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Gravediggers of the world unite! Capitalism Must Die….
2008-05-17 01:49:00
by Jason Miller “What this means is that corporations and those who run them cannot stop exploiting resources and amassing wealth until they have… .I cannot finish this sentence, because the truth is that can never stop; like cancer, they can only continue to expand until they kill the host.” –Derrick Jensen(Perhaps my profane words will offend, but in light of the fact that we are in a race to eradicate capitalism before it renders the Earth uninhabitable, I don’t give a fuck). Yes. It’s another anti-capitalist rant by Jason Miller. Big surprise! I’m the associate editor for Cyrano’s Journal Online, the anti-capitalist tool. We’re not big fans of free market ideology and its tacit socioeconomic license to rape, pillage and plunder. Here’s a novel idea—if you don’t like my diatribes against the predominatingly rotten-to the-core system that ensures the most despicable human beings wield the most power, don’t read them! And you relentless “keepers of the faith,” daz...
More About: World , Capitalism , The World

Hilary Clinton: Anything for the White House
2008-05-17 01:35:00
by Suzanne Baroud Nothing seems to work right for Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton in her attempts to once more dwell in the White House . Senator Barack Obama, despite inflated controversies continued his glide to the Democratic nomination with a landslide victory and a marginal defeat in the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, respectively. According to the Associated Press count, as of May 7, a day after Tuesday’s primaries, Obama commands an overall lead of 1,846.5 delegates, while Clinton trails behind at 1,696 delegates. To win the Democratic Party nomination for presidency, Obama or Clinton is required to obtain 2,025 delegates. To catch up with Obama, beleaguered Clinton must acquire at least 63 percent of the remaining votes, nearly impossible considering her poor performance as of late. Obama is just 178.5 delegates shy from the threshold of nomination. Analysts contest that neither candidate is likely to obtain the required votes, but Obama looks like a mo...
More About: White House , Hilary Clinton

A Miscarriage of Birth; a Miscarriage of Justice
2008-05-17 01:31:00
by William A. Cook “Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea! When ye make many prayers, I will not hear. YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow.” (Isaiah 1:13-17) A nation cannot be born in torture and terror and be born whole; it is a deformity of humankind, an abomination that must be cleansed through repentance and reconciliation if it is to join the civilized world. Israel, like the United States before it, will be haunted by its past as the living literature that enshrines it captures the hypocrisy of its public statements even as the tru...
More About: Justice , Birth , Miscarriage

The Real Losers
2008-05-17 01:29:00
by Paul J. Balles Focused on issues or trivia, US media giants continue to revel in election politics. Three US senators have been busily campaigning for nominations for the US presidency. Whether it's Hillary Clinton trying to be more macho than her male opponents, or John McCain attempting to display more chutzpah than G W Bush, or Barak Obama disowning the mentor he should be praising, the whole process is a sideshow on demand. The "on demand" part of the sideshow comes from the American public. If the republicans wanted brains at the helm rather than a Bush clone, they would have nominated Ron Paul, a candidate whose foreign policy would keep America from pre-emptive and presumptive wars. Paul wouldn't be spending his time in Florida trying to convince voters there, as McCain has, that the democratic candidates would jeopardize Israel's security and that the US should bomb Iran. If the democrats didn’t believe that change can only be made by e...
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Can P5+1 Offer Break the Nuclear Stalemate?
2008-05-17 01:17:00
by Trita Parsi The P5+1 — the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany — will present Tehran with a secret incentive package in the next few days to convince Iran to suspend its enrichment programme and enter negotiations. There is little doubt that Tehran will reject the offer since it crosses its red line — suspension of enrichment — but the question is why such an offer is being made at this time, even though reinvigorating talks is in and of itself much needed. The nuclear offer coincides with an escalation of rhetoric between Washington and Tehran over allegations of Iranian meddling in Iraq. Following several stark comments by high-ranking U.S. military officials, the new buzz in the beltway is that Iran "is killing American soldiers" — a clear casus belli if proven true. From Senate staffers to think tank pundits, fear of a military confrontation between Iran and the U.S. is quickly rising once more. General David Petreus, the n...
More About: Nuclear , Break , Stalemate , Offer

Tomgram: Bill McKibben, The Defining Moment for Climate Change
2008-05-17 00:42:00
by Tom Engelhardt Already climate change — in the form of a changing pattern of global rainfall — seems to be affecting the planet in significant ways. Take the massive, almost decade-long drought in Australia's wheat-growing heartland, which has been a significant factor in sending flour prices, and so bread prices, soaring globally, leading to desperation and food riots across the planet. A report from the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia makes clear that, despite recent heavy rains in the eastern Australian breadbasket, years of above normal rainfall would be needed "to remove the very long-term [water] deficits" in the region. The report then adds this ominous note: "The combination of record heat and widespread drought during the past five to 10 years over large parts of southern and eastern Australia is without historical precedent and is, at least partly, a result of climate change." Think a bit about that phrase — "without hist...
More About: Climate Change , Climate , Change , Moment , Bill

Hezbollah eases up and Beirut opens its shutters
2008-05-17 00:31:00
by Franklin Lamb in Beirut Saturday Afternoon May 10 2008 witnessed a pronounced easing of tension. Is a solution at hand? Based on a US Congressional source, the Siniora government is reportedly able, with US approval, to offer the following face-saving proposal to Hezbollah to end the current crisis:1. Hezbollah can keep its landline optic telecommunication cables for use in its Resistance struggle against Israel. But they should be put under "State Control". Translation: Hezbollah controls them exclusively same as now and no one else will touch them. But 'officially' they will be under 'State' control, i.e. not State control. 2. Concerning the other major issue regarding the head of Beirut Airport Security, General Wafiq Shouqair gets reassigned but Hezbollah gets to name his replacement. Translation: Wafiq stays in office, keeps his authority and puts his deputy's name card slipped over his on the office nameplate. The public version of the proposal...
More About: Shutters

An Open Letter to Attorney General Mukasey
2008-05-17 00:25:00
by Jayne Lyn Stahl Dear Attorney -General Mukasey: It is my understanding that the government now plans to collect DNA from anyone who is arrested by federal law enforcement, and that the samples will be stored in an effort to reduce violence in our society. Moreover, the U.S. government reportedly now intends to take a cheek swab from foreigners we detain, whether they've been charged or not. While Congress may have authorized Justice to expand DNA outreach, as citizens, and taxpayers, we're entitled to know what your intentions are. The concept of DNA collection is, in itself, not a heinous thing. Indeed, if science were to be used to combat wrongful conviction instead of setting up a blueprint for pursuing future incarceration, then I would be a strong proponent of taking DNA samples from everyone who is arrested, and storingthe samples. But, instead, the database in which the DNA will be stored, CODIS, may one day be a holding cell for vital genetic information, as well a...
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US Terrorism Report: Selective Data, Wrong Lessons
2008-05-17 00:18:00
by Ramzy Baroud The data provided in the US State Department's annual terrorism report for 2007 points to some interesting if puzzling conclusions. The much publicised document, made available 30 April via the State Department's website, makes no secret of the fact that Al-Qaeda is back, strong as ever. It also suggests that violence worldwide is nowhere near subsiding, despite President Bush's repeated assurances regarding the success of his "war on terror". Will the report inspire serious reflection on the US's detrimental foreign policy and its role in the current situation? Let's look at some of the data. To start with, take Pakistan. Al-Qaeda or Al-Qaeda-inspired attacks in the country more than doubled (from 375 to 877) between 2006 and 2007. These attacks have claimed the lives of 1,335 people, compared to 335 in a previous report. That is a jump of almost 300 per cent. Then there's Afghanistan, which was supposedly "liberated" shortly after 11 ...
More About: Terrorism , Data , Report , Wrong , Lessons

After Hillary, Voting With Conscience and Pride
2008-05-17 00:14:00
by Joel S. Hirschhorn This general election more than most will test the courage of voters to avoid lesser-evil strategic voting that has propped up our two-party plutocracy. People with intelligence and conscience must resist peer pressure and the temptation to vote against John McCain by voting for Barack Obama. Of course, a McCain presidency that pursues much of the same policies and values of the totally inept and morally bankrupt Bush administration is something to loathe. But lesser-evil voting sustains our corrupt political system. Many say they are voting for Barack Obama in a most enthusiastic and positive way. For me, this does not work. I see no compelling evidence in Obama's history that he has what it takes to be a true, solid reformer. All I see is a young, inexperienced terrific talker that has used slick rhetoric to sell himself. With intellectual and ideological elitism and an aura of superiority and academic smugness, he has suc...
More About: Conscience , Voting , Hillary , Pride

Someone's Holiday, Another's Nakba, Our Shame!
2008-05-17 00:09:00
by Zahir Ebrahim Sunday April 06, 2008. It is à propos to begin this brief observation in 2008, on a cloudy Sunday morning while sipping a nice hot cup of tea in the safety and comfort of my home in California, with a few words from the late Israeli scholar Baruch Kimmerling, professor of sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, from his 2002 essay “My Holiday , Their Tragedy”: As a Jew, an atheist and a Zionist, I have two memorial days in my country, Israel. One for the Holocaust and one for soldiers who fell in wars. I also have one day of celebration, the anniversary of the day Israel declared its statehood... It is horrifying to realize that, despite the fact that the essence of the Holocaust was the genocide of the Jewish people, we tend to forget, induce oversight of, and even hide the fact that gypsies, the physically and mentally disabled, communists, priests, and Germans who opposed the Nazi regime were killed in extermination camps alongside Jews. The t...
More About: Shame

My brain hurts!
2008-05-16 10:34:00
by Ed Naha Have you noticed that, as the Bush presiduncey drags ever onward, the feeling that one’s brain has totally turned to tapioca is now a 24/7 deal? And with good reason. In the past two weeks, for instance, news stories have been written about a new Disneyland-esque theme park slated for Baghdad, the Pentagon backing a $5 billion swanky “Zone of Influence” in the Green Zone replete with luxury hotels and spas and the fact that all the foul names the U.S. has been lobbing at Islamic radicals are actually the highest compliments one can garner in the Muslim world. To quote Monty Python’s learned T.F. Gumby: “Owwww. My brain hurts!” The Pentagon’s bright-eyed and Bushy-failed “Zone of Influence” is quite a doozy, even by nutjob standards. (Note: this project is not to be confused with the “Zone of Depleted Uranium and Nasty Bits,” which starts two blocks down the road and extends for another fifty miles nor the “Zone of Delusion,” which begins in the White Ho...
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Bush Operative Pushes Voter-ID Law
2008-05-16 10:27:00
by Jason Leopold A senior legal adviser to the Bush -Cheney 2004 reelection campaign is working behind the scenes to help enact a Missouri state constitutional amendment that critics say would suppress the vote in the key battleground state this November by requiring voters to show proof of citizenship. Mark “Thor” Hearne, Bush-Cheney’s national counsel in 2004 and now a partner in the St. Louis, Missouri, firm of Lathrop & Gage, has been collaborating with Missouri’s Republican state Rep. Stanley Cox, the sponsor of the constitutional amendment, Cox’s office confirmed this week. For years, Hearne has been a leading Republican figure demanding stricter voter-identification laws and popularizing claims about widespread voter fraud, although many election experts dismiss such alarms as hyperbole. During the 2004 campaign, Hearne reportedly worked with White House political adviser Karl Rove on “voter fraud” issues and spearheaded GOP efforts to challenge voter-registr...

Lost E-Mails Obscure 'Plame-gate'
2008-05-10 02:12:00
by Jason Leopold Earlier this week, the White House disclosed that it could not recover lost e-mails from emergency backup tapes for the period covering the invasion of Iraq and the U.S. failure to find Iraq’s alleged WMD. This new gap – from March 1, 2003, to May 23, 2003 – also may have wiped out evidence of how George W. Bush and his top aides reacted to the emerging criticism from former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson that the White House had sold the war using false claims about Iraq seeking uranium from Niger in Africa, an investigation by The Public Record has found. “It seems clear now that the e-mail backups are spotty and that there is no guarantee that there are backup tapes for all of [Executive Office of the President] during the period of concern, March 2003-October 2005,” said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel of George Washington University’s National Security Archive, one of two organizations suing the White House in hopes of forcing the administration t...
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You want MORE B.S?
2008-05-10 02:12:00
by Stephen P. Pizzo As an Obama supporter this primary season has been like enduring a year-long root canal, without Novocain. It's been painful. It's been like watching two bullies harass, belittle, lie and push your kid around everyday at school, and not being able to do a thing about it except to try to reassure yourself that, in the end your kid will emerge a better and stronger person because of it. Or not. After all, the same kind of sleazy, low-brow, thuggish politics is exactly the kind of politics that got George W. Bush elected, twice. So maybe "my kid" will come out of it a better and stronger person, AND lose. But alas, a ray of light. After tying Rev. Wright around the kid's neck like a dead chicken, Obama still won by a huge margin in North Carolina and cut Hillary's lead in Indiana down to a mere margin of error win. Can this be the first hard evidence that Americans have wised up to political thuggery? Will voters of 2008 have become i...

Serving the System: Disillusion, Deception and the Obama Campaign
2008-05-10 01:59:00
by Chris Floyd Arthur Silber has the second part of his powerful "Choosing Sides" series up now: Killing Truth and Hope — The Fatal Illusion of Opposition. There is little I can add to the insight and eloquence of the piece — just go read the whole thing, and follow up on the links provided there as well. But I would like to highlight two particular aspects of the post. First is Silber's succinct description of the "corporate-authoritarian political system" that confronts us at every turn with its soul-crushing, death-dealing power: This system encompasses every area of our national life....The military-industrial complex — or what is now often more accurately described as the military-industrial-congressional complex — is the most significant component of these interrelationships, but there are many other parts. They encompass all major industries, and almost every minor one, as well as many of our educational and cultural institutions....
More About: System , Obama , Campaign , Deception , Disillusion

ITS OVER.
2008-05-10 01:23:00
by Will Durst I’m not saying Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s historic presidential run is toast. Finished. Down the drain. Caput. Washed up. History. A memory. In the archives. Defunct. Extinct. Artifacto. Took a hike. Sleeping with the fishes. Part of the vast past tense. Joined the choir invisible. Totally obliterated. Entering Sidekick City. Sheer finito. Thoroughly through. Down goes Frasier. Swept away by the Tahiti Express. See ya: Wouldn’t want to be ya. So long and sayonara sweetheart. Became an ex- presidential run. Experiencing fossilization. Stick a fork in her- she’s done. Game over, man. Say bye. No. No. No. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that it’s down to the wire but that wire is starting to unravel. She’s hanging by a thread, down to her last dime and the wheels are coming off. Its two outs, two strikes, nobody on, bottom of the ninth and she’s behind by about 142. Got her back up against the wall because an elephant is standi...

Running Out of Water in Rising Heat
2008-05-10 01:18:00
by Dahr Jamail and Ahmed Ali BAQUBA, May 9 (IPS) - Water supply is drying out in what was once the agriculturally rich Diyala province north of Baghdad. Baquba, the capital city of Diyala, is now running out of water both for drinking and for irrigation. Water supply has been hit by power failures. The central pumping station has been running short of electricity supply over the last two years. The pumping station is located between two districts in conflict — Hwaider, which is predominantly Shia, and Jupenat, mostly Sunni. For two years now, fighting between Sunnis and Shias here has led to reduced water supply. "The Diyala river passes by the two villages before the pumping station," resident Zuhair Mahmood told IPS. "They try to change its stream to deprive the other of water for irrigating their farms. The diversions mean relatively little water can reach the station." Often, Mahmood added, "farmers irrigate their farms by setting up ...
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Lebanon on the Brink - Blindsided Hezbollah mulls its response
2008-05-10 01:18:00
by Franklin Lamb, Outside Beirut's closed Airport "The question is no longer why, for the answer has become clear. However, what is the secret behind the timing of this? What is being prepared for the future stage and which coincides with US President George Bush's tour of the region? Has internal dialogue gone without return, and if it takes place, then what is its agenda? What will Hezbollah and the opposition do to face the new challenges?" – Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassim during a just completed May 8, 2008 interview Hezbollah sources concede that they were taken by surprise and some were shocked by the intense, incendiary bombardment of the last few days by pro-government operatives. As Hezbollah studies 'the situation' and how to respond this beautiful spring Beirut morning, there is a real danger things may rapidly spiral out of control. Yesterday started off peacefully enough, with a strike called by the General Federation of Labor...
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Shoot, Kill, Lie, Repeat: America's New Moral Universe
2008-05-10 01:05:00
by Chris Floyd Tell me that this doesn't sound like something out of a history of Nazi tactics in World War II: The rules [of engagement]t explicitly allowed the killing of unarmed Iraqis under certain circumstances...Specifically, the snipers were allowed to shoot unarmed people running away from explosions or firefights....Of course, it's not unusual for innocent people to run from explosions. Didier, who has since been promoted to captain, said that "if that individual makes contact with you and then breaks contact of their own accord and disarms themselves while they are breaking contact, they are still an engageable target because they are not wounded, nor did they surrender." He explained, "They are only breaking contact so that they can engage coalition forces at a later time." In court, Sgt. Anthony Murphy, one of the snipers who was responsible for a questionable kill, testified that he interpreted this order about breaking contact so the...
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Yes, We Can Abolish Nuclear Weapons
2008-05-10 00:58:00
by Jerome Grossman A major disappointment in the presidential race has been the failure of the three surviving candidates to address nuclear weapons, the greatest existential threat to planet Earth, to the human race itself, and of course, by extension to the United States of America. The failure is extraordinary because the abolition of nuclear weapons has been raised recently and repeatedly by some of the most respected and powerful personages in the U.S. military, the federal government, and corporate America. How could a serious election virtually ignore this powerful initiative? A January 2007 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Senator Sam Nunn and former Secretary of Defense William Perry called for a “world free of nuclear weapons” and urged the United States to lead an international effort to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles. They argued for a multilateral verifiable plan with str...
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Six Blue Iguanas
2008-05-10 00:53:00
by Tom Chartier The island of Grand Cayman in the Caribbean has iguanas. Big deal right? Iguanas are all over the tropics. Sure, but Grand Cayman is the only place in the world where there are blue iguanas, not the common green variety. A source of national pride for the Cayman Islands, blue iguanas are on the endangered species list. Only an estimated 400 blue iguanas are left in the wild. To help preserve them the Botanical Gardens operates a breeding facility for these unique creatures. Saturday night, May 3, someone broke into the Botanical Gardens and brutally killed six adult blue iguanas important to the breeding program. Two of the dead females were preparing to lay eggs. With all the human death and suffering in the world today why is the murder of six blue iguanas relevant? In perspective it seems rather trivial. Ah… but more is revealed here than meets the eye. What was the motive and what will the reaction be? Was this the drunken act of some sicko who dec...
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The Democratic Presidential Race: A View from Pennsylvania
2008-05-10 00:53:00
by Dave Lindorff The results in Tuesday’s twin primaries—Barack Obama by 14 percent in North Carolina and Hillary Clinton by 2 percent in Indiana—confirmed that Clinton is finished as a contender. Barack Obama will be the Democratic candidate for president this fall. Clinton, the private-schooled, Wellesley and Yale-educated millionaire lawyer from Chicago, who first tried to present herself as a White House veteran, and then, in recent weeks, as a NASCAR mom on Food Stamps, and who in Pennsylvania resorted to cheap race-baiting and red-baiting in an effort to derail her opponent, has failed. Barack Obama, another private-schooled Harvard and Yale-educated lawyer, but one who actually did have to work his way up the economic ladder, won decisively in North Carolina, even drawing a significant number of working-class white voters in a state where white voters have not traditionally voted for candidates with dark skin. As a resident of Pennsylvania, I can only express a...
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Is the United States of America Addicted to War?
2008-05-10 00:48:00
by Walter C. Uhler   Mikhail Gorbachev is not a frivolous man. He was the Soviet leader who introduced the conceptual breakthrough of "mutual security" to Soviet-America n relations, as well as the man who did more than any other individual to bring the Cold War to a peaceful conclusion (See here). In my opinion, he ranks as the greatest statesman of the twentieth century (something I was able to tell him personally, when we talked in St. Petersburg, Russia in May 2006). So, when Mr. Gorbachev says, "Every US president has to have a war," and "I sometimes have the feeling that the United States is going to wage war against the entire world," - as was reported by the Telegraph.co.uk on May 7, 2008 — I take him seriously. More to the point, Gorbachev's assertions probably elicited widespread agreement, not only in Russia, but also across Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. For, as historian Michael Sherry has put it: ...
More About: United States of America

Testimony of Marjorie Cohn to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil R
2008-05-10 00:47:00
by Marjorie Cohn "From the Department of Justice to Guantánamo Bay: Administration Lawyers and Administration Interrogation Rules" Subcommittee on the Constitution , Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties House Judiciary Committee What does torture have in common with genocide, slavery, and wars of aggression? They are all jus cogens. That’s Latin for "higher law" or "compelling law." This means that no country can ever pass a law that allows torture. There can be no immunity from criminal liability for violation of a jus cogens prohibition. The United States has always prohibited torture in our Constitution, laws, executive statements, judicial decisions, and treaties. When the U.S. ratifies a treaty, it becomes part of American law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, says, "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, ...
More About: Testimony , The Constitution

Our Eyes and “Dreams of Home” - Book Review by Jim Miles
2008-05-10 00:37:00
by Jim Miles Our Eyes and “Dreams of Home ” created by the children of Lajee Center with Rich Wiles. Lajee Center, Bethlehem, Palestine. 2007. The pictures arrive at first in the sad multi-tones of greys, the ever-present grey concrete walls of the narrow alleys of the refugee camp, the shadows and lines on faces, the abstract shadows of wire and fence on concrete, and the loom of the Wall that separates the camp from its outlying fields. At first sombre within all that grey, the pictures reveal many levels of understanding and feeling, as if each shade has it own significance, each texture its own meaning, each face its own hopes and dreams clouded by narrow horizons. As described in the introduction “the idea behind this project was for the young people of the Lajee to constructively and creatively respond to the environment in which they live…producing…an international voice that transcends borders and languages…that can get over the Wall…pass through checkpoints…louder tha...
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Rocky Timed Out
2008-05-10 00:37:00
by Jayne Lyn Stahl The chickens of Rocky past are coming home to roost today as 1972 presidential Democratic nominee, George McGovern, defected from the Clinton camp to endorse Obama which is further proof that any analogies between Rocky Balboa and Hillary Clinton are strained. McGovern joins a chorus of those who think Clinton should walk away. But, echoing the Bush mindset, Hillary ignores those who suggest that she do now what she must inevitably do. She has just lent her campaign another $6 milllion to stay in the race which makes $11 million out of her own pocket, but who's counting? After all, it's her business how she spends her money. The only thing that should concern us is that her decision may well come at the expense of her party's victory in November. After watching the obsessive Democratic political contest that has plagued the airwaves for months, the only thing that is clear is that politics has become the drug of choice in Washington. What keeps ...

Desperate ADL leaders smear Switzerland as ‘financier of terrorism’
2008-05-10 00:20:00
by Michael Gillespie The U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) smeared the government of Switzerland as a “financier of terrorism” in early April on the basis of that country’s recent agreement to import natural gas from Iran. Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey traveled to Iran for the signing of the agreement between the Swiss energy trading company EGL and the state-owned National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC). Calmy-Rey met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on March 17. The ADL lashed out againstSwitzerland,arguably the world’s oldestfederal republic,inpaid advertisements placed inThe New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, and major Swissnewspaperson April 8. “As the Swiss government pursues its own narrow economic interests, it is bankrolling the world's leading sponsor of terrorism,” declared the ADL’s full page ad. “The reproaches in this advertisement do not fit the facts,”replied ...
More About: Terrorism , Leaders , Desperate

Fallujah Revisited: Bush, Petraeus Prepare 'Cleansing' of Sadr City
2008-05-10 00:16:00
by Chris Floyd I.George W. Bush and David Petraeus are preparing to make a new Fallujah in Sadr City , home to two million Shiites in Baghdad. Thousands of people are already fleeing the area before the full-scale slaughter and destruction begin. As in Fallujah, the multitudes who cannot escape will be trapped in a "free fire zone", subjected to ruthless bombardment and ground assault. Thousands — perhaps tens of thousands — of innocent civilians stand in the shadow of imminent death. The assault is part of the run-up to the coming attack on Iran — an attempt to secure the rear of that new front by destroying Iraq's Shiite nationalist forces. It is also part of an on-going effort to eliminate the strongest rival to the Shiite extremists that Bush has installed in office in Iraq, before the conquered land's fall elections. The preliminary assault on Sadr City has already begun, of course. As the BBC notes, in the last seven weeks around 1,000 people ...

Are Vampire Capitalists About to Descend on Crisis Wrought Myanmar?
2008-05-10 00:09:00
by Martha Rose Crow, M.S. Nowadays, most important news gets ignored, buried or goes under the radar by corporate-owned media, especially when this news reveals the dark side of the “free market” or the dark plans for more parasitic, predator capitalism unleashed against a weakened populace or country. Myanmar is the modern name for a country the English speaking empires still call Burma. On May 2nd, US President George W. Bush ordered a new round of sanctions on Burmese state companies to pressure the military leadership there over human rights abuses and to push for political change. Few wires picked up this Act of Aggression from Washington. Instead, the whole world watched with wonder as Tropical Cyclone Nargis slammed into Myanmar on May 2nd and May 3rd. For over a week, meteorologists knew that Myanmar would be hit so it is either ironic or planned that Bush would sanction Myanmar the same day it was to be devastated. Bush announced in his statement on May 2nd, "...
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