February 2008

Hillary: 'Ready to Lie From Day 1' About Venezuela
Posted: Thursday, February 28, 2008

It's hard to imagine that Hillary is so uninformed – and has such incompetent foreign policy advisers – that she doesn't know that President Hugo Chávez and his government have won multiple elections that were characterized as free and fair by international observers. But if she knows this, then she is lying.
Full Article : commondreams.org

The Fake State of Kosovo
Posted: Thursday, February 28, 2008

¤ Another Right-Wing Red Herring

¤ The Fake State of Kosovo
If the Balkans had an anthem, it would be that 1950's doo-wop hit, "Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread." The latest Balkan fools are the United States and the European Union, which have rushed in to recognize what Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica rightly calls the "fake state of Kosovo." Why is it a fake state? Because there are no Kosovars, only Serbs and Albanians. Each group seeks to unite Kosovo with its homeland, historic Serbia or Greater Albania. An independent Kosovo has the half-life of a sub-atomic particle.

¤ The Crisis in Kosovo is Just Beginning
As renewed Serb protests this week in Bosnia and elsewhere demonstrate, the storm unleashed by Kosovo's Feb. 17 declaration of independence is long from abating. Rather, what recent events have showed is the start of a long and protracted struggle that, in the end, the West probably cannot win. Why not? Because we're not talking about a few hundred flag- and embassy-burning rioters as the media, the U.S. government and a chagrined Belgrade leadership speaking last week would have us believe.

¤ "Iraq" Falls Apart
Iraq is disintegrating faster than ever. The Turkish army invaded the north of the country last week and is still there. Iraqi Kurdistan is becoming like Gaza where the Israel can send in its tanks and helicopters at will. The US, so sensitive to any threat to Iraqi sovereignty from Iran or Syria, has blandly consented to the Turkish attack on the one part of Iraq which was at peace.

¤ Israel kills 20 Palestinians in Gaza

¤ Obama, Osama, Hussein - drop a name, bait voter Arab-phobia
In the late 1970s, the FBI decided to test the corruptibility of congressmen. It was easy, and slightly unfair. Congressmen are moths to corruption's flame, and bribing at the time hadn't yet been entirely disguised as "campaign financing." So all the FBI had to do was hire an ex-felon to set up a rickety con and videotape congressmen taking the bait. Most Americans' sense of fair play would have taken offense, as courts did, at the sliminess of the FBI's entrapment. But the FBI's one stroke of genius was to disguise the bribers as Arabs representing a rich, oily sheik. It worked. The public would forgive "policemen's presents," as Mark Twain called kickbacks. They'd never forgive consorting with Arabs. One senator, five congressmen and a few other lesser moths were convicted in what became known as the Abscam scandal (the FBI's front company was called Abdul Enterprises).

¤ The Crash That's Coming: More Bubbles Will Burst
¤ Can't Knock the Hassle: Chávez Challenges Baseball

¤ Hillary: 'Ready to Lie From Day 1' About Venezuela
Exhibit A, as noted in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal: this week she claimed that Venezuela is a dictatorship.The Journal reports:
In a major speech yesterday at George Washington University, Sen. Clinton drove the wedge [with Sen. Obama] deeper: "If I am entrusted with the presidency, America will have the courage, once again, to meet with our adversaries. But I will not be penciling in the leaders of Iran or North Korea or Venezuela or Cuba on the presidential calendar without preconditions; until we have assessed, through lower-level diplomacy, the motivations and intentions of these dictators."

So, according to Senator Hillary Clinton, the leader of Venezuela is a dictator.

¤ Chávez wins release of hostages held by Colombian rebels
¤ Into the Valley of Catastrophe
¤ Clueless Candidates Make Osama's Day

¤ Noam Chomsky, Terrorists Wanted the World Over
One of Noam Chomsky's latest books -- a conversation with David Barsamian -- is entitled What We Say Goes. It catches a powerful theme of Chomsky's: that we have long been living on a one-way planet and that the language we regularly wield to describe the realities of our world is tailored to Washington's interests.

¤ The Brutal and Unnecessary War the Media Aren't Telling You About
They say journalists provide the first draft of history. With the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, that draft led to an almost universal consensus, at least among Americans, that the attack was a justifiable act of self-defense. The Afghanistan action is commonly viewed as a "clean" conflict as well -- a war prosecuted with minimal loss of life, and one that didn't bring the kind of international opprobrium onto the United States that the invasion of Iraq would lead to a year later.

¤ South Africa stunned by echoes of apartheid past after video emerges of white students humiliating black cleaners
South Africa has come face to face with its apartheid past when a "shocking" video emerged of white university students force-feeding and racially humiliating five poor black cleaners.
The four students are heard referring to the old "Boer" college way of life during the footage, which saw the elderly workers being made to drink bottles of beer, run races, play rugby and then kneel and eat meat which had been urinated upon.

¤ Independence in the Brave New World Order
Across this last weekend, the Western propaganda machine was working overtime, celebrating the latest NATO miracle: the transformation of Serbian Kosovo into Albanian Kosova. A shameless land grab by the United States, which used the Kosovo problem to install an enormous military base (Camp Bondsteel) on other people's strategically located land, is transformed by the power of the media into an edifying legend of "national liberation".

¤ Feed the world? We are fighting a losing battle, UN admits
¤ US Military Plan for Africa Panned
¤ Obama must beware of turning into a cult
¤ America's Ghost Story
¤ Inside the Fires of Imperialism

¤ A Nightmare World of Torture and Prison Guard Suicides
A psychiatrist who has treated former military personnel at Guantánamo prison camp is telling a story of prisoner torture and guard suicide there, recounted to him by a National Guardsman who worked at Guantánamo just after it opened.
Dr. John R. Smith, 75, is a Oklahoma City psychiatrist who has done worked at military posts during the past few years. He is also a consultant for the University of Oklahoma's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Services, and is affiliated with the Veteran's Affairs Administration Hospital in Oklahoma City. The court-appointed psychiatric examination of Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the Murrah Federal Building in 1995, was conducted by Smith. A few years ago, he became a contract physician, treating active duty members of the US military in need of psychotherapy.

¤ UN chief hails peace agreement by Kenyan parties
¤ Key points of Kenya's power-sharing deal
¤ Campaign 2008: The Things They Won't Discuss

¤ US prowls for China in the Philippines
Since the closure of its military bases in the country in 1991, the United States has incrementally regained, transformed and deepened its military presence and intervention in the Philippines. The manner in which the US has attempted to re-establish basing in the Philippines illustrates its attempts to radically overhaul its global offensive capabilities to become more agile and efficient while overcoming mounting domestic opposition to its presence around the world.

¤ Operation Condor -- Dirty War, Death Squads and The Disappeared
"These military regimes hunted down dissidents and leftists, union and peasant leaders, priests and nuns, intellectuals, students and teachers and other people not just guerrillas (who, under international law are also entitled to due legal process). These illegal military regimes defied international law and traditions of political sanctuary to carry out their ferocious state terror and destroy democratic opposition forces."

¤ Anti-depressants' 'little effect'
¤ Clinton's Cringe-Worthy Moment

¤ Barack Obama, Love Across the Color Line and Political Dirty Tricks
The '08 electoral dirty-tricks season has official begun. The Drudge Report's recent posting of a photograph of Barack Obama wearing a white robe and turban presented to him by elders in Wajir, in northeastern Kenya, signals the wrenching-up to the next phase of political bad-will in the presidential contest.

The video that sparked riots in South Africa this week
Posted: Thursday, February 28, 2008

South Africa stunned by echoes of apartheid past after video emerges of white students humiliating black cleaners

By IAN EVANS
February 28, 2008

South Africa has come face to face with its apartheid past when a "shocking" video emerged of white university students force-feeding and racially humiliating five poor black cleaners.

The four students are heard referring to the old "Boer" college way of life during the footage, which saw the elderly workers being made to drink bottles of beer, run races, play rugby and then kneel and eat meat which had been urinated upon.

News of the video yesterday sparked rioting at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, once the Afrikaans heartland of the Orange Free State.
Full Article : dailymail.co.uk

Video on YouTube:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Rprk0b43YDE

Chávez wins release of hostages
Posted: Thursday, February 28, 2008

Colombian guerrillas yesterday released four hostages who had been held in the jungle for more than six years, delivering a diplomatic coup to Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, who brokered the deal.

Two Venezuelan helicopters scooped up the three men and a woman from a clearing in eastern Colombia and airlifted them to a reunion with relatives waiting in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.

The releases raised hopes that Marxist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), would free more of the estimated 700 hostages languishing in primitive conditions.
Full Article : guardian.co.uk

If Kosovo, why not Palestine?
Posted: Tuesday, February 26, 2008

By John Whitbeck

As expected, Kosovo has issued its unilateral declaration of independence, the United States and most European Union countries, with whom this declaration was coordinated, rushing to extend diplomatic recognition to this "new country". This course of action should strike anyone with an attachment to either international law or common sense as breathtakingly reckless.

The potentially destabilising consequences of this precedent (which the US and the EU insist, bizarrely, should not be viewed as a precedent) have been much discussed with reference to other internationally recognised sovereign states with strong separatist movements practising precarious but effective self-rule, such as Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transniestria, Ngorno-Karabakh, Bosnia's Republika Srpska, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as to discontented minorities elsewhere. One potentially constructive consequence has not yet been discussed.

American and EU impatience to sever a portion of a UN member state (universally recognised, even by them, to constitute a portion of that state's sovereign territory), ostensibly because 90 per cent of those living in that portion support separation, contrasts starkly with the unlimited patience of the US and the EU when it comes to ending the 40-year-long belligerent Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (no portion of which any country recognises as Israel's sovereign territory and as to which Israel has only asserted sovereignty over a tiny portion, occupied East Jerusalem). Virtually every legal resident of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip seeks freedom, and has for over 40 years. For doing so, they are punished, sanctioned, besieged, humiliated and, day after endless day, killed by those who claim to stand on the moral high ground.
Full Article : informationclearinghouse.info

9/11: The Unraveling of the Official Story Continues
Posted: Monday, February 25, 2008

¤ A Thank-You Note to George W. Bush
¤ Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers

¤ Will American Empire End Before It Ends the World?
The hypocrisy of US government officials is boundless. On February 18, the US government inflamed Serbians by recognizing Muslim separatists in Kosovo, a historic province of Serbia, as an independent country. Two hundred thousand Serbs marched in protest and the US embassy in Belgrade was damaged. Is this surprising? No, not unless you are an official in the American Empire. The notorious Empire Neocon Counsel, Zalmay Khalilzad, Bush's representative to the UN, declared: "I'm outraged by the mob attack."

¤ Al-Qaeda Resumes Attacks, Turks Invade

¤ When the Terrorists Were 'Our Guys': A Special Report
In 1976, when George H.W. Bush was CIA director, the U.S. government tolerated right-wing terrorist cells inside the United States and mostly looked the other way when these killers topped even Palestinian terrorists in spilling blood, including a lethal car bombing in Washington, D.C., according to newly obtained internal government documents.
That car bombing on Sept. 21, 1976, on Washington's Embassy Row, killed Chile's former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and an American co-worker Ronni Moffitt, while wounding Moffitt's husband.

¤ WMDS Found On "Real Time." Maher
¤ Treating the Public like Mushrooms - Keeping Them in the Dark and Feeding Them ...
¤ Party House, Prostitutes and Profiteering in Iraq

¤ Why Bush Made Plans to Invade the Netherlands
The Bush administration had planned to commit war crimes from the outset of the administration. Long before 911, Bush prepared legislation that would exempt US troops from war crimes prosecution at the Hague, specifically, violations of the Geneva Conventions later violated in fact at Abu Ghraib. The measure positioned Bush in advance to exploit the crime of 911, though it had not yet happened. To this end, Bush sought Congressional authorization to go to war with the Netherlands should US troops find themselves on trial for war crimes at the Hague!

¤ Oil giants are poised to move into Basra

¤ 9/11 is the Litmus Test.
There is one thing that defines everyone over the course of these early years of this new century. That thing is the 9/11 attack. Everyone in government and every field of endeavor the world over is defined by their position on this event. It is not necessary to know the truth. It is only necessary to know the extent of the lies in order to define any leader in any position anywhere in the world. By what they have said and by what they have not said, one can accurately judge who is an enemy of the people's of the world. One can accurately determine who is a tool of the psychopaths or one of them.

¤ 9/11: The Unraveling of the Official Story Continues
Today in America we are witness to a great unraveling, the likes of which we have never seen before. There are no historical precedents. For many months now the official narrative about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on America has been coming apart, and I mean: at the seams. The official story about that terrible day is disintegrating. The trend shows no sign of abating and in recent weeks it even appears to have accelerated. At the present rate, soon there will be nothing left of the official version of events but a discordant echo and a series of extremely rude after shocks.

¤ The massacre at Yaka China
¤ Nine killed in Afghan violence: officials
¤ In Tatters Beneath a Surge of Claims
¤ Rank Order - Current account balance
¤ Obama Slams Smear Photo
¤ Iran warns West of reprisals over sanctions
¤ Pakistan Gunmen Kill Four People at U.K. Aid Agency
¤ Suicide bomber kills Pakistani army general, six others

¤ This is an excerpt of a talk given by Scott Ritter before the US invasion of Iraq Video

¤ Here Comes The $739 Billion Taxpayer Bailout
¤ Turkish onslaught paves way for major assault on Iraq Kurds
¤ Arab leaders warn Israel over belligerency
¤ 9/11 may have been an insiders' job

Why they're scared of Obamamania
Posted: Sunday, February 24, 2008

By Brendan O'Neill
February 21, 2008

Those who slander Obama supporters as 'brainwashed, deranged cultists' are blind to what's positive about the Obama Phenomenon.

It was inevitable that there would be a backlash against Barack Obama. Indeed, Slate magazine had already published an article titled 'How Obama Can Pre-Empt the Obama Backlash'. In our cynical era, when it's fashionable to affect a jaded attitude towards all things political, a smooth-orating politician in immaculately pressed suits was bound to be sneered at sooner or later.
Full Article : spiked-online.com

Aboriginal apology: a sorry spectacle
Posted: Sunday, February 24, 2008

By Tara McCormack
Tuesday 19 February 2008

Kevin Rudd's celebrated utterance of the S-word for past wrongs against aboriginal communities was deeply paternalistic.

Last week, Kevin Rudd, Australian prime minister and head of the incumbent Labor government, offered a much-anticipated and widely-celebrated apology to Australia's indigenous people (1). He apologised in particular to the 'stolen generations' – the thousands of aboriginal children who were taken from their families in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and sent to white families, foster homes or church missions. Some claim this policy was an attempt to assimilate aboriginals into white society; others say it was a plain, eugenic campaign to eradicate aboriginal people. However one views it, there's no doubt that it was often cruel and brutal. Aboriginal people have historically suffered greatly at the hands of the white settlers; for example, they only gained full voting rights in the early 1960s.
Full Article : spiked-online.com

Deceit, Hypocrisy and Terror
Posted: Saturday, February 23, 2008

¤ More Lies From The Bush Fascists
President George W. Bush and his director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, are telling the American people that an unaccountable executive branch is necessary for their protection. Without the Protect America Act, Bush and McConnell claim, the executive branch will not be able to spy on terrorists, and we will all be blown up. Terrorists can only be stopped, Bush says, if Bush has the right to spy on everyone without any oversight by courts.

¤ If Kosovo, why not Palestine?
As expected, Kosovo has issued its unilateral declaration of independence, the United States and most European Union countries, with whom this declaration was coordinated, rushing to extend diplomatic recognition to this "new country". This course of action should strike anyone with an attachment to either international law or common sense as breathtakingly reckless.

¤ Russia warns West over use of force in Kosovo
¤ Russian energy ties with Iran send US a message

¤ Large Potential Albanian Oil and Gas Discovery Underscores Kosovo's Importance
This development further underscores Kosovo's importance and the cost that's meant for Serbia. Since the 1999 US-led NATO war, it's been all downhill for the nation, the region and its people:

--Kosovo is part of Serbia; at least it was; since 1999 it's been a Washington-NATO occupied colony stripped of its sovereignty in violation of international law;

-- it's been run by three successive US-installed puppet Prime Ministers with known ties to organized crime and drugs trafficking;

-- it's the home of one of America's largest military bases in the world, Camp Bondsteel; the province/country is more a US military base than a legitimate political entity;

-- its part of Washington's regional strategic objective to control and transport Central Asia's vast oil and gas reserves to selected markets, primarily in the West;

¤ Washington gets a new colony in the Balkans
In evaluating the recent "declaration of independence" by Kosovo, a province of Serbia, and its immediate recognition as a state by the U.S., Germany, Britain and France, it is important to know three things.
First, Kosovo is not gaining independence or even minimal self-government. It will be run by an appointed High Representative and bodies appointed by the U.S., European Union and NATO. An old-style colonial viceroy and imperialist administrators will have control over foreign and domestic policy. U.S. imperialism has merely consolidated its direct control of a totally dependent colony in the heart of the Balkans.

¤ Putin warns West over Kosovo dispute

¤ Stop Blair: ambition to lead Europe hits fierce opposition
Tony Blair's hopes of becoming Europe's first president are running into mounting opposition across the EU, with Germany determined to stymie the former prime minister.
A "Stop Blair" website run by pro-Europeans has launched a petition against him; a transnational, cross-party caucus in the European parliament is forming to campaign against a Blair presidency; senior officials in Brussels are privately dismissive about the new post going to a Briton; and senior diplomats in European capitals also doubt that Blair is the right person for the post being created under Europe's new reform treaty.

¤ Made in Cuba
Cuba is already transforming and not towards a discredited neoliberal model - Fidel's retirement is part of a home-grown model of transition, argues Pablo Navarrete
In the wake of Tuesday's announcement by Cuban leader Fidel Castro that he will "neither aspire to nor accept" another term as the country's president, much of the analysis in the mainstream media has concentrated on whether Fidel's retirement will usher in a "transition" period for Cuba's socialist revolution, now in its 50th year.

¤ China Lauds Cuba's Fidel Castro as 'Revolutionary'

¤ What Would It Take to Launch a War With Iran?
Iraq should have cured President George W. Bush of any further itch for starting a war. And yet there comes a rumble for an attack on Iran. Opposing this, the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation sends out emissaries, several of whom visited The Seattle Times.
Among them was Brig. Gen. John H. Johns (ret.), who was assistant commander of the 1st Infantry Division and a lecturer at the Army War College. Like other generals, Johns opposed the invasion of Iraq, and he now opposes an attack on Iran.

¤ 10 die in suicide bomb attack in Iraq

¤ Disinformation flies as US raises Iran bar
A new report on Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is about to be released and US "pre-emptive" diplomacy, aimed at preventing an IAEA "clean bill of health" that could derail Washington's effort for a new round of UN sanctions on Iran, is at full throttle - with the timely help of disinformation.
Setting the bar unusually high, the US envoy at the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, has warned that unless Iran "confesses" about its "past work on weapons designs and weaponization and the role of the Iranian military", international efforts to resolve the nuclear standoff will be "doomed".

¤ Rigged Trials at Gitmo
¤ Cuba Changed History

¤ Land and Food in Venezuela
Last week, the Los Angeles Times gleefully reported that a crowd in Sabaneta, Venezuela, had looted a food warehouse belonging to the state-owned Mercal grocery-store chain. Mercal sells its food to the poor at reduced prices The LAT found it amusing that Sabaneta is President Hugo Chávez's hometown. The newspaper claimed that recent food shortages are the result of governmental price controls. The government claims the shortages are the result of illegal hoarding by distributors and the increased buying power of the nation's poorest citizens.

¤ Lies and Spies
¤ Musharraf, Peace and the Autumn of the Patriarch
¤ Why Bush Wants to Legalize the Nuke Trade With Turkey
¤ Rejecting Paternalism in Africa?

¤ Is It Torture? Try It
AFRICOM stands for the U.S. Africa Command, created by presidential order in February 2007. On the surface, AFRICOM doesn't sound like anything special — the U.S. already has several military commands organized geographically: PACCOM (Pacific Command), CENTCOM (Central Command) and EUCOM (European Command), so why not AFRICOM? But unlike the others, AFRICOM has the promotion of stability as its primary mission. It's designed, as the president put it, "to enhance our efforts to bring peace and security to the people of Africa and to promote the … development of health, education, democracy and economic growth."
Yes, you read that right: The Defense Department has a new military command dedicated, more or less, to establishing peace, love and understanding in Africa. Don't giggle or sneer; they're serious. AFRICOM will bring together military personnel with civilian employees from the State Department, the USAID and other U.S. agencies, and most U.S. humanitarian work in Africa will be coordinated through AFRICOM.

¤ How Labour used the law to keep criticism of Israel secret
The full extent of government anxiety about the state of British-Israel relations can be exposed for the first time today in a secret document seen by the Guardian.
The document reveals how the Foreign Office successfully fought to keep secret any mention of Israel contained on the first draft of the controversial, now discredited Iraq weapons dossier. At the heart of it was nervousness at the top of government about any mention of Israel's nuclear arsenal in an official paper accusing Iraq of flouting the UN's authority on weapons of mass destruction.

¤ Iraq: US occupation faces crisis of its own making
¤ Video: Bush: Killing Human Beings Good for the U.S. Economy

¤ Depression + Inflation + Famine = Chaos!
Oftentimes it seems so inconceivable that we could have come to this place, yet here is exactly what we are facing, right now: Depression in the housing market; retail inflation (due entirely to the price of oil and the plummeting dollar), credit availability all but shut down, and today we discover that grain stores are at their lowest point since they began measuring in 1960: 53 days.

¤ The Politics of the Oscars

¤ Democratic Lunacy
Many pundits are salivating over the prospect of a Democrat being elected to the White House in 2008. Finally, the eight-year-long nightmare of a George Bush presidency will end. To them, it's a no-lose scenario.
In reality, it's a no-win situation. Obama and Clinton are beholden to the same big-money interests as the Republicans. Not one has challenged the disastrous economic system of the U.S. Both have stated that U.S. values must undermine the U.S. foreign policy. In other words, the endless war the U.S. is imposing on much of the world will continue.

¤ George Bush's Approval Rating Plummets to Just 19%
Clearly voicing their discontent for George W. Bush, Americans are now reaching historic levels of undisputed antipathy for America's 43rd President. A new poll has Bush breaking a new nadir in presidential approval ratings, beating out Harry Truman's 22% for the lowest support among Americans in the nation's history.

¤ Deceit, Hypocrisy and Terror -- The History of Biological and Chemical Weapons
"The US sold the technology and materials Iraq needed to develop weapons of mass destruction. According to US government records released in October 2002, the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Type Culture Collection sent germ samples directly to Iraq in the 1980's and early 1990's. At the time the US supported Iraq in its war with Iran. These exports were legal and approved under a program administered by the US Commerce Department. UN weapons inspectors later determined these were part of Iraq's biological weapons program."

¤ Iraq, Israel and WMD dossier
¤ CIA confirms rendition flights to Brits
¤ The massacre in Shagay, Bakwa district of Farah Province
¤ Is Iran Winning the Iraq War?
¤ On the Side...

Paying Insurgents Not to Fight
Posted: Tuesday, February 19, 2008

¤ Large Potential Albanian Oil and Gas Discovery Underscores Kosovo's Importance
On January 10, Swiss-based Manas Petroleum Corporation broke the news. Gustavson Associates LLC's Resource Evaluation identified large prospects of oil and gas reserves in Albania, close to Kosovo. They're in areas called blocks A, B, C, D and E, encompassing about 780,000 acres along the northwest to southeast "trending (geological) fold belt of northwestern Albania."

¤ Arbitration between ExxonMobil and Venezuela
Despite Venezuela's proposal for an amicable solution and an ongoing international arbitration process, ExxonMobil has resorted to aggressive, unilateral and coercive measures to disqualify any proposed solution, something that could be described as "judiciary terrorism." Venezuela's intention has been to bring illegal oil projects from the rich Orinoco Oil Belt into its legal framework and thus stop the continued transferring of resources needed for social development from the People of Venezuela to the coffers of large foreign multinational companies. This has been accepted by all oil companies operating in Venezuela, except ExxonMobil.

¤ Stephen Zunes and the Struggle for Overseas Profits
¤ Fidel Castro's 'Life'
¤ Online Sex Auctioneer Ordered to Reveal Customers' Identities

¤ Musharraf under pressure to resign
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf came under pressure to resign Tuesday, a day after his allies in parliament suffered a devastating defeat at the polls. Lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan, a hero of pro-democracy protests last year and a dark-horse contender to be next prime minister, on Tuesday called on pro-U.S. Musharraf to step down.

¤ Musharraf resigned to ceremonial role as opposition parties prepare for power

¤ CIA Attacks Inside Pakistan Without Approval
In the predawn hours of Jan. 29, a CIA Predator aircraft flew in a slow arc above the Pakistani town of Mir Ali. The drone's operator, relying on information secretly passed to the CIA by local informants, clicked a computer mouse and sent the first of two Hellfire missiles hurtling toward a cluster of mud-brick buildings a few miles from the town center.

¤ Oil jumps above $100 on refinery outage

¤ The invasion of America
¤ Blood and Champagne
¤ Paying Insurgents Not to Fight
¤ Land of the Long White Lie
¤ Bush on Safari

¤ Bush's Out-of-Tune AIDS Plan
President George W. Bush is already grabbing headlines with his latest self-congratulatory album, PEPFAR: True Leadership, and his accompanying farewell promotional tour across Africa. Between February 15 and 21, he will travel to the countries of Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, and Liberia to promote this musical swan song - a concept piece that highlights his supposedly groundbreaking leadership in the fight against global HIV/AIDS. As with Bush's previous productions, this latest record will frustrate music lovers with serious lyrical flaws that illustrate the ineffectiveness of the U.S. response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa.

¤ Oil Profits and War: Just Coincidence?

¤ Journalist Who Exposes UN Corruption Disappears From Google

Fact Sheet: Arbitration between ExxonMobil and Venezuela
Posted: Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Fact Sheet: Arbitration between ExxonMobil and Venezuela

by Embassy of Venezuela in the U.S.
February 18, 2008

Despite Venezuela's proposal for an amicable solution and an ongoing international arbitration process, ExxonMobil has resorted to aggressive, unilateral and coercive measures to disqualify any proposed solution, something that could be described as "judiciary terrorism." Venezuela's intention has been to bring illegal oil projects from the rich Orinoco Oil Belt into its legal framework and thus stop the continued transferring of resources needed for social development from the People of Venezuela to the coffers of large foreign multinational companies. This has been accepted by all oil companies operating in Venezuela, except ExxonMobil.
Full Article : trinicenter.com

Five Years On, and still the warmongers lie
Posted: Monday, February 18, 2008

¤ Independence in the Brave New World Order
Across this last weekend, the Western propaganda machine was working overtime, celebrating the latest NATO miracle: the transformation of Serbian Kosovo into Albanian Kosova. A shameless land grab by the United States, which used the Kosovo problem to install an enormous military base (Camp Bondsteel) on other people's strategically located land, is transformed by the power of the media into an edifying legend of "national liberation".
For the unhappy few who know the complicated truth about Kosovo, the words of Aldous Huxley seem most appropriate: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall drive you mad."

¤ The Absurdity of "Independent" Kosovo
With their unfailing passion for the inconsequential and their knack for doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, NATO leaders appear determined to carve the province of Kosovo out of Serbia and grant it "independence." That they lack the physical, legal and moral power to bestow independent statehood to a part of a state that is neither a member of the E.U. nor NATO appears only to have emboldened them to use this issue to demonstrate Western resolve. Just as in the 1990s, and just as erroneously, a self-righteous West has seized on the Balkans as an opportunity to parade before the world in the unfamiliar guise of champion of democracy and national self-determination, and protector of Muslims.

¤ Spain exposes EU split as US leads recognition

¤ Secret Iraq Dossier Published

¤ Five Years On, and still the warmongers lie
You would have thought that the lies about the Iraq war might have stopped by now. But still they continue. The latest neocon attempt to rewrite history is to claim that the war was all Saddam Hussein's fault because he 'pretended' to have Weapons of Mass Destruction.

¤ Ten Years Ago, People Power Stopped Clinton in Iraq
Ten years ago, this week, Bill Clinton was doing his best to get the US embroiled in war with Iraq. The previous month, Matt Drudge had tipped off the world that Newsweek had preventing Michael Isikoff's story about President Clinton's sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky from going to publication. Clinton needed a distraction--and quick. Once again, the President invoked an all-too-familiar mantra: Saddam Hussein had to be stopped before he got his hands on weapons of mass destruction.

¤ The Ouster of Thabo Mbeki
¤ The War Against Women
¤ Jane Fonda, the 'Today' Show and the 'C-Word'
¤ US Elections: The Iraq Factor
¤ The Fun and Excitement of Civilization Wars
¤ Pakistan opposition heads toward victory

¤ Bush and ExxonMobil v. Chavez
Since the Bush administration took office in January 2001, it's targeted Hugo Chavez relentlessly. From the aborted two-day April 2002 coup attempt to the 2002-03 oil management lockout to the failed 2004 recall referendum to stoking opposition rallies against the constitutional reform referendum to constant pillorying in the media to funding opposition candidates in elections to the present when headlines like the Reuters February 7 one announced: "Courts freeze $12 billion Venezuela assets in Exxon row." Call it the latest salvo in Bush v. Chavez with ExxonMobil (EM) its lead aggressor and the long arm of the CIA and Pentagon always in the wings.

¤ More Violence Seems Likely in Pakistan
¤ We're Making This Up as We Go Along
¤ Canada's Secret War in Iraq
¤ 'Europeans Hide Behind the Unpopularity of President Bush'
¤ The Dumbing Of America

¤ Can the U.S. Brace Its Fall?
"Is the American era over?" That was the big question that launched a lengthy analysis by veteran international affairs reporter James Kitfield in the influential 'National Journal' last May. Significantly, the article -- which featured interviews with an all-star cast of former top U.S. policy-makers -- was titled "The Decline Begins."

¤ U.S. Credit Markets Collapsing!
¤ No sorry for cleared terror suspect
¤ 1st Phase of Iran Oil Bourse Inaugurated on Kish Island

¤ By Killing Satellite, US Would Send Ominous Message
The debris fallout may be less wor risome than the diplomatic fall out. U.S. space and defense planners say they're putting safety first in trying to shoot apart a falling spy satellite and its tank full of toxic fuel before either come to ground next month and hit a town.But countries around the world instead see another notch on the belt of America's aggressive space-weapons research. A multibillion-dollar anti-missile program that has yet to prove itself in a full, real-world test - and that many physicists say can never be an impermeable shield against cheap decoys - is either openly supported or not clearly rejected by the leading presidential candidates

¤ U.S. official warns of sanctions for those blocking Kenya deal

¤ Kenya rejects US pressure over power-sharing deal
The Kenyan Government has issued a veiled warning to the United States not to put "a gun to anybody's head" on the eve of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to push for a power-sharing deal.
Dr Rice is due in Nairobi for meetings with President Mwai Kibaki and Opposition Leader Raila Odinga, whose dispute over who won the December 27 presidential election plunged once stable Kenya into violence in which more than 1,000 people have died.

¤ USDA Orders Nation's Largest Beef Recall

By Killing Satellite, US Would Send Ominous Message
Posted: Monday, February 18, 2008

by Elizabeth Sullivan

The debris fallout may be less wor risome than the diplomatic fall out. U.S. space and defense planners say they're putting safety first in trying to shoot apart a falling spy satellite and its tank full of toxic fuel before either come to ground next month and hit a town.But countries around the world instead see another notch on the belt of America's aggressive space-weapons research. A multibillion-dollar anti-missile program that has yet to prove itself in a full, real-world test - and that many physicists say can never be an impermeable shield against cheap decoys - is either openly supported or not clearly rejected by the leading presidential candidates.

John McCain strongly favors the missile defense system. Hillary Clinton doesn't directly address the issue on her Web site. It was her husband's administration that made the decision to move forward more aggressively with the underlying research.

Barack Obama opposes weapons in outer space, but, according to the Polish press, his chief foreign policy adviser, Anthony Lake, told Polish Americans in Cleveland last month that the shield project should not be abandoned in light of Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Full Article : commondreams.org

Smoke, Mirrors and American Justice
Posted: Saturday, February 16, 2008

¤ Understanding The Obama Surge
¤ The Forgotten Promises of George Bush
¤ Asia's Hidden Arms Race

¤ The World Sees America in the Dock
Every time there is a chance for the United States to escape from the trap it has created for itself in Guantanamo Bay, it slams the door shut.
The Pentagon's decision this week to seek the death penalty for six men it accuses of the 9/11 attacks, and to try them under the hugely disputed version of military courts that it has devised, is one of the stupidest mistakes that the Bush Administration has made.

¤ Washington Is Not Dodge City
Early in his first term, George W. Bush said that “If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.” Nine months later, when the September 11 tragedy took place, many of his repressive policies, including the Patriot Act, were enacted. Since that time, he has led as if he were a dictator, trying to concentrate all the power in the executive office, and the American people have stood by passively to allow it.

Why are most Americans so passive?

¤ Smoke, Mirrors and American Justice
The announcement by the Pentagon of trials by military commission for six of the big-name prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, is the latest in the series of smoke-and-mirror tricks used by the Bush administration to cover the inhuman illegality of the regime in the prison.The issue is straightforward: the men cannot receive fair trials.
In these first cases linked to 9/11, prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the six men, who include the self-declared mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and of other al-Qaida attacks such as the east African US embassy bombings and the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

¤ Our Crimes in Iraq Must Not Be Forgotten
Don't bring up the catastrophe in Iraq, not in polite circles or at dinner parties, or anywhere in public really. Better to burp or fart loudly. That is the message for 2008. What war? We have moved on, you bore, say the frightfully busy great and good, their eyes glazing over.
The people responsible for the war have, of course, moved on, and we must follow their fine example. Still they rise, praise be to them. Such self-belief, such resilience, no sign of weakness, no dribble of an apology. Awesome. Instead of being marched off to face war crimes tribunals they are forgiven their trespasses and rewarded generously.

¤ You are all Dead Ducks

¤ US Elections: The Iraq Factor
As the race for the United States presidential nominations progresses, the stances of and attitudes towards both Republican and Democratic candidates continue to bring up causes for concern, in terms of their past behaviour, current appeal and general trustworthiness.

Republican Mitt Romney's exit has practically assured Senator John McCain's victory in his party. While we might expect McCain's narrow-mindedness and pro-war rhetoric to make him an uncontested darling of conservatives, the doubts that remain about his credibility -- and the seemingly absurd accusations by some that he is more liberal than Democratic liberals -- highlight two disturbing trends.

¤ OPEC considers dumping US dollar

¤ Palestine in the Mind of America

¤ Bringing Down The New Berlin walls
The recent breakout of the people of Gaza provided a heroic spectacle unlike any other since the Warsaw ghetto uprising and the smashing down of the Berlin Wall. Whereas on the occupied West Bank, Ariel Sharon's master plan of walling in the population and stealing their land and resources has all but succeeded, requiring only a Palestinian Vichy to sign it off, the people of Gaza have defied their tormentors, however briefly, and it is a guarantee they will do so again. There is profound symbolism in their achievement, touching lives and hopes all over the world.

¤ Mr. Bush You Are A Fascist Video

¤ Paulson's Wild Ride on the Hindenburg
¤ Michael Parenti Discusses Contrary Notions.
¤ US air strikes kill Iraqi family in Kirkuk
¤ US Reacts Cautiously To Planned Ahmadinejad Visit To Iraq-AFP
¤ Venezuela's oil minister says Exxon demanding excessive compensation
¤ The Real Cost Of Defeat In Forgettistan
¤ Iran's Defense Spending Per Capita Among Lowest In Mideast
¤ This is What A Police State Looks Like Video
¤ Torture Inc. Americas Brutal Prisons
¤ Suicide bomb in Pakistan kills 37
¤ The Terrorists Still at Ground Zero

¤ Wheelchair Dumping
What particularly fascinated me was one aspect of the press coverage. Headlines exploded across the United States and abroad. A random sampling includes: "Deputy dumped quadriplegic out of wheelchair" (MSNBC), "Deputies Suspended for Wheelchair dump" (AP), "Police dumped paralyzed man" (BBC News), "Fla. Deputy dumps quadriplegic from chair" (WFAA TX). Many news stories failed to mention an important part of the story: the actual name of the human being who was dumped out of his wheelchair. Thus the assault on Sterner did not end at the Tampa police department. The nameless Sterner was not fully human. He was merely "paralyzed", "paraplegic", "quadriplegic".

¤ War Corrupts
¤ If You're Big Enough, You Can Whack Anyone
¤ Lebanon's Warmongers
¤ Hugo Chávez and High Anxiety at the NYT
¤ Venezuela halts oil supplies to ExxonMobil
¤ Venezuela Exxon oil halt won't hurt U.S. supply
¤ U.S. mortgage crisis spreads beyond subprime loans

The role of oil in US capitalism
Posted: Wednesday, February 13, 2008

"It is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows - the Iraq war is largely about oil," Alan Greenspan, the arch-Republican ex-chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board, admitted in his memoirs last year.

Oil runs through the history of US capitalism and its efforts to dominate the world. It's where its greatest business dynasty, the Rockefellers, made their money.

Today the Western oil super-majors and their local rivals still ride high at the top of the global corporate hierarchy.
Full Article : socialistworker.co.uk

US Accused of Using 'Kangaroo Court'
Posted: Tuesday, February 12, 2008

US Accused of Using 'Kangaroo Court' to Try Men Accused of Role in September 11 Attacks

by Andrew Gumbel

The United States military announced yesterday that it was bringing death penalty charges against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five other men suspected of orchestrating the September 11 attacks, and intended to try them under the Bush administration's much-criticised military tribunal system, which is subject only to partial oversight by the civilian appeals system.

The decision to use Mohammed and the others as guinea-pigs in a constitutionally dubious legal proceeding is likely to trigger a firestorm of anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world and spark a fractious domestic debate in an already highly charged presidential election year.

Concerns were raised last night of political interference by the White House in the military's decision to go to trial in the middle of an election campaign in which the Republican frontrunner, John McCain, has made the fight against al-Qa'ida central to his election bid.
Full Article : commondreams.org

America's Blinders
Posted: Sunday, February 10, 2008

¤ How the Press Covers Waterboarding
¤ The Guántanamo Trials

¤ American Soldiers Will Pay the Price for Bush's Torture Policy
After years of hearing President Bush proudly proclaim to the American people and the world that "We don't torture," yesterday the American people and the world learned that it was just one more lie on top of all the others. The White House and the CIA have come out and publicly admitted that they have in fact been waterboarding detainees. Now it becomes clearer why Bush was so insistent on Congress's including a provision in the Military Commissions Act granting criminal immunity to any U.S. official who had tortured someone.

¤ Why Baghdad Will Explode Again
¤ Hugo Chávez's Coca

¤ Why Were the 9/11 Tapes Destroyed?
Many Americans are content with the 9/11 Commission Report, but the two chairmen of the commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton are not. Neither was commission member Max Cleland, a US Senator who resigned from the 9/11 Commission, telling the Boston Globe (November 13, 2003): "This investigation is now compromised." Even former FBI director Louis Freeh wrote in the Wall Street Journal (Nov. 17, 2005) that there are inaccuracies in the commission's report and "questions that need answers."

¤ Global Finance and the Insanity Defense

¤ Our Terrorist in Miami
On the streets of Miami, Luis Posada Carriles might look like just one of the dozens of nice, elderly Cuban gentlemen who gather outside the Versailles Restaurant for a strong cup of java. But there is nothing nice or gentle about Posada Carriles. For starters, he is responsible for the 1976 downing of a Cuban passenger plane with 73 people on board-the first act of aviation terrorism in the Western hemisphere. In 1997 he orchestrated the bombing of hotels in Havana that resulted in the death of Italian businessman Fabio Di Celmo. In 2000 he was arrested, and later convicted, in Panama for plotting to assassinate Fidel Castro by blowing up an auditorium full of students.

¤ Europeans Ponder the US After Bush
¤ Make Sure Your Valentine's Day Roses Are Green
¤ These Loans Were Made for Walking
¤ Ten Tips for Sorting out Super Tuesday Spin
¤ Humans are evolving to resist disease
¤ Fun and games with terrorist threats
¤ Charsadda suicide blast death toll mounts to 28
¤ The Torture State's Domestic Face
¤ HOW FEDS INVITED THE MORTGAGE MESS

¤ Top US Lawyer And UNICEF Data Reveal Afghan Genocide
The United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 with the ostensible excuse of the Afghan Government's "protection" of the asserted Al Qaeda culprits of the 9/11 atrocity that killed 3,000 people. In the light of as many as 6.6 million post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan as of February 2008 (see below), it is important to consider the major problems with this Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite version of events as summarized below

¤ U.S. heading to war in Iran, says former inspector

¤ Behind Obama and Clinton
Voters on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are rightly disappointed by the similarity of the foreign policy positions of the two remaining Democratic Party presidential candidates, Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama. However, there are still some real discernable differences to be taken into account. Indeed, given the power the United States has in the world, even minimal differences in policies can have a major difference in the lives of millions of people.

¤ America's Blinders
Now that most Americans no longer believe in the war, now that they no longer trust Bush and his Administration, now that the evidence of deception has become overwhelming (so overwhelming that even the major media, always late, have begun to register indignation), we might ask: How come so many people were so easily fooled?

¤ A Silly Pretext
¤ "It's All Downhill From Here, Folks"
¤ Did Rumsfeld Authorize War Crimes?

Defeat Without End
Posted: Sunday, February 3, 2008

¤ Defeat Without End

¤ Democracy Is a Beautiful Thing
Why was the primary vote for former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich so small when anti-Iraq war sentiment in the United States is supposedly so high, and Kucinich was easily the leading anti-war candidate in the Democratic race, indeed the only genuine one after former Senator Mike Gravel withdrew? Even allowing for his being cut out of several debates, Kucinich's showing was remarkably poor. In Michigan, on January 15, it was only Kucinich and Clinton running. Clinton got 56% of the vote, the "uncommitted" vote (for candidates who had withdrawn but whose names were still on the ballot) was 39%, and Kucinich received but 4%. And Clinton, remember, has been the leading pro-war hawk of all the Democratic candidates.

¤ Defending Israel to the "End Times"

¤ Hillary Clinton Again Lies about Iraq
In Thursday night's Democratic presidential debate, Hillary Clinton lied again about Iraq.
At the forum in Los Angeles, Hillary Clinton declared, "We bombed them for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out inspectors."
That statement was totally false. The bombing campaign had been planned for months and the inspectors were not thrown out. They were ordered out by President Bill Clinton in anticipation of the four-day U.S.-led bombing campaign.

¤ Hacking Democracy Video

¤ US Qaeda strategy fatally flawed: analysts
¤ Baghdad 'drowning in sewage'
¤ Fall back, men, Afghanistan is a nasty war we can never win
¤ This Halftime Show is Brought to You By Child Labor in Africa
¤ Chavez says Venezuela's military 'on alert' for possible threats from Colombia
¤ American Justice - To the Dark Side Video
¤ British Soldiers 'Tortured and Killed' 22 Iraqis
¤ UK troops accused of "off-the-scale" abuse in Iraq

¤ British Soldiers Accused Of Torturing Iraqi Prisoners
The High Court today lifted a gagging order stopping the media reporting allegations of torture and brutality by British troops in Iraq.
Soldiers are said to have captured 31 Iraqis following an ambush in May 2004 before killing 22 and leaving only nine injured survivors after detaining them at military headquarters in Abu Naji. However reporting restrictions imposed earlier on by the court have now been lifted following a petition by several national newspapers and the BBC.

¤ Ready to quit Afghanistan, PM tells Bush
¤ Snipes Acquitted of Tax Fraud
¤ I'll be president of Europe if you give me the power - Blair
¤ Australia will apologise to Aborigines

¤ Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights
A young man, a student of journalism, is sentenced to death by an Islamic court for downloading a report from the internet. The sentence is then upheld by the country's rulers. This is Afghanistan – not in Taliban times but six years after "liberation" and under the democratic rule of the West's ally Hamid Karzai.

¤ US Oil Companies Offered Five Million Dollar Bribes To Iraqi MP's?

¤ An American Faux Pas ?
Are you tired of reading political bullshit? So am I.
But nothing beats this bullshit by Zalmay Khalilzad, US ambassador to the U.N.
His Excellency admits that Iran's regional power has been strengthened by the U.S in Iraq and Afghanistan... But, according to Khalilzad, that was "unintentional."
Excuse me? Repeat that, will you? Unintentional? Yeah right!

¤ Iraq Braced for More Cholera Outbreaks

¤ US Invasion And Occupation Killed One Million In Iraq
More than one million Iraqis have died because of the war in Iraq since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, according to a study published Wednesday.
A fifth of Iraqi households lost at least one family member between March 2003 and August 2007 due to the conflict, said data compiled by London-based Opinion Research Business (ORB) and its research partner in Iraq, the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies (IIACSS).

¤ Pakistani Opposition Leader Imran Khan on How the U.S. Has Undermined Pakistani Democracy

¤ Pakistan: US accused of violating borders in al-Qaeda killing
¤ Bush: Don't show Iran US is 'paper tiger'

¤ Dozens killed by earthquakes in Rwanda and Congo
¤ 11 Killed in Suicide Attack in Sri Lanka

¤ Iraq as Stepchild of the American Empire
A recent report in the New York Times outlines new U.S. demands being made on Iraq. The article states, in part, the following: "the Bush administration will insist that the government in Baghdad give the United States broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law." So much for Mr. Bush's vision of a democratic Iraq.

¤ Torture Does Not Work, as History Shows

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