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Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
Mobs of Muslims in Nigeria demonstrated how peaceful their religion is by killing Nigerian Christians, venting their anger over the cartoons that suggested their religion was violent. That was in the Muslim-dominated north. Christians in the south retaliated by killing other Muslims, thus demonstrating how their religion teaches them to "love your enemies".
New Pentagon Doctrine: Mini-Nukes are "Safe for the Surrounding Civilian Population".
Reports Find Tenuous Terror Ties at Guantanamo.
One man was labeled an "enemy combatant" because he admitted he knew Osama bin Laden--from watching TV broadcasts of tapes. Unless they can prove those tapes are really of Osama bin Laden, they ought to release him.
How Bush allowed Al Qa'ida to take root in Pakistan.
I have a few comments to make on this story.
First, there is reason to doubt that Osama bin Laden personally is really in Pakistan, or anywhere at all. The tapes attributed to him seem to be designed to serve Bush, and some independent experts say that the person in the tapes is not really him. He could simply be dead. However, the issue is not really about him or any one person.
These issues have been mentioned in a previous note.
Second, the Taliban are widely reported to have been created by the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service. For Pakistan to surreptitiously help them again is no surprise. (Please link to previous note here.)
Third, Pakistan's nuclear weapons probably played a role in convincing Bush to accept Pakistan's half-hearted support and call it complete. It's really interesting to compare how Bush talks about Iran, which might intend to develop nuclear weapons, and how Bush talks about Pakistan, which actually did so--and then offered the plans to Iran and other countries.
However, even despite that, Musharraf might have chosen a different course--if he had seen US efforts focused clearly on Afghanistan for the long term. Thus, Bush's wish to attack Iraq, using 9/11 as an excuse, was directly responsible for the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The US still maintains almost 500 nuclear weapons in Europe, with plans to hand them over to other countries for use, in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The Bush regime is systematically shutting off lawsuits against automobile companies and other manufacturers whose products injure people.
The president of the Philippines declared an emergency to cancel protests accusing her of stealing the election. These protests include celebrations of the mass rallies which forced the previous dictator Marcos from power.
Amnesty International condemns the UK for systematic attacks on human rights.
The documentary about Guantanamo, whose actors were harrassed by police, is hard-hitting. Bliar, who tends to label opposition as terrorism, surely finds a lot of terrorism in the movie.
The mismanagement of Haiti's presidential election is part of a long and methodical attempt to deny Haiti's poor their democratic rights.
An irate Chinese movie-goer made a parody of a movie that he did not like. Now he faces a lawsuit threat from the movie's director, who can't take a joke. Who does he think he is--Muhammad?
This incident shows the injustice of Chinese copyright law--but injustice is what you must expect when people use the term "intellectual property". That term spreads confusion, and frames whatever issues it is applied to in a way that tends to lead to laws that are too restrictive. (See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml.)
The Bliar regime is trying to cover up facts about CIA flights through Britain.
As usual, this cover-up works through a campaign of distraction which seeks to confuse the issue just enough to prevent people from pushing home the crucial questions. Bliar asks Britons to treat the Bush regime as above suspicion, to be trusted implicitly and totally.
A politically-motivated reorganization of the State Department drove out the main experts on arms control treaties.
Bush is happy to use arms control treaties as excuses to plan to attack other countries such as Iran, but he does not really like the treaties--they are not unilateral enough for his taste. What he wants to do is terrorize the whole world into submission.
Violence between Sunnis and Shi'ites is rising in Iraq.
The reason I suspect that the Bush forces want the Shi'ites to massacre millions of Sunnis is that they have long been doing many things that tend to provoke civil war (including sending Shi'ite troops to occupy Sunni areas, and setting up Shi'ite death squads that kill Sunnis in large numbers), and that people such as Cheney are not stupid, and could not fail to recognize where these actions are likely to lead.
Hamas leaders met with an Israeli peace activist and explained their position: they will not recognize Israel while Israel continues the occupation of Palestine. They think it is unfair to ask them to make concessions in return for nothing.
Iraq's latent civil war, which the Bush forces have done much to stimulate, has almost burst into open warfare, restrained only by Ayatollah Sistani and Iran.
Perhaps the bombers were Iraqi Sunnis who hate Shi'ites for their religion; it appears such do exist. Or perhaps they were hate Iraqi Shi'ites for not resisting the Bush forces, or on account of the Shi'ite death squads. (Of course, blowing up a shrine is no way to fight the death squads.)
However, since the Bush forces have done so much to set Iraqi Sunnis and Shi'ites against each other, it would not surprise me if this bombing were carried out by the Bush forces so as to finish the job. I have wondered if their plan were to provoke the Shi'ites into massacre the Sunnis so as to end the resistance.
The Bush regime is rapidly developing the material capability and legal framework to imprison millions of Americans by decree.
I think it is very significant that the Bush regime now has a list of 325,000 "terrorist suspects". Since the number of real terrorists in the US, if we count only those that don't work for Bush, must be a tiny fraction of that, it follows that they are being rather loose with the designation of "terrorist suspect". Perhaps this will be their excuse for imprisoning dissidents that still support the US Constitution.
Various parts of the Bush administration are playing various dirty roles in the sale of 26 US cargo ports to the government of the United Arab Emirates.
It's the typical well-planned Bush regime dirty work, where everyone has an excuse, so no one can be held responsible--if you take a narrow standard of responsibility. However, the president is responsible for all of this, and any president should be impeached for playing such games.
What it means to be a Republican.
I would criticize a couple of details in this article. It assumes the Bush administration had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks; there is some reason to think it did. It doesn't mention the fact that they paved the way for the flooding of New Orleans by refusing to repair the levees so they could spend the money on a war of aggression.
But more important is a deeper omission--it does not mention why being a Republican works this way. The reasons, I believe, are the corporate media and widespread intimidation. Bush can get away with lie after lie because, when these lies are exposed, most Americans never find out.
Holocaust-denyer David Irving has been sentenced to years in prison for stating his views on history. He claims that there was no gas chambers in some Nazi concentration camps.
This sentence was unjust, and the law under which he was sentenced was unjust as well. Censorship is far more dangerous than the weak and discredited remnants of Nazism as such. The dangerous modern-day fascism comes from mainstream business-friendly political leaders.
Once people can be imprisoned for denying Nazi atrocities, it will be easy to imprison people for denying other things that must never be questioned--such as, that Bush liberated Iraq, that the WTO has ended poverty, and that there is no global warming.
The US mainstream media generally support the Bush regime, but Rumsfeld is not satisfied and announced a new campaign to influence the press.
The public will have to respond by discounting anything the media says that supports the Bush regime, regarding it as probable propaganda, and not to be trusted.
Since the Palestinians of Kaffin are blocked from their lands by the Annexation Wall, and cannot replant the olive trees that the Israeli army uprooted, the Israelis of the neighboring town of Metzer replanted the trees for them.
The UN criticized Israel for withholding the Palestinian Authority's funds.
The US persistently misrepresents the success of Bush's bizarre prescription drug benefit for old people.
The German government is investigating its own agents' participation in CIA torture kidnapings.
Bush and Blair are intervening in Iraqi "democracy" to demand "non-sectarian" ministers in certain ministries.
There are good reasons to wish for non-sectarian ministers, since the current one operates death squads in police uniforms, but the result is quite ironic--especially since there are specific reasons (see previous notes) to suspect that the Bush regime intentionally trained and assisted those death squads
The root issue is that democracy is not sufficient by itself; respect for human rights is needed too. However, many Iraqis do not value human rights, and Bush is not the one to teach them.
Scientists are joining with liberal clergy to oppose the 'intelligent design' campaign--but in the process, they are pandering to prejudice against Atheists.
Some suggest that we stop using the word "theory" to describe established scientific principles such as gravity and evolution. The word is generally associated with the existence of doubt.
The Bush regime made an unusual deal about selling US port operations to Dubai Ports World, avoiding some of the requirements which are standard in such cases.
It is also peculiar that this company is not private. In effect, Bush plans to sell US ports, not merely to a foreign company, but to another country.
The UK delayed for years in putting extremist cleric Abu Hamza on trial, despite having found him with a cache of arms. This and related evidence lends fuel to the suspicion that he was actually a British agent.
While it is hard to be sure of this, the statements about British government infiltration of violent groups on both sides of the Northern Ireland conflict are well established.
A US congressional candidate is on the "no-fly" list. Of course, the government won't tell him why.
For this reason, as well as others, I sure hope he wins. It will be embarrassing to the US government to have a congressman on the "no-fly" list, and this will help highlight the injustice and dishonesty of a system that denies people their rights without a trial based on secret evidence.
A major Shi'a shrine in Iraq was bombed; many Shi'ites assumed (as does this article) that it was Sunni "insurgents", but no one really knows.
It is not unusual in Iraq for brutal violence to be carried out by people in Iraqi police uniforms. (Often they are real Iraqi police.)
Musharraf, the dictator of Pakistan, is facing opposition from Islamic extremists that want to remove him from power.
Pakistan does not respect freedom of speech on religious matters. Several people have been sentenced to death in Pakistan for "blasphemy" after they criticized Islam; and this, I believe, is the system that islamists want to impose on the world.
A long drought, combined with the human population and its cattle, adds up to massive wildlife deaths.
Droughts like this happen ccasionally in nature, but global warming could make them more frequent.
Poverty is spreading in the US under Bush. Poor people often have jobs, but the jobs pay so little that they are just working themselves to death.
The Fair Trade movement is growing in Europe as a way to ensure decent wages for farmers in poor countries.
I believe, however, that this should not be left to volunteers' initiatives. Rich countries should make Fair Trade a legal requirement.
Of course, the WTO would say this is prohibited. So the WTO should be prohibited.
While Bush gave a speech about renewable energy, his hatchet-men were firing the people who work on this at the National Renewable Energy Lab, kicking them out as if they were suspected saboteurs.
This embarrassed Bush, so he found money to restore funds for their jobs.
But unless he kicks out the managers who treated them so badly, I doubt he can get the fired scientists to come back.
Actors who played Guantanamo prisoners in a prize-winning movie were arrested by UK police, along with the real ex-prisoners who were traveling with them. This was not a case of mistaken identity; the police knew exactly who they were.
Note how the police try to evade the odium of their actions by playing on the subtle and unimportant distinction between "arrested" and "detained".
Bush won't admit planning a nuclear war against Iran, but there is a lot of evidence that he is. (Mordicai Vanunu said so too.)
Unlike the article's author, I place no faith in the government of Iran's claims that it does not aim to develop nuclear weapons. However, even supposing that it does so aim, developing them is nowhere near as bad as being the first to using them. The US, not Iran, is the great threat to world peace.
It is another tragedy for America's freedom, attacked by the liars that pretend they are protecting us.
Positive feedback mechanisms are starting to magnify man-made global warming. We don't know when we will cross the point of no return, or whether we have already done so.
With renewable energy handling only 4% of energy supply, it won't do much to slow this threat unless it is greatly expanded, and quickly.
What the UK government ought to do, to protect its citizens' privacy.
Former CIA agent Ray McGovern calls on people in the US government to go public with evidence that Bush is lying to excuse an attack against Iran.
60 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the Bush invasion, many of them by the Bush forces.
The US and Israel are planning to attempt to bully Palestinians into holding a new election which would give a result that the US and Israel like better.
That's what "democracy" means to Bush: you vote for his choice or he makes you regret it.
It is typical that officials formally deny that they are planning this, while leaks show that they are indeed doing so.
Human-caused global warming is 30 times faster than the last major episode of global warming. What nature did in 10,000 years, we can do in 300.
NOAA government scientists say that they were blocked from stating their disagreement with Bush's politically-imposed "scientific" conclusion that increased hurricane activity is not due to global warming.
This is part of Bush's War on the Earth.
Muslim and Christian bigots suppressed a planned Gay Rights march in Moscow, with Muslim leaders calling for homosexuals to be killed. (If they want us to believe that Islam is a "peaceful religion", let them start being peaceful.)
Citizens of Massachusetts: Support the marijuana reform bill.
Berlusconi is trying to completely crush all dissent from his views on Italian TV: calling a centrist TV program biased, so as to try to abolish it.
That is what the right-wing in the US did; after spreading an exaggerated picture of what Liberals stand for, they then labeled centrists such as Clinton as "Liberals".
The people and the police in Basra are enraged at the beating of prisoners by British Bush forces troops. The former prisoners say they will sue.
Soldiers who feel threatened tend to vent their anger on whoever they think of as "the enemy". And war always kills civilians. If the populace feels that an army has liberated it from foreign conquerors, and feels powerfully grateful, it can accept the occasional civilian deaths. In such a situation, the soldiers will have no trouble distinguishing the civilian population from their enemy. But in Iraq, any civilian can be immediately suspected of being "the enemy" of the Bush forces. And the populace, wanting an end to the occupation of their country, has no reserves gratitude on which to forgive anything.
A look at one day's newspapers shows that corporate crime is going great guns.
An NSI whistleblower says that the NSA is breaking laws even more than people know, but he's forbidden to tell anyone the details, even Congress.
More photos of torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib have been released (including torture to death).
Congressional Democrats are promoting a plan for public campaign funding which almost completely shuts out third parties.
Here's an example of what the plan's proponents say about it. It presents valid arguments for public funding of campaigns, but ducks the third party issue.
Bliar has persistently lied to get Parliament to pass the "anti-terror" laws that he wants for other reasons.
Even the American Bar Association condemns the Bush program of illegal spying.
A draft UN report accuses the US of torturing Guantanamo prisoners.
Malaysian Prime Minister Badawi says, more or less, 'Muslims Angry at War on Terror, Not Cartoons'.
I think a more precise statement is that they are venting at the cartoons (and anyone even remotely and unintentionally associated with them) the anger that was aroused by torture, mass murder, and cruel military occupation. It is good to point this out to angry Muslims, because anger at those acts of violence is perfectly justified. The only mistake they are making is in displacing the anger into the wrong target.
It is not always easy to find a way to channel the anger aroused by the Bush regime's violence into effective and appropriate action. Many Muslim countries are ruled by dictators backed by the US; those few which are democracies are mostly hogtied by the US and the WTO, and disregard their own people on most issues. But that difficult task is essential to ending Bush's violence. Picking on a weak cartoonist or his countrymen will not do any good for anyone.
Although these statements by the prime minister are fairly wise, Malaysia needs to improve in regard to religious toleration. Muslims in Malaysia are legally forbidden to stop being Muslims.
Blair won a vote on ID cards, but had to make some concessions, as a result of which the battle is not over yet.
Dalits in an Indian town are standing up to intimidation and attacks that extended as far as burning their houses.
Tibetans protested Google's decision to bow to Chinese censorship requirements.
The Bush forces new embassy in Iraq, more like a castle to dominate the country, is being built by migrant laborers who work 12 hours a day for a pittance.
Reporters Without Borders accepts funds from the Bush regime. Perhaps not uncoincidentally, it goes fairly easy on the US (which has killed many journalists in Iraq), while focusing its ire on Cuba and Venezuela.
Reporters Without Borders mentions the case of Sami al-Haj, the journalist imprisoned in Guantanamo, but avoids talking about how he has been treated there.
The Castro regime does deserve criticism for imprisoning journalists, but it's not the only regime which holds journalists prisoner in Cuba, and Reporters Without Borders seems to follow a pro-US bias in its treatment of them.
President Morales of Bolivia appears to be adopting right-wing policies on many issues, contrary to what he promised the people who elected him.
A study estimates that the US Clean Air Act produces economic savings 6 times what it cost to implement.
The CIA advocates supporting sustainable development so as to avoid dangerous social instability.
If arguments like these help win the support of conscienceless rich people, who don't care if others get sick or suffer, why not use them?
Canada adopted a plan to protect 5 million acres of the Great Bear forest. Even better, they will control logging in the rest of the forest, so as to protect the wildlife that lives there.
The US has been pretty much caught tapping the phones of the leaders of Greece. Since they are conservatives, and inclined to be submissive towards the US, they want to take this lying down.
The implications of Hamas' victory.
Israel announced a unilateral plan to annex substantial parts of Palestine--daring to openly admit the theft that we always knew the settlements were designed to accomplish. Meanwhile, it has resumed killing Palestinians with rockets.
A French court has ruled that noncommercial peer-to-peer file sharing is lawful. The media companies will fight to change this, of course, but it is a signal victory.
Blair plans to cancel local elections in the UK because his party might do badly. This is not a joke!
A meeting of leaders of Muslim countries planned and organized the protests against the anti-Islamic cartoons.
There is nothing wrong with defaming a religion--it is just a belief that some people believe. No belief is beyond possible criticism or attack.
An "editorially independent" student newspaper in the UK turns out not to be so independent after all. Its editor and other staff were "suspended from the paper" after they included one of the notorious cartoons criticizing Islam in an article discussing the resulting controversy.
Journalists are on trial in Turkey for criticizing the government for trying to shut down a conference to discuss the genocide of the Armenians. They are accused of "insulting the government".
I'm sure many Turks really feel offended--but that is no excuse for censorship.
The diamond industry agreement to reject "conflict diamonds" that support wars looks good, but businesses mostly ignore it.
That often happens with "industry self-regulation" schemes; only the threat of prosecution and fines makes businesses really take care.
Haiti's next president faces the contradictory demands of doing something for the people, while cooperating with the IMF, whose aim is to keep the people in poverty.
Only by defying the IMF is it possible to make life in Haiti better.
Bush's media campaign has convinced most Americans to fear an attack by Iran, and nearly half already favor attacking Iran.
Even if Iran had nuclear weapons, I'd be more scared that the US would start a nuclear war, than that Iran would do so. The US is already talking about doing just that.
An Iraqi government (i.e. Bush regime) official accuses occupation troops of participating in smuggling out looted antiquities.
A family reports on a raid on their street in Iraq. All the men younger than fifty have been taken away--to be imprisoned, or perhaps just shot.
An Iraqi journalist who participated in the World Tribunal on Iraq is now a prisoner of the Bush forces, held in Abu Ghraib prison.
Bush claims that broad illegal spying prevented an attack against a building in L.A. Experts have denounced this as confabulation.
More has been learned on how Libby was involved in Plamegate.
Journalists could not get into the walled-off Iraqi town of Siniyah, but its inhabitants, when they could get out through the checkpoint, say their town is now effectively a prison. They hate the occupiers, and they support attacks on oil refineries and pipelines so as to stop Bush from stealing Iraq's oil.
Paul Pillar, who resigned from the CIA, has publicly affirmed what the Downing Street memo told us: that Bush manipulated intelligence to fabricate excuses for the war he already had decided on. He was not interested in advice.
Thus, any talk about "intelligence failures" is an attempt to get high officials off the hook by scapegoating the CIA.
Polar bears are being considered for the endangered species list (in response to a lawsuit) because their habitat, arctic sea ice, is melting away.
The only way to preserve their habitat is to stop it from melting away, and that means reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
How did incompetent Michael Brown get to be in charge of FEMA? It's a long story of corruption that typivies the Bush administration.
Bush's PR man at NASA tried to censor NASA scientists for the sake of administration political goals (denial of the big bang and global warming).
A nurse in New Mexico wants an apology after she was investigated for "sedition", having published a letter that condemned Bush.
When Google Desktop Search indexes your files, it sends them to Google servers, where they will remain for 30 days--conveniently accessible to a government that uses the Constitution for toilet paper.
Google excuses this by arguing that the public will trade its privacy for more convenience. That is the standard excuse made by those offering the public an opportunity to do so. I would turn it around: because the public lacks the courage to stand up for its rights one by one, we need to defend their rights at the level of government regulation.
Despite the beginnings of civil war in Iraq, the Iraqi resistance's attacks continue to be aimed primarily at the foreign occupying forces. (I'd guess that most of the rest are aimed at collaborators.)
Cindy Sheehan decided not to run against Dianne Feinstein.
I am disappointed by her decision, and also disappointed that she did not clearly state the reason.
In order to support anti-war candidates, we need well-known anti-war candidates to support. What anti-war candidate could there be to oppose Feinstein who is as prominent as Cindy Sheehan?
Paul Roberts, who used to be an editor of the Wall Street Journal, says it has moved from principled Conservatism to a mindless loyalty to the Bush cause.
I disagree with Conservatives on many issues, about the rights of businesses versus individuals, but at least they opposed an imperial presidency and respected some individual rights. The Bush regime and its supportes are not Conservatives.
Scientists report that New Orleans may have to be abandoned entirely in a few decades, due to the effects of global warming.
It remains possible, however, to raise the level of the city well above sea level, as Galveston was raised a century ago. If the seas rise only a meter, well, one additional meter of elevation would not make it much harder.
WTO Biotech Ruling Reveals Special Interests, Say Critics.
The WTO should be abolished, and as a first step, citizens should demand their governments defy this order as illegitimate.
Bush has resurrected Total Information Awareness under another name.
Legal scholars denounce Bush's arguments for illegal spying.
The main reason why these attempts to "prevent terrorism" won't work is that they are focused only on secondary threats. They won't help against the big dangers that our country faces, such as rigged elections and mass murder by corrupt presidents that appoint corrupt officials and fire those of integrity. Meanwhile, they would be easy for a corrupt president to turn towards prevention of dissent.
Guantanamo prisoners on hunger strike are practically being tortured to feed them.
Deb Mayer, a teacher in Indiana, was fired after a harassment campaign by parents who were angry that she had spoken about "peace" in class. Not satisfied that her principal made a rule against using that word in class, they made false accusations to get her fired.
A former minister of El Salvador was convicted in the US of torture that was committed under his direction in El Salvador. Maybe this will pave the way to try Bush and his henchmen.
The ICC is expected to issue arrest warrants for those who ordered the killing of thousands of people in the Congo. When will it go after the biggest killers, such as Bush?
Iraqis are worse off than before the was in nearly every economic measure. And this doesn't count the killing, torture, and DU. Attacks by the resistance have been increasing and continue increasing.
Scott Ritter says Bush is planning to attack Iran regardless of what the UN does. And that he also plans to use nuclear weapons against Iran.
The same Danish newspaper that published cartoons about Muhammad rejected cartoons about Jesus.
It could be true that the paper has double standards for Islam and Christianity. If so, that is to their discredit. However, newspapers should be free to publish both kinds of cartoons.
Perhaps some newspaper in Iran would like to publish the previously rejected cartoons about Jesus. If any Christians are offended, it would teach the world a good lesson that freedom of speech cuts all ways.
Bush forces death squads have been operating in Iraq since shortly after the conquest, a former general confirms.
22 congressmen have signed the call to for an impeachment probe.
The Bush forces are making soldiers pay for equipment destroyed in combat, if they can't provide proof. Well, how else can they getthe money to pay Halliburton?
Veterans protested on behalf of Bush forces soldiers poisoned by Dirty Uranium bombs.
Republicans' changes in US law have allowed courts to consider evidence obtained by torture.
The US is step by step becoming a demonic parody of the values it professes.
More than half of the prisoners in Guantanamo are not accused of actually doing anything.
When Gonzales and Alito say that the president can do whatever he wants, they are following precedent--in Germany.
Crazed Islamist protestors took over parts of Beirut. They seem to believe that it is legitimate to punish not only whoever would mock their religion, but any handy substitute.
It is ironic to see Muslims rioting and killing people because someone had the impudence to accuse Islam of being a violent religion. Of course, not all Muslims are doing this; Islam does not automatically make all its believers violent. But it can't be denied that an attitude that encourages violence is one aspect of Islam. This attitude can manifest itself in situations where it is justified, as in the Iraqi resistance, and in situations where it is unjustified, as in the attacks on Danes and French.
Some suggest that newspaper editors should "learn how to live in a multicultural world" by not publishing anything that might offend some group of touchy people that might fly off the handle. I respond that it is Muslims that need to learn how to live in a multicultural world, by learning to respond to words with words, not with fists or guns. Some wiser Muslims understand that violence in response to words does "more damage to the name of the Prophet...than the cartoons." The rest must listen to them.
During my career of fighting for free software, my work has been called "Communist" and a "cancer"; once I was called a "mad imam". Despite all these insults, I never once threatened to kill or injure the people who insulted me--nor even to sue them. People have a right to insult me and my views--or you, or your views--or Muhammad and his views--or anyone and any views.
An Iranian newspaper has started a Holocaust cartoon contest as a response to the cartoons about Islam.
There is something not quite appropriate about this response; in effect they are saying, "Since you said something nasty about us, we will say something nasty about someone else." It would be more appropriate as a response to run a contest for cartoons to insult a certain newspaper editor.
It is also redundant: antisemitic books are already prominently displayed in the bookstores of some Muslim countries, and I'd guess that includes Iran.
However, this is a big step up from violence. At least this newspaper has recognize that the proper response to insulting words is verbal.
In a program to save women's lives, the UK will replace the cut-off US aid funds for organizations that do abortions.
Corporations could be charged with homicide when their negligeance kills people, just as people are. And in the past, they sometimes were.
Turnabout: Iran and Venezuela Plan War on Israel
The Bush war crimes commission's report details the case against Bush for various kinds of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Iraqi religious leaders, Muslim and Christian, call for the release of prisoners held without charges by various armed groups. (One of those groups is the Bush forces.)
Unsealed court records show that Libby will be accused of a broad pattern of lies.
Blair is planning to participate in the permanent military occupation of Iraq.
Note the pro-Bush bias of the article, which pretends that the Bush occupation is necessary because the "insurgency disrupts everyday life" in Iraq. Any disruption they cause is nothing compared to what the occupying forces do. Here's a small example.
Sao Paulo, Brazil, is about to make solar water heating mandatory on all new and rebuilt buildings.
The Capitol Police tried lying to justify arresting Cindy Sheehan; when that would not stick, they tried a half-hearted apology that is a vehicle for more lies. She's not having any of it.
Some in Congress are talking about passing laws prohibiting US companies from cooperating with Chinese internet censorship.
The Foundation for Democracy in Iran, a neocon group posing as a freedom movement, is feeding "news reports from Iran" to the media to provide an excuse for war.
The various leaked British memos have proved conclusively that Bush lied when he said he had not yet decided to attack Iraq. The US mass media have not informed the public of this.
Iraq under Bush rule is worse off in every way than under Saddam Hussein's rule. Even malnutricion is up, and that's by comparison with the years of sanctions.
Isreali public opinion favors negotiating with HAMAS.
When an opinion poll reports 48% in favor and 43% opposed (with therefore 9% undecided), the right way to interpret that is 48-to-43. It's not very likely that all the undecided people will come down on one side once they make up their minds.
HAMAS won the election largely because Israel refused to make any concessions to the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority.
It is hard for Western governments to criticize HAMAS after what they themselves have done.
Not having done those things, or supported them, I am morally in a position to criticize HAMAS. I oppose of its stated goal of eliminating Israel, and I will utterly oppose any harm that it does to womens' rights.
But HAMAS' policies should not stop Israel from negotiating with a HAMAS-led Palestinian government. In practical terms, Israel's violence against Palestinians dwarfs Palestinians' violence against Israel. Israeli settlers are stealing Palestinian land and water as you read this. If HAMAS is willing to overlook all this and negotiate with Israel, Israel can overlook the lesser HAMAS violence and negotiate with HAMAS.
The IWW organized a Starbucks in New York City, and fought off management's attacks on their members.
Daniel Ellsberg says that protestors in the streets made him realize his patriotic duty to publish the Pentagon Papers. Now it's up to Americans to protest so that today's officials will recognize where their duty lies.
The Pentagon has created a complete data base of students in the US, and is ready to share it with the police at any time.
The UK police who shot Menezies, the Brazilian who they assumed was a suicide bomber, then altered their log to cover up what they had done.
Lying is standard practice for cops. They lie to cover up, they lie to make their crimes look justified, and they lie to put people in prison.
You probably know by now that HAMAS won the Palestinian elections. I've been unable to find a good story about this and its implications in a place I could link to.
When Israel and others refer to HAMAS as enemies with which they cannot possibly talk, it's useful to recall that Israel built up HAMAS as a way of weakening support for the Fatah.
Hamas does not plan to impose Islamic law, but its victory may unleash extremist pressure against women's rights.
The Iraqi resistance is having increased success in stopping Bush from using Iraq's oil to pay for the occupation of Iraq.
Google is cooperating with Chinese censorship.
Google is using the collaborator's standard excuse--that collaboration with injustice somehow makes it less. Once in a while, this is true. Usually it is false, but it is not easy to prove that it's false, and that is why it is such a handy excuse.
On rare occasions, it is possible to mitigate an evil system by working with it and trying to be sensitive. However, this cooperation also tends to prop up the system. It is easy for the collaborator to count the few occasions on which it has mitigated the evil; it is not so easy to measure how much the collaborator has contributed to the perpetuation of the evil by not opposing it. Thus, it is natural for the collaborator can cite the former while ignoring the latter. It ends up as a systematic excuse for collaboration, and therefore must always be distrusted.
Even Fox News is worried about a new prohibition in the proposed USA PAT RIOT act.
Maine is the first US state to require TV manufacturers to pay for disposal of the toxic materials in TVs.
17 representatives now call for Bush to step down or to be impeached.
Former British intelligence agent David Shayler was reviled when he claimed that in 1996 MI-6 plotted with Al Qa'ida to assassinate Qaddafi. Later a leaked document proved he was right. (Look for "London and Manchester".)
Shayler believes 9/11 was an inside job, but has no specific evidence to add to this.
A Bush forces official will go to prison for stealing millions from the military occupation of Iraq.
Bush's subsequent governors of Iraq have followed the same pattern of corruption.
Bush wanted to disguise a spy plane as a UN plane so as to dishonestly claim Saddam Hussein had attacked the UN.
This would not have been the first time that the US treated the UN treacherously in Iraq. The original UN weapons inspection team was forced to leave because some of its members were spying for the US.
Double standards in the Capitol, and in Israel.
Israeli treatment of Palestinians reminded Desmond Tutu (and many others) of Apartheid. There is now a Palestinian campaign to boycott Israel and its organizations, following the example of the boycott campaign that forced South Africa to end Apartheid.
The Republicans passed a law to make poor mothers work longer hours (what are they supposed to do with their children in that time?) so they can give the rich another tax cut.
After a Danish newspaper printed a cartoons making fun of Islam and Mohammed, Muslims around the world began making threats, demanding the power to censor criticism of their religion world-wide. They also began boycotting Danish companies, and the newspaper shamefully apologized. But other papers around the world have reprinted the cartoons in defense of freedom of the press.
I have not seen the cartoons; I don't know what I would think of them as statements, but I doubt they are much harsher than my cartoons about Bush. In any case, whether I agree with these cartoons is a side issue. Muslims persistently demand to bully into silence anyone who would criticize them. (Remember the assassination orders against Salman Rushdie?) The rest of the world should resolutely show that they have no such power.
I am an ACLU member, and I defend the right of even Nazis and neo-cons to express their pernicious views. Believers in Islam, and critics of Islam, also have right to express their views. Nobody, not Mohammed, not even Bush, has the right not to be mocked.
Cleveland police attacked a woman putting up posters for a protest, then accused her of "assaulting an officer".
I guess she hit their knees with her back. That's what protestors with police sitting on them always do.
Cindy Sheehan reports on her arrest in the Capitol Building.
Afghanistan, 5 years after the war, is slowly falling apart. Bush made grandiose promises to rebuild the country, but they were just noise. Now the country depends on growing opium, while the Taliban are slowly coming back.
I supported the war in Afghanistan--not because of 9/11, but because the Taliban were horrible. I did not realize that Bush would let the country dangle while he moved on to his real target, Iraq. Now I wonder whether it is too late to prevent another round of long drawn-out violence in Afghanistan.
Jimmy Carter says that some Bush regime officials want to keep troops in Iraq for 50 years.
Rumsfeld wants Americans to become accustomed to a permanent state of war.
Someone who tried to watch Bush's State of the Union address reports that Bush surpassed himself in hypocrisy.
Mali's farmers reject genetically modified cotton because it would subject them to the permanent control of seed companies.
Are large corporations now "too big", or "too important", to prosecute for crimes?
A Kurdish democracy activist has been sentenced to 30 years prison in semi-independent Iraqi Kurdistan for "insulting" its government.
That government operates under the umbrella of Bush protection, and Bush could surely make it stop these outrages if he wanted to. However, for Bush this represents only his dream of how to run a country.
Iraq is not Vietnam...but here's a list of parallels.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has sued AT&T for engaging in illegal surveillance of its customers (in cooperation with the Bush regime).
Veterans for Peace are creating relationships with reservists, who might be sent to Iraq to fight in the Bush forces. This can help build resistance to the war among the soldiers, where it is urgently needed.
Senator Feingold pointed out that Torture Gonzalez lied in his confirmation hearing when he was asked about illegal spying as a hypothetical possibility.
Lying to Congress is a crime; shouldn't Gonzalez be prosecuted?
Almost half of Iraqis support attacking the Bush forces. That figure includes the Shi'ites and Kurds.
I understand Iraqi's concern that the Iraqi police and army are not capable of policing the country. The troops tend to desert when there is a battle, or even before.
However, "building up" the Iraqi "security forces" is not a matter of mere training and supplies. As long as the occupation continues, these forces are collaborators; the resistance attacks them, and they can't help knowing that what they are fighting on the wrong side. Meanwhile, some of the police are death squads, probably trained by the Bush forces.
I think that building of Iraqi security forces composed of patriotic Iraqis can only begin once the Bush forces are gone. Only then will patriotic Iraqis be able to participate.
Cindy Sheehan joined others including Kevin Zeese (senate candidate) and Ann Wright (a diplomat who resigned from disgust for Bush) at a rally for impeachment in DC.
She was also arrested while listening to the State of the Union address--for wearing a shirt that criticizes Bush. Nothing more than wearing a shirt.
Does anyone know whether Senator Feinstein changed her mind and supported the filibuster against Alito? If not, I look forward to supporting Sheehan's senatorial campaign.
A Swiss lab says voice-print analysis shows the latest Osama bin Laden tape is not Osama bin Laden.
Walter Cronkite had suspicions about a previous tape, too.
Washington is threatening to cut aid to Bolivia unless Morales kowtows.
When this article speaks of "reforms", that probably means the same thing it means when the IMF says it: measures to screw the poor. Perhaps Morales should simply withdraw Bolivia's request for this aid, so that it will cease to be a lever in Washington's hands.
Gunfire failed to stop the massive protests in Nepal against the king's autocracy.
Women soldiers in the Bush forces died of dehydration, because they refused to drink water after 4pm. Their reason: they were afraid that if they went to the latrine at night, they might get raped. General Sanchez took steps to cover up the problems.
An interview with Harry Belafonte about Bush and the constitution.
I think Belafonte makes a mistake in saying that "poverty is terror". Poverty is suffering, but identifying all kinds of suffering with "terror" is destroying an important distinction.
The US took hostages in Vietnam, too.
Bolivia and Venezuela have signed a trade accord, exchanging diesel fuel for agricultural products. This seems like a further step in Bolivia's rejection of the empire.
The US military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet.
The leader among Sunnis disposed to cooperate with Bush says that the Shi'ites are pursuing a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" in Baghdad.
Theocracy based on lynch-mob violence is the rule in Iraq today.
A tower of evidence supports the claim that the World Trade Center was destroyed by explosives, not airplanes.
And some of the details connect it directly with the Bush family.
The Geneva Conventions clearly prohibit taking hostages, and US law makes it a crime for soldiers to do so. But it has become a common practice in the Bush forces, and no one has been prosecuted.
I forecast that the Bush regime will eventually be found to have committed nearly all the forms of evil that have ever been known or envisioned. It has rejected any and all limits on its actions, so its demand for power is now unchecked, and will spread like poison gas into every corner of the space of cruelty.
Palestinians unite again to call for the release of the Christian Peacemaker Teams.
Inside the Justice Department, even some Conservative lawyers tried to resist Bush's drive for absolute power. But they were forced out.
Bush has no room for old-fashioned Conservatives, since their views include principled opposition to an all-powerful executive branch and defending constitutional rights. To work for Bush, one must support Bush's power all the way.
When Bant Singh's daughter was raped by higher-caste Indians, and the village council sentenced her to marry one of the rapists, Bant Singh pursued the case and got the rapists imprisoned. Their relatives took mutilated him in return.
He may die as a result of the injuries, which were untreated because the doctor demanded a bribe. (Remember the visitor in Florida whose eye was hit by a bullet?)
This is typical of the way Dalits are treated--like the way Blacks were treated in the US under segregation, but worse.
With the weak congressional opposition to Bush's illegal spying, what if Bush uses the hearings as an opportunity to go further?
Cindy Sheehan says: she will run against Diane Feinstein for the US Senate if Feinstein doesn't join the Alito filibuster.
Feinstein's policy about Alito--to make an ineffective gesture of opposition while rejecting effective opposition--is typical of her general political position: she is a right-wing Democrat, one of those responsible for the degradation of the Democratic Party. However, desirable as it would be for her to be replaced by a real Democrat, I'd much rather see her join the filibuster and defeat Alito.
How the CIA scientifically studied torture to develop traceless techniques for breaking people's spirit--in imitation of the Soviet Union.
50 scholars, and former high government officials, charge Bush with participating in the 9/11 attacks.
More cases where the Bush forces took Iraqi women hostage.
I offer the Iraqi men whose family members were taken hostage by Bush terrorists the same advice that I offered to westerners when Arabs took hostages: don't give the terrorists what they demand!
Captain James Yee, who was the Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo, reports on mass suicide attempts, and how the Bush authorities won't release prisoners they know to be innocent--and how he himself was arrested and treated like the Guantanamo prisoners, on charges later dropped.
One mainstream commentator, Joel Stein, dared to recognize that it's wrong to "support" troops engaged in an unjust war.
(I've read that he has since been vilified by Bush's army of character assassination.)
This is exactly the reason why I won't call them "our" troops. Some of them used to be the US Army, but since Bush took them away to use them for a war of aggression, they are not "ours" any more. Calling them the "Bush forces" denies Bush a handle to manipulate Americans through their misapplied patriotism.
Susan van Haitsma says that her brother in law, a reservist on his way to Iraq, asks for Americans for just one kind of support: to oppose the war.
Remember Total Information Awareness?
When Congress canceled it, people warned that Bush would bring it back under some other name--and he did, in the NSA.
Tackle nuclear waste disposal first, warn UK advisers, as Blair plans to build new nuclear plants.
The ACLU got proof that Iraqi women were taken hostage by the Bush forces, to put pressure on their husbands.
Previous notes refer to earlier accusations of hostage-taking; what's new here is to get proof from Bush forces documents.
The "deceitfulness" of one of the women in the last case probably refers to what you'd expect a wife to do when she knows her husband is in danger.
An FBI agent spying on a peaceful protest arrested Caitlin Childs for refusing to hand over a piece of paper on which she had written his car's license number.
The protesters were vegetarians, criticizing the sale of meat. In the eyes of Bush, that makes them terrorists.
Police have made several clumsy attempts to infiltrate the Broward Antiwar Coalition, including one apparent attempt to provoke a confrontation with police at a rally just as it was scheduled to end.
I sympathize with photographers Hammontree and Lauderdale; people who protest in public should not criticize, let alone attack, journalists for photographing them. But let's not get distracted from the real threat to these journalists, which comes from the police, as this article also shows. No city should allow its police to confiscate cameras. If the police don't want witnesses, what are they trying to hide?
I also suggest that police should be required to make a video recording of all their official dealings with citizens, including all arrests. Police are much more likely than the average citizen to engage in unjustified violence; they need to be strictly supervised.
The president of France threatened to use nuclear weapons against countries that support terrorist use weapons of mass destruction on France. The threat seems to intended to manipulate French public opinion.
This does not go as far as the US has already gone. The US has officially refused to accept any limits on when it might use nuclear weapons.
How the Bush forces, thinking only about "winning the war", drifted into laying the groundwork for an Iraqi civil war.
US "justice": protestors who put their own blood on a military recruitment center were sentenced to prison, while a soldier who tortured an Iraqi prisoner to death was not.
Was that because his method of torture didn't spill blood?
The House of Lords tore up Blair's mandatory ID plan in the name of freedom, but did not completely reject the first stages of the plan.
Support for impeachment is growing among Americans, but some Democratic politicians are trying to defend Bush from their constituents.
Why would a Democrat protect Bush when her constituents want to impeach him? I suspect it has to do with campaign finance.
The Bush plan to "rebuild Iraq" was sabotaged by bad organization and dishonesty--the pretense that Bush had not already decided to invade required the administration not to plan what to do afterward.
Meanwhile, the continued resistance has meant that the Bush forces do additional damage faster than they could ever have rebuilt old damage.
An interview with Ali Fadhil, award-winning Iraqi journalist, who was arrested by the Bush forces.
The World Bank says that western aid to Afghanistan, which bypasses the Afghan government, weakens it.
That might be true, but I wonder about other good reasons for bypassing the government. Will it use the aid fairly and honestly?
Bush plans a campaign of lies to excuse illegal spying.
Anti-war soldiers in the Bush forces are organizing--cautiously--to bring the war to a halt. (Skip the first story.)
Everyone in the Bush forces deserves a certain amount of compassion, though not as much as the Iraqis that they massacre and torture. But when we speak of "supporting" them, it should mean supporting these organizing efforts.
2005 was the hottest year on record, and did so without help from el niño, which means it clearly indicates the warming trend.
When Roberts and Alito said they could not discuss cases they might consider if appointed to the Supreme Court, they were disregarding a Supreme Court ruling which said that indeed they could do so.
An Iraqi-American who raised funds to send food and medicine to Iraq has been convicted of many technical crimes which usually are not prosecuted at all--after being labeled as a "terrorist".
An internal Pentagon report says that the Iraqi resistance has stretched the Bush forces almost to the breaking point. If the resistance holds on, it can win.
Jim Massey, the ex-marine that testifies to the evil he and his unit did in Iraq, is now facing a typical right-wing campaign of character assassination.
A former Abu Ghraib soldier says that various kinds of torture were standard practice there.
As Bush argues for illegal spying on the claim that the whole world is now a battlefield and he can therefore do whatever he wishes anywhere, prominent Democrats in the Senate are accepting the illegal spying.
With this, the US government has declared the abolution of human rights, and war on the whole world (including Americans).
The Arab League's attempt to reunite Iraqis has failed, with Shi'ite organizations now preaching hatred for Sunnis.
This could be failure for Bush's aims of controlling Iraq, but it gives little hope for freedom and democracy in Iraq.
There are reports that a Bush forces officer, Colonel Westhusing, was murdered by the company he was investigating--a privatized government agency that is now part of the Carlyle group.
I don't know if this is true, but we can't deny it is plausible. And that illustrates something broader which we do know is true: the Bush regime's degraded standards of honesty and justice make it easy, in general, for the powerful to get away with murder.
6 former heads of the EPA got together to condemn Bush's policy of disregarding environmental threats.
Iceland is beginning to convert from gasoline to hydrogen to run vehicles.
I see two shortcomings: (1) we can't wait till the middle of the century to stop global warming, and (2) most of the world doesn't have Iceland's geothermal energy source, so we still need other ways to generate the electricity to make the hydrogen.
The bill Congress is considering to restrict analog video recorders includes a secret requirement. It would be, in effect, a secret law.
Zanon Ceramics in Argentina was seized by its workers in 2002. Now it is more efficient, safer, better to work at, and has made friends with its community.
The state of Alaska refused to provide its voter data base to be checked for fraud, saying it has a contract with Diebold not to do so.
This contract should be treated as invalid, because the public's right to an honest election is more important than whatever happens to any company.
The issue also illustrates why governments have a duty to use free software. They have no right to give control over their data processing into private hands.
Blair is trying to suffocate the investigation of possible UK cooperation in CIA torture flights.
Protestors who spray painted "troops out now" in Ohio face felony charges.
Meanwhile, Bush faces no punishment for breaking a large string of laws.
A Bush forces soldier who tortured an Iraqi to death was convicted of "negligent homicide".
An army that treats the "need to make someone talk" as a mitigating factor for torture will never end torture in its ranks.
More evidence is appearing that shows the danger of Depleted Uranium dirty bombs--and that it can contaminate people who visit battle areas months after the battle.
Bechtel vs. Bolivia: The People Win!
However, full victory means the abolition of these secret courts that are not responsible to the people of any country.
Further tests confirm security flaws in Diebold electronic voting machines.
However, grave as these flaws are, I'm not sure these tests get at the heart of the matter. The crucial question is not whether an outsider could break the security of the machines, but rather whether corrupt election officials could do so, or make it easy for Diebold to do so.
The Taliban have brought suicide bombings to Afghanistan, which seems to be slowly heading towards a quagmire like that of Iraq.
Sudan arrested the attendees (local and foreign) of a human rights meeting.
The opponents of Blair's national ID card believe they can defeat it.
Israel: A state held hostage by organized crime.
The EU is overlooking human rights abuses in other countries in favor of lucrative contracts.
The latest Palestinian suicide bombing was not responding to an Israeli attack--rather, it seems to have been intended to cause trouble for Palestinian elections and prevent both Israelis and Palestinians from moving towards peace.
Testimony in the Bush war crimes commission lays out how Bush faked reasons to justify a war of aggression.
The levees of New Orleans were built in a shoddy fashion that could indicate fundamental flaws in how the Army Corps of Engineers does its work.
Why is no one talking about raising the level of the land in the areas that need to be rebuilt? If we had the sense to do this in Galveston a century ago, why not today? With sea levels rising, and hurricane numbers and strength increasing, any levees that we might build now will surely be inadequate in two decades.
The head of the Veterans Administration did not say why he resigned, but some say it's because he sees no way to deal with the disaster of poisoning by DU ("Depleted" Uranium dirty bombs).
Torture flights: what No 10 knew and tried to cover up.
To rely on the word of a known liar to guarantee the honesty of one's conduct is in itself dishonesty.
Hamas support grows after Israelis shoot militant leader.
The proposed renewal of the PAT RIOT Act has a new provision that would make it a crime to "disrupt" a political convention or other "major events".
If interpreted narrowly, that might be legitimate, but handing such power to a regime with a persistent habit of stretching laws is dangerous.
(The part about entering a place where the president will be does not seem like a big deal to me.)
One by one, Iraqi cities and towns are being turned into prisons, in which the Bush forces prevent people from living normal lives. In effect, Palestine all over again.
Iran is setting up an oil market that will operate on euros instead of dollars. This directly attacks the worldwide use of dollars which gives the US its economic power.
I don't have faith in all the conclusions drawn in the article--predicting human actions several steps ahead is never reliable, since there are always other possibilities. (Life is not a game of chess.) But this does seem likely to weaken the US' ability to bully the world, and that would be a good thing.
One anomaly bothers me: why is Iran pushing the nuclear issue now, when that helps the US win support for war against Iran? It's clear that the best strategy for Iran would be to avoid offering a casus belli. It might be that the president of Iran is a fanatic, overcome by his emotions--but I'd need more evidence before I'd take that as the explanation.
Florida wants to reconstitute the privacy-invading Matrix program.
More suspicious points in the latest "Osama bin Laden tape".
Osama bin Laden tapes have a history of appearing just when Bush needs them.
It would not be necessary for bin Laden to be dead, or collaborating with Bush, in order for the CIA to fake a tape. But neither of those is the case, one might expect him to speak up to denounce the fakes. Many have argued that he is dead, and that seems plausible to me.
An interview with three Bush forces veterans about how they joined what was then the US Army, what they saw in Iraq, and why they now oppose the war.
There are plans to track all car travel by putting RFIDs in license plates.
The Canadian lawyers that seek to prosecute Bush for war crimes have appealed the dismissal of their case.
Several chains of evidence connect the death squads of the Iraqi government with the death squads of Central America in the 80s.
The US accuses Venezuela of "overspending" on a "military buildup". It's like the pot calling the Sun black.
Once again the US Senate considers a bill to require Digital Restrictions Management in all computers-- disguised as a footnote in a bill to impose the "broadcast flag" on digital TV broadcasts.
The UK government, like the Bush regime, is trying to keep the public in the dark about wounded soldiers. It has refused to release statistics about the severity of the wounds.
Republicans expect to win the 2006 election the same way they won the 2004 election--by cheating.
The Israeli police won't let a Palestinian return to an Israeli hospital for treatment. He got AIDS from a blood transfusion and can't be treated in Gaza. The police say he is a "security threat", but he could hardly do any harm on this visit if he is watched.
The latest "bin Laden tape" urges everyone to read the book Rogue State, by Bill Blum. The same Blum wrote another book condemning the (US-supported) Afghan resistance in which bin Laden got his start.
Did the real bin Laden decide to overlook Blum's opposition to his first battle? Or is this tape CIA disinformation, meant to smear people like Blum that criticize US attacks around the world?
For the record, I supported the US campaigns to arm the Afghan resistance, and I still think that it was right to help the people of Afghanistan to kick out the occupying foreign army that they hated.
The German government is trying to prevent a public inquiry into whether its spies helped the Bush forces attack Iraq. They say this would spread "anti-Americanism".
However, the attitude that this would spread would not be hostile to Americans--only to the unjust and undemocratic government that has taken hold in the US.
The greatest heroism possible for a soldier is to stand up to one's own commanders. Here are some US military heroes.
Michel Chossudovsky says that the US is planning a nuclear attack on Iran.
A practical RFID-zapper that is trivial for any electronics hobbyist.
The EU proposes taxing air travel and short-term financial transactions. It seems like a good idea, since it will discourage those things as well as raise money.
Jack Abramoff worked in the 80s for South Africa's intelligence.
In 2000, the CIA gave Iran nuclear bomb plans.
Epidemiological methods estimate that between 200,000 and 700,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed by the war.
Iraqis and other Arabs are aghast over the kidnaping of Jill Carroll, and calling on the kidnapers to free her.
Previous kidnapings attributed to Iraqi "terrorists" have also given grounds to wonder which side the perpetrators were really on.
Death Sentence for Friends and Families of Alleged Terrorists
US military recruiters are failing to make their quotas--so they accuse Americans of cowardice.
This is part of a larger pattern, in which the pressure for officers and enlisted men to support a war that they know is wrong corrupts their spirit and that of their institution.
James Lovelock says global warming has gone beyond the point of no return. It could be true, but there is no way to be certain, so it would be foolish to give up.
However, if the US continues blocking any real efforts to slow global warming, we're all down the tubes.
The Bush forces sealed off an Iraqi town and arrested 100 local men of a