trade unionist who toppled President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia in the 1991 elections but was later tainted by accusations of corruption and economic mismanagement – Prof Mutambara said "bravery is not enough ... you need an economic vision". "You may be brave, have guts, but what is needed is to have a vision ... strategy and tactics," he said. Prof Mutambara had been riled by insinuations by the BBC interviewer, Alan Little, that he was a coward compared to Mr Tsvangirai, who was charged with treason in 2002 and was on March 11 this year hurt in a clash with the police in Harare. Mr Tsvangirai had gone to the police station after learning of Prof Mutambara’s arrest. Political analysts said at that time Mr Tsvangirai feared that Prof Mutambara would "steal the thunder from him" in the eyes of the Western forces supporting the opposition party in the regime-change agenda in Zimbabwe. He allegedly confronted the police, resulting in an incident in which he was injured. In yesterday’s interview, Prof Mutambara – who recently described his arch-rival Mr Tsvangirai as "an intellectual midget" and "a weak and indecisive leader" – fell short of saying that the Tsvangirai camp is full of hypocrites who accuse Zanu-PF of being undemocratic yet they themselves routinely flout the basic tenets of democracy. He said opposition leaders must be truly democratic and desist from violence, or else Zimbabwe would end up with "a false revolution" like what he said happened in Zambia. A fortnight ago, the robotics and mechatronics professor launched a scathing attack on Mr Tsvangirai, a former mine worker and trade unionist, caricaturing him as a leader who lacks a vision and is "pursuing a perverted agenda". This was after the Tsvangirai-led group had spurned a unity offer by refusing to adopt a so-called coalition agreement that would see the two groups fielding the perennial election loser, Mr Tsvangirai, as their sole candidate in next year’s presidential race. Last week, Mr Tsvangirai did not take Prof Mutambara’s salvo lying down but returned fire by warning that he was "not the enemy". During yesterday’s interview, Prof Mutambara unsuccessfully tried to duck questions on the attacks that have been levelled by his camp on Mr Tsvangirai. When cornered, he was left with no choice but to lash out at Mr Tsvangirai. Clearly at pains to convey his anguish to his British and United States audiences following the collapse of the so-called unity talks between the two MDC factions, Prof Mutambara repeatedly complained that although his camp was ready to adopt a "coalition agreement" on a "single-candidate principle" for the March 2008 joint presidential and parliamentary elections, the Tsvangirai camp had since refused to embrace the initiative. The agreement, he explained, was scuttled by Mr Tsvangirai at the 11th hour. He blasted the Tsvangirai camp for failing to appreciate the importance of mobilising a united opposition to Zanu-PF, but quickly added that his faction was ready to go it alone by fielding its own candidates at the forthcoming polls. Prof Mutambara told his BBC interviewer that it was wrong for people to consider him a newcomer to opposition politics. He was in opposition politics long before Mr Tsvangirai even considered venturing into politics, he said. He argued that, in fact, when he was arrested by police as a student leader at the University of Zimbabwe in the late 1980s, his recollection of Mr Morgan Tsvangirai was his (Mr Tsvangirai’s) condemnation of the detention. This clearly showed that he has been in the "struggle against Zanu-PF" for a longer time than Mr Tsvangirai, he added. The interviewer asked Prof Mutambara whether it was true that he was a Shona figurehead at the helm of what is essentially a Ndebele faction. Hard-pressed to strike a chord with sections of the Matabeleland population, where a desperate scramble for votes between the MDC factions is anticipated in the countdown to March 2008, Prof Mutambara criticised Mr Tsvangirai for recently announcing during an overseas visit that his camp was willing to consider a blanket pardon for alleged human rights violations. "No blanket amnesty. No. We want restorative justice. What about the victims?" said Prof Mutambara, in remarks apparently directed at Mr Tsvangirai, who has touted the "amnesty" line. When asked about his election plan, Prof Mutambara said his faction has a twin-pronged strategy anchored on civil disobedience and the ongoing Sadc-brokered dialogue between Zanu-PF and the MDC factions. "We want free and fair elections," he added. This is the second time within two weeks that Prof Mutambara has attacked the leadership qualities of Mr Tsvangirai following the break-up of the unity talks between the two factions. Venezuela Signs New Economic Agreements in Argentina Posted: Wednesday, August 8, 2007 Beginning a tour of several South American nations this week, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez arrived to Argentina yesterday to formalize several economic agreements between Venezuela and Argentina. Chavez said that projects to build new industry in Venezuela as well as supply Venezuelan gas to Argentina have the intention of diversifying the economies and increasing regional integration. Full Article : venezuelanalysis.com America's most wanted drug trafficker held in Brazil Posted: Wednesday, August 8, 2007 One of the world's most wanted cocaine traffickers was seized by Brazilian police yesterday at a luxury Sao Paulo housing complex. According to federal police Juan Carlos Ramírez-Abadía - a 44-year-old Colombian accused by US authorities of ordering hundreds of executions and smuggling billions of dollars worth of cocaine into the US - was caught at around 6.30am local time. Abadía, better known as Chupeta or Lollipop, was one of the US's most wanted men. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had been offering $5m (£2.5m) for information leading to his capture. Full Article : guardian.co.uk Racism 'may harm black pupils' education' Posted: Wednesday, August 8, 2007 Racist attitudes by teachers may be condemning black schoolchildren to an inferior education, according to a Government-backed study. Black Caribbean pupils are more likely to be expelled from school and less likely to be put in the top set compared to white British children, it said. Staff may be guilty of "unintentional racism" by stereotyping black children as badly-behaved - and underestimating their academic ability, according to the controversial report. Full Article : telegraph.co.uk Racism against Black Dominicans has become epidemic Posted: Wednesday, August 8, 2007 When I read last week about the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic censuring Loft, a nightclub in the Naco neighborhood of Santo Domingo, because of the club's policy of discrimination against black patrons and employees, it brought back sour memories of a recent trip I took to the island. Dominicans are known the world over for our great baseball players, our beautiful beaches and our friendly people. But there is something of a dirty secret that we sweep under the drug. Racism against black Dominicans, rich or poor, happens everyday, and not just in clubs. Full Article : nypost.com The Bravery of Barbara Lee Posted: Tuesday, August 7, 2007 ¤ Heroism and the language of fascism ¤ The Pentagon's latest Big Lie The quality of Pentagon-propaganda is really deteriorating. The War Dept.'s latest fraud appeared in this week's newspapers under the ominous-sounding headline: "US Kills Mastermind of Iraq Shrine bombs" The article is similar to hundreds of other stories we've seen in the passed few years boasting of the murder of an "alleged" terrorist kingpin whose evil deeds have prevented democracy from flourishing in Iraq. Oh, please. ¤ The Massacre by Occupation Forces in Doluia City ¤ Iraq says no to oil theft ¤ Crucial information on the Iraq that was ¤ Nicaragua defies US with Iran trade deal ¤ Georgia accuses Russia of air attack ¤ Why the Surge Has Failed The war in Iraq passed a significant but little remarked anniversary this summer. The conflict that President Bush announced was effectively over on May 1, 2003 has now gone on longer than the First World War. Like that great conflict almost a century ago the Iraqi war has been marked by repeated claims that progress is being made and a final breakthrough is in the offing. ¤ Why Do We Need the Democrats? ¤ The Bravery of Barbara Lee With all that has happened since then -- with all that has spun out of control, with all the ways that the U.S. government has mimicked the evil it deplores -- it's stunning to watch and hear, for a single minute, what this brave Congresswoman had to say. After speaking those words, Rep. Barbara Lee voted no. And the fevered slanders began immediately. She was called a traitor. Pundits went crazy. Death threats came. Barbara Lee kept on keeping on. And nearly six years later, she's a key leader of antiwar forces inside and outside Congress. In her own way, she is a political descendent of Sen. Morse, whose denunciations of the Vietnam War are equally inspiring to watch today. ¤ Myths of Mideast Arms Sales The Bush administration's proposal to send $20 billion worth of arms and $43 billion in military aid to U.S. allies in the Middle East has been promoted by repeating a series of time-worn myths that should have long since been abandoned. With a shooting war in Iraq and a war of words with Iran well under way, the last thing the region needs is a new influx of high tech weaponry. The suggestions of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that this flood of armaments will be "stabilizing" in the short term while underscoring the U.S. commitment to "moderates" in the region over the longer term is a prime example of this historical amnesia. ¤ The Fear of Fear Itself ¤ Bush to Karzai: Will You Just Shut Up Abour Iran! ¤ White Elephants ¤ The real debate about Iraq is between real, fake war foes ¤ Ron Paul's Wise Foreign Policy ¤ Maliki puppet government collapsing ¤ Bush's war policy: When time heals nothing ¤ Forming a Human Levee for Human Rights in New Orleans ¤ Readiness for endless war Bush Gets a Spying Blank Check Posted: Tuesday, August 7, 2007 Eager to leave for its August recess, Congress handed George W. Bush another blank check on executive power, letting him order up spying directives against a vast number of people, including Americans, if they are physically outside the United States. Full Article : consortiumnews.com Nicaragua defies US with Iran trade deal Posted: Tuesday, August 7, 2007 Nicaragua has signed contracts with Iran worth hundreds of millions of pounds in defiance of warnings from the United States. President Daniel Ortega brushed aside Washington's concerns by agreeing to trade bananas, coffee and meat in exchange for Iranian help with infrastructure projects. Mr Ortega and Iran's energy minister, Hamid Chitchian, signed the accords in Nicaragua's capital, Managua, on Saturday, cementing Tehran's toehold in what the US considers its backyard. Full Article : guardian.co.uk War crime upon war crime Posted: Tuesday, August 7, 2007 But the power grid didn't just "become decrepit," nor did the water purification plants. It's not Saddam Hussein who needs to be blamed for this situation. The power grid and the water purification plants were deliberately bombed by the U.S during the first Gulf War, and deliberately bombed with complete foreknowledge of the consequences, thereby committing a double war crime - not only attacking civilian targets, but doing so with the knowledge (and, one can only presume, the intention) that genocide would result (in the form of more than a million dead Iraqis during the sanctions period). Full Article : uruknet.info War crime upon war crime Posted: Monday, August 6, 2007 ¤ In Bush we trust - or else ¤ Karzai says Afghanistan has 'deteriorated' ¤ Hiroshima, Nagasaki and America's Immoral Addiction to Nuclear Weapons ¤ Bush Deliberately Creates "Constructive Chaos" in Iraq ¤ War crime upon war crime ¤ Sixty bodies found in Baquba, Iraqi police say ¤ The War Against Iraqi Women Just how far is the occupation willing to turn the clocks back, on the rights and civil liberties of women in Iraq, with the forced separation of families and the use of rape as a weapon to humiliate and control the population. The present day situation is a continuation of "mediaeval traditions", which is being enforced by the "civilised colonialists", in a scene which was first described in 1982 by Suad Khari of the Iraqi Women's League. ¤ 190,000 US weapons feared missing in Iraq ¤ Nicaragua defies US with Iran trade deal ¤ American Disconnection ¤ War is Collective Insanity August 6th is a date that reminds us of a horrible chapter in human history. On this day 62 years ago, the U.S. launched atomic warfare when we dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima, Japan almost immediately killing an estimated 80,000 civilians and tens of thousands more who died horrible deaths within a few years due to the radiation poisoning they experienced. On August 9, 1945 we dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki killing tens of thousands more. ¤ Bush Gets a Spying Blank Check ¤ The Bush administration's code of silence ¤ Guatemalan Gold, Guatemalan Bones ¤ Bush's Middle East Arms Deals ¤ Hard and Obvious Realities ¤ Bush Executive Order: Criminalizing the Antiwar Movement A presidential Executive Order issued on July 17th, repeals with the stroke of a pen the right to dissent and to oppose the Pentagon's military agenda in Iraq. The Executive Order entitled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq" provides the President with the authority to confiscate the assets of "certain persons" who oppose the US led war in Iraq: "I have issued an Executive Order blocking property of persons determined to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people." In substance, under this executive order, opposing the war becomes an illegal act. ¤ Slandering Zimbabwe's Fight for Independence Zimbabwe is in the grips of an economic crisis. Food and electricity shortages plague the country, but because Zimbabwe is singled out in the Western media for special attention, it seems as if its problems are unique, not part of a wider pattern of scarcity in sub-Saharan Africa, but the product of the misguided policies of the Mugabe government. There's a message in the Western media spin on Zimbabwe: reclaiming land and working to put the economy into hands of nationals leads to economic meltdown. It's best to leave historical patterns of domination alone, and to adapt to the prevailing balance of power. ¤ Let the people decide whether Marxism is obsolete or not! Before we reflect politically about the historic relevance of Marxism in the 21st century, especially for the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, let's first ask: Who is man? Is he really the Shakespearian "paragon of animals" or is he simply a Hobbesian werewolf? Before we condemn Marx of discriminating the Mexicans, Jews, Indians and Chinese, let's recollect some typical ideological racist views about exploited and dominated mankind. We love Marx, we love Simon Bolivar, we love Chavez, but the truth we love even more. ¤ US Interrogation Techniques tantmount to Torture CIA interrogation techniques approved by President Bush are described in a confidential Red Cross report as "tantamount to torture," according to a report in "The New Yorker" magazine. After being denied access for five years to terror suspects, the Red Cross last year interviewed 15 detainees after their transfer to Guantanamo. One of them was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Al Qaeda leader thought to be the primary architect of the Sept. 11 attacks. "Congressional and other Washington sources familiar with the report said that it harshly criticized the C.I.A.'s practices," author Jane Mayer writes in an article titled "The Black Sites" in the August 13 issue. War crime upon war crime Posted: Monday, August 6, 2007 ¤ In Bush we trust - or else ¤ Karzai says Afghanistan has 'deteriorated' ¤ Hiroshima, Nagasaki and America's Immoral Addiction to Nuclear Weapons ¤ Bush Deliberately Creates "Constructive Chaos" in Iraq ¤ War crime upon war crime ¤ Sixty bodies found in Baquba, Iraqi police say ¤ The War Against Iraqi Women Just how far is the occupation willing to turn the clocks back, on the rights and civil liberties of women in Iraq, with the forced separation of families and the use of rape as a weapon to humiliate and control the population. The present day situation is a continuation of "mediaeval traditions", which is being enforced by the "civilised colonialists", in a scene which was first described in 1982 by Suad Khari of the Iraqi Women's League. ¤ 190,000 US weapons feared missing in Iraq ¤ Nicaragua defies US with Iran trade deal ¤ American Disconnection ¤ War is Collective Insanity August 6th is a date that reminds us of a horrible chapter in human history. On this day 62 years ago, the U.S. launched atomic warfare when we dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima, Japan almost immediately killing an estimated 80,000 civilians and tens of thousands more who died horrible deaths within a few years due to the radiation poisoning they experienced. On August 9, 1945 we dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki killing tens of thousands more. ¤ Bush Gets a Spying Blank Check ¤ The Bush administration's code of silence ¤ Guatemalan Gold, Guatemalan Bones ¤ Bush's Middle East Arms Deals ¤ Hard and Obvious Realities ¤ Bush Executive Order: Criminalizing the Antiwar Movement A presidential Executive Order issued on July 17th, repeals with the stroke of a pen the right to dissent and to oppose the Pentagon's military agenda in Iraq. The Executive Order entitled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq" provides the President with the authority to confiscate the assets of "certain persons" who oppose the US led war in Iraq: "I have issued an Executive Order blocking property of persons determined to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people." In substance, under this executive order, opposing the war becomes an illegal act. ¤ Slandering Zimbabwe's Fight for Independence Zimbabwe is in the grips of an economic crisis. Food and electricity shortages plague the country, but because Zimbabwe is singled out in the Western media for special attention, it seems as if its problems are unique, not part of a wider pattern of scarcity in sub-Saharan Africa, but the product of the misguided policies of the Mugabe government. There's a message in the Western media spin on Zimbabwe: reclaiming land and working to put the economy into hands of nationals leads to economic meltdown. It's best to leave historical patterns of domination alone, and to adapt to the prevailing balance of power. ¤ Let the people decide whether Marxism is obsolete or not! Before we reflect politically about the historic relevance of Marxism in the 21st century, especially for the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, let's first ask: Who is man? Is he really the Shakespearian "paragon of animals" or is he simply a Hobbesian werewolf? Before we condemn Marx of discriminating the Mexicans, Jews, Indians and Chinese, let's recollect some typical ideological racist views about exploited and dominated mankind. We love Marx, we love Simon Bolivar, we love Chavez, but the truth we love even more. ¤ US Interrogation Techniques tantmount to Torture CIA interrogation techniques approved by President Bush are described in a confidential Red Cross report as "tantamount to torture," according to a report in "The New Yorker" magazine. After being denied access for five years to terror suspects, the Red Cross last year interviewed 15 detainees after their transfer to Guantanamo. One of them was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Al Qaeda leader thought to be the primary architect of the Sept. 11 attacks. "Congressional and other Washington sources familiar with the report said that it harshly criticized the C.I.A.'s practices," author Jane Mayer writes in an article titled "The Black Sites" in the August 13 issue. Bush Executive Order: Criminalizing the Antiwar Movement Posted: Monday, August 6, 2007 The Executive Order entitled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq" provides the President with the authority to confiscate the assets of whoever opposes the US led war. Full Article : globalresearch.ca US: House Approves Wiretap Bill Posted: Sunday, August 5, 2007 The House handed President Bush a victory Saturday, voting to expand the government's abilities to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States. Full Article : guardian.co.uk The calamity of disregard Posted: Sunday, August 5, 2007 ¤ Afghan victory 'could take 38 years' ¤ Desperate bid to save Asian flood victims ¤ British Helicopters Bombard Oil Establishment ¤ Israel may build nuclear plant ¤ Imperialism's wet dream: war without soldiers ¤ Ethnic cleansing doesn't have to be labor-intensive Much of the Iraqi capital was without running water Thursday and had been for at least 24 hours, compounding the urban misery in a war zone and the blistering heat at the height of the Baghdad summer. Residents and city officials said large sections in the west of the capital had been virtually dry for six days because the already strained electricity grid cannot provide sufficient power to run water purification and pumping stations. ¤ How the U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq's Water Supply Over the last two years, I've discovered documents of the Defense Intelligence Agency proving beyond a doubt that, contrary to the Geneva Convention, the U.S. government intentionally used sanctions against Iraq to degrade the country's water supply after the Gulf War. The United States knew the cost that civilian Iraqis, mostly children, would pay, and it went ahead anyway. The primary document, "Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities," is dated January 22, 1991. It spells out how sanctions will prevent Iraq from supplying clean water to its citizens. ¤ Baghdad: 6 million people, 117 degrees and no water ¤ Boris in Baghdad and other tales In a world where Tony Blair, who should be standing in the dock in the Hague for his part in the illegal invasion of Iraq, is appointed 'peace envoy' and his Chancellor who wrote the cheques for the murderous debacle and should also be shackled and on a plane for the Netherlands, is made Prime Minister (the public not consulted) little should surprise anymore. Meet the Conservative Party candidate for next year's election for Mayor of London : Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (known simply as Boris Johnson.) ¤ 'Civilians dead' in Nato air raids ¤ Arafat was poisoned by Israeli agents ¤ Israel launches Gaza air raid ¤ US House approves $460 billion defence budget ¤ The Myth of 'Executive Privilege' ¤ The President Is Trying To Scare Us Again President George W. Bush is trying to scare us. On July 24, 2007, at Charleston Air Force Base, he mentioned al Qaeda 93 times in a 29-minute speech. For nearly all Americans, mention of al Qaeda brings to mind frightening images of the World Trade Towers crashing to the ground. Nothing reminds us more compellingly of the threat that terrorists pose to our lives, even here in the United States. The president's speechwriters are not fools; they would not write such scripts for their boss unless they knew that he wanted to scare us. So the intent is transparent. ¤ Double Standards in U.S. Aid to the Middle East ¤ The calamity of disregard In the run-up to war, senior British security and intelligence officials as well as diplomats made it clear that they were strongly opposed to the invasion of Iraq - though not clear enough. Why now, why Iraq, they asked; it would merely increase the terrorist threat, as the joint intelligence committee warned ministers less than a month before British troops and bombers joined the US attack on the country. Concern in Whitehall was shared by some perspicacious Americans, including General Tony Zinni, the former head of US central command, which is responsible for operations throughout the Middle East. He called it the wrong war, fought in the wrong place, at the wrong time. 100 people killed in Congo train accident Posted: Friday, August 3, 2007 At least 100 people are feared dead and dozens injured after a goods train derailed in Democratic Republic of Congo. A brake failure caused seven of the train's 10 wagons to leave the track between the cities of Ilebo and Kananga in West Kasai province late on Wednesday night. Some of the injured, who had been riding the wagons illicitly, were carried on people's backs and on bicycles to a hospital six miles away. Full Article : guardian.co.uk Pills not the answer to obesity, says top doctor Posted: Friday, August 3, 2007 Obese people are often simply greedy and should not always be treated with pills, the head of the British Medical Association has said. Dr Hamish Meldrum believes an obsession with medical labels may be stopping overweight people addressing their own problems. He said the obesity epidemic is being mistakenly targeted with medical treatments and doctors' appointments. Full Article : thisislondon.co.uk Darfur: colonised by 'peacekeepers' Posted: Friday, August 3, 2007 ¤ Gasoline for the Fire Like a gambling addict who has to keep betting more to cover his previous losses, the Bush administration’s recently announced plan to provide some $65 billion worth of advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel over the next 10 years represents a reckless, poorly considered attempt to mitigate the consequences of its ill considered invasion of Iraq. The deal also represents an admission of failure of several of the key elements of U.S. security policy in the Middle East, and, perhaps most significantly, it represents a clear abandonment of President Bush’s democratic reform agenda in the region. ¤ America Has Been The World's Bully For 62 Years This country has been heading downhill for a long time and we only have ourselves to blame. When the attacks on the USS Cole happened, we were outraged. Blackhawk Down was a movie that hurt American Pride. When the attacks on the World Trade Center happened, nobody asked the right questions, we were all too mesmerized by the constant repetition of those planes hitting the towers over and over again. The American people wanted someone to pin it on, and the Bush Administration, after they finally had the guts to come back to Washington, gave us the perpetrators. ¤ Truth About Tillman ... Murder's Not 'Friendly Fire' ¤ Tillman memo contradicted citation ¤ Death toll rises in South Asia floods ¤ Libya and France 'sign arms deal' ¤ At U.S. base, Iraqis must use separate latrin ¤ Iraq bleeds US Treasury, enriches contractors ¤ 100 people killed in Congo train accident ¤ On Responsibility, War Guilt and Intellectuals ¤ Russia claims North Pole ¤ Two Weeks in the Occupied Territories ¤ The Return of the Robber Barons ¤ The New York Times and Iraq: Still Getting It Wrong It is somewhat ironic that on the same day that Mr. Michael E. O'Hanlon and Mr. Kenneth M. Pollack of the Brookings Institute extol the progress of President Bush's 'surge' in Iraq, (New York Times, July 30) the Associated Press reported the following: “About 8 million Iraqis -- nearly a third of the population -- need immediate emergency aid because of the humanitarian crisis caused by the war.” It is not easy to conceptualize the number 8,000,000. One way to look at it is to consider that that is the approximate population of New York City. One can imagine the horror that would be felt if the entire population of the United States' largest city were in desperate need of water, sanitation, food and shelter. Does one feel that same sense of horror for the Iraqi people? Perhaps that dismay should be intensified one hundredfold because it is the United States that has caused, and continues to cause, this unspeakable suffering. ¤ Banana Republic As Jonathan Schwarz recently noted, there is a deeply discouraging sameness about the outrages that dissenting writers must address -- and a new front-page story in the Washington Post is a perfect example. In fact, it's a piece that could have been written at any time in the last 100 years or more: "Feds Look the Other Way While United Fruit Company Peddles Death and Corruption in Latin America" Today of course, the infamous United Fruit of yore (whose machinations in Guatemala led to a CIA coup that set off decades of mass-murdering chaos) is known by the more perky name of Chiquita, and conjures up cheery pictures of childhood banana-munching around the family table. ¤ American Fatalism ¤ The Uncounted Casualties of War ¤ The Three Stooges ¤ Media Blitz for War: The Big Guns of August This week the U.S. media establishment is mainlining another fix for the Iraq war: It isn't so bad after all, American military power could turn wrong into right, chronic misleaders now serve as truth-tellers. The hit is that the war must go on.When the White House chief of staff Andrew Card said five years ago that “you don't introduce new products in August,” he was explaining the need to defer an all-out PR campaign for invading Iraq until early fall. But this year, August isn't a bad month to launch a sales pitch for a new and improved Iraq war. Bad products must be re-marketed to counteract buyers' remorse. “War critics” who have concentrated on decrying the lack of U.S. military progress in Iraq are now feeling the hoist from their own petards. But that's to be expected. Those who complain that the war machine is ineffective are asking for more effective warfare even when they think they're demanding peace. ¤ Boom to Bust ¤ US military has a lose-lose dilemma in Iraq ¤ Iran feels the chill in US cold war tactics ¤ In Freedom's Name ¤ Darfur: colonised by 'peacekeepers' The United Nations (UN) Security Council yesterday passed resolution 1769. It establishes another peacekeeping mission in Sudan, UNAMID, for Sudan's war-torn western province of Darfur. With a total authorised strength of 26,000, UNAMID is expected to be the largest UN peacekeeping operation in the world by next year. What's more, UNAMID peacekeepers will deploy under the terms of 'Chapter VII' of the UN Charter, which legally entitles them to use force beyond self-defence. In other words, this will not be a neutral, monitoring contingent, but a militarised force and de facto protagonist in Darfur's conflict. ¤ US 'loses' 190,000 weapons in Iraq ¤ 'Civilians dead' in Afghan bombings ¤ This Famine Proudly Donated By The U.S.A ¤ As Iraq Costs Soar, Contractors Earn Record Profits ¤ THE GREAT PRETENDERS The Uncounted Casualties of War Posted: Thursday, August 2, 2007 by Amy Goodman U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Lucey is not counted among the Iraq war dead. But he did die, when he came home. He committed suicide. His parents are suing the Department of Veterans Affairs and R. James Nicholson, the secretary of veterans affairs, for wrongful death, medical malpractice and other damages. Kevin and Joyce Lucey saw their son's rapid descent after he returned from combat in Iraq in June 2003. Kevin said: "Hallucinations started with the visual, the audio, tactile. He would talk about hearing camel spiders in his room at night, and he actually had a flashlight under his bed, which he could use to search for the camel spiders. His whole life was falling apart." Full Article : commondreams.org US-India Deal Said to 'Increase Nuclear Danger' Posted: Thursday, August 2, 2007 UNITED NATIONS – The Bush administration's decision to let India obtain nuclear technology from the United States is renewing long-held fears that it could result in further proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world. "It will allow India to increase its capacity to make nuclear weapons material," Zia Mian, professor of global security and environment at Princeton University, told OneWorld. "[It] will increase the nuclear danger in South Asia." Full Article : commondreams.org Rescuers expect bridge death toll to rise Posted: Thursday, August 2, 2007 Rescuers at the bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi river during last night's rush hour today said there was little hope of finding more survivors. The rescue operation, mounted after the entire span of the bridge, the main north-south artery of Interstate Highway 35 in Minneapolis - fell into the river, has officially become a recovery operation, police and fire officials said. Police said the remains of four victims of the disaster were with the authorities, and around 60 people were in hospital. Full Article : guardian.co.uk No Money in Peace Posted: Wednesday, August 1, 2007 ¤ No Money in Peace ¤ A new low of mindlessness for our media ¤ 'To Punish and Enslave' ¤ $5.8 Billion More in Oil Revenues for Venezuela ¤ Rumsfeld denies cover-up over 'war hero' ¤ Is the Tillman Case Still a Coverup? The U.S. Army has demoted a retired three-star general and issued other reprimands over the original cover-up surrounding the death of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, hoping to put the issue to rest. (He was fraudulently awarded the Silver Star for combat heroism when in fact he was killed by “friendly fire”.) Career-ending reprimands in his chain-of-command would never have occurred had his family not raised hell, of course. Yet some of the circumstances surrounding the case still raise disturbing questions, which should at least be considered seriously without being considered a lunatic paranoid. ¤ The $63 Billion Sham ¤ Mr. President, Tear Down That Prison! ¤ The Corporate Plan to Crush Black Resistance ¤ 6 killed in Minneapolis bridge collapse ¤ Era of the Bourgeois Romantic ¤ World stocks in meltdown over US economy fears ¤ US will be in Iraq for years: official Washington: President George W. Bush's nominee to be top military adviser said on Tuesday the United States would be in Iraq for "years not months" and a Pentagon official said the war was costing even more than expected. Navy Admiral Michael Mullen, picked as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned US lawmakers unhappy with the conflict against seeking a rapid pullout from Iraq, saying it could turn the country into a "cauldron." ¤ 190 000 weapons missing in Iraq The US government cannot account for 190 000 weapons issued to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to an investigation carried out by the Government Accountability Office. According to the July 31 report, the military "cannot fully account for about 110 000 AK-47 assault rifles, 80 000 pistols, 135 000 items of body armour and 115 000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi forces". ¤ Force-feeding at Gitmo violates doctors' ethics Military doctors violate medical ethics when they approve the force-feeding of hunger strikers at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, according to a commentary in a prestigious medical journal. The doctors should attempt to prevent force-feeding by refusing to participate, the commentary's three authors write in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. |
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