"The truth, always the truth--at all costs"
|
| Form Display |
|---|
|
1 2006 |
| International 2006 |
|---|
| 12/27/2006 (1) Ccould Somalia be Ethiopia's quagmire? Edmund Sanders 12/27/2006 (1) U.S. Wants Polar Bears Listed as Threatened Juliet Eilperin 12/27/2006 (1) Corruption in Iraq: The "Second Insurgency" Costing $4 Billion a Year Julian Borger and David Pallister 12/24/2006 (1) Woman beaten on Jerusalem bus for refusing to move to rear seat Daphna Berman 12/24/2006 (1) France uses money, not manacles, to cope with rising tide of economic refugees Katrin Bennhold 12/24/2006 (1) Bush Approves Deal With India for Nuclear Sales Sheryl Gay Stolberg 12/17/2006 (1) Hamas, Israel and the Recognition Trap Jonathan Cook 12/17/2006 (1) British Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war Colin Brown 12/17/2006 (1) The New Roman Empire Is Falling -- So It Turns To Iran and Syria Robert Fisk 12/12/2006 (1) By 2040, Greenhouse Gases Could Lead to an Open Arctic Sea in Summers Andrew C. Revkin 12/10/2006 (1) Exxon Spends Millions to Cast Doubt on Warming Andrew Buncombe and Stephen Castle 12/10/2006 (1) Israeli group Peace Now says settlement data prove land theft from Palestinians Ken Ellingwood 12/10/2006 (1) Iraq's a civil war--the numbers prove it Barry Lando 12/10/2006 (1) Human shields thwart Gaza strike Richard Boudreaux and Rushdi abu Alouf 12/07/2006 (1) Iraqi professor says life under Saddam was bad, but the U.S. has made it worse Tony Perry 12/02/2006 (1) Hezbollah sit-in has Beirut at a standstill Megan K. Stack 12/02/2006 (1) Not enough fish in the sea Kenneth R. Weiss 11/30/2006 (1) Iraq strategy takes page from Vietnam playbook Peter Spiegel 11/30/2006 (1) Some civil wars never end: Lebanon and Iraq show that some long-fought civil wars only have cease-fires. Niall Ferguson 11/30/2006 (1) Scientists say climate change clues in sky Beth Duff-Brown 11/30/2006 (1) U.S. crackdown sends meth labs south of border Richard Marosi 11/26/2006 (1) Two Views Of Thanksgiving: National Day Of Mourning; Rejoicing In Genocide And Slavery Wampsutta / Glen Fiord 11/26/2006 (1) U.S. has many options in Iraq, none easy Paul Richter 11/19/2006 (1) Israel opted for cheaper, unsafe cluster bombs in Lebanon war Meron Rapoport 11/19/2006 (1) Hizbullah leader sees collapse of government Clancy Chassay 11/19/2006 (1) Taliban Resurgence in Afghanistan 11/19/2006 (1) A global clean-water shortage Robyn Dixon 11/12/2006 (1) U.S. Corporate Mafia Fighting Chinese Efforts to Help Workers Joel S. Hirschhorn 11/05/2006 (1) Bechtel calls it quits after more than 3 years in Iraq David Streitfeld 11/05/2006 (1) Overfishing threatens catastrophe, study finds Marla Cone 11/05/2006 (1) Neo Cons Express Regrets About Iraq: Now they tell us--or, rats leave the sinking ship David Rose 11/05/2006 (1) Fisheries face collapse by 2048, study warns Marla Cone 10/29/2006 (1) Batter up! Is Iran the next war? Jon Sawyer 10/28/2006 (1) Staying the Course, Right Over a Cliff George Lakoff 10/28/2006 (1) There are reasons to stay in Iraq. But doing so because we 'owe' it to the dead isn't one of them. Barry Schwartz 10/28/2006 (1) There are reasons to stay in Iraq. But doing so because we 'owe' it to the dead isn't one of them. Barry Schwartz 10/26/2006 (1) America and the Dollar Illusion: The dollar is still the world's reserve currency, even though it hasn't deserved this status for a long time. Gabor Steingart 10/26/2006 (1) Israelis Threaten to Retake Gaza - Egypt Border 10/22/2006 (1) Scientists say Antarctic ozone hole is largest ever recorded 10/18/2006 (1) In a Twist, Americans Appear in Ranks of Indian Firms Siomini Sengupta 10/18/2006 (1) India's Looming Talent Shortage of Engineers Henry Chu 10/18/2006 (1) NATO Commander in Afghanistan Says Mistakes Were Made 10/14/2006 (1) Think you have it tough? Mogadishu, Somalia refugee camps worst aid workers have seen. Edmund Sanders 10/14/2006 (1) A very honest General / Blair forced to claim Dannatt's criticisms are 'absolutely right' Sarah Sands / James Chapman 10/12/2006 (1) British Army Chief Says U.K. Should Pull Out of Iraq Andy McSmith 10/02/2006 (1) U.S. Spending $2 Billion a Week in Iraq 10/02/2006 (1) Why Retired U.S. Military Brass Don't Want Torture Charles Kaiser 10/02/2006 (1) India’s Farmers Bear Brunt of Globalization Amitabh Pal 09/28/2006 (1) Army Corps Faked Budget Entries for Work in Iraq T. Christian Miller 09/28/2006 (1) Mother Jones magazine special reports: Chernobyl 20 Years Later, The Last Days of the Ocean, The UnGreening of America 09/28/2006 (1) Not So Tough on Terror? Dan Froomkin 09/25/2006 (1) Hero of the Ming Dynasty: Admiral Zheng He (Muslim Admiral of China) The Independent 09/23/2006 (1) 24 Versus the Real World: Does torture really work? Most intelligence experts say no. Evan Thomas 09/18/2006 (1) Pope Benedict: A Man With Little Sympathy For Other Faiths Madleine Buntin 09/18/2006 (1) Gaza: The Children Killed In A War the World Doesn't Want To Know About Donald Macintyre in Rafah, Palestine 09/18/2006 (1) We Cannot Afford to Maintain These Ancient Prejudices Against Islam Karen Armstrong 09/17/2006 (1) Ethos of the Destroyers: The American Military's Cult of Cruelty Robert Fisk 09/17/2006 (1) America and the oil slick: The world rejects U.S. petro-strategy Sandhya Jain 09/17/2006 (1) Attacks on 9/11 researchers growing: Academia is attacking the messenger Joel Skousen 09/14/2006 (1) Artice Meltdown Is Speeding Up, "We May Have Only A Decade Before It's Too Late" Michael McCarthy and David Usborne 09/14/2006 (1) Int. Atomic Energy Agency Says U.S. Report on Iran "Dishonest" George Jahn, AP 09/11/2006 (1) Bush admits CIA had secret prisons where interrogators used “alternative” procedures 09/11/2006 (1) Global Media Abhors U.S. R 09/11/2006 (1) Hate is the enemy of Mankind and of Peace Sam Hamod 09/11/2006 (1) Lebanon Seeks Legal Damages Against Israel for Oil Slick and Other Damage Salim Yassin (AFP) 09/11/2006 (1) The Muslim Malaise Haroon Siddiqui 09/10/2006 (1) Poisonous Clouds of Pollution Spread in Lebanon After Israeli Air Strike Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor, The Independent of U.K. 09/08/2006 (1) The Liberals' War on Lebanon "I'm a Leftist, But..." Uri Avnery 09/08/2006 (1) Gaza Is Dying: Gaza Is A Jail Patrick Cockburn 09/07/2006 (1) Shooting the messengers Gareth Porter In the struggle over US policy toward Iran, neo-conservatives in the George W Bush administration spoiling for an attack on Iran's nuclear sites have been seeking to convince the public that the US must strike before an Iranian nuclear-weapons capability becomes inevitable. To do so, they must discredit the intelligence community's conclusions that Iran is still as many as 10 years away from being able to build a nuclear weapon and that such a weapon is not an inevitable consequence of its present uranium-enrichment program. 09/07/2006 (1) U.S. Investigates Israel's Use of Cluster Bombs Peter Spiegel The State Department has begun investigating whether Israel improperly used American-made cluster bombs during its monthlong fight against the Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon, government officials said Friday. 09/07/2006 (1) What Women Are Saying About The Violence In The Middle East Lucinda Marshall Lucinda Marshall's 9-6-06 CounterCurrents essay, "What Women Are Saying About The Violence In The Middle East," for insightful reading, forwarding and publication is highly recommended. 09/07/2006 (1) Reporting Lebanon: Look who's fair and balanced Lawrence Pintak Summer 2006 marked an important milestone for Arab media. Israel and Hizbullah were locked in a bitter conflict that claimed more than 150 Israelis and 1,000 Lebanese lives. American TV regularly referred to Hizbullah as "terrorists" or a "terrorist militia." But, on the news broadcasts of the Arab world's dominant all-news channels Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya, such polarizing language was rarely heard. 09/06/2006 (1) Bush Turns to Fear Mongering: Creatioin of the "Islamic Bogeyman" or Islamofascism Juan Cole, Ph.D. 09/06/2006 (1) The Next Phase of the Middle East War Professor Michel Chossudovsky, Ph.D. 09/06/2006 (1) Israeli/U.S. Strategy: Lebanon and Iran Professor James Petras, Ph.D. 09/06/2006 (1) Blair Insulted and Hit by Wave of Resignations of HIs Ministers BBC News, UK 09/06/2006 (1) New Global Warming Threat Seth Borenstein, 09/06/2006 (1) The U.S. Has No Rules for Cluster Bombs Dave Lindorff 09/06/2006 (1) Rage of the Elephant: Israel's Attack on Lebanon Ronnie Kasrils 09/04/2006 (1) Another Fatal Day In the "War on Terror" Patrick Cockburn 09/04/2006 (1) Genocide In Gaza Professor Ilan Pappe 09/04/2006 (1) Bint J'beil: Hezbollah's Blood Victory Mike Whitney 09/04/2006 (1) The War Is Lost Paul Craig Roberts 09/04/2006 (1) Labor Day Special: Soldiers die, CEOs prosper Derrick Z. Jacks The 13th annual Executive Excess CEO survey was done by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, and the Boston-based United for a Fair Economy. The report found that 34 defense CEOs have been paid nearly $1 billion since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. As soldiers have died in displaying personal patriotism, the pay gap between soldiers and defense CEOs has exploded. Before 9/11, the gap between CEOs of publicly traded companies and army privates was already a galling 190 to 1. Today, it is 308 to 1. The average army private makes $25,000 a year. The average defense CEO makes $7.7 million. 09/04/2006 (1) Labor Day Special: Breaching the border--Thousands start the perilous trek with offers in hand from U.S. employers Susan Ferriss The Bush administration points to a drop in apprehensions at the border as proof that new security measures are working. But, thousands of Mexicans and Central Americans still gather daily in border towns risking anything for a slot in the U.S. labor market. Felipe Pérez shoulders his backpack for a second attempt in 48 hours to climb over the wire cattle fence dividing Mexico's Sonora state from Arizona. Once over, he plans to walk toward Phoenix. Like most others making the trek, he not only knows he'll find work in the United States, he knows exactly what he will be doing, for whom and where. 09/04/2006 (1) Labor Day Special: A Corporate Takeover of American Borders Robert Koulish Borders are a key element of national identity. When borders are violated, the result is often crisis and war. Look no further than this summer's conflict in the Middle East, set off by a cross-border kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah militants. Protection and defense of borders is, for most nations, a high priority. Thus, it is troubling to see our government intent upon passing control over its borders to private companies. 09/03/2006 (1) "America's Aggression Is Fuelling Extremism", Says Iran's ex-President Robert Fisk 09/03/2006 (1) War Is Not A Solution For Terrorism Professor Howard Zinn 09/02/2006 (1) Israel's Deceptions As A Way of Life Jonathan Cook 09/02/2006 (1) Losers, Left and Right: Conservatives and liberals both think they're getting walloped in Washington. Jonathan Chait One of the odd things about the current political moment is that everybody thinks they're losing. Liberals are bitter that the government has been run for years by incompetent reactionaries. And even those hopeful ones who anticipate winning control of Congress in November know in the back of their minds that the only thing they'll gain is the ability to limit the damage George W. Bush could inflict on the country. Conservatives, meanwhile, are bitter that Bush's presidency is going down in flames, and they blame the Republican Party for abandoning small-government principles. 09/02/2006 (1) Twenty Gandhis: Reclaiming 9/11 Through Satyagraha Robert C. Koehler As the fifth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, many of the nation's values - tolerance, forgiveness, personal freedom, perhaps even courage itself - remain trapped in the wreckage. Around the country, and particularly in New York City, the wakeup call is about to be sounded, as grieving Americans - grieving as much for the future we're bequeathing our children as for the past - proclaim 9/11 a day of healing and peace, not revenge. The memory of Mahatma Gandhi will help drive the message home. 09/02/2006 (1) American soldiers die, CEOs prosper Derrick Z. Jackson, More than 2,600 US soldiers have died in Iraq. July 2006's toll for Iraqi civilians was 3,500. Iraq's civil war is on pace to kill 25,000 to 30,000 civilians by year's end. Add in the tens of thousands of deaths from the 2003 invasion and researchers will inevitably say that the body count has crossed 100,000. A mountain of corporate cash grows next to the piles of bodies. The biggest sacrifice President Bush asked of American civilians was to get on a plane and show those terrorists a thing or two by going to Disney World. Defense contractors took that request to a logical extreme. They built their own fantasy land. 09/02/2006 (1) Criticize Israel? You're an Anti-Semite! How can we have a real discussion about Mideast peace if speaking honestly about Israel is out of bounds? Rosa Brooks Ever wonder what it's like to be a pariah? Publish something sharply critical of Israeli government policies and you'll find out. If you're lucky, you'll merely discover that you've been uninvited to some dinner parties. If you're less lucky, you'll be the subject of an all-out attack by neoconservative pundits and accused of rabid anti-Semitism. 09/01/2006 (1) Jerusalem Religious Leaders' Statement on Christian Zionism Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah 09/01/2006 (1) Rupert Murchoch's Victims: The Life and Crimes of a Global Goebbels Richard Neville 09/01/2006 (1) The Interview With Nasrallah That Wasn't Alexander Cockburn 08/30/2006 (1) Naguib Mahfouz Brought Arabic Fiction to the West Denys Johnson-Davies 08/30/2006 (1) The Israeli Lobby, the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon: Their Facts and Ours Professor James Petras 08/30/2006 (1) The Worst Kind of Terror: Murder on Rucarb Street, Palestine Eliza Ernshire 08/30/2006 (1) Nobel Prize Author, Naguib Mahfouz of Egypt, Dies Jeff Black 08/30/2006 (1) Pressure For Ban on Cluster Bombs As Israel Is Accused of Targeting Civilians Ben Russell 08/28/2006 (1) Falsly Putting Words in President Ahmadinejad's Mouth Virginia Tilley 08/28/2006 (1) President Carter's Explosive Critique of Tony Blair and GW Bush John Preston and Melissa Kite 08/28/2006 (1) President 08/28/2006 (1) Muslims Have Stopped Fighting on Western Terms--And Have Started Winning Professor Andrew J. Bacevich 08/27/2006 (1) Inquiry Opened Into Israeli Use of U.S. Bombs David S. Cloud The State Department is investigating whether Israel’s use of American-made cluster bombs in southern Lebanon violated secret agreements with the United States that restrict when it can employ such weapons, two officials said. 08/27/2006 (1) Blair feels let down by Bush as shared foreign policy crumbles Edward M. Gomez Is the long-running Bush-Blair lovefest now on the wane? British Prime Minister Tony Blair's joined-at-the-hip, unquestioning support of George W. Bush's disastrous foreign policy, dating from the run-up to the American leader's Iraq war, has made for a long-running, trans-Atlantic love story. Now, the Daily Mail reports, even Blair is beginning to see that he may have stuck too close to Bush for too long. Was he really Bush's "lapdog," as Britain's tabloids derisively dubbed him? 08/27/2006 (1) Israeli Airstrike Hits Reuters, Clearly Marked Vehicle Ibrahim Barzak, AP 08/26/2006 (1) The Liquid Bomb Hoax: The Larger Implications Professor James Petras 08/26/2006 (1) Why Should Europeans Protect Israel Rpbert Fisk 08/26/2006 (1) Global Diabetes Epidemic Caused by Illegal Depleted-Uranium Weapons Dr. Leuren Moret 08/25/2006 (1) Israel Losings Its Morals and Its Marbles: Israel's Invasion Remi Kanazi 08/23/2006 (1) Hizbollah Winning the Hearts and Minds in Lebanon Robert Fisk 08/23/2006 (1) From soldiers' view, civil war in Iraq has started Tom Lasseter While American politicians and generals discuss the possibility of civil war in Iraq, many U.S. officers and enlisted men who patrol Baghdad say it already has begun. Army troops interviewed in the past week cite a long list of evidence that the center of the nation is coming undone: Villages have been abandoned by Sunni and Shiite Muslims; Sunni insurgents have killed thousands of Shiites in car bombings and assassinations; Shiite militia death squads have tortured and killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Sunnis; and, when night falls, neighborhoods become open battlegrounds. 08/23/2006 (1) Slam-dunk wars don't equal wins--victory that defeats the enemy but leaves issues intact is hollow. Andrew J. Bacevich victory in the modern era has been remarkably elusive. Genuine victory implies something more than military success; it must have a political dimension. Even then, results often prove other than expected. There's an intimate relationship between war and politics. "Victory" that defeats the enemy but leaves intact the issues giving rise to war in the first place is likely to prove hollow. The ensuing "peace" is false; after a brief interval, hostilities are likely to resume. 08/22/2006 (1) Why Do We Hate Them? Fear and Loathing in the Occident Jason Miller 08/22/2006 (1) Israeli Cluster Munitions Continue Killing Civilians, Especially Children, in Lebanon Human Rights Watch 08/21/2006 (1) Sinister Events in a Cynical War John Pilger 08/19/2006 (1) Robert Fisk's Beirut Diary: Lebanon, A Land Reduced to Rubble Robert Fisk 08/19/2006 (1) The Anti-Empire Report "Saved Again, thank the Lord, Saved Again" William Blum 08/19/2006 (1) "Honor First,"; The Liberation of Lebanon MikeWhitney 08/19/2006 (1) Israel, A State Built on Lies Punyapriya Dasgupta 08/19/2006 (1) No Wonder the UN Can't Find Volunteers Robert Fisk 08/19/2006 (1) 'Moment of opportunity' in the Middle East?: Yes, but only if the US asks Israel the hard questions Sandy Tolan President Bush says the horrific violence in Lebanon presents a "moment of opportunity" to solve the crisis in the Middle East. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice claims that the explosions represent merely the "birth pangs of a new Middle East." Both are correct, but, ironically, for reasons they could not have possibly imagined. 08/19/2006 (1) Unspoken consensus: U.S. short on troops The Bush administration's decision to move as many as 4,000 additional U.S. soldiers into Baghdad to quell sectarian warfare underscores a problem that's hindered the American military from the beginning: There aren't enough troops. Many U.S. officials in Baghdad and in Washington privately agree. When U.S. forces have cracked down in one place, Iraqi insurgents and foreign terrorists have popped up in another. Some towns have been pacified multiple times, only to return to chaos as soon as troop numbers are reduced. 08/17/2006 (1) An Open Letter From Ralph Nader to George W. Bush, Telling the Israelis to "Take Your Time" Ralph Nader 08/17/2006 (1) Operation "Change of Location" of Capture of Israeli Soldiers in Lebanon Tish Schuh 08/16/2006 (1) Lebanon's Pain Grows By the Hour As Death Toll Hits 1,300 Robert Fisk 08/16/2006 (1) Interview with President Jimmy Carter by DER SPIEGEL "The U.S. and Israel Stand Alone" DER SPIEGEL 08/16/2006 (1) In the Face of Bush's Lies, Assad Tells the Truth Robert Fisk 08/13/2006 (1) Israeli Leaders Fault Bush on War Robert Parry Amid the political and diplomatic fallout from Israel’s faltering invasion of Lebanon, some Israeli officials are privately blaming President George W. Bush for egging Prime Minister Ehud Olmert into the ill-conceived military adventure against the Hezbollah militia in south Lebanon. 08/12/2006 (1) How London's Terror Scare Looks From Beirut: The Real Reason the British Should be Frightened Robert Fisk 08/12/2006 (1) Statistics suggest that as U.S. has handed over responsibilities to Iraqi forces, violence has increased there Dexter Filkins Over the past year, as American commanders pushed Iraqi forces to take over responsibility for this violent capital, Baghdad 08/12/2006 (1) Cuba After Castro: Can Miami's Exiles Reclaim Their Stake? Tim Padgett Castro, who turns 80 August 13 and is, say official communiques, recovering from major intestinal surgery, last week handed provisional power to his younger brother and defense minister, Raul Castro. At first, Miami's politically potent Cuban exiles exulted in the streets of Little Havana. But when the reality sunk in that Fidel is most likely still alive — and that his communist dictatorship may well endure under Raul even if he's not — it also reminded many Cuban-Americans that their once ardent hopes of reclaiming confiscated property could be, as one Pentagon analyst says, "a pipe dream." A report last month by the Bush Administration's Commission For Assistance to a Free Cuba warns, "No issue will be more fraught with difficulty and complexity" during the post-Castro transition — even if democracy is eventually restored on the island. 08/11/2006 (1) Hizbollah's Iron Discipline Is Match for Israeli Military Machine Robert Fisk 08/10/2006 (1) Israel Wants the Litani River Water and Farmlands Dr. Sam Hamod 08/06/2006 (1) Statistics suggest that as Americans handed over responsibilities to Iraqis, violence in Baghdad increased. Dexter Filkins Over the past year, as American commanders pushed Iraqi forces to take over responsibility for this violent capital, Baghdad became a markedly more dangerous place. 08/06/2006 (1) Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq Thomas E. Ricks By virtue of the author’s wealth of sources within the American military and the book’s comprehensive timeline (beginning with the administration’s inflammatory statements about Saddam Hussein in the wake of 9/11, through the invasion and occupation, to the escalating religious and ethnic strife that afflicts the country today), “Fiasco” is absolutely essential reading for anyone interested in understanding how the United States came to go to war in Iraq, how a bungled occupation fed a ballooning insurgency and how these events will affect the future of the American military. 08/06/2006 (1) U.S. General Says Iraq Could Slide Into a Civil War Thom Shanker The commander of American forces in the Middle East bluntly warned a Senate committee on Thursday that sectarian violence in Iraq, especially in the capital, Baghdad, had grown so severe that the nation could slide toward civil war. 07/30/2006 (1) 'Waiting to Get Blown Up': Some Troops in Baghdad Express Frustration With the War and Their Mission Joshua Partlow "Think of what you hate most about your job. Then think of doing what you hate most for five straight hours, every single day, sometimes twice a day, in 120-degree heat," he said. "Then ask how morale is." As President Bush plans to deploy more troops in Baghdad, U.S. soldiers who have been patrolling the capital for months describe a deadly and infuriating mission in which the enemy is elusive and success hard to find. Some soldiers say they have grown increasingly disillusioned about their ability to quell the violence and their reason for fighting. 07/30/2006 (1) Lebanon as a New Target: The N eoconservatives and Their Policies of "Constructive Chaod" Thierry Meyssan Some people in Washington and Tel Aviv are rejoicing about the military operations currently taking place in the Middle East. Why? According to a statement by Condoleezza Rice, the pains of Lebanon will be "the birth pangs of a new Middle East." For the theoreticians of "constructive chaos," blood must be shed in order to bring about a new order in that petroleum-rich region. Moreover, the Israeli offensive against Lebanon was planned long ago, and it is being supervised by the United States Defense Department. 07/30/2006 (1) The truth of Blair's 'urgent diplomacy' Robert Fisk I dropped by the hospital in Marjayoun this week to find a young girl lying in a hospital bed, swathed in bandages, her beauty scarred for ever by some familiar wounds; the telltale dark-red holes in her skin made by cluster bombs, the weapon we used in Iraq to such lethal effect and which the Israelis are now using to punish the civilians of southern Lebanon. And, of course, it occurred to me at once that if George Bush and Condoleezza Rice and our own sad and diminished Prime Minister had demanded a ceasefire when the Lebanese first pleaded for it, this young woman would not have to spend the rest of her life pitted with these vile scars. 07/23/2006 (1) U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis David S. Cloud and Helene Cooper The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday. 07/23/2006 (1) U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis David S. Cloud and Helene Cooper The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday. 07/23/2006 (1) Paradise Lost: An elegy for Beirut Robert Fisk Some cities seem forever doomed. When the Crusaders arrived at Beirut on their way to Jerusalem in the 11th century, they slaughtered every man, woman and child in the city. In the First World War, Ottoman Beirut suffered a terrible famine; the Turkish army had commandeered all the grain and the Allied powers blockaded the coast. I still have some ancient postcards I bought here 30 years ago of stick-like children standing in an orphanage, naked and abandoned. 07/23/2006 (1) The Shame of Being an American Paul Craig Roberts Gentle reader, do you know that Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon? Israel has ordered all the villagers to clear out. Israel then destroys their homes and murders the fleeing villagers. That way there is no one to come back and nothing to which to return, making it easier for Israel to grab the territory, just as Israel has been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians. 07/23/2006 (1) A protracted colonial war Tariq Ali In his last interview - after the 1967 six-day war - the historian Isaac Deutscher, whose next-of-kin had died in the Nazi camps and whose surviving relations lived in Israel, said: "To justify or condone Israel's wars against the Arabs is to render Israel a very bad service indeed and harm its own long-term interest." Comparing Israel to Prussia, he issued a sombre warning: "The Germans have summed up their own experience in the bitter phrase 'Man kann sich totseigen!' 'You can triumph yourself to death'." 07/23/2006 (1) The Word from Newt Gingrich: The third world war has begun Newt Gingrich The long road to victory begins with the free world helping the Lebanese democracy defeat Hizbullah, expelling the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and removing all of the 10,000 plus missiles aimed at Israel from Lebanon. Then we must create the circumstance where the Lebanese can control their own territory and thus end the mortal threat to Israel. 07/14/2006 (1) A Reporter Answers Seven Questions About Covering the Iraq War Are Americans getting an accurate picture of what’s going on in Iraq? 07/14/2006 (1) Is Venezuela the Real Target of Bush's New Cuba Plan? Jose Pertierra Cuba calls the shots; and Venezuela pays the bills. That is the major premise underlying the Report made public last Monday by the U.S. State Department concerning Cuba. Its findings are as much about the Bush Administration's plans for regime change in Cuba, as they are about the alleged threat that Venezuela poses to U.S. national security interests. 07/08/2006 (1) The Myth of the New India Pankaj Mishra The increasingly common, business-centric view of India suppresses more facts than it reveals. Recent accounts of the alleged rise of India barely mention the fact that the country's $728 per capita gross domestic product is just slightly higher than that of sub-Saharan Africa and that, as the 2005 United Nations Human Development Report puts it, even if it sustains its current high growth rates, India will not catch up with high-income countries until 2106. Nor is India rising very fast on the report's Human Development index, where it ranks 127, just two rungs above Myanmar and more than 70 below Cuba and Mexico. Despite a recent reduction in poverty levels, nearly 380 million Indians still live on less than a dollar a day. 07/08/2006 (1) Essay links: If Osama bin Laden masterminded the 9/11 attacks . . . Evan Peterson If Osama bin Laden masterminded the 9/11 attacks, why has the U.S. stopped looking for him? 07/08/2006 (1) The agony of Gaza There are various reasons and justifications for Israel's current military operations in Gaza, for the Palestinian raid into Israel that culminated in the abduction of an Israeli soldier, and for the constant firing of Palestinian rockets from Gaza into communities inside Israel. One need not posit a moral equivalency between the two sides to recognize, however, that the deliberate targeting or punishing of civilians cannot be justified -- neither in international humanitarian law nor by common standards of human compassion. 07/08/2006 (1) The Real Reasons for Israel's Invasion of Gaza Jonathan Cook One needed only to watch the interview on British television with Israel's ambassador to the UK to realise that the Israeli army's tightening of the siege on Gaza, its invasion of the northern parts of the Strip today, and the looming humanitarian crisis across the territory, have nothing to do with the recent capture of an Israeli soldier -- or even the feeble home-made Qassam rockets fired, usually ineffectually, into Israel by Palestinian militants. 07/08/2006 (1) Essay links: "THIS WAR IS BASED ON DENIAL"; "HADJI GIRL"; "IN COLD BLOOD" Americans who get their reality from Fox "News" or are told what to think by right-wing radio hosts are outraged at news reports that US troops planned and carried out the rape and murder of a young Iraqi woman and her family. They are not outraged that the troops committed the deed; they are outraged that the media reported it. 07/01/2006 (1) War on Teroeisn's Financial Eavesdropping / Spying: A Secret the Terrorists Already Knew Richard A. Clarke , Roger W. Cressey Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups have had significant fund-raising operations involving solicitation of wealthy Muslims, distribution of narcotics and even sales of black market cigarettes in New York. As part of a "follow the money" strategy, monitoring international bank transfers is worthwhile (even if, given the immense number of transactions and the relatively few made by terrorists, it is not highly productive) because it makes operations more difficult for our enemies. It forces them to use more cumbersome means of moving money. 06/29/2006 (1) How to end beheadings in Iraq (?) Lynching, beheading, and other gruesome types of killing do more than just kill. They are spectacles meant to instill fear - if one chooses to react that way. Such terrorism explains why it is often used against the innocent for political purposes, much the way black men were lynched by white, mainly Southern, racists well into the 20th century. Last week, two US soldiers captured by Al Qaeda in Iraq were beheaded and left for public viewing. 06/27/2006 (1) Somalia's deadly lessons--Memories of dead soldiers dragged through the streets push U.S. foreign policy to extremes Rosa Brooks In 1993 18 U.S. soldiers were killed in a botched raid. An angry Somali mob dragged dead Americans through the streets of Mogadishu. Washington's reaction was swift. On Oct. 7, President Clinton announced that all U.S. troops would be pulled out of Somalia within six months. Today, Somalia is in the news once more. Over the past few years, the Bush administration has allegedly been providing covert aid to the Somali warlords we once battled, apparently in the hope that the warlords would assist U.S. counter-terrorism efforts. But many ordinary Somalis resented the warlords' rule, and extremist Islamic militants seized control of Mogadishu, forcing out the warlords. By the end of last week, the Islamists controlled most of southern Somalia. 06/24/2006 (1) It's Closing Time When Religion Is Used As An Oppressive Tool To Achieve Empire Jim Kirwan Many religions share similar, if not the same, principles because they make life workable and lead to: prosperity, peace, harmony, love, compassion, and honor--among other core values. However, splinter groups of narrowly-focused religious fanatics have often used their own weird permutations of widely-accepted religious beliefs to subvert the ancient paradigms of the authentic believers. Of course, the splinter groups seek to use those differences to a chieve completely unrelated goals: power; greed; hate; and war. 06/23/2006 (1) MAD Magazine compares the war in Iraq to previous wars 06/23/2006 (1) Kurdistan: Birth of a Nation? Patrick Cockburn In theory, Iraqi Kurdistan is not independent but it is more powerful than most members of the United Nations. It has an efficient army. It remains part of Iraq but Baghdad has little influence on its actions. An old saying in the region claimed bitterly that "the Kurds have no friends but the mountains". 06/23/2006 (1) Amnesty International calls for an international investigation into recent killings of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces Amnesty International calls for an international investigation to examine the circumstances in which scores of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip in recent months. 06/21/2006 (1) Mexico Worries About Its Own Southern Border Ginger Thompson Quiet as it is kept in political circles, Mexico, so much the focus of the United States' immigration debate, has its own set of immigration problems. And as elected officials from President Vicente Fox on down denounce Washington's plans to deploy troops and build more walls along the United States border, Mexico has begun a re-examination of its own policies and prejudices. 06/15/2006 (1) Marine Apologizes, Says Song About Killing Iraqis Was Joke A Marine corporal seen in a video singing about killing members of an Iraqi family says the song was a joke. "It's a song that I made up, and it was nothing more than something supposed to be funny, based off a catchy line of a movie," Cpl. Joshua Belile said in Wednesday's Daily News of Jacksonville. 06/14/2006 (1) 'Marines' Cheer Song About Killing Iraqi Civilians / Pentagon Calls Song 'Insensitive,' 'Inappropriate' Council on American-Islamic Relations The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on the Pentagon and Congress to investigate a music video posted on the Internet that seems to show U.S. Marines cheering a song that glorifies the killing of Iraqi civilians. A Marine Corps statement said: "The Marine Corps has recently been made aware of a video posted to a website that purports to show a Marine singing an insensitive song about Iraqis. The video has subsequently been removed from the website. The video that was posted anonymously is clearly inappropriate and contrary to the high standards expected of all Marines. The video is not reflective of the tremendous sacrifices and dedication demonstrated, on a daily basis, by tens of thousands of Marines who have assisted the Iraqi people in gaining their freedom." 06/14/2006 (1) United Kingdom fears record Afghan heroin output Declan Walsh The Afghanistan province being patrolled by British troops will produce at least one third of the world's heroin this year, according to drug experts who are forecasting a harvest that is both a record for the country and embarrassing for the western funded war on narcotics. 06/14/2006 (1) Extremism and religious bigotry Cathy Young Ever since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, there has been much debate about the threat that Islamic extremism poses to the West -- and about when concern over such extremism turns to anti-Muslim bigotry. Such labels as ``bigotry" and ``Islamophobia" are often indiscriminately slapped on all outspoken critics of fanatical Muslim radicalism. But the real thing does exist. 06/10/2006 (1) the Economist magazine: Economic Forecast for Iraq The new Iraqi government will struggle to make much impact on the sectarian conflict being waged for political and territorial advantage by Iraqi militias. The interest of provinces in retaining control over oil-related decision-making and in ensuring direct access to oil revenue will make substantive constitutional compromise difficult, although the need to clarify political and revenue arrangements may allow some room for negotiation. 06/10/2006 (1) Getting Used to War as Hell John F. Burns The story, as told by Iraqi survivors, is as bleak as any to emerge from the American war in Iraq. If the survivors' accounts are borne out by American military inquiries now under way and, in time, by courts-martial, then what happened in the early morning of Nov. 19, 2005, in the desert city of Haditha could prove, like the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, a baleful marker in the long and painful American story here. 06/07/2006 (1) Wounded War Correspondent Kimberly Dozier Describes Coming to Terms with Iraq's Danger Matea Gold, Kimberly Dozier but stable condition Thursday at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where doctors lessened her sedation, enabling her to communicate with her family for the first time. Dozier's first question, scribbled on a piece of paper: What happened to her crew? 06/07/2006 (1) U.S. War Correspondents Are Under Fire in Iraq--and at Home Tim Rutten The car bomb that took the lives of cameraman Paul Douglas and soundman James Brolan and badly injured reporter Kimberly Dozier pushed this conflict's journalistic death toll to 71. Twenty-six members of the news media's support staff also have been killed. By comparison, 69 journalists were killed during World War II, 63 in Vietnam and 17 in Korea. The majority of those killed in this conflict were Iraqis working with American or other Western news organizations. As this toll has mounted, it's been curious to watch the change in attitude toward the press by the war's die-hard supporters. Initially, we were informed, the embedding process was going to produce a better sort of war correspondent — more Ernie Pyle, less David Halberstam. The eminent military historian Sir John Keegan, now a military analyst for Britain's Daily Telegraph and a great admirer of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, informed us that the embeds' experience of training and serving alongside fighting troops would create a new generation of journalists, free of the skeptical and adversarial taint that has poisoned combat correspondence since the Vietnam War. Keegan's American confrères more or less agreed. 06/06/2006 (1) Baghdad Morgue Reports Record Figures for May, 2006 Louise Roug New Iraqi government documents show that, excluding the nearly daily bombings, more Baghdad residents died in shootings, stabbings and other violence in May than in any other month since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. 06/06/2006 (1) Supporting Our Troops Over a Cliff Frank Rich Nothing, including the atrocities of Abu Ghraib and Haditha, has shaken American affection for the troops. Nothing should. These men and women go to war so we can party on. Since 9/11, our government has asked no sacrifice of civilians other than longer waits at airline security. We've even been rewarded with a prize that past generations would have found as jaw-dropping as space travel: a wartime dividend in the form of tax cuts. "It shocked me that the country was not mobilized for war," said Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who retired after his stint as a commander in Iraq and became an outspoken critic of Donald Rumsfeld. He told The Wall Street Journal that "it was almost surreal" that the only time some Americans "think about the war is when they decide what color magnet ribbon to put on the back of their car." 06/04/2006 (1) Liberators as Murderers: The Way Americans Like Their War Robert Fisk 06/03/2006 (1) The Storm over the Israel Lobby Michael Massing Not since Foreign Affairs magazine published Samuel Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations?" in 1993 has an academic essay detonated with such force as "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy," by professors John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Published in the March 23, 2006, issue of the London Review of Books and posted as a "working paper" on the Kennedy School's Web site, the report has been debated in the coffeehouses of Cairo and in the editorial offices of Haaretz. It's been called "smelly" (Christopher Hitchens), "nutty" (Max Boot), "conspiratorial" (the Anti-Defamation League), "oddly amateurish" (the Forward), and "brave" (Philip Weiss in The Nation). It's prompted intense speculation over why The New York Times has given it so little attention and why The Atlantic Monthly, which originally commissioned the essay, rejected it. 06/03/2006 (1) Why Is Border Security 'Conservative'? Charles Krauthammer I do not doubt the president's sincerity in wanting to humanize and regularize the lives of America's estimated 12 million illegal aliens. But good intentions are not enough. For decades, the well-traveled road from the Mexican border to the barrios of Los Angeles has been paved with such intentions. They begat the misguided immigration policy that created the crisis that necessitated the speech that purports to offer, finally, the "comprehensive" solution. 06/03/2006 (1) FROM "SHOCK AND AWE" TO HADITHA AND ISHAQI: U.S. MILITARY IS ACCUSED OF MASSACRES IN IRAQ Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D. Deaths of civilians in Iraqcreate an uproar 05/28/2006 (1) 5 Myths About U.S.-Saudi Relations Rachel Bronson The United States and Saudi Arabia form one of the world's most misunderstood partnerships. The Saudis are a longtime oil supplier for the U.S. economy -- but on 9/11, their kingdom accounted for 15 of the 19 hijackers. The Bush family and the House of Saud are close -- yet Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calls for greater democracy in the region. To understand the relationship, a few misconceptions must be debunked. 05/27/2006 (1) Paranoia as Policy: How Bush Brewed the Iran Crisis Paul Craig Roberts Why did the Bush regime create a crisis over Iran? The answer is that the Bush regime is desperate to widen the war in the Middle East. 05/27/2006 (1) It is absurd to calculate human rights according to a cost-benefit analysis Ronald Dworkin This is a dangerous time for freedom in Britain. The country's most powerful politicians have joined its irresponsible press in a shameful attack on the idea of human rights. Tony Blair says that the nation needs to re-examine what he calls the "philosophy" behind the Human Rights Act so as to change the balance it strikes between individual freedom and the community's security. David Cameron says a Tory government would reform that act or repeal it entirely. The rightwing press goes still further: the Telegraph calls for Britain to renounce the European Convention on Human Rights that Britain sponsored (it was signed in London) in 1950. 05/27/2006 (1) Who Wants A U.S. War Against Iran? Tom Barry The American Israel Political Action Committee ("AIPAC") is the most powerful group advocating a militarized U.S. policy toward Iran, but numerous other pressure groups calling for regime change in Iran have emerged over the past three years. 05/19/2006 (1) The Return of the Native: America's impure genius Richard Rodriguez The U.S is facing the return of the native. In the American scheme of things, the Indian disappeared from history: reluctantly, sadly, tragically, he was eliminated. He went into retreat in our memory. Yet, suddenly, spilling out from over our southern horizon are people who were supposed to no longer exist. 05/19/2006 (1) How grandma got legal Mae M. Ngai Comparisons between past and present miss a crucial point. There were so few restrictions on immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries that there was no such thing as "illegal immigration." The government excluded a mere 1% of the 25 million immigrants who landed at Ellis Island before World War I, mostly for health reasons. (Chinese were the exception, excluded on grounds of "racial unassimilability.") 05/13/2006 (1) The President of Iran's Letter to President B ush Mahmoud Ahmadinejad For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena -- which are being constantly debated, specially in political forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the hopes that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them. --Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 05/06/2006 (1) Blackwater in the Crosshairs: Families of Four Private Security Contractors Killed in Fallujah File Ground-Breaking Lawsuit The families of four private security contractors killed in Fallujah in March 2004 have filed a ground-breaking lawsuit charging Blackwater USA with fraud and wrongful death. Blackwater has fought to have the case dismissed by claiming that all liability lies not with the company but the U.S. government. 05/06/2006 (1) Blood Is Thicker Than Blackwater: It is one of the most infamous incidents of the war in Iraq: Four private American security contractors get lost, end up driving through the center of Falluja and . . . Jeremy It is one of the most infamous incidents of the war in Iraq: On March 31, 2004, four private American security contractors get lost and end up driving through the center of Falluja, a hotbed of Sunni resistance to US occupation. Shortly after entering the city, they get stuck in traffic and their small convoy is ambushed. Several armed men approach and repeatedly shooting the men at point-blank range. Their bodies are dragged from the vehicles and a crowd teard them to pieces. Their corpses are chopped and burned. The remains of two of the men are strung up on a bridge over the Euphrates River and left to dangle. 05/05/2006 (1) Iraqi Strife Seeping Into Saudi Kingdom Megan K. Stack Qatif, Saudi Arabia — The conflict in Iraq has begun to spill over onto this hardscrabble, sunburned swath of coast, breathing new life into the ancient rivalry between the country's powerful Sunni Muslim majority and the long-oppressed Shiite minority in one of the most oil-rich areas of the world. 05/02/2006 (1) hMexico has a deplorable record of human rights violations on its southern border Jason Newell As Latinos prepare for grand-scale demonstrations aimed at expanding the rights of illegal immigrants in the U.S. States, some of their critics are find the situation a bit ironic. If a group of illegal immigrants living in Mexico took to the streets in protest, they'd be breaking Mexican law. The Mexican constitution bars noncitizens from participating in public political demonstration. 04/29/2006 (1) Osama bin Laden's "Crusade" in Darfur Nicholas Kristoff When Darfur first came to public attention, there were 70,000 dead. Now there are perhaps 300,000, maybe 400,000. Soon there may be 1 million. If we don't act now, when will we? 04/29/2006 (1) Few Asians are in the U.S. illegally; their concern is the lengthy wait for relatives' visas. Teresa Watanabe Asians top immigration priority is not legalizing undocumented migrants or expanding guest worker program. It's reducing the long wait for visas for family members. 04/22/2006 (1) The new Iraq: Are women, specificaly, and civilians, generally, better off? Evan Peters In a very real sense, every illegal war of aggression is state-sponsored terrorism on a massive scale. Most of the victims of the Iraq War's reign of terror are: women; children; the elderly; and other innocent civilian noncombatants. When will we learn: (1) that even the best of intentions does not guarantee a good outcome, and frequently leads to a bad outcome, when we unleash the uncontrollable chaos of war; and (2) that violence only begets more violence, and warfare more wars? 04/22/2006 (1) A new form of "Indian Gambling" Joshua Holland George W. Bush is so concerned that weapons of mass destruction will fall into the wrong hands he's going to roll back the entire global nonproliferation regime so we can sleep safe at night. Last month he announced his latest move: a new agreement with India that would not only increase trade and investment between the U.S and the world's largest democracy. American markets will now be open to Indian mangos for the first time but will also provide India with U.S. nuclear technology and fuel for its civilian nuclear energy program. 04/22/2006 (1) Keeping It Quiet: The Israel Lobby's Crushing of Dissent Charley Reese The first weapon of choice for the Israeli lobby when someone with prestige publishes a soundly researched paper or book critical of Israel or its powerful lobby is silence. If it's a book, it rarely gets reviewed; its author doesn't get interviewed. If it's a paper, there are no news stories in the big corporate press, no interviews with the authors, no television appearances. 04/22/2006 (1) Wombs for Rent, Cheap Henry Chu Surrogate mothers in India are a bargain for foreigners, and the women reap a bonanza. But some observers say they pay a price 04/18/2006 (1) Dead Cities: And More That Will Be Killed Chris Floyd 04/18/2006 (1) Hands off Congresswoman Liza Maza--the voice of women in the Philippines and women of Philippine ancestry worldwide 04/17/2006 (1) White House Whopper Becomes Instant Classic Molly Ivins The latest development to which the only appropriate response is, “Huh,” is the news that “mobile weapons labs” introduced to us by President Bush as evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were not mobile weapons labs. The only thing new here is that George W. Bush likely knew a couple of days before he talked about them in public that the Defense Intelligence Agency had found they were not mobile weapons labs. 04/16/2006 (1) Rumsfeld monitored interrogation of Guantanamo Bay prison detainee subjected to treatment a military investigator called ''degrading and abusive Charlie Savage Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld closely monitored the late 2002 interrogation of a key Guantanamo Bay prison detainee at the same time that the prisoner was subjected to treatment that a military investigator later called ''degrading and abusive," according to newly released documents. 04/12/2006 (1) Israel Lobs 300 Artillery Shells and Rockets Into Gaza A Day Onal Urquhat in Beit Lahiya, Gaza 04/11/2006 (1) E U to Remove " Islamic Terrorist" Term IslamOnline.net 04/09/2006 (1) The Wall That Keeps Illegal Workers In Douglas S. Massey The Mexican-American border is not now and never has been out of control. The rate of undocumented migration, adjusted for population growth, to the United States has not increased in 20 years. That is, from 1980 to 2004 the annual likelihood that a Mexican will make his first illegal trip to the United States has remained at about 1 in 100. 04/09/2006 (1) The Israel Lobby? Noam Chomsky An article by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, published in the London Review of Books, has circulating extensively on the internet and elicited a storm of controversy. The journal Forward quotes Mearsheimer as saying the article was commissioned by a US journal but rejected. The article aroused a hysterical reaction from the usual supporters of state violence here, from the Wall St Journal to Alan Dershowitz. 04/09/2006 (1) Jimmy Carter calls deal with India dangerous Jimmy Carter The proposed nuclear deal with India is one more step in opening a Pandora's box. In the past five years the U.S. has abandoned many nuclear arms control agreements negotiated since Dwight Eisenhower's administration. This change in policies has sent uncertain signals to other countries, including North Korea and Iran, and may encourage technologically capable nations to choose the nuclear option. 04/08/2006 (1) U.S.-Indian Nuclear Deal No Shoo-In Paul Richter The Bush administration's proposed nuclear deal with India is meeting with a chilly reception from lawmakers, who are predicting that instead of swift approval, the initiative faces revisions and delays, if not outright rejection. 04/08/2006 (1) The calm in Tall Afar doesn't mean U.S. troops can leave, it means they must stay put Lawrence F. Kaplan Few towns have been advertised so relentlessly and ostentatiously as Tall Afar, a city in Iraq's Nineveh province. The date for handing off the city to Iraqi security forces has in fact been moved up, as the White House intends to draw down troop levels in Iraq to 100,000. If anything, however, Tall Afar shows the folly of doing so. 04/08/2006 (1) The most frightening thing the U.S could do to Iran, short of attacking it, is leave Iraq. The second most frightening thing would be U.S. success in Iraq Thomas Friedman The most frightening thing the United States could do to Iran, short of attacking it, is to leave Iraq, says New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. The second most frightening thing for Iran, he says, would be a U.S. success in Iraq. 04/02/2006 (1) A Lesson From the Holocaust For Us All Robert Fisk 03/30/2006 (1) Bush Opposes Iraq's Premier, Shiites Report Edward Wong American ambassador tells Shiite officials President Bush does not want the Iraqi prime minister to remain the country's leader in the next government, senior Shiite politicians said Tuesday. 03/30/2006 (1) Journalist's disappearance exposes America's attempts to assassinate Osama bin Laden's deputies Declan Walsh No one has yet claimed the $25m bounty on Osama bin Laden's head, much to America's disappointment. But in the meantime, Washington is taking matters into its own hands with a campaign to assassinate his top al-Qaida lieutenants in Pakistan's tribal areas. No one has yet claimed the $25m bounty on Osama bin Laden's head, much to America's disappointment. But in the meantime, Washington is taking matters into its own hands with a campaign to assassinate his top al-Qaida lieutenants in Pakistan's tribal areas. 03/30/2006 (1) When is Killing Arab Civilians Considered a Massacre? Omar Barghouti Recent reports from Iraq indicate beyond doubt that the U.S. occupation army has embarked on a new "tactic" from its menu of atrocities, in an attempt to counter the burgeoning Iraqi resistance attacks against its soldiers. "Old-style" massacres of Iraqis have become so commonplace lately that even Iraqi "allies" of the U.S. were forced to unreservedly condemn them. 03/28/2006 (1) Women and 'gendercide' Ayaan Hirsi Ali AS I WAS PREPARING for this article, I asked a very good friend who is Jewish if it was appropriate for me to use the term "holocaust" to portray the worldwide violence against women. He was startled. But when I read him the figures in a 2004 policy paper published by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, he said yes, without hesitation. 03/28/2006 (1) An Imperialist Conservative Criticizes A Neocon Niall Ferguson It takes courage to admit you got it wrong. So it's tempting to applaud Francis Fukuyama for the bout of self-criticism he is currently engaged in. In his new book, "America at the Crossroads," Fukuyama, who had become famous for declaring the "end of history," has repudiated his support for the invasion of Iraq. 03/27/2006 (1) 3 Years of War Wither a Family's Seed of Hope Louise Roug BAGHDAD — As U.S. forces made their way to the capital, Baher Butti sat alone in his house with the AK-47 that Baath Party officials had given him to guard his neighborhood. It was March 25, 2003, and the psychiatrist had just celebrated his 43rd birthday. "The war on Iraq has started," he wrote in his diary. "I have not prepared myself to be a fighter but a doctor and a family man." 03/27/2006 (1) An Answer to Orianna Fallaci Sam Hamod 03/27/2006 (1) Oriana Fallaci 's New Book Asks: Is Muslim immigration to Europe a conspiracy? Oriana Fallaci In The Force of Reason, the controversial Italian journalist and novelist Oriana Fallaci illuminates one of the central enigmas of our time. How did Europe become home to an estimated 20 million Muslims in a mere three decades? 03/27/2006 (1) Good versus evil isn't a strategy Madeleine Albright THE BUSH administration's newly unveiled National Security Strategy might well be subtitled "The Irony of Iran." Three years after the invasion of Iraq and the invention of the phrase "axis of evil," the administration now highlights the threat posed by Iran — whose radical government has been vastly strengthened by the invasion of Iraq. This is more tragedy than strategy, and it reflects the Manichean approach this administration has taken to the world. 03/25/2006 (1) The War Lovers John Pilger 03/24/2006 (1) Iran vs. USA: New Research Paper by Two Distinguished Professors Shows How the Pro-Israel Lobby Manipulates American Forign Policy Joe American An important new research paper, entitled "The Israel Lobby And U.S. Foreign Policy," was just published by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. The paper's three main conclusions are that:(1) the pro-Israel lobby has convinced American lawmakers, officials, and U.S. public opinion to support Israel even though this support runs counter to America's own national interests;(2) pro-Israel officials inside the Bush administration were behind the push for war with Iraq; pro-Israel lobbying groups were a driving force in encouraging the Bushites to invade Iraq; and(3) the pro-Israel lobby actively suppresses American public debate about U.S. Middle East policy. 03/24/2006 (1) The GOP's Halfhearted Rebellion Is a Rebellion Around the Edges Dan Froomkin So Republicans in Congress are telling President Bush they're sick and tired of being pushed around and aren't going to take it anymore? So we hear. And yet their rebellion is only around the edges. Sure they forced Bush to back down on a deal that would have put port operations in the hands of the United Arab Emirates. But where's the oversight? 03/23/2006 (1) Israel, Al Qaeda and Iran Marjorie Cohn 03/22/2006 (1) Being Doofus about Darfur (It's too far away to think about genocide today) Horace Coleman / Arin Gencer NATO is prepared to support a U.N. force in the Darfur region of Sudan, the alliance's secretary-general told President Bush during a White House visit Monday. 03/20/2006 (1) The Iraq War: 3 Years on--The March of Folly, That Has Led to a Bloodbath Robert Fisk 03/18/2006 (1) Noam Chomsky Is tThe US-dominated world order is being challenged by a new spirit of independence? The prospect that Europe and Asia might move towards greater independence has troubled US planners since the second world war. The concerns have only risen as the "tripolar order" - Europe, North America and Asia - has continued to evolve. 03/18/2006 (1) As war began, U.S. generals feuded Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor The Iraq war was barely a week old when General Tommy Franks threatened to fire the U.S. Army's field commander. From the first day of the invasion, in March 2003, American forces had tangled with thousands of Saddam Fedayeen paramilitary fighters. General William Wallace, who was leading the army's 5th Corps toward Baghdad, had told two reporters that his soldiers needed to delay their advance on the Iraqi capital to suppress the Fedayeen threat in the rear. Soon after, Franks phoned Lieutenant General David McKiernan, the head of allied land forces, to warn that he might relieve Wallace. 03/18/2006 (1) Was it worth it? An Iraqi family debates. Scott Peterson Crammed into the same ramshackle apartment in which they fearfully waited out the US invasion of Iraq three years ago, the Methboub family is asked to list the good points of the US presence. An argument erupts in their small living room, like a bomb in a crowded marketplace. 03/18/2006 (1) Thanks to gay marriage, polygamy is coming out of the closet. Don't blame either one for the decline of traditional heterosexual unions. Charles Krauthammer It is utterly logical for polygamy rights to follow gay rights. After all, if traditional marriage is defined as the union of (1) two people of (2) opposite gender, and if, as advocates of gay marriage insist, the gender requirement is nothing but prejudice, exclusion and an arbitrary denial of one's autonomous choices in love, then the first requirement -- the number restriction (two and only two) -- is a similarly arbitrary, discriminatory and indefensible denial of individual choice. 03/13/2006 (1) Free Speech? Not When It Comes to Criticizing Israel Robert Fisk 03/12/2006 (1) Funds Meant for Kids Need Minding Michael Hiltzik The supervisory standards set up by Proposition 10 in 1998 are scandalously lax. The program uses income from a tobacco surtax, including 50 cents per pack of cigarettes, to fund health, welfare and educational services for children up to age 5 — things like immunization and preschool. But it has become a feeding trough for people flogging pet projects and for outside consultants. Proposition 10 bestowed a total lack of accountability on the bodies it established to disburse the money — the state Children and Families Commissionand 58 county entities, known as "First5" commissions. 03/12/2006 (1) Running Amok with John Bolton Mike Whitney / Evan Peters John Bolton’s tenure at the United Nations has been relatively unsurprising. He was shoehorned into his position by presidential edict although the Senate openly opposed his appointment. Since then, he has lived up to his reputation as a “loose cannon” by routinely blasting the “alleged” waste and ineffectiveness of the world body. Bolton is the new face of the UN; a blustery huckster whose primary task is to promote the interests of big business and Israel. 03/12/2006 (1) Half of the planet's 500 biggest rivers are seriously depleted or polluted Geoffrey Lean Death of the world's rivers: Disaster warning from UN investigation reveals half of the planet's 500 biggest rivers are seriously depleted or polluted. 03/05/2006 (1) 72% of U.S. Troops in Iraq Say End War in 2006 U.S. Troops in Iraq: 72% Say End War in 2006 One in five troops want to heed Bush call to stay “as long as they are needed.” While 58% say mission is clear, 42% say the U.S. role is hazy. A plurality believes Iraqi insurgents are mostly homegrown. Almost 90% think the war is retaliation for Saddam’s role in 9/11 and most don’t blame Iraqi public for insurgent attacks. The majority of troops oppose the use of harsh prisoner interrogation. A plurality of troops pleased with their armor and equipment. An overwhelming majority of 72% of American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year. Nearly one in four say the troops should leave immediately. 03/05/2006 (1) Antarctic Ice Sheet Is Melting Rapidly / Antarctica Cannot Replace Ice Loss Juliet Eilperin / Robert Lee Hotz The Antarctic ice sheet is losing as much as 36 cubic miles of ice a year in a trend that scientists link to global warming. The ice sheets of Antarctica — the world's largest reservoir of fresh water — are shrinking faster than new snow can fall, scientists reported Thursday in the first comprehensive satellite survey of the entire continent. 02/28/2006 (1) The Butterfly Effect, Islam and Danish cartoons Brendan Bernhard “The butterfly effect” says a small insect beating its wings in one corner of the world can start a chain reaction that causes a hurricane in another. The butterfly effect in humans is demonstrated by the global controversy over Danish cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. 02/25/2006 (1) What's t he Best Option for Running U.S. Ports? Charles Krauthammer The UAE, run by a friendly regime, manages ports in other countries without any incidents. As soon as the Dubai company takes over operations, it will become privy to information about security provisions at crucial U.S. ports. The best exit strategy is: (1) Allow the contract to go through; (2) give it heightened scrutiny; assign a team of U.S. government agents, working inside the company, to see security is tight and information closely held; (3) have the team report every six months to the U.S. executive and a select congressional committee. 02/25/2006 (1) Do Empty Pockets Equal Angry Minds for Young Muslims? Thomas L. Friedman Many Muslim countries have economies that do not prepare young people for modernity — and that has produced humiliation and frustration. 02/24/2006 (1) From 'Connectedness' to Conflict David Ignatius A baseline assumptions of U.S. foreign policy is that "connectedness" is good. If that's true, why is a increasingly "connected" world such a mess? Francis Fukuyama has said "More democracy will mean more alienation, radicalization and -- yes, unfortunately -- terrorism". By providing instant, persistent, real-time stimuli, technology takes anger to a higher level. "Rage needs to be fed or stimulated continually to build or maintain it." The Internet provides an instantaneous, persistent poke in the eye. And, an environment in which enraged people can gather at cause-centered Web sites and make themselves even angrier. Technology "eliminates the opportunity for filtering or rage-dissipating communications to intrude." 02/24/2006 (1) Why I Now Genuflect to Charles Krauthammer Jason Miller Our intentions are always good. We may kill a few million innocent civilians here and there, but you have to crack some eggs if you want to make an omelette. We Americans are God's gift to humanity and we can do no wrong! 02/24/2006 (1) Paul Wolfowitz's Agenda at the World Bank: Fighting Corruption Sebastian Mallaby Paul Wolfowitz's World Bank presidency has acquired an organizing theme: corruption. And, he's going to push this campaign beyond the confines of the World Bank. He's persuaded the heads of several regional development banks to join his anti-corruption effort. 02/24/2006 (1) (Uncle Sam) Will Fight for Oil Ted Koppel Keeping oil flowing out of the Persian Gulf and through the Strait of Hormuz has been bedrock American foreign policy for more than a half-century. Fifty-three years ago, British and American intelligence officers conspired to help bring about the overthrow of Iran's prime minister. 02/22/2006 (1) Bush Is a Saint (a fable) Joe American Compared to Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, George W. Bush is a saint!" (a fable--obviously) 02/20/2006 (1) WWIII or Bush: Implications of a U.S. Attack on Iran Heather Eokusch 02/17/2006 (1) On Intelligence, Policy,and the War in Iraq--A former CIA agent's perspective Paul R. Pillar During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration disregarded the intelligence community's expertise, politicized the intelligence process and selected unrepresentative raw intelligence to make its public case. 02/15/2006 (1) The limits of propaganda Anatol Lieven and David Chambers The victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections starkly reveals the bankruptcy of the Bush administration's strange strategy of trying to democratize Arabs while ignoring their feelings and opinions. 02/15/2006 (1) Is it Canada's Job to Extend U.S. Supremacy? Linda Mcquaig The main reason Canadians are in Afghanistan is because Americans want them there to support their "war on terror." Canadians see this as a way to make up to for not joining the invasion of Iraq. 02/14/2006 (1) More American Mistakes in the Middle East Dr. Sam Hamod, Ph.D. 02/13/2006 (1) A Natural History of Peace Robert M. Sapolsky Humans are not "killer apes" destined for violent conflict, but can make their own history. 02/13/2006 (1) Poor funding the rich seen as unsustainable, risky Massive flows of capital from the emerging to the developed world are unsustainable and risk damaging both poor and rich countries. 02/13/2006 (1) How You See Things Determines What You See When the topic is political, discussion is often emotional. Cable-TV shout fests or partisan blog ranting areprimeexamplesof this. Tempers overwhelm any chance at rational discussion. It's almost as if one part of the brain gets turned off and emotions take over. According to a new study by neuroscientists, it's exactly like that. 02/05/2006 (1) Colin Powell and "The Mother of All Hoaxes in Modern Times" , Iraq War Middle East Report 02/05/2006 (1) U.S. government audits found American-led occupation authorities in Iraq squandered tens of millions of dollars U.S. government audits found American-led occupation authorities squandered tens of millions of dollars that were supposed to have been used to rebuild Iraq. The findings attribute the losses to undocumented spending and fraud, and include the failure to account for $97 million of the $120 million in Iraqi oil revenue earmarked for rebuilding projects in southern Iraq. 02/05/2006 (1) Don't Be Fooled, This Isn't An Issue of Islam vs Secularism Robert Fisk 02/02/2006 (1) U.S. Spending $1, 189,000,000,000 in Iraq War Nicole Colson 02/02/2006 (1) EU Nations Show Ignorance and Lack of Respect for Islam or Prophet Mohamed (Peace Be Upon Him) Paul Vallely 01/27/2006 (1) Documents Show American Army Illegally Seized Wives of Iraqis Charles J. Hanley 01/25/2006 (1) God, Blood, Oil and Iraq Tariq Ali 01/25/2006 (1) Will Israel Pull America Into Another Quagmire in Iran Sam Hamod, Ph.D. 01/25/2006 (1) The Terrorist In the Mirror: Grievances and Consequences Naom Chomsky 01/25/2006 (1) Sanitized Images Hide Truth of War Says Robert Fisk Ian Herbert Interviewing Robert Fisk 01/24/2006 (1) Civil War in Sri Lanka Again? Mandapam Refugee Camp 01/24/2006 (1) It's the West Bank occupation, stupid! Geoffrey Aronson Israel's reoccupation of the entire West Bank in Spring 2002 (Operation Defensive Shield) ended many of the limited powers exercised by the Palestinian Authority. Subsequent measures championed by Israel have deconstructed nominally Palestinian territories into an ever-more complex, almost indecipherable maze of administrative, territorial, legal, and security spaces, lacking territorial coherence and administrative transparency. 01/24/2006 (1) Most College Students Lack Skills Ben Feller 01/20/2006 (1) Osama Bin Laden and Bush Robert Fisk 01/18/2006 (1) "There Is No War on Terror" says Noam Chomsky Geov Parrish Interview with MIT professor Noam Chomsky: Chomsky has been one of the world's leading intellectual critics of U.S. foreign policy. America's latest imperial adventure is in trouble both politically and militarily. 01/18/2006 (1) God, Blood, Oil and Iraq: Had the Shia Resisted the Occupation, the War Would Have Been Over Long Ago Tariq Ali For most western citizens subjugation by lies, half-truths and suppressed facts has become part of everyday life. For Iraqis it's whether their country will survive or whether the result of western recolonisation will be disintegration. 01/14/2006 (1) Polar Bears Face New Toxic Threat: Flame Retardants Marla Cone Polar bears throughout the Arctic, particularly in remote dens near the North Pole, face threat from flame retardants. Originating largely in the United States, the flame retardants build up in their bodies, according to an international team of wildlife scientists. 01/14/2006 (1) Link Found Between Frogs' Extinction, Global Warming: Killer fungus stoked by temperature rise may have killed dozens of species Bryn Nelson A fungal epidemic fueled by global warming may have wiped out dozens of frog species in otherwise pristine environments, a study concludes. 01/14/2006 (1) Nuclear proliferation OK for India, bad for Iran Paul Watson As U.S. steps up pressure on Iran and North Korea to abandon suspected nuclear weapons programs, American officials work to complete a deal with India that critics call a threat to nonproliferation efforts. 01/12/2006 (1) Armed Men, Lacking Jobs, Fuel Gaza's 'Violent Energy' Craig S. Smith Virtually sealed off from the outside world, some residents of the Gaza Streip, a violence-riddled strip of land along the Mediterranean Sea that some call a giant, deteriorating prison, turn to violence. 01/12/2006 (1) After his latest "Fat Wad," Israel Suspends Contact With Pat Robertson Brian Murphy Israel suspends contact with Pat Robertson for suggesting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for withdrawing from the Gaza Strip. 01/08/2006 (1) When Mom Is "Over There" A Family Learns to Stay the Course Anne Hull A mother of two is chief controller of the air-traffic control tower at Kirkuk Regional Air Base in northern Iraq. She did not graduate from the Air Force Academy or come from a long line of military heroes. She was 22 and working at the Stouffer's frozen-food factory in her home town of Gaffney, S.C., in 1987 when she rebelled against the smallness of her life and joined the Air Force. 01/07/2006 (1) The whitewashing of Ariel Sharon Saree Makdisi Ariel Sharon's "painful sacrifices" involved Israel keeping less, rather than more, of the territory it captured violently and has clung to illegally for four decades. It's not really a sacrifice to return something that wasn't yours to begin with. From the beginning to the end of his career, Sharon was a man of ruthless and often gratuitous violence. 01/03/2006 (1) One million people are in the U.S. Army; why's it so hard to keep 150,000 in Iraq? Fred Kaplan Should the government enlarge the military so it can more easily fight wars? Or, should the government alter its policies, so as not to fight wars as often, at least not alone? 01/02/2006 (1) Robert Fisk's Review of the Year: On War Without End Robert Fisk |
