October 2007

West's development models abortive
Posted: Wednesday, October 31, 2007

By Mabasa Sasa
October 31, 2007

The Herald

CONVENTIONAL economic wisdom since the start of the 20th Century has offered very few alternatives for developing world progress in general and African development in particular.

Development discourse since the 1950's has focused on very few models for the improvement in the quality of life of non-white peoples while concentrating on sustaining growth in the West.

In Africa, this dearth in alternatives has limited discourse to modernisation models and Marxist offshoots based on Socialism that have largely proved to be untenable in a world that is rapidly becoming a global village dominated by US interests.

The net result has been continued underdevelopment of an already woefully underdeveloped world reeling from the cumulative effect of economic theories that do not take into account the peculiarities consistent with localised communities that have benefited little or absolutely nothing from integration into the so-called global community.

All too often, it is believed that the dispatching of extension workers to Africa's rural areas and marginalised communities to virtually force-feed the people there unhealthy doses of neo-liberalism will "save" the "dark continent".

Local traditions and cultures have largely been ignored by mainstream development and this has impacted negatively on efforts to alleviate people's standards of living.

As a consequence, when such aspects of society are ignored, the targets of the "development" initiative naturally resist when the traditions they have lived by for centuries are treated like the superstitions consistent with innately illiterate societies.

In fact, modernisation models and their off-shoots have gone to the extent of labelling "tradition" as an irrational concept that is detrimental to development.

NGOs, the prime movers of these economic models insist that "development" targets must initiate a new culture of bureaucracy as a mark of advancement, never mind that most bureaucracies appear to be the mortal enemies of ordinary people trying to get on with the essential business of surviving.

The governments of southern Africa, through Sadc – which is probably the most effective regional grouping in the developing world – should seriously consider the long held notions of what constitutes development and how it can be achieved.

The role of language, that is the semantics of development has to be re-analysed in the arena of development strategies.

President Mugabe has gone some way in promoting this approach while President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa too has consistently questioned the language used in the development discourse by comprador institutions like the IMF and the World Bank.

What is needed is a re-examination of the region's entire education system so that people can access knowledge that is appropriate to their contemporary and historical context.

As one University of Zimbabwe academic wryly noted in 1993 when the negative effects of ESAP started being felt: "Of what use is learning physics when one is going to earn their livelihood from agriculture? I am not saying we should limit ourselves to agriculture, but I think we need mechanisms that contextualise our education curricula."

It is hardly debatable that education systems in southern Africa – and indeed most of Africa – contain the seeds of inequality sowed by colonialism and perpetuate the dependency syndrome.

Current notions of development are the children of the linearised thinking that has characterised European epistemology from the time Rene Descartes claimed "I think therefore I am", and constitutes what they see as progress but is actually a subconscious fleeing from nature.

Technological advancement (regardless of its propriety to social context), rapid urbanisation as well as mass industrialisation of economies are taken as the be-all and end-all of development.

This neo-liberal approach results in our governments spending billions on building high-rise structures in cities surrounded by squatters and have huge housing backlogs for formal and informal sector employees.

The psycho-cultural side effects of development as we have often tried to achieve are disastrous as can be seen in the US and the South Africa that the ANC inherited from apartheid.

"Ultimately, development is not supposed to be a measure of technological advancement or the number of factories or even the size of urban areas. Development is more about the general quality of life of the population," was the assessment of one Economic History lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe.

He noted: "It's all fair and fine for a CEO to earn his millions. Even if you look as far back as Aristotle you will find that is the nature of division of labour. All that we want is for people to have safe drinking water; adequate shelter, food and enough time left over for leisure and rest once in a while. That is the true meaning of development as opposed to mere economic growth."

An alternative that has been very minimally explored by institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank and the thousands of developmental NGOs, was proposed as far back as the late 1970's by Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef.

In the critically acclaimed work "From the Outside Looking In: Experiences in Barefoot Economics" he proposed a revitalisation of small to medium scale communities.

His development approach was geared towards the attainment of self-reliance and self-sufficiency in an environmentally sustainable manner.

In such a set-up, localised communities would have the advantage of defining what development means to them and how best they feel and think it can be realistically achieved.

"After all, these people are not stupid, in many cases they have been living in their respective environments for centuries. Hence, they would know best what models and strategies would be sustainable and ensure the preservation of their local cultures, traditions as well the environment.

"Bio-diversity would not be subjugated to the whims of agencies that value technology over nature," elaborated the UZ lecturer while explaining Max-Neef's ideas.

The facet of self-reliance is not new to the development models that developing world nations have experimented with over the years.

Before many of our governments had trooped to the offices of the IMF, dependency theorists like Walter Rodney had advocated for such an approach.

South-South co-operation is something many people are aware of by now. However, what the Max-Neefs of this world desire is to first foster co-operation within localised communities before attempting co-operation on a larger scale.

Sustainable and people-centred development strategies are easier to implement where people within individual nations are initially empowered to be self-reliant. At present, South-South co-operation as espoused by most economists and development theorists today is the horizontal co-operation between government institutions without incorporating ordinary people.

However, some progress has been made towards achieving this.

Initiatives like CAMPFIRE are directly aimed at empowering rural communities and facilitating greater self-reliance.

Furthermore, the project is primarily environmentally friendly and local communities have greater control over their natural resources.

Greater integration of such community-based schemes with institutionalised initiatives such as the Government's farm mechanisation programme would go a long way in attaining real development in Zimbabwe's rural areas, where the majority live.

It is perhaps this lack of integration that has resulted in earlier economic development programmes such as ESAP, ZIMPREST, NERP and the NEDPP failing to realise their targets despite the best of intentions.

Turning truth on its head
Posted: Wednesday, October 31, 2007

¤ Japan PM forced to withdraw Afghan war backing
¤ HIV's Path Out Of Africa: Haiti, The US Then The World
¤ Depressed America

¤ Public Relations Disaster Management
Though time will certainly tell, the Bush administration so far has not yet surpassed that of Richard Nixon’s in its contempt for a free press and its unrelenting war on the truth. Its latest miscarriage of misinformation-a fake "press conference" run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to update the country on the California wildfires-doesn’t match Nixon’s inclusion of disfavored journalists on an "enemies list" to be targeted with wiretaps and tax audits.
Yet the FEMA fiasco does fit in neatly with the Bush pattern of duplicity, secrecy and possible lawbreaking in its public relations. And it works. That is, until someone catches them in the act.

¤ LA fire started by boy with matches

¤ Turning truth on its head
The US has opened up a new front in its now sharply accelerated war drive on Iran. The announcement last week by Condoleezza Rice, branding Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organisation, and imposing the strongest sanctions yet since 1979 Iranian Revolution, alarmed several democratic presidential candidates who described it as an indication that the White House had begun its "march to war".

¤ War Protests: Why No Coverage?

¤ Preparing for National Suicide
The reason? They say they feel threatened by Iran's pursuit of nuclear power technology, although they formally granted Iran that right when they ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968. The IAEA has found no evidence of a nuclear weapons program. They say they feel threatened by Iran's support of the Shia militia, especially those in Iraq and Lebanon. Iran has traditionally played the role of defending Shia communities, even in the Ottoman era. They say they feel threatened by Iran's opposition to Israel's expansion and Israel's oppression of Palestinians, which is against international law and many UN resolutions. They say they feel threatened by Iran's energy exports and its ability to influence world prices. In general, they feel threatened by an independent nation in an oil-rich region they wish to dominate. Therefore, they threaten to bomb Iran. "All options are on the table."

¤ Will History Repeat Itself?
¤ Pilfered Scholarship Devastates General Petraeus's Counterinsurgency Manual
¤ The Catastrophic Military Occupation of Iraq is Rarely Described Accurately
¤ Shouting at the Devil: "Fuck You, Capitalism!"
¤ Business as usual - Iraq Body Count, Human Rights Watch and that empire-building business
¤ Iraq's biggest dam at risk
¤ What happened in Basra few days ago?
¤ Where Have All the Protests Gone?
¤ IRAQ: When Blackwater Kills, No Questions Asked
¤ Rumsfeld is warned: "A torturer is an enemy of all humankind"
¤ A Catastrophe on the Way
¤ Pound hits 26-year US dollar high
¤ U.S Dollar falls to record lows ahead of Fed decision
¤ IAEA findings on Iran dismissed

¤ Criminal business as usual in Iraq
While you resist the US occupiers and their collaborators, inflict the US occupation and its forces horrendous losses, and you teach them the lessons of bitterest defeat, you confront mass murder on identity, compulsory displacement and suffer from the deprivation of any requirements for a dignified livelihood and services such as running water, electricity, fuel and you name it.. while the US, British, Australian etc.. so called security companies, shed with impunity your innocent and pure blood.. This is what ugly Blackwater gangsters have undertaken when murdering thirteen Iraqi martyrs and wounding 25 others in the al Nessur square in Baghdad's al Mansur neighborhood, for no reason and restarted their criminal business as usual in Iraq, four days only after the US puppet Maliki government fake announcement "to withdraw their permit to work in Iraq!" Everyone knows that this government has no authority whatsoever to withdraw anything, due to "Bremer' bills" who imposed these governments and all the other precedent puppet governments.

¤ Death toll reaches 38 as Tropical Storm Noel rages across Caribbean

¤ King Abdullah flies in to lecture us on terrorism
In what world do these people live? True, there'll be no public executions outside Buckingham Palace when His Royal Highness rides in stately formation down The Mall. We gave up capital punishment about half a century ago. There won't even be a backhander – or will there? – which is the Saudi way of doing business. But for King Abdullah to tell the world, as he did in a BBC interview yesterday, that Britain is not doing enough to counter "terrorism", and that most countries are not taking it as seriously as his country is, is really pushing it. Weren't most of the 11 September 2001 hijackers from – er – Saudi Arabia? Is this the land that is really going to teach us lessons?

¤ The Twisted Logic of U.S Drug Laws

How The U.S. Administration Starts Wars
Posted: Monday, October 29, 2007

¤ The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine
Having sent up numerous trial balloons over the past several weeks, Israel now will work on shutting down the Gaza Strip. Having kept it virtually sealed off from the outside world ever since Hamas beat Fatah for control of it, Israel now plans to use creeping electric power outages to make life in that open-air prison totally intolerable. Since no major power appears to have objected loudly enough to the trial balloons, Israel seems confident it can shut Gaza down without significant political repercussions.

¤ Tearful Oprah begs forgiveness
¤ French president walks out of US TV interview
¤ Oil strikes record near $94
¤ Iran says papers show U.S. backing ‘terrorists'
¤ Questions hang over taser death
¤ Iran steps up preparations for US war
¤ A royal guest to be proud of?
¤ Argentina's first lady wins poll
¤ Argentine first lady claims victory in presidential elections
¤ Officials blame each other over California fires
¤ Twenty decapitated bodies found in Iraq

¤ US Gives Immunity to Blackwater Guards
The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month's deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, The Associated Press has learned.
As a result, it will likely be months before the United States can - if ever - bring criminal charges in the case that has infuriated the Iraqi government.
"Once you give immunity, you can't take it away," said a senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.

¤ Castro likens Bush to 19th century imperialist monarch
Cuban leader Fidel Castro compared US President George W. Bush to the king of a 19th century colonial power, in an article published on Sunday.
Reacting to Bush's calling out the independence slogan "Viva Cuba Libre " -- Long Live Free Cuba -- in a speech Wednesday, Castro branded Bush a "fake" freedom-fighter in calling for Cuba's liberation 139 years after the Caribbean island launched its war for independence from royalist Spain.

¤ Five flagrant, fallacies Bush exploits to wage illegal war
¤ The Undead Walk Among Us: Chalabi Returns!
¤ Corporate Murder in Brazil
¤ While California Burns, Hurricane Giuliani Looms

¤ Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
In an apparent last-ditch effort to expand the country's national missile defence (NMD) capabilities before he leaves office, President George W. Bush has declared "a real and urgent need" to take action that will protect the United States and its allies from weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Oh wait, not Iraq! Iran! To protect the United States and its allies from weapons of mass destruction in Iran. To wit, ballistic missiles capable of striking the United States.
There isn't really any hard evidence to support the president's belief that Iran has these ballistic missiles or that they represent an imminent threat, but he undoubtedly trusts his instincts for getting this kind of thing right.
Either it's deja vu all over again or he's pandering to American's industrial and military complex for which NDM represents gazillions of dollars.

¤ How Is This Different? (Kill Your TV)
Old media personnel are puzzling over FEMA's fake press conference this week which was alleged to be just a result of poor judgment by well-intentioned bureaucrats. When you read press reports about this however, you get the feeling that reporters weren't so upset that they could probe beyond the talking points issued by Bush's press secretary, Dana Perino.

¤ American kids, dumber than dirt
¤ It's Kidnapping and Torture, Not Rendition and Interrogation
¤ Bush Insiders Describe How This Administration Starts Wars
¤ Dominican storm kills at least 20 people
¤ Doctors test hot sauce for pain relief
¤ AIDS virus invaded U.S. from Haiti: study

'War on terror' is now war on Iran
Posted: Sunday, October 28, 2007

¤ Chavez: Take Bush to madhouse
¤ German parties blast Bush remarks
¤ U.S. Announces Sanctions Against Iran

¤ Cheney's Plan for Iran Attack Starts With Israeli Missile Strike
US Vice President Dick Cheney -- the power behind the throne, the eminence grise, the man with the (very) occasional grandfatherly smile -- is notorious for his propensity for secretiveness and behind-the-scenes manipulation. He's capable of anything, say friends as well as enemies. Given this reputation, it's no big surprise that Cheney has already asked for a backroom analysis of how a war with Iran might begin.
In the scenario concocted by Cheney's strategists, Washington's first step would be to convince Israel to fire missiles at Iran's uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Tehran would retaliate with its own strike, providing the US with an excuse to attack military targets and nuclear facilities in Iran.

¤ US denies being on warpath with Iran
¤ 'War on terror' is now war on Iran
¤ Torture, Then And Now

¤ The Media Frenzy and the Forgotten Refugees
As the California fires rage and millions of Americans are displaced, the US media has mobilized, devoting almost all their coverage to the event. But what about coverage of another serious displacement issue: Iraqi refugees? Watch as we explore the US coverage vs. world coverage of these two very different groups of refugees

¤ Taxi to the Dark Side
Must Watch Award-Winning Documentary

¤ Army to review Iraq contracts for fraud
¤ Foul Play
¤ Undiagnosed brain injury - the hidden legacy of Iraq
¤ Murdoch's Cuckoo's Nest: The Wall Street Journal's Op-ed Page

¤ Truth Matters
I have been writing political essays for a few years now. I do so as a reluctant enthusiast, not because I wanted to write on these themes; but because, it seemed to me, that professional journalists were not telling the whole story; that significant parts that would allow people to connect the dots and understand what is happening from a historical perspective, was being deliberately omitted from the official version of current events, and from history.
As propaganda, the elements that are deliberately left out of media are as important as those that are retained. It is propaganda by omission, as much as by content. What people are not told shapes their world view and influences their behavior, as surely as what they are told. Imposed ignorance and selective knowledge go hand in hand to forge public opinion and to shape cultural identity. These conditions set the stage for belligerent government and aggressive nationalism.

¤ US practicing systematic rape, torture, sadism against women in Iraqi prison camps.
¤ Donald Rumsfeld charged with torture during trip to France
¤ US, Russia at impasse on missile defense
¤ Putin warns of new Cuban missile crisis
¤ Guantanamo military lawyer breaks ranks to condemn 'unconscionable' detention
¤ U.S. agency apologizes for fake wildfires news conference
¤ Wilson released after two years behind bars for teen sex conviction
¤ Did you know?

¤ The Politics of Hypocrisy
The news is no more from Burma. The young monks are quiet in their cells, or they are dead. But words have escaped: the defiant, beautiful poetry of Aung Than and Zeya Aung; and we know of the unbroken will of the journalist U Win Tin, who makes ink out of brick powder on the walls of his prison cell and writes with a pen made from a bamboo mat - at the age of 77. These are the bravest of the brave. What shame they bring to those in the west whose hypocrisy and silence helps to feed the monster that rules Burma.
Condoleezza Rice comes to mind. "The United States," she said, "is determined to keep an international focus on the travesty that is taking place in Burma." What she is less keen to keep a focus on is that the huge American company, Chevron, on whose board of directors she sat, is part of a consortium with the junta and the French company, Total, that operates in Burma's offshore oilfields. The gas from these fields is exported through a pipeline that was built with forced labour and whose construction involved Halliburton, of which Vice-President Cheney was chief executive.

¤ On Track for U.S. Collapse
¤ Big-Game Hunting in Iraq
¤ Thousands call for swift end to Iraq war
¤ About those burned-down houses in California
¤ Breaking Down an Innocent Man
¤ Cuba, Claims and Confiscations
¤ The Arsonists in the West Wing

¤ Iraq, Iran and the U.S. "Vision"
The U.S.'s current cheerleader for American imperial arrogance, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has now stated that Iran presents a major obstacle blocking the U.S.'s vision for the Middle East. In her fairy-tale world, this vision is of a region where the countries "trade more, invest more, talk more and work more constructively to solve problems."
This entire bizarre concept needs further exploration.

¤ For the Sake of Argument, What If...
¤ Israel 'reduces Gaza fuel supplies'
¤ GM: The Secret Files

Conversations with Castro
Posted: Saturday, October 27, 2007

Aged 81, the world's longest-serving leader is turning his thoughts to his legacy and the succession. In an exclusive extract from his autobiography, Fidel Castro talks to Ignacio Ramonet about vanity and cruelty - and reveals his salary and plans for retirement
Full Article : guardian.co.uk

We all have one drop
Posted: Friday, October 26, 2007

Barack Obama; his eighth cousin, a guy named Cheney; and Bobby (nee Priyush) Jindal: the bad and the good stuff in America are unavoidably mixed in together, writes Gary Younge
Full Article : guardian.co.uk

Chemical Weapons Myths
Posted: Friday, October 26, 2007

¤ Cuba responds to Bush
¤ Campaigners and MPs Condemn New Bush Aggression Against Cuba
¤ How The Brain Generates The Human Tendency For Optimism

¤ The California wildfires and the American social crisis
Once again, the world watches as a natural disaster in the United States threatens to become a social catastrophe. Once again, a million Americans are forced from their homes by a long-forecast calamity, with little planning or preparation by the local, state and federal governments. Once again, tens of thousands of refugees seek shelter at a football stadium in a major American city—this time, San Diego.
There are, of course, many differences between the experience of New Orleans two years ago and San Diego today. The urban core of San Diego and Los Angeles and their infrastructure remain intact. Utilities and other essential services are still in place, and the death toll is far lower. Property losses are estimated at several billion dollars, mainly from destroyed homes as well as crop damage in San Diego County; the damage from Hurricane Katrina was at least 50 times as great.

¤ Feds Join Probe in SoCal Wildfire
¤ Don't Let Bush Burn California
¤ Iraq meeting 'final chance' for diplomacy, says Turkey
¤ Stress Mess In U.S. 48% Can't Sleep

¤ U.S. bunker-buster request prompts Iran attack fears

¤ Attack Iran and you attack Russia
The barely reported highlight of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Tehran for the Caspian Sea summit last week was a key face-to-face meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
A high-level diplomatic source in Tehran tells Asia Times Online that essentially Putin and the Supreme Leader have agreed on a plan to nullify the George W Bush administration's relentless drive towards launching a preemptive attack, perhaps a tactical nuclear strike, against Iran. An American attack on Iran will be viewed by Moscow as an attack on Russia.

¤ Iran denounces 'hostile' US sanctions
¤ Putin warns against more Iran sanctions
¤ Goodbye dollar, hello inflation
¤ Zionists enjoy torturing Palestinians
¤ Fallibility + Unchecked Power = Trouble

¤ Straitjacket Bush
Forget impeachment.
Liberals, put it behind you. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney shouldn't be treated like criminals who deserve punishment. They should be treated like psychotics who need treatment.
Because they've clearly gone mad. Exhibit A: We're in the middle of a disastrous war in Iraq, the military and political situation in Afghanistan is steadily worsening, and the administration's interrogation and detention tactics have inflamed anti-Americanism and fueled extremist movements around the globe. Sane people, confronting such a situation, do their best to tamp down tensions, rebuild shattered alliances, find common ground with hostile parties and give our military a little breathing space. But crazy people? They look around and decide it's a great time to start another war.

¤ Iranian nuclear arms pose little threat to Israel
¤ What Happened in Nahr Al Bared?
¤ Suicide explosion in northern Pakistan kills 40
¤ Afghanistan is lost
¤ Altered Words Not Enough to Alter Reality
¤ Rice Admits US Erred in Deportation, But Offers No Apology For Rendition
¤ Use It or Lose It: Why Language Changes over Time
¤ Crude Hits $92 on Supply Fears
¤ Baghdad to Bush: You Have 14 Months
¤ Israeli authorities demolish all houses in an unrecognized Arab village in the Negev

¤ CHEMICAL WEAPONS MYTHS
One of the most overstated subjects in recent history is the Iraqi chemical weapons program. First, we heard about the massive stocks of chemical weapons Iraq had prior to 1991. When U.N. inspectors arrived in Iraq, they were quite surprised to find that the alleged number of weapons mentioned in the Western media and by U.S. politicians, was no where near reality. There were many fewer.

¤ Google updated Syria satellite images 5x sharper
¤ IRAQ: Child prisoners abused and tortured, say activists

¤ Torture, Paramilitarism, Occupation and Genocide
On October 5, George Bush confronted a public uproar and defended his administration claiming "This government does not torture people." Again he lied. Once secret US Department of Justice (DOJ) legal opinions confirm the Bush administration condones torture by endorsing "the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency." It also condones paramilitary thuggery, oppressive occupation, and genocide. This unholy combination is the ugly face of an imperial nation run by war criminals. That's the state of things today. First, the practice of torture.

¤ Papier Mache...

Venezuela Warns U.S. that 'Cuba is Not Alone'
Posted: Friday, October 26, 2007

Responding to US President George W. Bush's threats towards Cuba on Wednesday, Venezuelan authorities warned yesterday that "Cuba is not alone." The US president called on the international community to prepare for a "transition" in Cuba and vowed to maintain the embargo of the island. Both Venezuelan and Cuban authorities rejected the statements, labeling them "imperialist aggression."

"He spoke like an imperialist and a colonialist," said Venezuelan parliamentarian Saul Ortega about Bush's statements. Ortega assured that the reaction to these threats will be increased unity among the people of Latin America. "In response we have to close ranks in defense of the principles of sovereignty and self-determination," he said.
Full Article : trinicenter.com

A World at War
Posted: Thursday, October 25, 2007

by Shawn Hattingh

A savage war is being waged against the majority of the people on Earth by the governments of the North on behalf of their multinational companies. This war is not being fought with bombs or bullets; it is being fought through neo-liberal economic policies. Its weapons are not being delivered by stealth bombers; they are being delivered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The consequences of this onslaught are, however, as deadly as any conventional war. Indeed, the policies being pushed by the imperial powers through the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO have forced billions of people to live in absolute misery. As happens in any war, however, this onslaught has sparked resistance, and this resistance is beginning to turn the tide.
Full Article : monthlyreview.org

US deception shameful
Posted: Thursday, October 25, 2007

By Mabasa Sasa
Octobewr 25, 2007

Samuel Huntington — perhaps alongside Francis Fukuyama — can be classified as one of the most controversial political scientists of the 20th Century for originating what is commonly referred to as "the Clash of Civilisations".

This is an analytical tool that contends that the central political actors of our times will be civilisations rather than nation-states as was the norm from the time the Holy Roman Empire fell, Napoleon started his wars, and Western Europe as we more or less know it came into being.

Of course, for Africa and much of the Developing World, the history of contact with Europe and America has always been essentially one of a clash of civilisations and Huntington rather astutely put it thus:

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organised violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."

This is not to say Huntington is opposed to the use of military might to establish the supremacy of one civilisation over the other as he was after all an influential advisor of Lyndon Johnson when that US president bombarded the South Vietnamese countryside in the 1960s.

The clash of civilisations, however, will not always take on the air of military offensives by the industrially stronger against the weak.

Famed linguist Noam Chomsky for one will tell you that more and more, the subjugation of one civilisation by another has taken on a semantic hue and the full arsenal of the English dictionary is now being deployed to assert the ascendancy — and facilitate the demise — of any given civilisation. The English say, "Give a dog a bad name and hang him!" or, "He that has an ill name is half-hanged."

The logic is simple: the assignment of a name gives one the power to place anything and anyone the power to define and to categorise as good or bad. And the West, probably as the originators of the clash of civilisations and the deployment of arms and language, are particularly adept at this art of war.

For instance, as noted by African scholar Mahmoud Mamdani, the mass death of civilians in Darfur has been classified as genocide while the American-abetted atrocities by the Israelis that have become a way of life for Palestinians is not. Perhaps it was with this in mind that former US President Jimmy Carter balked at the thought of calling Darfur, genocide.

After a recent visit to the region, Carter said, "If you read the law textbooks . . . you'll see very clearly that it's not genocide and to call it genocide falsely just to exaggerate a horrible situation I don't think it helps."

Carter has been joined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in slamming what is going on in Palestine with the latter in 2002 likening the Zionist regime of Israel to that of apartheid South Africa.

For his pains, Tutu has been barred from speaking at the University of St. Thomas in the US for his 'anti-Semitism' and perhaps the man now knows that the adjectives he recklessly deploys against Zimbabwe can just as easily be mobilised against him.

And today it is near impossible to level any criticism against Israel without incurring the full wrath of the linguist arsenal in the hands of those behind the clash of civilisations.

Any word questioning Israel's policies makes one liable to labelled anti-Semitic, Satanic and a holocaust denier.

Francis Boyle, a professor of international law is of the opinion that Palestine should in fact take Israel to The Hague for genocide against non-Jews in the region, but this is an idea that the good legal beavers in Holland will find incredulous.

During the Nato strikes on the unfortunate former Yugoslavia, over 40 Serbian Orthodox Churches and at least one Cathedral were razed to the ground by something called the Kosovo Liberation Army.

It is believed that the KLA massacred some 20 000 Serbian civilians while Nato looked on and said it did not have the capacity to control the army.

Three points: The KLA is a 'liberation' army and not a terrorist movement as Zanla and Zipra were called during the Second Chimurenga, the killing of 20 000 non-combatants belonging to an "undesirable civilisation" is fair game and the almighty West will let it happen, and it is not classified as genocide.

According to Martin McLaughlin writing on WSWS in May 1999 when the Serb-killing frenzy was at its peak, "The US-Nato onslaught against Yugoslavia must be recorded as one of the great crimes of the twentieth century, an entire society, and a major European city, are being pounded into rubble.

"Overwhelming military force is being employed against a semi-defenceless opponent, with a ruthlessness and cynicism not seen on the European continent since Hitler's bombers struck Warsaw and Rotterdam."

But this is not genocide.

In Iraq, a reported 600 000 people have died since the US invasion of 2003 — the figure could be higher — remember that there were 800 000 genocide victims in Rwanda — while a further 3,7 million have fled the country but no one in the West has ever thought of referring to this as a genocide.

Writes Mamdani, "I read about all sorts of violence against civilians and there are two places that I read about — one is Iraq, and one is Darfur. . . . And I'm struck by the fact that the largest political movement against mass violence on US campuses is on Darfur and not on Iraq."

Similarly, nothing is said about the American-backed genocide carried out by rebels in the DRC and yet an estimated four million civilians were butchered in that country while in Somalia another 460 000 have been displaced by US-supported Ethiopian troops.

And out of all this what do we get?

We get such high-sounding nothings as Save Darfur Campaign. We even had, for a mercifully short time, a Save Zimbabwe Campaign. But we never saw a Save Yugoslavia Campaign nor will we see a Save Iraq initiative.

Instead, institutions like the US government funded National Endowment for Democracy (appropriately named for the linguist aspect of the clash of civilisations warfare) creating things like Sokwanele — a bastard child of Otpor which was at the centre of the raping of Yugoslavia.

Again the logic is simple: the West cannot carry out acts of genocide but the "crazy Africans" in Darfur are most certainly capable of it.

And neither can Israel nor any group armed by the Americans be accused of genocide.

Genocide is the preserve of Africans.

Madness as Method
Posted: Thursday, October 25, 2007

¤ Chief in Blackwater row quits
¤ When 'Good Men' do Nothing

¤ Cliches
It's fun sometimes to collect current clichés, which are worn-out uses of the language, such as "at the end of the day." Why can't we just say at twilight or after the sun sets?
Another cliché is "you can run but you can't hide." Osama bin Laden has disproved that, and indeed there are literally thousands of fugitives in the U.S. who have successfully both run and hidden.
Usually when some politician says "the reality is" or "the facts are," the reality isn't and the facts are fiction. The Bush administration continues to claim that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon. There is no evidence to support that claim. It continues to claim that the Iranians have called for the destruction of Israel. They have not. They have called for a change of government in Israel.

¤ Oil: The sovereignty showdown in Iraq
The oil game in Iraq may be almost up. On September 29, like a landlord serving notice, the government of Iraq announced that the next annual renewal of the United Nations Security Council mandate for a multinational force in Iraq - the only legal basis for a continuation of the American occupation - will be the last. That was, it seems, the first shoe to fall. The second may be an announcement terminating the little-noticed, but crucial companion Security Council mandate governing the disposition of Iraq's oil revenues.

¤ Oil higher in Asian market
¤ Is America burned by Mexicans?
¤ SoCal Fires: Product of Federal Neglect?
¤ Fox Links Al-Qaida to Calif. Wildfires

¤ The Trap That Is Iraq

¤ Facing the Reality of America's Lost War (No, Not That One)
Afghanistan is America's lost war - lost in the sense of failure but also in the sense of being forgotten. Even if by some miracle the situation in Iraq turned around 180 degrees during President Bush's remaining 15 months, our self-described “war president" would still leave office having lost one far-more-winnable war.

¤ Madness as Method
¤ When is Torture not Torture? When The President Says It Isn't.
¤ War Costs Spiral out of Control
¤ The Collapse of Bush's Foreign Policy
¤ Bush's Cuba Detour

¤ The Guantánamo Suicides
The grim story of the Guantánamo suicides--the deaths of three men, Ali al-Salami, Mani al-Utaybi and Yasser al-Zahrani in June 2006, and another, Abdul Rahman al-Amri, in May this year--took another turn last week, when, in the absence of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service's long-awaited report into the deaths, Navy Capt. Patrick McCarthy, the senior lawyer on Guantánamo's management team, spoke out in an interview, declaring that all four men had killed themselves with "craftily fashioned nooses."

¤ U.S. "undoubtedly in recession": Jim Rogers
¤ Israel to cut off power to Gaza Strip
¤ Woman Wants Accused Torturers to 'Fry'
¤ Strong earthquake hits Indonesia
¤ "Come and see the rubble of your surgical air-strikes"
¤ Bush Regime Preaches Democracy, Proposes Tyranny

¤ Hans Blix questions U.S. fears over Iran
Former United Nations' chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has challenged U.S. President George Bush's assertion that Iran poses a nuclear threat and the world should take pre-emptive action.
Bush has recently renewed calls for a missile defence shield in Europe, issuing grim warnings that Iran could have a ballistic missile capable of reaching Europe and the U.S. by 2015.

¤ Helicopter Fire Kills Iraqis, Days After Sadr City Battle
¤ Wars may cost $2.4 trillion over decade
¤ The True Relationship Between Europe and America

The True Cost of War for Oil
Posted: Tuesday, October 23, 2007

¤ Mercenaries Part of U.S. Plot to Destroy the Iraqi People ...
After the crimes committed against Iraqi citizens by the company "Blackwater," and after the crime that followed when another private American security firm killed 2 Iraqi women, the Arab media began to take an interest in the issue of private security companies operating in Iraq.
Even before these crimes, the issue had been examined in several documentary films. But perhaps because the Arab media has been unaware of the issue, up to now it had gone largely unexamined within the Arab world.

¤ Rain of terror in the U.S. air war in Iraq
Monday, the Pentagon acknowledged a long-unspoken truth: that the bombardment of civilian neighborhoods in Iraq is an integral part of the vaunted "counterinsurgency" doctrine of Gen. David Petraeus. The number of airstrikes in the conquered land has risen fivefold since George W. Bush escalated the war in January, as USA Today reports:
"Coalition forces launched 1,140 airstrikes in the first nine months of this year compared with 229 in all of last year, according to military statistics ... In Iraq, the temporary increase of 30,000 U.S. troops ordered by President Bush in January has led to the increase in bombing missions. The U.S. command has moved forces off large bases and into neighborhoods and has launched several large offensives aimed at al-Qaeda ... 'You end up having that many more opportunities for close air support,' said Air Force Brig. Gen. Stephen Mueller, director of the Combined Air Operations Center in Doha, Qatar."

¤ U.N. challenges U.S. on illegal air strikes in Iraq
¤ Clinical death of Palestinian prisoner officially announced
¤ Israel Does Not Want Eyewitnesses of Its Crimes in the Gaza Strip

¤ Bush's Catastrophic Rhetoric
Mired in the disastrous Iraq quagmire, opposed by a majority of Americans, George W. Bush has reached new depths of reckless, belligerent bellowing. At a recent news conference, he volunteered that he told our allies that if they're "interested in avoiding World War III," Iran must be prevented from both developing a nuclear weapon or having "the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

¤ California wildfires trigger state of emergency
¤ California burning
¤ The True Cost of War for Oil
¤ Comparing the Canadian Government and Media Response: Burma and Haiti

¤ On the Eve of Destruction
Don't worry, the White House is telling us. The world's most powerful leader was simply making a rhetorical point. At a White House press conference last week, just in case you haven't heard, President Bush informed the American people that he had told world leaders "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." World War III. That is certainly some rhetorical point, especially coming from the man singularly most capable of making such an event reality.

¤ United States Has Double Standard at Home and Abroad
"If the United States is going to criticize other countries' behavior, both historical and current, it should eliminate the double standard at home and abroad, and clean up its own act first."

¤ Castro Claims Bush Could Spark WWIII
¤ US might delay missile defense sites
¤ U.S. offers to keep missile shield on stand-by
¤ Iran won't negotiate over atomic rights: president

¤ Strange things are currently happening in Venezuela
Many times we have warned about coming plots ... they came ... but could not topple the Venezuelan government. This does not mean that we erred. We are scientists and philosophers, we are not prophets.
It would have been an equivocation not to warn about coming events whose roots and reasons historically and globally are crystal clear.
Whether we like it or not, the Bush regime, together with its European and Israeli allies, have declared us as part of the 'axis if evil,' as 'international terrorists' who deserve the royal military humanist treatment: violent invasion and genocide, by capturing our wealth, oil, gas, biodiversity, water, strategic minerals, metals and oxygen.

¤ Senate and Neocons Agree to Carve Up Bill of Rights

America's war without end
Posted: Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Planned US spending on the "global war on terror" is set to rise sharply in the coming year, despite claims from the president, George Bush, that al-Qaida is on the run in Iraq.

A funding request sent to Congress this week seeks $196.4bn (£96bn) for counter-terrorism in 2007-8, $25bn up on this year. The Pentagon's separate budget request amounts to an additional $481.4bn.

Justifying these whopping increases, Mr Bush repeats a favourite mantra, that "America is safer but not yet safe", implying that absolute safety is attainable at some point in the future. In a speech this week, his vice-president, Dick Cheney, was franker: he said the US was engaged in an ideological struggle amounting to war without end.
Full Article : guardian.co.uk

Fidel Castro's new reflections: Bush, hunger and death
Posted: Tuesday, October 23, 2007

In elections where voting is not mandatory, our people have just given their verdict, with more than 95 percent of the electorate casting their vote at 37,749 polling stations, in ballot boxes guarded by school children. That is the example provided by Cuba.

For the first time, just before the UN discusses, as it does every year, the project of the Cuban resolution condemning the blockade, the President of the United States announces that he will adopt new measures to accelerate the "transition period" in our country, equivalent to a new conquest of Cuba by force.
Full Article : cubaheadlines.com

Cheney Raises the Rhetoric Against Iran
Posted: Monday, October 22, 2007

¤ Cheney Raises the Rhetoric Against Iran
In the harshest speech against Iran given by a top Bush administration official to date, Vice President Dick Cheney Sunday warned the Islamic Republic of "serious consequences" if it did not freeze its nuclear program and accused it of "direct involvement in the killings of Americans."
"Given the nature of Iran's rulers, the declarations of the Iranian president, and the trouble the regime is causing throughout the region – including the direct involvement in the killing of Americans – our country and the entire international community cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its most aggressive ambitions," Cheney warned in a major policy address to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP).

¤ Cheney: US Will Not Let Iran Go Nuclear

¤ The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know

¤ On the Eve of Destruction
Don't worry, the White House is telling us. The world's most powerful leader was simply making a rhetorical point. At a White House press conference last week, just in case you haven't heard, President Bush informed the American people that he had told world leaders "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." World War III. That is certainly some rhetorical point, especially coming from the man singularly most capable of making such an event reality.

¤ Steep Decline In Oil Production Brings Risk of War
¤ Children Detach From Natural World As They Explore The Virtual One

¤ US Denial of the Armenian Genocide
It continues to boggle the mind what the Democratic leadership in Congress will do whenever the Republicans raise the specter of labeling them "soft on terrorism." They approve wiretapping without a court order. They allow for indefinite detention of suspects without charge. They authorize the invasion and occupation of a country on the far side of the world that was no threat to us and then provide unconditional funding for the bloody and unwinnable counter-insurgency war that inevitably followed.
Now, it appears, the Democrats are also willing to deny history, even when it involves genocide.

¤ Is There a Method to Bush's Middle East Madness?
¤ Should Blacks Go Green?
¤ The Quagmire of Masculinity
¤ Why Is Moonshine Against the Law?

¤ Guns, butter and blood baths
As of September 30, US aircraft have conducted nearly 1,500 airstrikes in the country, up from fewer than 300 last year. The USA Today story on the increase says the figures don't include helicopter assaults, so add that apocalyptic noise into the mix atop the jets. (In Afghanistan, the number of air strikes has climbed from around 1,700 last year to more than 2,700 through September of this year).

¤ Destruction of Evidence - Ohio's 2004 Presidential Ballots
¤ Bombings greet Bhutto
¤ Bin Laden Asks Iraq Insurgents to Unite

¤ Turkish Troops, Weapons Head Toward Iraq
¤ Turkish Prime Minister warns US
¤ U.S. air strikes in Baghdad kill toddlers
¤ Iran to fire '11,000 rockets in minute' if attacked
¤ Refugees and Puppets
¤ Iran bomb would take '3-8 years' to build
¤ The Sadism of the Israeli Occupation
¤ Kelly disinformation
¤ Mission Accomplished: A New Look at Bush's Victory in Iraq
¤ Bush Asks for $46 Billion More for Wars

Iran's president moves to tighten grip on nuclear policy
Posted: Monday, October 22, 2007

Doubts surrounded the future of Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, yesterday after the departure of the country's chief nuclear negotiator appeared to signal a significant power shift to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A day after Ali Larijani resigned as secretary of the supreme national security council, speculation grew that the foreign minister, a career diplomat, may be the next to go as the president tightens his grip on nuclear policy.

Mr Larijani quit after differences with the president over Iran's negotiating strategy. Despite being staunchly opposed to abandoning the country's uranium enrichment programme - which the west suspects is designed to build a nuclear bomb - Mr Larijani favoured diplomatic engagement to relieve international pressure, in contrast to the president's defiant approach.
Full Article : guardian.co.uk

It's the Oil
Posted: Sunday, October 21, 2007

¤ Bhutto bombing kicks off war on US plan
The first shot has already been fired in the battle that Islamists have vowed to wage against the Washington-inspired and brokered attempt at regime change in Pakistan. It came in the form of twin bomb blasts aimed at Benazir Bhutto, the lynchpin in US machinations, within hours of her arrival in Karachi after years in exile.
The bombs narrowly missed Bhutto but killed up to 150 and injured hundreds of the rapturous supporters who thronged the Karachi streets to greet her. The windshield of her vehicle was shattered and members of her entourage on the roof of the vehicle were injured. A car that was part of her convoy was destroyed.

¤ It's the Oil
¤ It's The Resistance, Stupid
¤ U.S. Assisted Israel In Syrian Attack
¤ Wind-driven fires rage in Calif.; 1 dead

¤ US air raids kill 49 Iraqi civilians
American air strikes on Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City killed 49 people including women and children, Iraqi officials said on Sunday.
Iraqi officials said that bombardment of Sadr City turned residential area into rubble killing civilians indiscriminately including women and children.
Reporters gave gloomy picture from massacre of civilians and innocent people in Baghdad district.

¤ Kelly family appeals for calm after new murder claims by MP

¤ Venezuela to skip IMF meeting
Venezuela will not attend the upcoming meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, which leftist President Hugo Chavez accuses of being pawns of Washington.
The announcement was made by the Venezuelan Finance Ministry on Saturday.
Chavez earlier this year promised to withdraw the OPEC country from the IMF.

¤ REMEMBER
¤ Treachery for treatment

¤ Comcast blocks some Internet traffic
Comcast Corp. actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally.
The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users.

¤ Haditha: Crime And Punishment And Disinformation

¤ Legal center: 360 children imprisoned in Israeli jails

¤ Convicted Bomber of Pan Am Flight 103 May Have Been Wrongly Sentenced
"A sensational article in the June 24, 2007 edition of The Scotsman includes allegations by the unnamed "Golfer"--a Scottish police officer who worked at a senior level on the Lockerbie case--in which "Golfer" claims there was a plot to blame Libya for the crash of Pan Am 103."

¤ Lions for Lambs
¤ The Shame of Diego Garcia
¤ Bhutto's Bloody Return

Scientists a step closer to steering hurricanes
Posted: Sunday, October 21, 2007

Scientists have made a breakthrough in man's desire to control the forces of nature – unveiling plans to weaken hurricanes and steer them off course, to prevent tragedies such as Hurricane Katrina.
Full Article : telegraph.co.uk

The War on Afghanistan Was Wrong, Too
Posted: Sunday, October 21, 2007

by Jacob G. Hornberger

While most Americans have turned against the Iraq War, many of them still think that the war on Afghanistan was morally and legally justified. Their rationale is that the United States was simply defending itself by attacking Afghanistan and retaliating against those who had conspired to commit the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Of course, the last thing on people's mind was that the 9/11 perpetrators themselves were retaliating for the bad things that the U.S. government had long been doing to people in the Middle East.

In fact, the irony of the attacks on both Afghanistan and Iraq is that both actions are simply a continuation of regime-change operations that have long characterized U.S. foreign policy, operations that are in large part responsible for much of the anger that foreigners have for the United States.
Full Article : lewrockwell.com

The War on Afghanistan Was Wrong, Too
Posted: Saturday, October 20, 2007

¤ The War on Afghanistan Was Wrong, Too
While most Americans have turned against the Iraq War, many of them still think that the war on Afghanistan was morally and legally justified. Their rationale is that the United States was simply defending itself by attacking Afghanistan and retaliating against those who had conspired to commit the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Of course, the last thing on people's mind was that the 9/11 perpetrators themselves were retaliating for the bad things that the U.S. government had long been doing to people in the Middle East.

In fact, the irony of the attacks on both Afghanistan and Iraq is that both actions are simply a continuation of regime-change operations that have long characterized U.S. foreign policy, operations that are in large part responsible for much of the anger that foreigners have for the United States.

¤ Who Restarted the Cold War?
¤ How the State Leads People to Their Own Destruction
¤ Bhutto bombing kicks off war on US plan
¤ Why Males Die Before Females
¤ SAfrica reggae star Lucky Dube shot dead

¤ Benazir survives mid-night assassination plot; 139 killed
In the worst-ever terrorist attack in Pakistan, at least 139 people were killed and more than 500 injured when radical opponents of democracy made a vain attempt to assassinate former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto late last night by triggering two powerful suicide explosions as her homecoming procession after eight years in self-imposed exile made its way to her ancestral home here.

¤ Bhutto alleges military link to suicide bombing

¤ West won't win Afghan war: former UN envoy

¤ Why I know weapons expert Dr David Kelly was murdered
For Tony Blair it was a glorious day. He was in the United States being feted by the U.S. Congress and President Bush.
Their adulation was such that he was being offered the rare honour of a Congressional Gold Medal.
Naturally enough, Bush and his administration were hugely grateful for Blair's decision to join the United States in its invasion of Iraq.

¤ Top army officer reprimanded for using Palestinian Civilians as Human Shields in Nablus

¤ Blackwater and Haditha
The recent public outrage over the conduct of Blackwater Security mercenaries in Iraq, after an unprovoked massacre of at least 17 Iraqi civilians in western Baghdad has been heartening; unfortunately, there has been virtually no attention a far more important concurrent development -- the ongoing collapse of the military prosecution in the Haditha massacre.
Paul Bremer's decision at the eleventh hour before his departure in June 2004 to set all private contractors in Iraq above the law (they are not subject to Iraqi law, U.S. military law, or U.S. civilian law) stands out as one of the more cynical decisions of a war that has redefined cynicism, and attention to that fact is a positive development.

¤ All the lies that fit
¤ IRAQ: Assassination of Sheikh Shakes US Claims
¤ The Silence of Sheep...

¤ Watson makes humiliating return to US after row over race comments
¤ A Case Study in the Limits of Propaganda

¤ 9/11 Fatigue
9/11 Fatigue creeps up on you when you least expect it and it occupies every minute of your day. You start to see boogey men around each corner and tense yourself even when you're trying to relax. You lie awake at night looking for ways to protect yourself from those who would harm you because, of course, you never know whom to trust. Worse yet, you spend endless hours trying to persuade others to join you in fighting an ever-elusive enemy. It's almost as bad as post-traumatic stress syndrome that soldiers must contend with after serving in Iraq for their second, third, fourth and even fifth tours of duty.

¤ Government Surveillance Threatens Your Freedom

A lesson in humility for the smug West
Posted: Friday, October 19, 2007

¤ If USA fires its missiles, Russia will fire back, Putin says

¤ Putin Says U.S. Wants Iraq's Oil
President Vladimir Putin, in his latest jab at Washington, suggested Thursday that the U.S. military campaign in Iraq was a "pointless" battle against the Iraqi people, aimed in part at seizing the country's oil reserves.
The Russian leader was responding to one of dozens of questions from the public in an annual televised Q&A session, his sixth since taking office in 2000. The event broadcast live on state-controlled TV channels and radio stations consisted largely of people from around the country quizzing Mr. Putin mainly on such bread-and-butter issues as pensions, public workers' salaries and school funding.

¤ A lesson in humility for the smug West
¤ Nobel Hypocrisy

¤ Bitter vengeance on the American Taliban
THE British military is facing allegations that the bodies of Iraqi prisoners showed evidence of eye-gauging, genital mutilation and hanging.
Hospital workers allegedly reported the signs of torture and murder on the bodies Iraqi insurgents left dead after a gun battle with British troops and Iraqi insurgents three year ago, according to reports from UK newspaper The Guardian.

¤ Bush intensifies anti-Iran rhetoric
¤ Afghan suicide bombing leaves nine dead
¤ Putin says US-led military action in Iraq turns into campaign against Iraqi people

¤ The Science and Assumptions Behind Watson's Views on Blacks
James Watson's assertion that black people are intrinsically less intelligent than other, fairer-skinned folks has been condemned, and rightly so. But even when based in fact rather than conscience, the reflexivity and vehemence of the condemnations makes it easy to forget that Watson's comments weren't the isolated bile of a single intellectually sclerotic man, but the perfectly predictable outcome of a set of widespread assumptions about genetics, development and humanity.

¤ DNA pioneer breaks his silence on racism row
¤ Watson's words disowned by own institute
¤ James Watson: Master of the scientific gaffe
¤ James Watson has Nobel Syndrome

¤ Claims of secret CIA jail for terror suspects on British island to be investigated
¤ Oil futures surpass $90 a barrel
¤ Putin warns Washington over missile shield
¤ US should set a date for Iraq withdrawal
¤ Turkish MPs back attacks in Iraq
¤ Bush urges Turkey against Iraq incursion
¤ Africans are less intelligent than Westerners

¤ The United States of Violence
We keep hearing that Iraq is not Vietnam. And surely any competent geographer would agree. But the United States is the United States -- still a country run by leaders who brandish, celebrate and use the massive violent capabilities of the Pentagon as a matter of course.

¤ Who Wouldn't Want Us Dead?
¤ Wi-Fi, the Death of Us All

Iraqi Contracts With Iran and China Concern U.S.
Posted: Thursday, October 18, 2007

By James Glanz

BAGHDAD, Oct. 17 — Iraq has agreed to award $1.1 billion in contracts to Iranian and Chinese companies to build a pair of enormous power plants, the Iraqi electricity minister said Tuesday. Word of the project prompted serious concerns among American military officials, who fear that Iranian commercial investments can mask military activities at a time of heightened tension with Iran.

The Iraqi electricity minister, Karim Wahid, said that the Iranian project would be built in Sadr City, a Shiite enclave in Baghdad that is controlled by followers of the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr. He added that Iran had also agreed to provide cheap electricity from its own grid to southern Iraq, and to build a large power plant essentially free of charge in an area between the two southern Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.
Full Article : nytimes.com

The Iran hawks
Posted: Wednesday, October 17, 2007

¤ Darfur vs. Ogaden, Mugabe vs. Meles
Many left activists and progressives claim to be equally opposed to oppression, whether practiced by the friends of imperialist powers or their enemies, but are virtually silent on the well documented oppressions of such US client states as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Ethiopia, while exhibiting an uncritical zeal in denouncing the enemies of Anglo-American imperialism, often for crimes that have been exaggerated or invented to be used as pretexts for Western intervention and fulfillment of imperialist goals.

There is no better illustration of this tendency to profess principled neutrality while regularly exhibiting a pro-imperialist bias, than the current obsession with the alleged genocide in Darfur and the claims of unjustified political oppression in Zimbabwe, while a virtually unremarked series of crimes and oppressions is carried out by the US and British client government of Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia.

¤ The Price Of an Iraqi Life - $500 to $5,000
The price of an Iraqi life, for purposes of compensation for the families of civilians killed by Americans, can be as low as $500 and as high as $8 million. It depends on who does the assessment.
On the low end, $500 was paid to the brother of a man caught in a firefight outside the gate of his house.
The $8 million is what the Iraqi government is demanding for the families of each of the 17 people it said were killed when private security contractors guarding U.S. diplomats opened fire in a crowded Baghdad square on September 16.

¤ Blackwater: Mercenaries by Definition
¤ Blackwater Won't Allow Arrests

¤ Paths Towards Fascism
Americans expect to have freedom around us just as we expect to have air to breathe, so we have only limited understanding of the furnaces of repression that the Founders knew intimately. Few of us spend much time thinking about how "the system" they put in place protects our liberties. We spend even less time, considering how dictators in the past have broken down democracies or quelled pro-democracy uprisings.

¤ The "Fix"
¤ The Iran hawks
¤ Putin sides with Iran on nuclear question
¤ Russians Will Finish Iranian Nuclear Power Plant

¤ Caspian summit a triumph for Iran

¤ Bush hosts Dalai Lama amid Chinese outrage
¤ Drug-Resistant Staph Germ's Toll Is Higher Than Thought

¤ US 'delayed' British withdrawal from Basra
British forces were prevented from pulling out of their last base in Basra City for five months because the Americans refused to move their consulate, according to senior military sources.
The US warned that a brigade of troops would be sent from Baghdad to take "appropriate action" to maintain security. The delay in withdrawal resulted in some of the fiercest fighting faced by British forces since the invasion of 2003, leading to the deaths of 25 British soldiers and injuries to 58 others, as well as dozens of Iraqi casualties. Two of the British dead were at the base, Basra Palace, while at least 10 others died in supporting operations.

¤ Iraq, Iran and the US
¤ The New Billionaire-Criminal Class
¤ 'The Moment Has Come to Get Rid of Saddam'

¤ Will We Fall For War Vs. Iran?
It would appear, according to news reports, that the hard-liners in the Bush administration, led by the vice president, are pushing for a war with Iran. The tactics are the same. Once you've played the fear card to start one war, the second time is easier.
Iran is a threat to American security and freedom. They are trying to build nuclear bombs to use against us. They are already killing Americans in Iraq. They hate us and our freedom. Eliminating the Iranian government and destroying its nuclear facilities is essential to the security of the United States and part of the international war on terror.
Will the shell game work again? I would like to think that it would not, that the American people will not be won over by "war on terror" propaganda, that Congress would not be taken in this time (not even Sen. Hillary Clinton), and that the national media would raise a loud hue and cry against yet another "preemptive war."

Bush warns of World War III if Iran goes nuclear
"So I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," said Bush.

Galloway on the Lie Ahmadinejad Called for Israel to be 'Wiped Off the Map'
By Kurt Nimmo - June 15, 2007

"Wiped Off The Map" - The Rumor of the Century
By Arash Norouzi - January 18, 2007

Does Iran's President Want Israel Wiped Off The Map

- Does He Deny The Holocaust?
By A. Fikentscher and A. Neumann - April 19, 2006

Drug-Resistant Staph Germ's Toll Is Higher Than Thought
Posted: Wednesday, October 17, 2007

A dangerous germ that has been spreading around the country causes more life-threatening infections than public health authorities had thought and is killing more people in the United States each year than the AIDS virus, federal health officials reported yesterday.

"The infection is most common among African Americans and the elderly, but also commonly strikes very young children."

documented the emergence of an antibiotic-resistant strain of another bacterium known as Streptococcus pneumoniae, which causes common ear infections.

The researchers attributed the emergence of the strain to a combination of the overuse of antibiotics and the introduction of a vaccine that protects against the infection.

"The use of the vaccine created an ecological vacuum, and that combined with excessive use of antibiotics to create this new superbug," Pichichero said.
Full Article : washingtonpost.com

Crude oil hits record high
Posted: Tuesday, October 16, 2007

¤ Putin seeks to prevent USA's unilateral military course against Iran
Russian President Vladimir Putin, shrugging off reports of a plot to assassinate him in Tehran, said he'll go ahead with a planned trip to Iran where talks will include the Islamic Republic's "nuclear dossier."

¤ Putin and Ahmadinejad imply USA has no rights to launch military action against Iran

¤ By only focusing on most extreme, radical notions coming out of Tehran, we let radicals win

¤ Iran wins security pledge at Putin summit
President Putin used an historic visit to Iran today to make the case against Western military action and help deliver a regional security guarantee for the Islamic republic.
Mr Putin ignored warnings of a possible suicide attack against him to become the first Kremlin chief to visit Tehran since Josef Stalin met other Allied leaders there at the height of the Second World War in 1943.

¤ A prostituted UN acquiesces to Palestinian human rights violations

¤ Iran, Russia warn against using Caspian territories for military action
¤ Crude oil hits record high
¤ Chávez talks of Cuban and Venezuelan confederation

¤ In The Kingdom of Fear
My friend Bernie says since Democrats won the Congress, George Bush reminds him of a cartoon where this destructive Texas jackrabbit was careening headlong down a path, his eyes riveted on a rabbit hole in the distance. A tortoise, sunning himself at the side of the path, looked behind the rabbit where a baying pack of dogs, in hot pursuit, was gaining on him. The tortoise smiled. The poor bunny was in a race for his life. As he shot by, the tortoise called out lazily, "Think you'll make it?" The rabbit, looking neither to the right nor left, shot back desperately -- "I gotta make it..."
Bernie says Bush is running scared. So scared he's "pantin' like a lizard..."

¤ Inconvenient Corrections
¤ Iraq - What Happened, Why and What Do We Do Now?

¤ On Propaganda and Islamophobia
"The propagandists confidently count on their ferocious "noise machine" made of primarily a network of pseudo-media and loyal bloggers with capacity to repeat any lie long enough to turn it into the prevailing 'truth'."

¤ WMD Chaser, Scott Ritter, Spreads Anti-War Advice

¤ Sun Sets Early on the American Century
The disastrous outcome of the invasion and occupation of Iraq has caused a crisis in the power elite of the United States deeper than that resulting from defeat in Vietnam 30 years ago. Ironically, it is the very coalition of ultranationalists and neo-conservatives that coalesced in the 1970s, seeking to reverse the Vietnam syndrome, restore U.S. power and revive "the will to victory" that has caused the present crisis.

¤ Africans are less intelligent than Westerners, says DNA pioneer

Russia backs Iran nuclear rights
Posted: Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has offered qualified support for Iran's nuclear programme on a visit to Tehran.

Mr Putin told journalists that "peaceful nuclear activities must be allowed" and cautioned against using force to resolve the dispute over Iran.
Full Article : news.bbc.co.uk

WMD Chaser, Scott Ritter, Spreads Anti-War Advice
Posted: Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Pima County Democrats were taken to school Sunday by a lifelong-conservative-Republican- turned-anti-war activist.

Scott Ritter, the buff and bespectacled former Marine and United Nations weapons inspector, made a name for himself on cable news during the run-up to the war in Iraq. He argued that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction.

Ritter was at the University Park Marriott hotel Sunday to speak to about 60 Pima County Democrats and to try to teach them a thing or two.

Lesson one: The term should be "war prevention," not "anti-war." It sounds better, Ritter said.

Lesson two: Act like a military operation - learn the battlefield, prepare it and anticipate the other side's moves before acting.

"We need to start waging peace with the same tenacity with which we wage war,' Ritter said.

Too often the peace movement isn't ready for obvious attacks and gets defined by its own fringe political tendencies.
Full Article : commondreams.org

Sun Sets Early on the American Century
Posted: Tuesday, October 16, 2007

The disastrous outcome of the invasion and occupation of Iraq has caused a crisis in the power elite of the United States deeper than that resulting from defeat in Vietnam 30 years ago. Ironically, it is the very coalition of ultranationalists and neo-conservatives that coalesced in the 1970s, seeking to reverse the Vietnam syndrome, restore U.S. power and revive “the will to victory” that has caused the present crisis.

There has been no sustained popular mass protest as there was during the Vietnam War, probably because of the underclass sociology of the volunteer U.S. military and the fact that the war is being funded by foreign financial flows. However, at the elite level the war has fractured the national security establishment that has run the United States for six decades. The unprecedented public critique in 2006 by several retired senior officers over the conduct of the war, plus recurrent signs of dissent in the intelligence agencies and the state department, reflects a much wider trend in elite opinion.
Full Article : commondreams.org

Cuba and Venezuela Deepen Alliance with More Accords
Posted: Tuesday, October 16, 2007

by Chris Carlson
October 16, 2007
Venezuelanalysis.com

Cuba and Venezuela announced an increased economic and political alliance yesterday after signing several bilateral economic agreements. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leader Raul Castro met in Havana on Monday to discuss a number of joint projects as a part of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), and President Chavez proposed a future joining of the two countries into a confederation.

Just as Cuba and Venezuela were the first two countries in the formation of ALBA, the new regional alliance that Nicaragua and Bolivia later joined, the Venezuelan president suggested that Cuba and Venezuela be the first in forming a confederation of nations.

"Now we should be looking ahead, Cuba and Venezuela could perfectly form a confederation of nations in the near future, two countries in one," he proposed.

The proposal comes as the two nations continue to forge a tighter relationship, both economically and politically. President Chavez spent the weekend in Cuba where he paid tribute to the 40th anniversary of the death of Che Guevara, and broadcast his Sunday TV and Radio show Aló Presidente from the island. Chavez said on the show that the two countries are governed by "just one government."

"We are going towards a confederation of Bolivarian nations," he said in reference to the South American independence leader Simon Bolivar who proposed the unification of the region in the 19th century.

"We are going to transform this group of ALBA countries, and more countries, into a confederation, the unification of our people. We are going to transform it into a regional power," he said.

Cuba and Venezuela signed a total of 14 economic agreements yesterday, including a joint oil refinery, the exploration for oil in Cuba and in the Gulf of Mexico, an underwater fiber optic cable connecting the two countries, and several joint companies to undertake other ventures. They also made agreements to study many other prospects for "a growing process of union and integration."

By the end of the year the two governments plan to inaugurate a refinery on the southern coast of Cuba that will initially process 65 thousands barrels of oil per day, and later up to 108 thousand barrels. An old Soviet plant that stopped functioning after the fall of the Soviet Union, the refinery will require an initial investment of 236 million dollars to modernize and expand.

The two countries' state oil companies signed joint contracts to explore oil in western Cuba, as well as in Cuban territory in the Gulf of Mexico. A joint company was created to exploit nickel and other mineral deposits in Cuba, and agreements were signed to study the construction of a petrochemical plant, the production of cement, and the creation of an industry to construct ships for fishing, among other proposals.

President Chavez also proposed the establishment of "aggressive" plans to increase agricultural production in both countries with the goal of making them self-sustaining in their food supply. He emphasized the need to break the countries' dependence on food imports and said that agriculture is the most important sector to develop.

"We should make this our highest priority and concentrate our best researchers, our best scientists on searching for the best land, and accelerate the production of materials, tools, machinery, and fertilizers," he said.

The Cuban leader Raul Castro expressed his satisfaction with the growing alliance between the two countries and applauded the new agreements.

"With the signing of these agreements we make a significant contribution to the growing process of unification and integration between Cuba and Venezuela that began with the Cooperative Agreement signed by both countries on October 30th of 2001," he said.

Raul Castro emphasized that commerce between the two countries has seen a continued increase with a tendency to increased diversification and cooperation. According to the Cuban leader, the two countries are now carrying out 352 joint projects in 28 different areas of economic and social development. He emphasized that these types of projects are now growing to other parts of the region as well with the entrance of Bolivia and Nicaragua to the ALBA block.

Source: www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2733

Putin's visit to Iran to go ahead
Posted: Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Russian President Vladimir Putin has confirmed that he will visit Iran, despite reports of a possible plot to kill him there.
"Of course I'm going," Mr Putin told a news conference, ending earlier uncertainty about the visit.
Full Article : news.bbc.co.uk

Zimbabwe: It's the land, stupid!
Posted: Monday, October 15, 2007

¤ Zimbabwe: It's the land, stupid!
Three pieces - seemingly small and unimportant - came through the media this week. One relates to eleven white farmers who appeared before the magistrate in Chegutu, facing criminal charges for failing to vacate properties acquired by the State for purposes of resettling the landless.
The farmers lost the case with costs, with the magistrate, Tinashe Ndokera, agreeing with the prosecutor that the farmers merely sought to frustrate land reforms by abusing court processes.

¤ The land of optimism is in the dumps
¤ Outsourcing Torture
¤ Maternal Mortality Shames Superpower US
¤ A Future Only a Pentagon Planner Could Possibly Love
¤ Iraq, Iraq, Partitioning Iraq for a Nomination
¤ Bush administration was either incompetent or is guilty of malfeasance

¤ Something is Rotten in Iraq and the Pentagon
Isn't it odd that in the air attack that the US military claims killed 19 high-ranking leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and 15 civilians, all the slain Al Qaeda members were men and all the men were Al Qaeda, while all the civilians were women (6) and children (9)?
Think about this a minute.
This means that no women were Al Qaeda--and yet we know that women also fight, and also blow themselves up as suicide bombers. Yet these women were all civilians. The children, of course, were children.

¤ Many Americans Still Don't Grasp Iraq War Is Illegal
Mistakenly, many Americans still believe President Bush's war on Iraq is justified because Congress supported it and funds it.
Yet, as international legal authority Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois points out, President Bush got congressional backing by lying that Hussein had W.M.D. and that Hussein was connected to 9/11. That's fraud, probably the bloodiest, costliest lie in White House history.

¤ No Legitimate Justification for War with Iran
¤ Iranian threat "overly exaggerated" - Margelov
¤ Where are the images of Syria nuclear site?
¤ Former US commander blames "partisan" politics and "agenda-driven" media for Iraq debacle

¤ Police could not find any fingerprints on Dr Kelly's 'suicide' knife
Fresh doubts were raised over the suicide of Dr David Kelly after it emerged that no fingerprints were found on the knife he supposedly used to kill himself.
The Hutton Inquiry into the death of the Ministry of Defence weapons expert ruled that he slashed one of his wrists with a blunt garden knife and took an overdose of pills.
But the campaigning Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker has carried out his own investigation after forensic experts questioned the official version of events.

¤ Australian election: an ominous silence on US war plans against Iran
¤ US air strikes kill 34 Iraqis

Zimbabwe: It's the land, stupid!
Posted: Sunday, October 14, 2007

By Nathaniel Manheru
October 13, 2007

The Herald

Three pieces — seemingly small and unimportant — came through the media this week. One relates to eleven white farmers who appeared before the magistrate in Chegutu, facing criminal charges for failing to vacate properties acquired by the State for purposes of resettling the landless.

The farmers lost the case with costs, with the magistrate, Tinashe Ndokera, agreeing with the prosecutor that the farmers merely sought to frustrate land reforms by abusing court processes.

It was a judgement which more than settling the matter, also carried a rebuke. Expectedly, the farmers are angry and traduce the ruling as "a farce". The farmers told both the BBC and Al Jazeera that they mean to fight on, including putting their lives on the line to keep the land.

A BBC/CNN in borrowed robes

Al Jazeera reporter, one Haru Mutasa, surprising still expected the minister responsible for lands to waste his breath addressing worn-out arguments from these farmers whose defence had been rejected by the courts anyway.

This absurd expectation, apart from betraying the location of the sympathies of the station she reports for, and possibly her own sympathies too, amounted to turning Al Jazeera into a superior court, an appellate court with powers of judicial review.

I have dismissed Al Jazeera as the BBC and CNN in borrowed Arab robes, to capture the rather disconcerting editorial discrepancy between the original, pro-Third World Arab Al Jazeera on the one hand, and this Caucasian medley which uses a branding subterfuge to push and defend white interests, on the other.

Mutasa tried to build emotion and empathy for the convicted white farmers by showing off their well-fed animals, contrasted by their faces made haggard by the dim prospects which land justice would soon bring and deliver. She did not find time to give her viewers a comparable and certainly compelling predicament of Zimbabwe's black landless who have had to endure the same predicament for generations.

And in their country too! Surely she was here enough (with Mighty Movies) in 2000 and beyond, to know that the debate on land reforms has evolved to stages where no one — I repeat no one in their right mind — is interested in revisiting arguments which justify the whole programme for the benefit of anyone, least of all that of white farmers who must know better. Until recently, they stood out as uninterrupted beneficiaries of African landlessness, most poignantly represented by the Tangwena people who survived just on the other side of Haru's birthplace.

The white squatters are the evil part of the colonial piece, and no amount of haggardness can ever lift them from their status as villains of this great injustice suffered by generations of Africans. Clearly, the girl seeks to come into the story too late, hoping she can breathe new life into cadaverous claims. In that futile effort, she looks quite hackneyed, strange and misplaced.

To SADC with cynicism

The second piece related to three equally defiant farmers who are in the courts in Rusape facing exactly the same charges. The third referred to a white farmer who has decided to take his case to the Sadc Tribunal, charging that Zimbabwe's land reforms are an exercise in racism and cronyism, and are pushing out people with the competence to work the land.

Interestingly, this particular white man has been on the land from time of birth, and certainly after 1980 when SADCC, precursor to the current Sadc, was formed.

At no point did he think of taking himself to a similar tribunal to raise the racism argument against the all-white colonial land reform programme which kept all Africans on the margins for so long. So much about human rights and racism.

Rhodesia's media A-Team

But something else happened. Rhodesia's indefatigable media A-Team is back in the country to mind this particular story of white struggle. Led by Peta Thornycroft, they have been running up and down, court to court, to ensure the world is roused once more to the "harrowing" plight of the vestigial white tribe left and lost in "Mugabiland".

It is a pleasure to watch their nimble footworks, and how they attempt to pull the entire media fraternity with them. Why a simple and straightforward case in the magistrates' court in small Chegutu proved to have a better appeal than a whole Vice-President opening an international Travel Expo, is something so hard to fathom. What is at stake which makes tourism and its fabulous receipts a drab in comparison? Why would Al Jazeera, itself an Arab channel, worry more about a handful of remnant, sunburnt, racist and law-breaking Rhodesian farmers, and not an Expo so overwhelmingly patronised by Arab buyers? But then again, what's in a name?

Against better sense, world sympathies

There is so much at stake, made worse by the fact that President Mugabe keeps moving on to new "outrages", from the point of view of white British interests here.

Between September and now, Brown has taken telling direct hits from the Zimbabwean leader. He faces a fractured EU he cannot look up to for salvation. If anything, the EU seems to be throwing more dust into Britain's already weeping eyes.

The latest admission by Brussels that the EU was narrow and vindictively British in its rush to impose sanctions against Zimbabwe before exhausting provisions and channels for dialogues can only spell further embarrassment for Brown.

Indeed it can only signal a regional bloc quite fed up with shoring up an unreasonable member's brittle policy of spite, against better sense and world sympathy. The hungry eastern dragon that continues to rumble in the background, eyeing all manner of resources, can only motivate greater rebellion within the European bloc.

Quite a brown headache

Much more happened. Germany will attend Portugal. France is seeking justification to attend through the dutiful Senegalese president Wade who thinks he can do better than Mbeki in bringing about a resolution of an impasse which has already been unclocked. In Shona we call it bravely slaying the dead and cold, muchekadzafa.

In the end France will attend, which means EU's two out of three most powerful economies will be in Lisbon. That isolates Brown, making his absence completely immaterial. Of course Sarkozy is under tremendous pressure from Britain to abscond so the EU, through its attendance register does not validate Mugabe's argument that this is a bilateral dispute. Quite a brown headache!

Stitching and stretching

But Mugabe continues to move on. His Indigenisation Bill is as good as done, only awaiting his assent. Judging by the most recent debate in the House of Lords, the British whose defence of white interests in respect of land was severely breached, are having to stitch and stretch the same tattered defence to cover another assault further up. It cannot be worse.

The Lords want to know what Her Majesty's Government is doing to protect British commercial interests threatened by "Mugabi". Malloch-Brown, himself a Rhodesian, was quite humble and modest: pretty precious little, beyond praying that Mugabe is restrained by Mbeki. Mugabe cannot be made to quack in his boots, he told the hoary lords.

Malloch-Brown gave a very sober response, itself quite a departure from the bellicosity of the supposedly suave House of Lords. Britain seems to be enjoying a blast of realism. Britain is worried about its mining interests; worried about its interests in the financial sector. That means we can now talk as equals, the colonial power having realised the futility of haughty condescension over a country it dismisses as a minor. Besides, the McKinnon charm has not delivered, with Mugabe turning away in contemptuous disgust from an enticement he was supposed to gobble hook, line and sinker.

Lost indeed

Increasingly, insistently, the argument is paring down to its bare essentials. More than anything else, it is about Britain's economic interests planted here by colonial history. More than anything else, it is about Zimbabwe's sovereign rights, won back through tears, blood and struggle. What gives in: a foreigner who seeks retention of colonial rights or an indigene who defends a birthright?

The futile fight by the farmers is an attempt to retain a smokescreen against blazing rays of a sun creeping towards midday. So is the coverage, led by Thornycroft. So are the noises from NGOs and elements within the Tsvangirai faction of the MDC.

Yes, so indeed is the case with strange studies and analysis on how Malawi conquered hunger, accompanied by an equally strange downgrading of Zimbabwe on the index of MDGs. It is to give Brown a face, indeed to impute decency to Britain's lost cause. Lost indeed! And as the challenges against the British stiffen, they are likely to come clean and bold, to tell the EU "it's land, stupid"!

Commotion in the anteroom

I painted a scenario for you, gentle reader. I am referring to the Mbeki mediation which by the way is going on very well, too well in fact. I indicated Biti would have difficulties in selling the outcome to his constituency. Thank God, Tsvangirai saw sense and decided against leading the axis against the agreement. He would have been finished much earlier. He still faces a certain death politically, albeit one punctuated by spurts of reprieve, here and there. Of course that position on the talks spawned its own problems, causing commotion in his faction's anteroom.

He is working hard to pacify his constituency. In the meantime, let us focus on revealing indiscretions. The Herald reports that Lucia Matibenga has been fired. The pirate American Studio 7 says she has not been dismissed. Kwinjeh confirms in a rather vulgar obituary that indeed Lucia is dead and forgotten, blaming it all on MDC's inability to break free "from Zanu (PF) culture" of using women, not rewarding them for their hardly sutured sacrifices. She bares her thighs to prove she still nurses weeping wounds that her male hierarchy cannot see.

Third Force

The article goes further. It celebrates women like Sekai Holland and Priscillah Misihairambwi who have been in the trenches for the rights of this important half of humanity which nature long decided to bear with a delightful breach. So far, all sounds okay. Until one realises Kwinjeh is threatening to resign, and is seeking new pedestals for Third Force unity, across factions. Watch this one. Yet another revealing indiscretion.

Tsvangirai is in the US, on a universities lecture circuit. In one interview he urges the world to help Zimbabwe with humanitarian assistance, and stops. No reference to sanctions in a country which pioneered illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe, and thus which deserves greater thanks than those criminals who lead Down Under whom he thanked so fulsomely.

Why? Equally, he is at pains to indicate he is not meeting State Department officials. That might be true; that might be false. But this is the new image he seeks to found and dress himself with.

Not quite the same as saying remove sanctions. But equally not quite the same as saying please cut electricity, fuel, etc, etc.

Telling England from within its belly

Fortuitously, some Michelle Gavin of the influential American Council on Foreign Relations warns the British and Western interests, including business interests, against the bigoted ABM — Anyone But Mugabe campaign. She makes the warning at Chatham, London, itself the hatchery for British policy against Zimbabwe in early 2000. Maybe this means nothing, but no harm in pointing out something. Yet, yet another goof.

Sekai Holland tells New Zealanders MDC will not hesitate to pull out of talks if Zanu (PF) does not stop harassing its members. She sees harassment from far-away New Zealand, the harassment we on the ground cannot see. Biti reacts with remarkable promptitude. He says MDC will not desert the talks, asserting instead his side will pursue talks to the logic end. Again unimportant? I don't know. Maybe insignificant farts from a distend belly.

Like-Minded Donor Group?

But maybe greater accent should be placed on the urbane stratum of the groomed high and might. I am referring to diplomatic circles. Again, recall my previous pieces. Even in that usually phlegmatic world, things have been suggesting a revealing hubbub. With the idea of a special envoy of the UN Secretary General for humanitarian affairs visiting Zimbabwe flatly rejected and thus abandoned; with the idea of an EU human rights envoy palsied and dead on conception and, with Mbeki having successfully fire-walled inter-party talks, this suave world of dignified, officially sanctioned espionage appear buttoned up, feeling smothered.

Led by the Swedish ambassador, the so-called donor nations, legitimised by the seemingly lost UNDP, have been seeking ways of boring to the nub of influence. It has not been easy, one attempt after another; one Trojan horse after another. From the old days of the seemingly all-country Rainbow initiative, through to Fishmongers, matters have mutated to what the tireless but misdirected Ray-lander terms Like-Minded Donor Group (LMDG)!

Amazing how grown-ups give us unsolicited humour in broad daylight. Happily the African, Asian and Arab groups have seen through this threadbare subterfuge, stoutly rebuffing any overtures.

That they are a group, no one contests. That these countries are like-minded, again no one doubts. That they are donors, we all surely know. But grouped against, or for what? But like-minded on what, or against what? Donors to whom, to what?

These are the questions to which we have abundant answers. It is just that they take us for infantile fools before whom carrots are dangled for obvious concessions. The Swedish guy writes complaining there is no information sharing on the ongoing talks. I am sure he wrote on behalf of the group. Why does he expect us to place them in that position of privilege? Merely in the hope of donations?

It is clear the guy is so far away from understanding this country. The grovelling for a farthing he sees in the opposition is quite far from the defining national psyche of this country. Let him get that. We all know that these so-called donor nations which we know as "sanction nations" have been hoping that Sadc would approach them for funding of Zimbabwe's recovery. Let them re-read the Dar communiqué to know what it enjoins Sadc to do.

Weeping Hussein

My learned classmate came to my office the other day for a chuckle. The Financial Gazette had just published a story which reminded both of us of the sitcom "Liar, Liar". Of course those who know it would recall "Liar Liar" is a prostitution of "Lawyer, Lawyer". Here was a lawyer incurably given to bald lies, including turning his villain clients into victims.

Back to the article. Its main focus was a concentrated attack on George Charamba, Secretary for Information and Publicity. We zeroed in on a supposed line of attack against Charamba, namely that he "sings hopelessly out of tune for his supper". We both wondered whose supper must he sing for in order not to be "hopelessly out of tune"? Surely he is an employee of a Zanu (PF) Government? Is he not employed to defend Government interests?

Who sings for his supper? An employee of a Zanu (PF) Government going about his lawful duties of defending that establishment on the one hand, or a lawyer who is not the Attorney General or an officer of the AG, volunteering his services to Zanu (PF) and its Government, on the other, as he claims? After all, surely the fact that he represented Zanu (PF) right up to the highest level is precisely why he faces the opposing action which he does.

Indeed precisely why his begging letter to the Party hierarchy only last week, suggests a personality acutely wishing to be held in good stead by the Party.

Indeed a personality so remarkably different from the bravado he projects through inane placements in once-a-week newspapers over a matter which shall be decided in the courts. Or does he fear Charamba's singing may turn out to be his weeping? Surely time will tell. Icho!

nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw

Blackwater "Psycho Killers"
Posted: Saturday, October 13, 2007

¤ "Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire"

¤ War Without End, Amen
There are actually some quarters where Pentagon honcho Robert Gates is considered a moderate of some kind, one of the few sensible, responsible figures in the Bush Administration able to restrain – or at least moderate – the raging-bull belligerence of Dick Cheney and his crew. This has always been a curious reputation for a man who has spent most of his career hip-deep in militarist skullduggery, as Robert Parry, among others, has amply demonstrated. (Here and here, for example.) But in such desperate and degraded times as these, it's only natural to clutch at the slightest straw of hope that someone, somewhere, will stand between us and the worst excesses of our masters, as we noted here earlier.

¤ Former US commander calls Iraq 'nightmare with no end'
In the bluntest assessment of Iraq by a former senior Pentagon official yet, retired Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez also lambasted US political leaders as "incompetent," "inept," "derelict in the performance of their duty" and suggested they would have been court-martialed had they been members of the US military.

¤ Going Down on the Rocks in Dinosaur
¤ Will Someone Please Give Lou Dobbs a Lobotomy?
¤ Blackwater "Psycho Killers"
¤ 21 killed in Colombia mine collapse
¤ American Flag Pins Are For Idiots
¤ The Nobel Peace Prize and FEC Filings

¤ Leadership Void
People of America, this is truly the problem with what was once a Representative Republic and now is a country run by "elected" officials who believe that they, individually and collectively, are above any accountability and are not answerable to their constituents. Our public servants erroneously believe that they are the leaders!

¤ Inflation isn't coming. It's here.
¤ When "Turn the other Cheek" = "Start a new War!"
¤ Bush, aides 'grossly misjudged Putin'
¤ The Mother of all Pretexts

Jewish power dominates at 'Vanity Fair'
Posted: Saturday, October 13, 2007

It's a list of "the world's most powerful people," 100 of the bankers and media moguls, publishers and image makers who shape the lives of billions. It's an exclusive, insular club, one whose influence stretches around the globe but is concentrated strategically in the highest corridors of power.

More than half its members, at least by one count, are Jewish.
Full Article : jpost.com

Tell the Damn Truth Already
Posted: Friday, October 12, 2007

¤ Blackwatergate
¤ China dam to force 4m to relocate
¤ 57 killed, injured as car bomb explodes in central Kirkuk
¤ Should Armenian Allies Bomb the United States?
¤ American Tears

¤ No More Naked Emperors
I have been looking at our naked emperor for so long, I have forgotten what he looks like dressed. I know that here on Common Dreams, there are many like-minded folks. What I cannot understand is why the majority of Americans do not see what we see.

Take the fuss that began with the incidents at Abu Ghraib. Why would it surprise anyone that Americans would engage in torture in a war zone? Americans who believe that torture is something new or unique in our history are fooling themselves. The CIA-supported counter-insurgency movements in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador all made liberal use of this method of interrogation.

¤ Pakistan's Mercenary Elites

¤ Tell the Damn Truth Already
Lately I've been wondering what might have happened if President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had just told the truth.
Not so much about 9/11, although it would have helped if they'd offered a few reasons why they thought Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks. America has its share of enemies, so a little hard proof would have gone a long way.

¤ Mugabe's Speech to the UN General Assembly

¤ Zimbabwe: What the West Doesn't Want You to Know
I am responding to a putrid article on Zimbabwe by Dr. Richard E. Mshomba, Professor of Economics at La Salle University in Pennsylvania U.S.A., published in Arusha Times on July 14, 2007.
Professor Mshomba wrote, 'President Robert Mugabe has single-handedly ruined Zimbabwe with his mismanagement of the economy and his iron-fisted rule.' You do not mean it, Mshomba! One man cannot single-handedly ruin such a huge economy.

¤ A reign of terror which history has chosen to neglect
¤ Rice says Iran 'lying' about nukes

¤ "Why We Know Iraq is Lying" A Column by Dr. Condoleezza Rice
Eleven weeks after the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution demanding yet again that Iraq disclose and disarm all its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, it is appropriate to ask, "Has Saddam Hussein finally decided to voluntarily disarm?" Unfortunately, the answer is a clear and resounding no.

¤ US rejects Russian security concern
¤ A Nobel Peace Prize in the 2008 Circus for the White House?
¤ How the US media changed the story of the suicide explosion in Al-Tuz

¤ It's the Oil
Iraq is 'unwinnable', a 'quagmire', a 'fiasco': so goes the received opinion. But there is good reason to think that, from the Bush-Cheney perspective, it is none of these things. Indeed, the US may be 'stuck' precisely where Bush et al want it to be, which is why there is no 'exit strategy'.

¤ U.S. Soldiers Commit War Crimes at One-Ninth the Price

'Black' Cherokees fight for heritage
Posted: Friday, October 12, 2007

By Lois Hatton

A group of Americans who are not fully black or fully Indian are fighting for the survival of their identity, culture, history and economic future. Life for these black Indians can be difficult, no matter their tribal affiliation.

Lynn Hart, a black Yankton Sioux, says he regularly experiences racism. "When I go to the reservation, people see me as black. When I walk among blacks, they see me as Indian." But black Cherokees, commonly called Cherokee Freedmen, have recently been dealt a crueler blow.

In March, Cherokee tribal members voted to remove members who had African-American heritage — a total of 2,800 people. Why now? Money seems to be a motivating factor. Members receive health care, education and housing benefits. Each also has voting rights in tribal elections. But more important, each member has a stake in growing casino revenue.
Full Article : blogs.usatoday.com

No Legitimate Justification for War with Iran
Posted: Thursday, October 11, 2007

¤ Carter: US has abandoned 'basic principles of human rights'
¤ Six-figure bonuses retain US commandos

¤ Bush's Campaign of Lies to Conceal War Crimes
During his recent, hour-long interview on Al-Arabiya TV, President Bush denied "the U.S. is gearing up to attack Iran" and dismissed as "'gossip' reports in the Arab press that he has issued orders to senior U.S. military officials to prepare for an attack on Iran at the end of January or in February." [AP, Arizona Daily Star, Oct. 6, 2007] He then added: "Evidently, there's a lot of gossip in parts of the country - world that try to scare people about me personally or my country or what we stand for."

¤ Bomb at Muslim shrine in India kills three
¤ Turkish ambassador recalled from US in Armenian genocide row
¤ Bomb, Bomb Iran

¤ No Legitimate Justification for War with Iran
Given the complexities of the modern world, and the uncertainties inherent in such, it is prudent for any nation possessing global reach and ambition to be prepared to defend its legitimate interests through the use of military force. The geographic reality of Iran’s physical location vis-à-vis the Strait of Hormuz, and the dire economic consequences that would accrue should Middle Eastern oil supplies become choked off through any closure or lengthy disruption of shipping through the Straight of Hormuz, dictate that the United States plan for the possible deployment and employment of its military to secure this strategic shipping lane.

¤ Blackwater in Iraq
¤ US detains nearly 25,000 in Iraq
¤ 9 Children Killed in U.S. Raid in Iraq
¤ Afghanistan - A war won and lost
¤ Al-Qaeda: Beginning of the End, or Grasping at Straws?
¤ U.S. Army lowers its recruiting standards
¤ Bush and Congress Dispute Armenian 'Genocide' Status
¤ 21st or 19th Century Socialism?

¤ Al-Qaeda: Sort of Like the Energizer Bunny
For those of you slipping back into normalcy, no longer particularly bothered by "al-Qaeda" or the interminable GWOT, along comes another White House report on national security. "We also must never lose sight of al-Qaeda’s persistent desire for weapons of mass destruction, as the group continues to try to acquire and use chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material," the neocons claim, hardly coincidentally at the same time they have "called anew on the Democratic-led Congress to expand the power of US intelligence agencies to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists ‘while protecting the civil liberties of Americans," that last part added as an obligatory calmative, as anybody even halfway acquainted with the Bill of Rights understands full well that eavesdropping, especially in high-tech NSA vacuum cleaner fashion, is a full court press against the Constitution.

¤ Iran Plays Tiddlywinks with 'al-Qaeda'
In an effort to pave the way for the total destruction of Iran, the neocon think-tanks are marching out "experts" to convince us, the mostly clueless and witless American public, that Iran is the epicenter of evil in the world, thus its hospitals, kindergarten classrooms, and water treatment plants justly deserve to be bombed.
One such instance of this shameless fear mongering and transparent propaganda comes from the Claremont Institute, described by Media Transparency as "a bastion of Straussian scholarship," that is to say promulgation of Machiavellian deception and "noble lies," as Strauss called lying to the people, taking his cue from Plato. As should be expected, the Claremont Institute is funded by the usual suspects, including the Scaife foundation, presided over by the CIA asset, Richard Mellon Scaife.

Bush and Congress Dispute Armenian 'Genocide' Status
Posted: Thursday, October 11, 2007

by Rupert Cornwell

A Congressional committee last night defied George Bush, voting through a resolution describing the 1915 slaughter of Armenians as a genocide - a move the White House says would severely damage relations with Turkey, a vital ally in the Iraq war.
Full Article : commondreams.org

UK stance over Zimbabwe rapped
Posted: Thursday, October 11, 2007

AFP-Herald Reporter
October 11, 2007
The Herald

PORTUGAL yesterday said it respects Africa's position that President Mugabe should attend the European Union-Africa Summit while the EU says Britain's stance on Zimbabwe was against European interests.

Portuguese Foreign Minister Mr Luis Amado said Cde Mugabe could attend the EU-Africa summit if that is what African nations want.

Despite Zimbabwe's problems, no country "can be pushed aside from dialogue and from the development of long-term strategic relations between the EU and the continent," Mr Amado, whose country is current EU president, said.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he may boycott the planned summit if Cde Mugabe is present.

But Mr Amado said the summit — scheduled for December 8-9 in Lisbon — at the end of Portugal's six-month presidency, could not be run by special cases.

President Mugabe would be there "if such is the will of Africa," he added.

Mr Amado was speaking from Pretoria, South Africa, where he was part of an EU delegation.

On Tuesday, South Africa's ambassador to the European Union, Anil Sooklal, warned against setting preconditions for the summit.

"African leaders won't attend a watered-down summit," said Sooklal.

"It must be a summit of equals. No one should lay down preconditions. Let us meet and discuss everything of interest — even the difficult issues — with everyone present," said the ambassador.

On Monday, European Commission chief Mr Jose Manuel Barroso said the summit should not be derailed by the stand-off between Britain and Zimbabwe.

Mr Brown's position was "not fair, nor right" and was against European interests, he added.

Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said all African leaders, including President Mugabe, should attend the summit.

Speaking during a visit to South Africa, the German Chancellor said the summit was an opportunity for dialogue where answers should be provided for concerns raised.

There has been no EU-Africa summit for seven years, partly due to divisions over whether President Mugabe should be allowed to attend.

The Mozambican Government has said it will not attend the summit if Cde Mugabe was not invited.

Mozambican Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr Eduardo Koloma said the participation of his country in the summit set for December in Portugal depends on the unconditional attendance of President Mugabe.

The assertion resembles the recent one from Sadc chairman, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, who reiterated that his country would not attend in the event of President Mugabe's exclusion.

Africa has maintained that the summit should involve leaders from the continent and invitations should not be selective.

The EU — at the instigation of Britain — has imposed illegal economic sanctions against Zimbabwe, which have hurt the economy and ordinary Zimbabweans. — AFP-Herald Reporter.

Oil, Israel, and America: The Root Cause of the Crisis
Posted: Thursday, October 11, 2007

¤ 35% of US Americans Still Support Bush: Diagnosing the Insanity
The essential features of Americanistic Personality Disorder include pervasive patterns of extreme self-absorption, profound and long-term lapses in empathy, a deep disregard for the well-being of others, a powerful aversion to intellectual honesty and reality, and a grossly exaggerated sense of the importance of one's self and one's nation. These patterns emerge in infancy, manifest themselves in nearly all contexts, and often become pathological.
These patterns have also been characterized as sociopathic, or colloquially as the "Ugly American Syndrome." Note that the latter terminology carries too benign a connotation to accurately describe an individual afflicted with such a dangerous perversion of character.

¤ Bush's slogan: war on olive branch

¤ Pipe Dreams: War Profiteers Plow Under the Poor
Since the American invasion, Afghan's world-leading poppy production has shot even higher through the roof. (It had been virtually eradicated under the Taliban -- with the help, now forgotten, of the Bush Administration.) Local warlords and druglords – many of them connected to the Kabul government and long backed by the Bush Regime (Man, is there any side in any conflict they haven't supported at one point or another, or as in Iraq, at the same time?) – have flooded the world with cheap heroin, swelling the coffers of criminal organizations everywhere. Yet without the poppy, Afghan farmers will go under; there is no safety net to tide them over during an attempt to build new markets with different crops.

¤ Depleted uranium enduring risk
¤ Iraq's displaced people nightmare
¤ Legal interventions

¤ Oil, Israel, and America: The Root Cause of the Crisis
There is no shortage of examples of historical points of friction between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States to draw upon in order to illustrate the genesis of the current level of tension. One can point to the Islamic revolution that cast aside America's staunch ally, Reza Shah Pahlevi, the period of reactionary exportation of Islamic “revolution” that followed, the take over of the US Embassy and subsequent holding of Americans hostage (replete with a failed rescue mission), the Iranian use of proxy's to confront American military involvement in Lebanon, inclusive of the bombing of the Marine barracks and US Embassy compounds, America's support of Saddam Hussein during the 8-year war between Iran and Iraq, the ‘hot' conflict between Iran and the United States in the late 1980's, or Iran's ongoing support of the Hezbollah Party in Lebanon. The list could continue.

¤ The Iraq Occupation and the Coming War Against Iran
¤ US considered radioactive poisons for assassinations
¤ Why the Annapolis conference will be another fiasco
¤ Villagers bury victims of Pakistani air strikes
¤ Putin: no proof Iran is trying to make nuclear weapons
¤ Zimbabwe to Get U.S.$1,5bn Oil Refinery
¤ Jimmy Carter calls Cheney a 'disaster' for U.S.

Jimmy Carter calls Cheney a 'disaster' for U.S.
Posted: Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Former President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday denounced Vice President Dick Cheney as a "disaster" for the country and a "militant" who has had an excessive influence in setting foreign policy.
Full Article : alertnet.org

Zimbabwe to Get U.S.$1,5bn Oil Refinery
Posted: Wednesday, October 10, 2007

A Qatar company will invest around US$1,5 billion in Zimbabwe to build an oil refinery, in a show of confidence in the country's economic potential.

Venessia Petroleum is run by a member of Qatar's ruling family and says it has confidence in Zimbabwe despite the current problems.

It plans to build a 120 000 barrels-per-day refinery in Harare, while its sister company will develop a five-star hotel in Harare, the company's general manager Mr Jawhar Zaidi said on Monday.

[The Zimbabwe] Government adopted a Look East policy to increase political and economic co-operation with friendly countries in the Far East and Middle East after Western countries led by Britain and the United States slapped Zimbabwe with illegal economic sanctions.
Full Article : allafrica.com

Putin: No evidence Iran building nuclear bomb
Posted: Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Russia has no evidence that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday after talks in Moscow with his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy.

"We do not have information that Iran is trying to create a nuclear weapon. We operate on the principle that Iran does not have those plans," Putin said.
Full Article : breitbart.com

All British troops may leave Iraq next year
Posted: Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Most British troops could be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of next year under an exit strategy outlined by Gordon Brown yesterday.

As the Prime Minister began trying to restore his battered authority after calling off an autumn election, Mr Brown said British troop numbers would be halved to 2,500 by next spring when a further decision on the next phase would be taken.

Ministry of Defence officials said that all British troops could be out by the end of next year, although Downing Street expressed caution about the prospect.
Full Article : timesonline.co.uk

Cheney's Oil Law For Iraq Is Neocolonial Theft
Posted: Tuesday, October 9, 2007

¤ US considered radioactive poisons for assassinations
In one of the longest-held secrets of the Cold War, the U.S. Army explored the potential for using radioactive poisons to assassinate "important individuals" such as military or civilian leaders, according to newly declassified documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Approved at the highest levels of the Army in 1948, the effort was a well-hidden part of the military's pursuit of a "new concept of warfare" using radioactive materials from atomic bombmaking to contaminate swaths of enemy land or to target military bases, factories or troop formations.

¤ 700,000 Palestinians were kidnapped since 1967

¤ Clinton lied, people died
Should Hillary Clinton wins the US presidency, Bill Clinton will be given the job of repairing America's damaged international reputation.
That's certainly going to be an extremely hard job, the USA's reputation is certainly suffering all over the world and not simply in the Middle East where the 1.2 million Iraqi lives have been lost, where US policy has turned Iraq into a "failed State" ,where whole towns have been turned into rubble and where countless war crimes have been committed.
It's not coca cola and McDonalds people now associate with the USA but torture, concentration camps and an appetite for mass murder.

¤ Warning: Authorized to kill

¤ Cheney's Oil Law For Iraq Is Neocolonial Theft
Although a great deal more is at stake in the Iraq war than oil, there can be no doubt that the rich petroleum reserves of the country have stood high on the agenda of the war party since long before the 2003 invasion, and continue to be the focus of policy for the occupying powers. Alan Greenspan, of all people, recently let the cat out of the bag, when he reported in his autobiography, The Age of Turbulence, that the war was "largely about oil." Brenan Nelson, the Minister of Defense of Australia, one of the "coalition of the willing," also admitted this when he stated on July 5, that "resource security" was one of his country's priorities for defense and security, and that Iraq was part of that equation.

¤ US media continues to shortchange Iraqis - massacres are now called accidents of perception

¤ Bush Awards Congressional Medal to IBC Czar
Bush said, "It's very important to every person in America that we continue to minimize the true costs of the Iraq War. Mr. Sloboda has done important work in this regard, by giving us tolerable Iraqi casualty figures to promote, instead of the Godless crap you see in the Lancet or Opinion Business Research. Every single one of the American people owes Mr. Sloboda a debt of gratitude, which is why I'm awarding him this medal."

¤ Two Million Iraq Deaths, Eight Million Bush Asian Holocaust Deaths And Media Holocaust Denial
¤ Translating Bush
¤ Homocide by Cops at the Phoenix Airport
¤ Deputy fired 30 rounds into Wisconsin home; had completed required training
¤ The Big Lie: 'Iran Is a Threat'
¤ Derailing a deal
¤ October 12th: A Day To Celebrate?
¤ Big Sugar
¤ Columbus exposed as iron-fisted tyrant who tortured his slaves
¤ Britain 'on board' for US strikes on Iran

¤ Suicide bombing in northwestern Pakistan kills at least 15

¤ New spin on an old smear
In the early stages of the armed occupation of Iraq (still being called a "war" for some reason), the US propaganda machine was intent on denying the existence of any legitimate national resistance, referring famously to "Baathist dead-enders" and so on. But where I came in, and for much of the past year, the propaganda machine had shifted focus a little, and was intent on blurring or smearing the distinction between takfiiri crazies some of whom who kill for religion, and the nationalist resistance fighters who target the foreign occupation (whose existence was now acknowledged, but whose legitimacy was attacked by the takfiiri smear), all referred to collectively as "Sunni insurgents".

¤ Domestic abuse, high housing costs and unemployment increase number of homeless families in USA

The High Cost of U.S. Subservience to Israel
Posted: Sunday, October 7, 2007

¤ Making the Same Mistake Twice
I have no idea whether the president will order an attack on Iran. Seymour Hersh, a reporter I respect, says the Bush administration has decided it would be easier to sell an attack on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards than on Iran's nuclear facilities.
Certainly all of the negative comments about Iran that are coming from Israel, its lobby and its foot-kissers in Congress, and from the White House and the Pentagon, look remarkably like a buildup for a new war.

¤ Are Presidents Entitled to Kill Foreigners?
¤ Six shot dead at high-school party by off-duty police officer

¤ The Invasion of Afghanistan, Six Years Later
Tomorrow is the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan by the US, Britain and allies, an operation codenamed Enduring Freedom. But six years on, Britain is once again, as in Iraq, the most junior of partners, spending the lives of its soldiers with little real influence over the war.
The outcome of the conflict in Afghanistan will be decided in Washington and Islamabad. There is no chance of defeating the Taliban so long as they can retreat, retrain and recoup in the mountain fastnesses of Pakistan.

¤ Solution or Diversion? Divestment and Darfur

¤ Pope Versus President

¤ The High Cost of U.S. Subservience to Israel
"Despite this grim record, U.S. subservience to the wishes of Israel’s leaders does not change. Today Israel is the only nation urging the United States to attack Iran. The lobby is pushing hard again. If the U.S. assaults Iran it will again be on Israel’s behalf."

¤ Listening to Ourselves
¤ Unmasking AIPAC
¤ Iraq Embassy Cost Rises $144 Million

¤ New spin on an old smear
In the early stages of the armed occupation of Iraq (still being called a "war" for some reason), the US propaganda machine was intent on denying the existence of any legitimate national resistance, referring famously to "Baathist dead-enders" and so on. But where I came in, and for much of the past year, the propaganda machine had shifted focus a little, and was intent on blurring or smearing the distinction between takfiiri crazies some of whom who kill for religion, and the nationalist resistance fighters who target the foreign occupation (whose existence was now acknowledged, but whose legitimacy was attacked by the takfiiri smear), all referred to collectively as "Sunni insurgents".

¤ War Criminal

¤ Asian storms leave dozens dead

Zimbabwe should attend summit: Germany
Posted: Saturday, October 6, 2007

Herald Reporter
October 06, 2007

President Thabo Mbeki yesterday staved off pressure from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to take a tougher stance against Zimbabwe.

The two leaders met in South Africa yesterday.

Prior to the meeting, the German leader had reportedly vowed to persuade the South African leader to take a tougher stance on Zimbabwe despite the notable achievements his mediation has already scored.

Media reports last night indicated that Ms Merkel came out of her meeting with President Mbeki singing from a different hymn sheet and even categorically stated that Zimbabwe should be present at the European Union-Africa Summit regardless of British attempts to bar Harare from the Lisbon summit.

Her pronouncement will put a damper on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's apparent desire to have President Mugabe barred.

Last night she was quoted as having said: "During our presidency of the European Union (earlier this year), we worked very much to prepare the ground for the upcoming EU-AU Summit ... and we want this summit to, indeed, open a new chapter in the relationship between our continents.

"I have said right from the start that the President of the Republic of Germany wanted to invite all African countries to that summit and it's up to the countries themselves to decide how they are going to be represented at the table.

"I also said (to Mr Mbeki) that obviously we will make all our assessments heard. We will also raise all our criticisms. We would do so in the presence of each and everyone and obviously each and every one has the right to attend."

Germany is working with Portugal on the organisation of the summit.

The German leader went further and thanked President Mbeki for the role he is playing in facilitating dialogue between the ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition MDC.

Portugal has already indicated that it would like to have all African leaders in attendance while a number of African leaders have made it clear that there will be no summit if President Mugabe is not invited to Lisbon.

Sadc heads of state earlier this year mandated South Africa to mediate between Zimbabwe's main political parties, resulting in the co-sponsoring of Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (Number 18) Bill in Parliament last month.

It is understood that President Mbeki impressed upon the German leader that considerable progress had been achieved in the South African-facilitated talks between Zanu-PF and the two factions of the MDC.

After meeting his German counterpart, Mr Mbeki told the media he was confident that the two political parties would soon reach a composite agreement and next year's harmonised elections would be free and fair.

"There is a united voice emerging from the ruling party and opposition on what to do to address these political problems. There was a common determination to conclude them (the talks) as quickly as possible.

"We are confident they will reach an agreement on all of these matters. So, at least as far as the political challenges are concerned, there was a united voice. Both the ruling party and opposition are committed to making sure the elections are free and fair.

"Next year after the elections, it will be very important they take the same approach with regard to economic challenges that they together evolve a common approach," he said.

However, the Government in Harare yesterday criticised Ms Merkel for labelling the so-called Zimbabwe crisis a "disastrous" one.

Secretary for Information and Publicity Cde George Charamba said Germany had no moral standing to pass judgment on Zimbabwe.

"Zimbabwe would very much appreciate it if this good lady would do us a great favour by simply lifting those illegal sanctions which her predecessor imposed hoping to protect German (wildlife) conservancies here.

"It is ironical that Germany, with a history such as it has, has the temerity to see a speck in Zimbabwe's eye," Cde Charamba said.

http://www.herald.co.zw

Ahmadinejad: Referendum on transfer of Israel to Europe
Posted: Friday, October 5, 2007

Iranian leader says during Jerusalem Day rally in Tehran, 'Let a referendum be held in Palestine on the transfer of Zionists to Europe, Canada or Alaska.' Adds: Israel committed crimes under pretext of the Holocaust
Full Article : ynetnews.com

It's the Oil and Gas, Stupid
Posted: Friday, October 5, 2007

¤ Venezuelan Foreign Minister Slams US Government at the UN
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro Speaks Before the United Nations General Assembly in New York (Reuters) Mérida, October 3, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)- Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro sharply criticized Washington at the UN General Assembly yesterday for increasing threats against Iran and for its actions in the war on terrorism. Maduro also met with US officials on Monday to discuss the delicate relations between the two countries.

¤ Sean Penn Hails Hugo Chavez, Hits Fox News
¤ White House On Defensive Over Torture Memos

¤ Venezuela Responds to US Secretary of Defense
Caracas, October 4, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)- Responding to US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said that Hugo Chavez is a "threat to regional stability," Venezuelan Vice-President Jorge Rodriguez affirmed that Hugo Chavez is indeed a "tremendous threat" to the "empires of the world," and assured they would continue to be a "greater threat" as time goes on.
"Of course he [Chavez] is a threat to the stability of the empires of the world, for those who consider themselves the world police, for those who think they have a right to invade countries and massively murder the population," replied the Venezuelan vice-president to a recent statement made by Robert Gates during a visit to El Salvador.

¤ Syria's Illusory Nukes: More Propaganda
¤ Not Marxism, the State and Private Property are obsolete
¤ The Burmese Regime's Lifeline
¤ It's the Oil and Gas, Stupid

¤ White Man's Wars, Past and Present
Racism is the engine that makes the rich man's world go 'round. Majorities of white people of all classes identify with their moneyed-brethren, and can be counted on to rally to the racist banner. Such is the case with the U.S. offensive in the Middle East, and the villlianization of Muslims in general. "Eternal war" is now American policy, but it is a war that has gone on without end for half a millennium, since the Europeans "discovered" new regions for rape and pillage in 1492. They have since described their march of death as the spread of "civilization." Tell that to the 95 percent of indigenous Americans who died when the Europeans arrived, or the tens of millions of Africans whose societies were totally destroyed by the slave trade. And tell it to the one million Iraqis who have perished in the current war.

¤ Enhanced Interrogation Methods? No, The Word Is "Torture"

¤ Why is Antiwar.com hiding the Iraq Genocide?

¤ Why? Six years on from the invasion of Afghanistan

¤ The Anonymous Victims of Guantánamo
Hot on the heels of the release of Mohammed al-Amin, a Mauritanian student who was just a teenager when he was kidnapped for a bounty payment on a street in Pakistan over five years ago, the Pentagon has released another eight detainees -- six Afghans, a Libyan and a Yemeni -- thinning "the worst of the worst" at Guantánamo from 778 men to just 335.

¤ Why Are There No War Crimes Trials?
¤ The Fallout from an Attack on Iran Would Be Devastating
¤ Torture Does Too Work!
¤ Bush defends US interrogation methods

¤ Officials say drug caused Nigeria polio
A polio outbreak in Nigeria was caused by the vaccine designed to stop it, international health officials say, leaving at least 69 children paralyzed.
It is a frightening paradox in a part of the world that already distrusts western vaccines, making it even tougher to stamp out age-old diseases.
The outbreak was caused by the live polio virus that is used in vaccines given orally — the preferred method in developing countries because it is cheaper and doesn't require medical training to dispense.

Officials say drug caused Nigeria polio
Posted: Friday, October 5, 2007

LONDON - A polio outbreak in Nigeria was caused by the vaccine designed to stop it, international health officials say, leaving at least 69 children paralyzed. It is a frightening paradox in a part of the world that already distrusts western vaccines, making it even tougher to stamp out age-old diseases.
Full Article : news.yahoo.com

Scientists: Appendix Protects Good Germs
Posted: Friday, October 5, 2007

Some scientists think they have figured out the real job of the troublesome and seemingly useless appendix: It produces and protects good germs for your gut. That's the theory from surgeons and immunologists at Duke University Medical School, published online in a scientific journal this week.
Full Article : newsvine.com

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Slams US Govt at the UN
Posted: Friday, October 5, 2007

October 3rd 2007
by Chris Carlson
Venezuelanalysis.com

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro Speaks Before the United Nations General Assembly in New York (Reuters) Mérida, October 3, 2007

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro sharply criticized Washington at the UN General Assembly yesterday for increasing threats against Iran and for its actions in the war on terrorism. Maduro also met with US officials on Monday to discuss the delicate relations between the two countries.

Maduro spoke in place of President Hugo Chavez, who had canceled his trip to the UN at the last minute.

In his speech, Maduro warned General Assembly representatives of a campaign on the part of Washington "to demonize the Iranian people and government" and called for an end "to the madness of the war in Iraq."

"We have seen how, in a dangerous fashion, they are making threatening statements against the peaceful people of Iran," he said. "Has the world thought about what would happen if this total madness on the part of the elites in the United States government led to an attack on the peaceful nation of Iran?"

Maduro assured the assembly that "there is still time" to stop the campaign and prevent a war between the United States and Iran.

Calling the war in Iraq "foolish" and "irrational", Maduro pointed to the amount of money the United States has spent on the Iraq war, and emphasized the number of houses, schools and hospitals that could have been built for the poor people of the world.

"If we add up all the direct results of this foolish and irrational war we would have to say that this war has brought death, destruction, instability, and has created more havens for terrorism," he said. "Those 600 billion dollars invested in the occupation of Iraq during the last six years could have been for progress, equality, and justice for the Iraqi people, but the results are very evident. Just look at it."

Maduro went on to denounce Washington for its "hypocritical" policy of fighting terrorism, while at the same time protecting "one of the world's most dangerous terrorists," referring to Luis Posada Carriles, the Cuban anti-Castro terrorist responsible for various terrorist attacks, including the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airline that killed 73 people.

The minister renewed Venezuela's request to extradite Posada Carriles to Venezuela to be tried for his involvement in the bombing. Posada Carriles was a CIA-operative who once worked inside Venezuela and is accused of plotting the bombing of the Cuban airliner that took off from Venezuela. He has also been connected to other crimes, including the bombing of hotels in Havana and an attempted bombing in Panama. US authorities have denied the extradition request, however, alleging that Posada Carriles would be "tortured" in Venezuela.

"He is free and protected by the US government in Florida. This terrorist has served the CIA for 40 years," said Maduro. "This two-faced behavior shows the hypocrisy of a government that is supposedly fighting a war against terrorism, but in their own country they protect one of the most dangerous terrorists of the western hemisphere."

Maduro called on the representatives of the General Assembly to help build a "multipolar" world without "imperial hegemony," insisting that building another world is urgent and possible. He also renewed Venezuela's calls for a reform of the United Nations.

"We believe this organization has to be rebuilt. It has to be constructed to be a faithful instrument at the service of a multipolar world, of equality, of peace, of a world without hegemonies," he said.

Despite his harsh criticisms of Washington, Maduro met with top US envoy for the Americas Thomas Shannon at the UN headquarters on Monday, in what has been described as a "very cordial" meeting. According to reports, the main topic of the meeting was the humanitarian exchange being negotiated with Colombia in which Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has taken an active role.

This was the first meeting of its kind between the two governments, whose differences have become more and more heated in recent years. The Chavez government accuses the government of George W. Bush of imperialism and of being involved in trying to overthrow President Chavez in a 2002 coup d'état. The Bush administration, on the other hand, accuses Hugo Chavez of being a destabilizing force in the region and of leading his country down the wrong path.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2683

Sean Penn Hails Hugo Chavez, Hits Fox News
Posted: Friday, October 5, 2007

October 3rd 2007,
by Editor & Publisher
venezuelanalysis.com

Actor Sean Penn on David Letterman's Late Show (CBS). NEW YORK Sean Penn, appearing with David Letterman on CBS on Monday night, defended his recent visit with Venezuelan leader Huge Chavez, and said there is indeed freedom of expression for the media in that country.

"I found him a very fascinating guy," Penn said, referring to Chavez. "He’s done incredible things for the 80% of the people who are poor there."

Asked why he visited, Penn quipped, "I felt almost invited to go by Pat Robertson, because he was encouraging that Chavez be assassinated, and I always can assume that whatever he says it ought to be the opposite."

When Letterman said that from he'd read, Chavez must be "nuts" or at least "wacky." Penn replied: "I think if people have oil in the ground they are called wacky.

He also defended media freedom in that country. "One of things said about him is that he shut down a television station," Penn said. "Since 1998 they had been encouraging the assassination of Chavez every day.
So he just did not re-up their license.'''

Penn disputed "the idea that there is no freedom of expression there," explaining, "the loons of Fox News are broadcast there every day."

He was on the show promoting his new film, "Into the Wild."

See the exchange between Letterman and Penn here.

White House On Defensive Over Torture Memos
Posted: Friday, October 5, 2007

WASHINGTON--The Bush administration found itself in familiar territory yesterday, facing accusations it was covertly torturing terrorism suspects and holding them in secret "black sites".

"The White House confirmed the existence of two secret memos, first reported in The New York Times, that appear to authorize the Central Intelligence Agency the ability to use its most extreme interrogation techniques, including simulated drowning known as "water-boarding."

But it said the memos did not circumvent a U.S. law prohibiting "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of suspects or an official 2004 policy that declared torture "abhorrent."
Full Article : commondreams.org

24 illegal song downloads cost US woman 220,000 dollars
Posted: Thursday, October 4, 2007

In the first US trial to challenge the illegal downloading of music on the Internet, a single mother from Minnesota was ordered Thursday to pay 220,000 dollars for sharing 24 songs online.

Jammie Thomas, 30, was the first among more than 26,000 people sued by the world's most powerful recording companies to refuse a settlement after being slapped with a lawsuit by the Recording Industry of America and six major music labels.
Full Article : breitbart.com

The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans
Posted: Thursday, October 4, 2007

by Harriet A. Washington; New York, Doubleday, 2007, 512 pages, $27.95

Joshua Miller, Ph.D.

Most readers of Psychiatric Services are familiar with the notorious Tuskegee Syphilis Study, where 399 African American men with syphilis were studied by the United States Public Health Service to observe the course of the disease. Treatment for study participants was not only withheld but actively suppressed by the experimental team. The study began in the 1930s and continued until the early 1970s, when Peter Buxton, a young Polish immigrant who worked as a venereal disease interviewer for the Public Health Service, publicly blew the whistle after he was unable to prevail upon the Public Health Service to stop the experiment.

As shocking as that incident was, Harriet Washington amply documents how it was but one of many medical abuses committed against African Americans throughout United States history and probably was not the worst. In fact, Washington describes a multifaceted pattern of racist and unethical medical practice, largely unknown to most people in the United States—particularly those who have not experienced racial oppression—with devastating consequences for the well-being of millions of African-American citizens. This practice led to a health "chasm" between blacks and whites and eroded the trust of many African Americans in the medical system to this day.
Full Article : psychiatryonline.org

Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations
Posted: Thursday, October 4, 2007

¤ Abu Ghraib Prisoners Accuse US Companies of Torture

¤ Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations
When the Justice Department publicly declared torture "abhorrent" in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.
But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

¤ Blackwater's Enablers at the State Department

¤ 8 Million Deaths & Media Holocaust Denial
The 6th anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan is approaching. This horrendous war crime was committed ostensibly in response to the 9/11 atrocity in which 3,000 people died.

While the egregiously dishonest and violent Bush Administration asserts that this atrocity was committed by Muslim Men in Caves, nobody has been arraigned and tried and there is a large body of available evidence that the US or US surrogates (Israelis?) were complicit in this crime (e.g. see Scholars for 9/11 Truth: http://st911.org/ ).

¤ A New Map of Iraq.

¤ America in Iraq: The 10-Year Plan
The comments by Iraq's deputy foreign minister hardly caused a stir when they appeared Saturday in Asharq al Awsat, an Arabic newspaper published across the Middle East. But they are a strong indication of the depth of the Bush Administration's military commitment to the region. "Iraq needs a new resolution to determine the shape of the relationship between the two countries and how to cooperate with the U.S. forces," Labid Abawi was quoted as saying. "We will ask the Council to include an article that allows Iraq to enter into negotiations with the United States to reach long-term security agreements to meet Iraq's security needs bilaterally."

¤ UK-US Iraqi Holocaust And Iraqi Genocide - 3.9 Million Deaths

¤ Psychopathic, Mass-murdering, Sons-of-Bitches.
I have been watching this Blackwater saga unfold. I’ve seen the youtube videos of these sub-human psychopaths gunning people down on the highway; picking off whoever happened to be walking down the road, shooting into cars at random on the highway- generally, indiscriminately murdering whoever was in their path.
I have followed the testimony of eyewitnesses and have measured the magnitude of recorded assaults against the slim possibility that this is all a put-up job against beautiful people making the world safe for democracy. I have seen the large percentage of Blackwater personnel who were charged and discharged for all manner of violations and I have come to the inescapable conclusion that they are psychopathic, mass murdering sonsofbitches.

¤ Iran Instead of America... Samarra Instead of Baghdad
Within the tension in the Arabian Gulf prior to the failure of the US occupation to reach its aims starting from Iraq and having a big casualties and lose in equipments caused by heroes of the Iraqi resistance. It seems that the American Administration started to work on the plan "B" in the region.
America thinks that by this alternative plan it could reach to its aim… The mean pivot in this plan is Iran…It is more preferable to US to support big role to the Iranian regime in order to perform things which America couldn’t do along the passed four years.

¤ Violence in Afghanistan has soared by 30%, UN report says
¤ At least 19 feared dead in Congo plane crash

¤ World Bank accused of razing Congo forests
The World Bank encouraged foreign companies to destructively log the world's second largest forest, endangering the lives of thousands of Congolese Pygmies, according to a report on an internal investigation by senior bank staff and outside experts. The report by the independent inspection panel, seen by the Guardian, also accuses the bank of misleading Congo's government about the value of its forests and of breaking its own rules.
Congo's rainforests are the second largest in the world after the Amazon, locking nearly 8% of the planet's carbon and having some of its richest biodiversity. Nearly 40 million people depend on the forests for medicines, shelter, timber and food.

¤ The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed
¤ With Iran as North Vietnam and Syria as Cambodia?
¤ Study shows genes exert behavioural influence

Tory MP in Facebook 'N***** Minstrel' 'joke'
Posted: Thursday, October 4, 2007

The Conservative party continue to enhance their reputation as unrelenting racists for internet images featuring a "blacked up" Tory aide and offensive anti-African slurs.

The disgraceful images were posted on the Facebook internet social network under the heading "the Emma Claire Pentreath Appreciation Society" and revealed the grinning Pentreath, a constituency office researcher, posing with Hammersmith and Fulham MP Greg Hands having had her faced painted black with a burnt cork.
Full Article : ligali.org

Australian Minister Renews Racial Tensions
Posted: Thursday, October 4, 2007

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews has inflamed tensions with the African community by releasing a dossier claiming African refugees were involved in gangs, nightclub fights and drinking alcohol in parks at night.

Prime Minister John Howard yesterday said it was "contemptible" to suggest the Government was playing the race card, after this week's furore over Mr Andrews linking the drastic cut in African refugees to the failure of the Sudanese to integrate.
Full Article : theage.com.au

Plane crash in DR Congo kills 38
Posted: Thursday, October 4, 2007

A plane crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 38 people and injured another 30 according to a new toll from the ministry of humanitarian affairs.
Full Article : abc.net.au

Who Runs The World?
Posted: Tuesday, October 2, 2007

¤ Let's try partitioning the US
¤ Who Runs The World
¤ 13 killed in Kabul bus bombing
¤ Sycophant Savior

¤ How Bogus Fears Bought Bush Four More Years
Is a president entitled to frighten voters into submission to perpetuate his power over them? While many people are catching on to Bush's deceits on Iraq, most Americans have forgotten the scams of his reelection campaign.
George W. Bush was reelected in large part because he boosted the number of Americans frightened of terrorism during 2004. In October 2001, 73 percent of Americans feared another imminent terrorist attack. By early 2004, only 55 percent had such fears. But by August 2004, the figure had rebounded to 64 percent. This 9 percent proved vital for Bush. People who saw terrorism as the biggest issue in the 2004 election voted for him by an almost 7-to-1 margin.

¤ Logical Lies About Bin Laden's Wealth

¤ Frank Talk from Defense Department Official: "I Hate All Iranians"
It ought to be political suicide. A Bush administration official (specifically, the Defense Department's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs) told a group of six members of the British Parliament, "In any case, I hate all Iranians." Three MPs attending the meeting have confirmed this to the British tabloid The Daily Mail.

¤ 'I hate All Iranians,' US Aide Tells British MPs
¤ Brown's Britain: ' Mother of Hypocrocies'
¤ The Day After We Bomb Iran
¤ The Worst Recession in 25 years?

¤ Beating the Drums for the Next War
Last week brought heads of state and senior diplomats in number to New York for the opening of the General Assembly of the United Nations. It also brought President Bush and President Ahmadinejad to the podium. For the larger audience in the world community, however, one of the most important questions of the day remains whether the verbal blows traded between these two pugnacious leaders will turn in the fullness of time into bullets and bombs. And the sense of the best-informed was clear: yes.

¤ The Junta's Accomplices: Western Interests
¤ Jena 6 Case Highlights Racial Disparity in American Justice

¤ Bush's Global 'Dirty War'
George W. Bush has transformed elite units of the U.S. military – including Special Forces and highly trained sniper teams – into "death squads" with a license to kill unarmed targets on the suspicion that they are a threat to American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to evidence from recent court cases.

¤ Congress raises limit again as U.S. debt nears $10 trillion

¤ Bolivia's Evo Morales Wins Hearts and Minds in US
While Iranian President Ahmedinejad stole the headlines during the United Nations meeting last week in New York, Bolivia's President Evo Morales - a humble coca farmer, former llama herder and union organizer - stole the hearts of the American people. At public events and media appearances, Bolivia's first-ever indigenous president reached out to the American people to dialogue directly on issues of democracy, environmental sustainability, and social and economic justice.

¤ Bush on Contractors in Iraq (Video)

Bolivia's Evo Morales Wins Hearts and Minds in US
Posted: Tuesday, October 2, 2007

by Deborah James and Medea Benjamin

While Iranian President Ahmedinejad stole the headlines during the United Nations meeting last week in New York, Bolivia's President Evo Morales - a humble coca farmer, former llama herder and union organizer - stole the hearts of the American people. At public events and media appearances, Bolivia's first-ever indigenous president reached out to the American people to dialogue directly on issues of democracy, environmental sustainability, and social and economic justice.

Morales appeared at a public event packed with representatives of New York's Latino, labor, and other communities, speaking for 90 minutes - without notes - about how he came to power, and about his government's efforts to de-colonize the nation, the poorest in South America. At first, he said, community organizations did not want to enter the cesspool of politics. But they realized that if they wanted the government to act in the interest of the poor Indigenous majority, they were going to have to make alliances with other social movements, win political representation democratically, and then transform the government.

Now having been elected to office, they have a clear mandate based on the urgent needs of the majority: to organize a Constitutional Assembly to rewrite the Constitution (controversial with the traditional elites, but well on its way), engage in a comprehensive program of land reform and decriminalize the production of coca for domestic use (in progress), and reclaim control over the oil and gas industries (mission accomplished.)
Full Article : commondreams.org

Cuban doctors help Che Guevara's killer
Posted: Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Cuban doctors volunteering in Bolivia performed a free cataract surgery for Mario Teran, the Bolivian army sergeant who killed the legendary guerilla leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara in captivity, the daily Granma newspaper reported.

"Four decades after Mario Teran attempted to destroy a dream and an idea, Che returns to win yet another battle, and continues on in the struggle," the Communist Party of Cuba's official newspaper said.

On October 9, 1967, Teran killed Guevara while he was being held prisoner and suffering from combat wounds in La Higuera, the paper recounted. It said he acted on orders from generals Rene Barrientos and Alfredo Ovando, as well as the White House and the US Central Intelligence Agency, to execute the Argentine-Cuban rebel leader.
Full Article : brisbanetimes.com.au

IDF confirms that aircraft hit target inside Syria last month
Posted: Tuesday, October 2, 2007

The army confirmed on Tuesday for the first time that the IAF did, in fact, hit a target deep inside Syria on September 6.

This was the only detail released for publication; Israel has kept quiet on the subject until now. However, various slip-ups by politicians have indicated that an attack did take place.

The information was released a day after Syrian President Bashar Assad told BBC Radio that IAF jets had hit an "unused military building" in his country.
Full Article : jpost.com

Bush on Contractors in Iraq (Video)
Posted: Tuesday, October 2, 2007

President Bush lays out his plan, or lack thereof, for how to deal with private military contractors in Iraq during forum, April 10 2006
Video at YouTube

Hypocrisy Rules the West
Posted: Monday, October 1, 2007

¤ U.S. $10 trillion in the red
As the national debt heads toward the $10-trillion mark, generous Americans are sending checks to the federal government.
Donations to the Bureau of the Public Debt have topped $2.5 million so far this year. That's the highest amount since at least 1996.
It's not making much of a dent, though.
For the fifth time since 2001, Congress is raising the debt limit, increasing it by $850 billion to $9.815 trillion. The Senate approved the plan on a 53-42 vote Thursday. That's $9,815,000,000,000.00.

¤ US 'biggest global arms dealer'
The US has reaffirmed its domination of global weapons trading, cornering nearly 42 per cent of the arms market, according to a US congressional report.
The US concluded $16.9bn worth of arms deals last year, a $3.4bn increase over 2005, the Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations report said.

¤ Putin 'could become Russian PM'
¤ College editor faces sack over f-word editorial
¤ Burka-clad bomber kills 15 in Pakistan
¤ The monk's tale: 'We cannot turn back'

¤ Hypocrisy Rules the West
Shame has vanished from Western "civilization." Hypocrisy has taken its place.
On September 28, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown could be heard on National Public Radio decrying the use of violence against democratic protesters by the government in Burma. Brown declared the British people's revulsion over the violence inflicted by the Burmese government on its people. But Brown said nothing about the violence the British government was inflicting on Iraqis and Afghans.

¤ The Crimes of Microsoft
¤ Fabricating the Pretext for Another War

¤ Political Science and Truth of Consequences
Contempt for the empirical that can't be readily jiggered or spun is evident at the top of the executive branch in Washington. The country is mired in a discourse that echoes the Scopes trial dramatized in "Inherit the Wind." Mere rationality would mean lining up on the side of "science" against the modern yahoos and political panderers waving the flag of social conservatism. (At the same time that scientific Darwinism is under renewed assault, a de facto alliance between religious fundamentalists and profit-devout corporatists has moved the country further into social Darwinism that aims to disassemble the welfare state.) Entrenched opposition to stem-cell research is part of a grim pattern that includes complacency about severe pollution and global warming -- disastrous trends already dragging one species after another to the brink of extinction and beyond.

¤ Killing Is Okay. Dying, However, Is Not.
¤ Burma and the Press
¤ This City Is Not Nearly As Liberal or Different As New Yorkers Believe
¤ Are Cancer Cures Being Hidden From the Public?

¤ Israel's Toy Soldiers

¤ Greenspan's Dark Legacy Unmasked
After retiring as the Federal Reserve's second longest ever serving chairman, Alan Greenspan is now cashing in big late in life at age 81. He chaired the Fed's Board of Governors from the time he was appointed in August, 1987 to when he stepped down January 31, 2006 amidst a hail of ill-deserved praise for his stewardship during good and perilous times. USA Today noted "the onetime jazz band musician went out on a high note." The Wall Street Journal said "his economic legacy (rests on results) and seems secure." The Washington Post cited his "nearly mythical status."

¤ Iraq: The Hidden Facts

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