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Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
European car manufacturers asked to be allowed to manage their own reduction in CO2 emissions -- but then they didn't do it.
This happens over and over: an industry is faced with regulation to solve an urgent problem, and says "Please don't pass a law; we will regulate ourselves and achieve the same result more efficiently." And then it is left on its own and fails to do the job. Those businessmen make a monkey out of us time and again.
It is good to see that the EU has enough strength to respond by threatening to do the job by regulation after all. But I think the right thing to do, if we want to give an industry the chance to correct a problem through self-regulation, is to pass a law that will kick automatically in if the problem is not solved that way.
The oil spill in Lebanon is still spreading.
It was caused by Israeli bombing of a civilian target, which is supposed to be a war crime.
The Iraqi civil war now extends to killing patients in hospitals.
I think the only solution is to divide Iraq, and divide Baghdad, into zones that can be protected by each side, with foreign troops to support each side. The Bush forces and their "Iraqi government" won't allow this, so they have to get out first.
Western Union blocks lots of money transfers by Muslims, and often won't give them a straight story about why.
Olmert "accepts responsibility" for the war, as an excuse for rejecting the demand for an investigation.
This is just lip service. If he really took responsibility for a giant failure, he would resign.
The brutal campaign of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda may be ended by a cease fire and an amnesty.
This army kidnaped children and forced them to become fighters -- so that many of the perpetrators of these crimes are former victims. But there are some clear exceptions.
This army kidnaped children and forced them to become fighters -- so that many of the perpetrators of these crimes are former victims. But there are some clear exceptions.
The amnesty may be the only way to end the rampage, given the limited resources available. If the US had sent an army there instead of to Iraq, it could probably have defeated the LRA, which was feared rather than supported by the people among whom it operated.
Bush is now using the argument that the occupation of Iraq should continue because of how badly it has messed things up thus far.
This article criticizes the Bush regime at a practical level, but at a deeper level the article does not dare to doubt. It takes Bush's lies about "moral clarity" seriously. It presumes that Bush is a supporter of democracy--and that Hugo Chavez is its enemy. When it says that Chavez's continuance in office is a "symptom of administration distraction", it presumes in effect that a less distracted Bush regime would have overthrown Chavez, and it does not raise any ethical question about whether an unelected regime has a right to depose an elected one.
Robert Kennedy Jr. charges that the "Help America Vote Act" was designed, through Diebold lobbying, to encourage the use of easily corruptible voting machines that would make it easy to steal future elections. Meanwhile, minorities are now being disenfranchised across the nation.
By using Bush as a front, Cheney gets less scrutiny than he would get if he were officially president.
Jimmy Carter denounces the Bush regime as un-American.
And he denounces Bliar for being "so compliant and subservient" to Bush.
A city in the US offers free censored internet access, Chinese style.
Greg Palast reveals how Republican cronies were paid for producing a "plan" for evacuating New Orleans, but no one can find any copy of it. Louisiana's best hurricane expert complained that poor people without cars were being ignored, so they threatened his job. He refused to be silenced, but they ignored him anyway.
Although I agree with Palast's point that we shouldn't let this "natural" disaster excuse the wrongdoing, I disagree with his way of putting it. It would be more rational to say that a hurricane had to arrive sooner or later, so the lack of preparation (remember that Bush cut funds to strengthen the levies in order to pay for war in Iraq) was sure to cause its harm sooner or later.
A British soldier killed himself rather than serve in the Bush forces in Iraq. He had been told he would have to shoot young children on suspicion of carrying suicide bombs.
Private Chelsea is a hero, for the sacrifice that he made in order to avoid doing evil. I would have urged him to make the smaller sacrifice of going to prison, which would also have done the job. But maybe for him that would have been a bigger sacrifice.
The Yes Men struck again in New Orleans: a speaker pretending to represent the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced many new policies that would benefit the city's residents.
In response, real government officials angrily denounced the hoaxer for giving the poor false hopes of receiving the help that the government of a democratic state would give them.
George Lakoff describes how different ideas of "freedom" frame today's political debates for both sides.
Lakoff's point about framing issues of "freedom" is valid overall, in my opinion, but he falls prey to various confusions in the details.
I reject the concept of "positive freedom" as a distortion of the meaning of the word "freedom". Also, we must not reject as a progressive anyone who ever did anything which wasn't progressive. Carter's domestic policies were very progressive when compared with today's Democrats, and supporting a dictator such as the Shah, while wrong, is a small wrong by today's standards.
All across Europe, the pattern is the same: due to global warming, animals and plants begin spring several days earlier than they did a few years ago. (This includes parasites that can wipe out other species which are under stress.)
A Chinese lawyer who exposed forced abortions in China has been sentenced on trumped-up charges after a fake trial.
Ten months after Katrina: Gutting New Orleans.
I don't think that New Orleans should be rebuild in the same place--I think it should be moved to high ground. But wherever it is located, it should be run as a livable city.
Israel has finally given permission to try to clean up the Lebanese oil spill which was caused by bombardment of a power plant (a non-military target).
Oil spill cleanups are at best partially effective, and this one, delayed for a month by Israel, will be even less so.
The US Department of Energy is starting to talk about peak oil, but with the soothing suggestion that it might not occur for 20 years -- hardly the thing to encourage necessary action.
When 12 Indian passengers on a KLM flight disobeyed rules about seat belts and cell phones, the plane landed and they were arrested and held incommunicado.
I read elsewhere that the Indian consulate was not allowed to visit them and was given misleading information about them.
I am not surprised that they kicked Antunius Slotboom off the plane for criticizing what he saw; something like this has happened to me, too. Cabin staff have arbitrary power to kick passengers out, and they do this arbitrarily like littled like despots. Obedience is not enough; they demand uncomplaining, sheeplike obedience. I feel that every time I go through an airport I am being taught to be the obedient subject of a despotic regime.
I don't agree with all the opinions expressed in that article; for instance, I think that banning liquids on board, in India or wherever, is justified if it is not feasible to check them for explosives. I also don't see that SPOT is particularly likely to finger Muslims; at least, not more often than it fingers me. I often rub or scratch my chin when I am thinking about a difficult problem.
A contraceptive outreach campaign has cut teen pregnancies by over 20% in a part of England. Christian fanatics are aghast, but others in the UK plan to copy the campaign. Three cheers for them!
Israel dropped cluster bombs over inhabited areas. The bomblets are still killing people. Amazingly, the Bush regime says it objects to this.
"Bush regime does (or at least says) the right thing" is certainly news.
The Japanese prime minister's visit to the Yasukuni shrine is part of a larger phenomenon: whitewashing the Japanese aggression of World War II and forgetting the lessons of peace that Japanese learned after the war.
I've read that these new Japanese nationalists even try to excuse the enslavement of women from conquered countries as prostitutes for soldiers.
Amnesty International calls for immediate investigation of Israel's war crimes that killed a thousand Lebanese civilians, and Hezbollah's war crimes that killed some 40 Israelis civilians.
Israeli forces have turned the Palestinian town of Nablus into a prison. Men aged less than 32 are simply forbidden to leave; and when they try, they are shot on the spot for nothing more than trying to travel. And that is just the icing on the cake of the occupation.
Here's what it is like for Palestinians trying to go through Israeli checkpoints.
Uri Avnery writes about what Bashar Assad has noted that Israelis don't want to see.
The horse chestnut trees of Britain are being wiped out by pathogens, aided by the long drought that is due to global warming.
Iran is the chief beneficiary of Bush's supposed "war on terror", says a respected think tank.
We've seen for years that Bush's foreign policy has played into the hands of al Qa'ida. Perhaps this is stupidity, or perhaps it is an intentional plan (since al Qa'ida gives Bush the excuse to attack our freedom). What's news here is that the hostile state that Bush loves to hate is getting a similar boost from Bush's policies.
Bush's judges have found all-purposes excuses to authorize Bush to do whatever he likes for his cronies, and do whatever he likes to you.
The term for such a regime is 'despotism'.
An MEP (Member of the European Parliament) of Asian descent says he was 'treated like a terrorist while travelling'.
The Lebanon ceasefire is fragile, warns the UN.
The US FDA agreed to let adults buy emergency contraception without a prescription. Maybe this will eliminate the widespread problem of pharmacists that refuse to fill the prescriptions.
However, the new policy is not fully adequate, since women under 18 will still face obstacles that may lead to their having unwanted babies. The opposition of many "right to life" groups to this pill, which would eliminate the need for abortions, reveals the real agenda of most abortion opponents. As Christian fanatics, they consider sex evil, and they want to pregnancy to be a punishment for sex.
The Israeli army is crushing joint non-violent protests in Bil'in before they start.
Apparently Israel would prefer that Palestinians practice violent resistance.
A natural gas pipeline on the bottom of the Baltic sea threatens to stir up 60,000 tons of old chemical weapons dumped there.
I've read elsewhere that the locations of many of these weapons dumps are unknown--and the pipeline proponents respond, with invincible illogic, that they have avoided the known dump sites and isn't that enough?
Bush is forcing retired Marines back onto active duty.
I guess not enough people are volunteering to fight for him. Iraqis "didn't want to die for Saddam", and Americans don't want to die for Bush's war profiteer cronies.
Massachusetts voters: support Jill Stein's campaign for Secretary of State.
State Farm insurance company systematically destroyed and distorted damage reports so as to avoid paying claims.
I can understand how insurance company executives, if they do not mind committing fraud, would feel the need to do this. In the long run, private insurance companies will be overwhelmed by the series of billion-dollar disasters that rising seas and increasingly powerful and numerous hurricanes will cause. They will either cheat their clients, or go broke, or stop insuring anyone in coastal areas and cities. One way or another, the victims of these man-made disasters won't get insurance payments.
In the Philippines, it's not proved that the government is behind the wave of assassinations of opposition figures. But it certainly uses violence against the student protestors who oppose this, and that substantiates the accusations.
California has established a large coastal marine reserve area where no fishing is allowed.
A series of disasters shows that a strictly calculated approach to protecting fish from overfishing is asking for trouble. There is a lot we don't know about marine ecosystems, and fishing practices; as a result, attempts to calculate a safely sustainable level of fishing often drastically overestimate that level. Due caution today calls for drastic steps.
2/3 of Katrina reconstruction contracts were given out without proper bidding to contractors that wasted money.
Republicans work for their business cronies, and their principal aim is to benefit those cronies. The sad thing is that the Democrats are on the path towards similar conduct.
Michael Scheuer, former chief of CIA's bin Laden unit, agrees that Bush's invasion of Iraq and unquestioning support of Israel has been a disaster for the US.
(He doesn't address the question of the morality of Bush's activities.)
The Bush regime pulled the rug out from negotiations with Iran in June, paving the way for the war he wants.
Israel refuses to explain why it attacked the refugee convoy from Marjayoun.
How the Taliban have all but conquered Kandahar.
Ray McGovery (ex CIA agent) explains how the people referred to as ' the crazies' by most of the first Bush administration subsequently took over the US government.
Six prisoners in Guantanamo, handed over illegally by the government of Bosnia in response to bullying by the US, remain imprisoned even though the US now admits the accusations against them were false.
The Bush regime's series of bullshit excuses for keeping these men in prison reminds me of the series of bullshit excuses for invading Iraq. The unwillingness ever to admit a mistake reminds me of the Soviet Union.
Joel Salatin has developed organic farming into a 21-st century process that uses sophistication rather than the brute force industrial methods of factory farms.
Although the article does not say this 100%, I would expect this method is efficient than conventional farming in regard to most inputs -- perhaps even land (a battery chicken farm is very compact, but it depends on lots more space to grow feed for those chickens). The two big exceptions are human labor and skill; Salatin's method needs a lot of them.
So if we are forced, by global warming and/or peak oil, to move to making our food this way, many more people will have to become farmers. Many people might like this, but not me. I hope I am not one of them.
Salatin writes about how many regulations combine to prevent his farm from doing useful things. For instance, the farm is not allowed to slaughter its own cattle, nor to sell the meat when the cattle are slaughtered elsewhere.
Some of the regulations he objects to are necessary in some form. For instance, we don't want real Wal-Mart stores to set up on farm land and sell a little bit of vegetables that they grow in a greenhouse as an excuse to reduce their taxes. We don't want to make it easy for children's labor to be exploited by a social system that makes the option of not "volunteering" impractical. Lots of factory farms exist, so they must be regulated for safety.
But I am sure there is a way to relax some of these rules for real small farms, so that could have more flexibility.
Unions in Colombia are facing illegal police raids, death threats, and assassination. It is done by paramilitaries that work for Uribe, who works for Bush.
US citizens: tell your congressmen to support the REAL (Responsible Education About Life) Act, to promote useful sex education that helps teens avoid pregnancy and diseases, without the perverse goal of celibacy.
Here is more information about that bill.
Bush and Bliar have a pattern of saving us from "terrorist plots" that were never more than vague ideas promoted by a government provocateur.
The civil war in Iraq could spread to neighboring countries, potentially destabilizing the whole region.
This article argues against withdrawing the Bush forces, but it doesn't present any clearly superior course of action. It is right that simply withdrawing them will not necessarily lead to peace, let alone freedom and democracy. But continuing the occupation won't either. Given the Iraqi hatred of the occupiers, and their hatred of all Iraqis, I don't believe that the Bush forces can achieve any good at all in Iraq. If there is a job that needs to be done by foreign troops, the Bush forces are the last ones that should try it.
The PCHR weekly report shows how the Israeli attack against the Palestinians, their homes, their land, their food, etc., continues.
Bush admitted that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, contradicting his previous claims which he made to try to justify invading Iraq.
But Bush continues to pretend that Iraq was going to be a threat to the US. Which was nonsense.
Joe Darby tells about revealing the torture at Abu Ghraib, and how he was subsequently afraid of reprisals--which did arrive: he driven out of his town by military personnel and their relatives who believed that torture should not be punished.
Darby says that these men were not ordered to commit torture by their commanders, and I believe him; but this does not mean that higher-ups aren't directly responsible. They are responsible for the general military attitude which supports torturers (and we can see the public statements that supported this it). They are also responsible for sending in the interrogators from unnamed other government agencies.
While Lebanon occupied the world's attention, Israeli tanks occupied part of Gaza for a month, destroying and killing. Over 200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including 58 children.
Here's a description of how some of those civilians were killed.
The Palestinian fighters surely know that firing from a school puts Palestinian children at risk. And the Israeli fighters surely know that, if they shoot at a launcher half an hour after a missile is fired, the only people they are likely to hit are civilians. Neither of these wrongs excuses the other.
An Israeli complains that Israeli fighters also lurk among civilians in cities.
It has been many years since Israeli leaders attempted to talk about peace with Palestinians. Unilateralism has been Israel's firm policy.
Now Israel needs to reconsider not just its war plan, but its eager preference for war over peace.
What is the ethical responsibility for "unintended" casualties caused by war?
Burning ethanol made from corn is not a feasible solution to global warming, because it needs too much corn. The entire US corn crop would only provide 1/6 of the US consumption of automobile fuel.
I see another danger: too much demand for ethanol for cars could result in cutting down the rainforests to grow crops for fuel.
Much of the US corn crop is used for growing beef. Eating less meat is therefore an effective way to free up corn either for human food or for conversion into fuel. It's worth doing, but we have to do lots of other things too. We need policies that systematically encourage conservation. The US could cut out a large fraction of its fuel use just by adopting the policies that have already worked in Europe.
Human activities are running out of fresh water supplies. Comsumption is growing faster than anticipated.
The oil spill in Lebanon caused by Israeli bombing is likely to harm humans, fish, and turtles for 10 years.
The oil tanks were not a military target, so bombing them had no possible motivation except to make Lebanese civilians suffer. It will do that, and make the whole ecosystem suffer as well.
US rice is contaminated with a genetically engineered strain which was never approved for human consumption.
Companies that cannot be trusted to prevent use of strains that haven't been approved should not be allowed to do genetic engineering at all.
Sudan is blocking the UN from protecting southern civilians from the Janjaweed militia it supports to kill them, and has charged a European journalist with "spying" for publishing that he had found mass graves.
If Bush were serious about humanitarian concern, he would have intervened here, rather than in Iraq.
All-Night Queues as Baghdad Runs Out of Petrol.
The Japanese prime minister's visit to the Yasukuni shrine is part of a larger trend: whitewashing the Japanese aggression of World War II, even up to the enslavement of women from conquered countries as prostitutes for soldiers. The danger here is that Japan will unlearn the lessons that it learned from the war.
Many US companies have been caught lying about stock options as a way of falsifying their profits.
Although attention focuses on the Bush prisoners in Guantanamo, Bush and his proxies have kept prisoners in Haiti too, for years, for no reason.
The Bush forces that murdered civilians in Haditha appear to have doctored evidence to cover it up.
The military operates by making troops loyal to their buddies, so when your buddy murders a civilian, you lie for him. (It's just like the cops.)
Such violence against civilians is the norm, not the exception. American journalist Nir Rosen, who is often mistaken for an Iraqi by the Bush forces, reports on how they treat perceived Iraqis (including him). Misunderstandings are frequent between people who don't speak the same language, and the Bush forces interpret them all as evidence of an attack.
A friend was looking for free sound samples, free in the sense of free software (see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html), and he came across freesound.iua.upf.edu. On checking further, he found that the samples in your site are in fact not free in this sense. This is because of the license that you have used does not allow commercial redistribution.
It's a confusing state of affairs that a site called "freedsound" holds sounds which are not free. The best solution would be to make them free.
So how about it?
The Iraqi civil war has escalated to use of rockets and mortars.
Bush's final gamble: giving Iraq a dictator?
Some would say Iraq has never stopped having a dictator; but if the Bush regime acknowledges imposing one, it will be the final nail in the coffin of his third false excuse for the war. However, at this point I think it would be difficult for a dictator to rule Iraq, even if he did not have the handicap of being associated with foreign aggressors.
Bush has given arms manufacturers a bonanza -- even aside from the war.
Two engineers who uncovered illegal US activities in Europe were found dead in apparent suicides. Were they murdered at US instigation?
Various Bush forces veterans state their support for Lt Watada.
The Bush forces are setting up walls to separate neighborhoods in Iraq.
This has a resemblance to my recommendation of allowing the Iraqi groups to divide up that country. However, I think walls alone will not suffice while the Bush forces remain in occupation.
Lopez Obrador's supporters in Mexico refuse to concede the election.
US troops in South Vietnam were investigated for 320 war crimes: torture, rape, and murder. Few were convicted, even fewer punished, and the worst punishment was a few months imprisonment.
Such conduct is nearly inevitable in the occupation of a hostile populace, even if it is prohibited: when the troops think of the civilians as the enemy, this is how they vent their anger.
Kurdish guerrilla movements are operating in Turkey and Iran from bases in the effectively independent Kurdish region of Iraq. Turkey and Iran both seem to be on the verge of invading.
How the US can improve disaster management: eliminate FEMA and bring in Hezbollah.
The US agency that regulates experimental genetically engineered plants does not bother to enforce its own rules, says a judge.
A temperature rise of 2C, now inevitable, will cause 30% loss of forests in Europe, as well as floods and droughts there and elsewhere. One additional degree is likely to mean 60% loss of the world's forests. And any more is likely to cause positive feedback leading to total disaster.
Congress poised to uuravel the Internet.
The Blair regime's favorite activity is prohibiting things. It is introducing new crimes faster than one per day.
Uri Avnery: Israel's last-minute enlarged offensive was a publicity stunt which backfired in its aim of showing the Israeli army triumphant. So it is being diverted into pressure for renewed war.
Disaster profiteers are getting a windfall from reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, while local companies are frozen out, or do not get paid.
Plasma TV screens cause a big increase in electricity demand. (TV is nearly all crap anyway; I'd recommend not having a TV at all.)
Lt. Ehren Watada asks Americans to show all the soldiers that they will support whoever refuses to participate in the occupation of Iraq.
Eating less meat is an important way to reduce global warming.
Fumes from school buses damage children's lungs and can cause asthma.
A federal judge ruled that the NSA's surveillance program is unconstitutional.
It is too early to celebrate a victory. I am sure Bush will appeal this decision, and he is already talking about asking Congress to override it.
The UN peacekeeping force for Lebanon faces conflicting expectations.
Venezuela is leading the race for a UN Security Council seat, as a result of world-wide organizing efforts for power blocs to resist US government power. But the US is still trying to prevent this, using that same power in favor of the brutal client government in Guatemala.
After British Muslim leaders sent a letter criticizing Blair for foreign policy that encourages terrorism, the Blair regime has reacted by trying to look tough, and saying "That's no reason to stop."
The letter is weak for two reasons. One, that it says it comes specifically from Muslims. If it were presented as the statement of a group people who love freedom and hate mass murder, regardless of their religious views, it would weigh more.
Two, that it pulls its punches: it is too soft on Blair. The letter should have said that all the terrorist plots put together, both the successful ones and the failed ones, would have been small compared with the mass murder Bush and Blair have committed.
That UK foreign policy makes enemies is not necessarily enough reason to change it (though it does count). That it is a heinous crime and makes enemies is plenty of reason.
The Bush forces raided the Iraqi health minister's office, arresting pits guards. The minister is connect with al Sadr's militia, which fought the Bush forces when they attacked it.
The ministry of health in Iraq today is an absurdity in itself; the main threat to Iraqis' health comes from the Bush occupation and its effects. If a health minister cannot change that, his job is prima facie impossible.
Airplane bombers hoped to destroy 10 airplanes over a period of months, which could have killed up to 2800 people.
I might have been one of them--I was going to be flying through London--but I refuse to exaggerate this danger into "Mass murder on an unimaginable scale". Some 100,000 had been killed by the invasion and occupation of Iraq as of a year and a half ago, so we can easily imagine it might be 150,000 by now.
Bush "viewed war in Lebanon as a curtain-raiser for attack on Iran".
Senator Lieberman lost the Connecticut Democratic primary to Ned Lamont, who criticizes Bush's conduct of the war.
I've read elsewhere that polls suggest that Lieberman can beat Lamont and the Republican candidate in a three-way race. This means there is still ways to go to knock him out.
The weekly nonviolent Palestinian/Israeli protests at Bil'in continue, but only the protestors are nonviolent -- not the soldiers. This week, soldiers took advantage of the distraction of the war in Lebanon to begin shooting protestors. They shot one protestor in the head at close range with a plastic-coated metal bullet, which broke his skull, entered his brain, and caused injuries that may be permanent.
The corruption of the Afghan government, as well as its inability to dominate the warlords, leads Afghans to calculate that it can't shield them from the Taliban either.
Robert Fisk: Desert of trapped corpses testifies to Israel's failure.
Robert Fisk warns that the UN cease fire is unlikely to hold, saying that the real guerrilla is likely to start now with the renewed Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon.
As soon as Israel saw the UN cease fire resolution coming, it complied with the call to end "offensive military operations" by launching a bigger invasion and calling it "defensive".
Brazil's indigenous peoples are policing the rainforest against illegal logging.
I am, however, worried by their apparently very high rate of population growth. There may be no immediate problem, since their population is still pretty small. But rapid population growth is a dangerous habit for any group to get into.
A new kind of car engine uses boron for energy storage. It reacts the boron with water to make hydrogen and then oxidizes the hydrogen to make water again. The boron gets oxidized by this and eventually needs to be replenished.
Storing boron sounds much safer than trying to distribute and store hydrogen itself. If you could exchange your oxidized boron container for a fresh container quickly at a filling station, this system could be convenient enough to gain public acceptance.
But this is at best part of a complete solution for the pollution and global warming problems. You still have to get the energy to recycle the oxidized oxide into pure boron.
Greenland's ice is melting 3 times as fast as it was 5 years ago.
10 more years of warming might increase this rate by a further factor of 2, or 10, or 100 -- nobody can predict it. When the world plays with Greenland's icecap, it is playing with fire.
Bush wants Congress to define a new kind of war crime -- "conspiracy" -- which would have very low standards of proof. However, international standards do not recognize such a war crime.
US government employees are lucky that this is so, because it means they can't all be swept up in a charge of conspiracy when the leaders of the Bush regime are prosecuted for the war crimes that they ordered.
The Lebanon war: a failure for Bush, and for hawks in Israel, leaves the US and Israel worse off than before, while causing great suffering to Lebanese (though not on the scale of Iraq).
The vote in the Congo is falling into chaos, with ballots being burnt.
Donated tents helped shame Paris into helping its homeless people.
Bush now wants to be selective about which of the war crimes prohibited by the Geneva Conventions can be prosecuted in the US.
Two Arab-Americans face charges of terrorism for buying a lot of cell phones. It seems those phones can also serve as detonators for bombs. They say that they want to resell the phones in Dallas, where these phones are in short supply.
It's possible the police have some other evidence against these men, which they have not disclosed. But it is also possible that this is an example of a common phenomenon: imprisonment on mere suspicion of people whose background contributes to that suspicion.
The UK cleverly did this by making it illegal to be suspected. "Reasonably" suspected, that is. A suspect's religious background can easily play a part in deciding how "reasonable" the suspicion is, so just possessing the cell phones could be legal grounds to sentence a Muslim to prison.
The US hasn't defined suspicion as a crime; instead it relies on the application of very low standards in court.
Hezbollah and Israel seem prepared to accept the UN call for a cease fire starting Monday, but this does not mean Israel will entirely stop attacking.
(I have not yet seen the full text of the resolution.)
Depleted (i.e. dirty) uranium is a prime candidate for the mysterious problems that affect some 30% of veterans of the first Gulf War.
What it's doing to Iraqis, present and future, would be horrible if the Bush-inspired civil war weren't even worse.
Was the thwarted airplane bomb plot real?
I do not reject the claims as that article does, but I am skeptical about them for most of the same reasons. Islamic fanatics do carry out bombings, and have already attacked airliners. On the other hand, Bush and Bliar do lie, and the US and UK have already sentenced people to prison as "terrorists" who never planned to do anything in particular. It is up to the Bush and Blair regimes to show us, not just tell us, that this plot was real. And they must stop arresting people for vague talk, if they want our trust.
As Israel expands the war while the UN calls for a cease fire, the war shows that Israel's leaders are incompetent as well as murderous.
UK police foiled a plot to blow up airplanes.
The Blair regime will surely find this useful for its persistent campaign to abolish the very idea that there should be any human rights that the government cannot take away by a decree.
They want their subjects to give the state total power and blind faith, in the name of safety from terrorism. But safety can never be perfect; even totalitarian regimes had crime, and resistance. So they can always claim, "With more power, we can keep you (a tiny bit) safer"--but human rights are more important.
BP covered up corrosion in the Alaska Pipeline for a decade, then "discovered" it just when shutting the pipeline provides them a windfall.
Iran has banned Shirin Ebadi's legal counseling group for dissidents, and has already sentenced one of its founders to prison on charges of "revealing state secrets".
Charges of "revealing state secrets" are typically a sign of a repressive regime.
Iraqi PM al Maliki condemned the Bush forces for killing civilians in its attack on a Shi'ite militia. This reflects the contradictory demands on him: he depends on the Bush forces to stay in power, but he can only gain any stature by condemning their atrocities.
The Sadr militia might well be guilty of practicing torture, and also guilty of murdering Sunnis. I would not put it past them. But I suspect that the main reason the Bush forces attacked it was for its long history of hostility to the Bush forces.
Drought-stricken Europe verging on 'natural disaster'.
Except that this disaster is not natural. It is caused by burning fossil fuel.
Israel, frustrated by its inability to defeat the Hezbollah guerrilla army, dropped leaflets threatening civilians in large areas near Beirut.
Halliburton is being investigated by the UK for plans for bribery.
(They say "A subsidiary of Halliburton", but that's like saying that someone's trigger finger is under investigation for shooting a person.)
A lawsuit in California calls for a ban on use of Diebold touch-screen voting machines.
Since the Israeli attack, even Lebanese Christians now state their support for Hezbollah.
Halliburton is being investigated by the UK for plans for bribery.
(They say "A subsidiary of Halliburton", but that's like saying that someone's trigger finger is under investigation for shooting a person.)
How the US Super-Rich 'dodge' taxes -- perhaps illegally.
Hezbollah and Israel both commit war crimes by attacking civilians. A week ago, Hezbollah proposed that both sides stop doing so. Israel rejected the offer, saying it wants to wipe out Hezbollah.
Imagine what people would say if Hezbollah rejected such an offer and said it was determined to proceed to wipe out Israel. Now turn it around.
A few days ago I posted a link to an article explaining that Hezbollah isn't a "terrorist organization"--that it has not been connected with planning acts of terrorism for a long time. Someone responded, "What about firing Katyusha rockets at Israel?"
Is that terrorism?
It is certainly an atrocity, just as Israel's bombing of houses, airports, ambulances, and aid convoys is an atrocity. However, military operations targeting civilians in time of war are not the sort of act that we usually think of as "terrorism". I responded that it seemed useful to make the distinction.
However, after I sent that response, I started to have second thoughts. Even though the two are distinguishable, how much does it really matter? People do refer to military actions as "state-sponsored terrorism". Here's an article which makes the comparison very powerfully.
Now I am not sure where I stand on that question of terminology. Both Israel and Hezbollah have planned and prepared these attacks for years. Perhaps both should be added to the international list of "terrorist organizations".
Jan Egeland of the UN says Hezbollah does commit "cowardly blending" among civilians.
However, even if this were an excuse for Israeli air attacks, for many of them it would be entirely inapplicable, as Robert Fisk's articles show.
The ACLU is fighting a town in Missouri that wants to stop an unmarried couple from living with their children in their own house.
Massachusetts residents: help the campaign for pharmacies to provide emergency contraception.
UNHCR and MSF confirm that Israel's "secure corridors" for humanitarian assistance in southern Lebanon are mere fiction; the area is a free fire zone.
US troops in Kabul shot unarmed angry civilians, and then covered it up.
I supported the invasion of Afghanistan to liberate that country from the Taliban, and nearly all of Afghanistan seemed to support it too. Probably most of Afghanistan still does, but a substantial fraction now supports the Taliban. Where does that leave us?
Even under the best of circumstances, soldiers stationed in a foreign country occasionally rape and kill civilians. The people of that country will put up with such events if they regard the soldiers' presence as vitally necessary to protect them. Otherwise, these events generate hostility towards the soldiers, hostility which in Afghanistan will be exploited by the Taliban.
There is no hope of defeating the Taliban except by defeating the Taliban's campaign for support among the people of Afghanistan. And I do not see any plan in motion which plausibly aims at doing so.
Mexico's court ordered a recount, but only for those 9% of polling places for which evidence of fraud was specifically found. Lopez Obrador's supporters intend to continue their massive protests demanding a full recount.
Israel has destroyed all the bridges into southern Lebanon and refuses safe-conduct for humanitarian aid. Red Cross aid convoys have been attacked from the air.
Americans: Host a "Press for Truth" house party to support the pressure for a real and thorough investigation of what happened on 9/11.
Although Iraq is a desert, not a jungle, the Bush policies largely follow the same path as Nixon followed in Vietnam.
Vietnamization failed as a way to win the Vietnam war, but Nixon did not admit failure, and instead used it as an excuse to pull American troops out. Two years later, as South Vietnam collapsed, few in the US suggested sending them back. Thus, Vietnamization eventually succeeded in ending the war. I hope that Iraqization succeeds likewise.
One major difference between the two wars is that Iraqis are divided into groups that are slaughtering each other with hatred. The Vietnamese had no such divisions.
The forests of Indonesia are being cut so fast that the lowlands of Sumatra and Borneo will be completely denuded in 4 years.
As exponential population growth reaches its limits, the end can come very quickly.
How global warming makes itself felt today in North America.
The degree of warming projected in coming decades is much more than has occurred so far. The effects so far are a small taste of what is coming.
Fortunately, the increased growth of poison ivy may not go too far. More CO2 in the air generally spurs plant growth; but, according to a study I read about in Science News, the effect on plants in wild settings is limited because they typically encounter some other resource limit. They grow faster only temporarily.
Alas, this means we cannot expect increased plant growth to absorb the carbon dioxide we produce.
A number of books cast light on aspects of the Bushmen's incompetence, and their dishonesty, in the invasion of Iraq.
Arguments continue, among those who supported the invasion, about "debaathification": some claim it was a disaster, while others claim that not doing it was a disaster. I think that both arguments are valid--that keeping the baathists in government was insupportable, and that firing them was insupportable. There was, it seems, no path between those two disasters.
The Iraqi government is too weak, even with Bush's support, to end the civil war. Nobody in it has any stature. Most of the politicians in it are sectarian, and associated with the militias that are fighting it; hardly anyone rises above hatred for the other side.
I believe that division of Iraq, even if it is division into a mosaic of neighborhoods within Baghdad, is the only way to end this war other than through mass killing.
Bush tried to persuade Israel to attack Syria, but Israel refused, say reports from Israel.
Uri Avnery: as Israel fails to win anything by attacking Lebanon, it will begin the War of the Generals.
Camerman Josh Wolf faces prison for contempt of court for refusing to turn over his own unedited video footage of a protest.
I agree with the judge in this case: if we suppose an honest and democratic state, it would be right, I think, to base the decision on whether confidential sources' identity would be revealed.
At the same time, it could well be true that the government only wants to make life difficult for dissidents. The Bush regime has on occasion tried to claim that anyone opposing it is "helping terrorists". If Josh Wolf thought that parts of his video would have mainly been useful for that, I think he ought to have erased those parts long ago, to make sure they would never cause such harm.
Israel has driven the Palestinian Authority government underground by trying to arrest them all.
This is how Israel makes sure it has no partner to negotiate peace with.
A UK police investigation decided that a policeman shot Mr Kahar by accident while breaking into his home at night without warning.
I have no faith in the honesty of that conclusion, since police frequently lie about such things, and their buddies back them up. However, even if it is true, it remains the case that they make such accidents far more likely by not identifying themselves as police.
One of Bush's ways to pay for the war: cut pay for air traffic controllers, and harrass some into early retirement.
I don't object to automating the weather briefings, though; that is a different issue.
Republican "welfare reform" makes it difficult for poor single mothers to study to get a good job. Is this how they protecting the family -- by keeping children poor?
The best way to keep welfare costs down is to make birth control and abortion easy to get -- and offer good sex education classes which don't aim for the sick goal of abstinence.
The Republican Party, which claims to support states' rights and reduced federal government power, wants to allow the president to take control of state national guard units without permission of state governors.
Israeli bombing in Lebanon caused a large and damaging oil spill which is causing its own disaster.
US environmental organizations tend not to confront the effects of US population growth on the environment.
A British scientists says that some sort of rationing scheme for carbon consumption is needed to halt global warming.
I agree that there should be stronger measures to reduce consumption, but I don't see a need for rationing -- simply taxing fossil fuels heavily ought to cut consumption more or less the same way, with much less bureaucratic intrusion.
I can see one motive for having a limited rationing system as an add-on: it might be desirable to give every person a limited quantity of certain important commodities (such as gasoline) without the added taxes, so as to reduce the impact of these taxes on the poor. This would require rationing for those who participate in it -- but no one would be required to buy anything that way.
However, I think it would be wiser simply to give poor who might need to drive to work a sum of money sufficient to cover the cost of gasoline for doing so. This way they have an incentive to try to get to work in a more fuel-efficient way so they can spend that money on something else.
Meanwhile, an electric company in Colorado is funding attempts to pretend there is no global warming. It apparently worries attempts to prevent global disaster might involve interference with its business.
THE BOMBS OF AUGUST: In Remembrance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with relation to the present day.
Creating districts that concentrate minority voters is a policy meant to prevent their votes from being made irrelevant. But nowadays it tends to have the opposite effect: it functions as gerrymandering to help conservative candidates.
Uri Avnery compares Israel's war aims with likely prospects for the outcome.
Iraqi gays are fleeing rampant murder which is not even illegal.
A Cuban dissident, Oswaldo Paya, shows his patriotism by refusing to support Washington's harsh policies towards Cuba -- nor the privatization policies Washington wants to force onto Cuba.
Mr Paya is right that good health care does not substitute for democracy and freedom to oppose the government. I hope that if Cuba recovers the latter from Castro, it doesn't lose them both to Washington afterward.
The idea that non-state-sponsored terrorists might poison America's water is just speculation.
The military is really doing it.
US natural gas production is likely to start dropping soon. If the decrease is large, it could lead to conflict between Canada and the US.
The Bush regime claims Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, but the EU won't go along, because there is no sign the claim is true.
One might well disagree with some of the aims of Hezbollah, but that doesn't justify the label "terrorist".
Supporters of candidate Lopez Obrador have camped in the middle of Mexico City as a protest, saying that that Bush-style fraud robbed them of victory. They do not demand that the election be handed to him, only that the votes be counted carefully.
The Somali Islamists (who aim to impose cruel Islamic law) are on the verge of taking over all of Somalia, as their opposition, the "interim government" which was supported mainly by foreign countries such as the US, is collapsing.
Meanwhile, a woman in Iran awaits a decision on whether to execute her by stoning for committing adultery. They already have Islamic law.
Blair has begun to criticize Bush's Mideast position in public, but in private he still supports Dubya 101%.
In effect, he has made a small apparent concession as a way to deflect the pressure so he can continue his slavish support for Bush.
"Torture" Gonzales says the Bush regime can hold Guantanamo prisoners forever, and wants congress to allow the regime able to define crimes for military tribunals ad lib.
China censored a Tibetan activist's blogs. (Her poetry had already been banned.)
People speak of AIPAC and similar organizations as the "Israel lobby" or the "Jewish lobby", but those terms are misleading. It is really the Israeli hawks lobby, opposing initiatives for peace no matter where their origin, even if it is the Israeli government.
Human Rights Watch says Israel used cluster bombs on a village in Lebanon. They killed civilians hiding in their basements.
7% of US tax revenue is lost to cheating, mostly to rich taxpayers. Bush has encouraged this cheating by cutting down on auditing of rich taxpayers. He works for them, they want reduced taxes, so he will give it to them by hook or by crook.
How the right-wing political/media complex helps right-wing candidates win elections: they can usually get away with blunders, but their opponents are crucified for even the smallest misstep.
Human Rights Watch: Israel's Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon.
Israeli fighters attacked a hospital in Baalbek, Lebanon, hoping to capture wounded Hezbollah fighters. For prisoner exchanges? But they came up essentially empty handed.
A 70-mile stretch of Oregon coast has become a "dead zone" where fish die. It is due to global warming.
A call by concerned SA Jews
The outgoing UK ambassador to Bush's Iraq predicts more civil war, and division of the country.
Republicans are hoping to use a small increase in minimum wage as an excuse to permanently cut the estate tax.
The bill is even worse than described above; it eliminates all minimum wage for waiters in many states.
What the article says about a "reversal of roles" is pure hokum; it's nothing new for the Democrats to oppose tax cuts for the rich, and no shock they would continue to oppose them so even when an increase in minimum wage for some workers is offered as an inducement. Well-informed Liberal voters would find it entirely understandable -- but well-informed voters are the exception with the US media as they are today. The Republicans plat to tell the voters, "Those Democrats voted against a minimum wage increase", and expect the voters to be so misinformed that they will fall for it.
'No Hezbollah Rockets Fired from Qana', say residents and Red Cross workers.
Republican politicians depend on the support of religious nuts that want to attack Iran so as to destroy the Earth. Literally!
Police in Philadelphia arrested Neftaly Cruz for taking pictures of an arrest that was occurring on a public street, on trumped-up accusations of "conspiracy".
If the Philadelphia police department claims to respect human rights, it should fire these policemen as an example to the others.
The marines accused of shooting civilians in their custody threatened to kill another soldier if he told. What's more, the word about a "competition for kills" is especially disturbing.
Iran's leading dissident Akbar Ganji refused to meet with Bush regime officials while he visited the US. He said, "You cannot bring democracy to a country by attacking it".
Iran has partial democracy: the people elect their government, within a limited range of views. But it does not respect the human rights of those with views outside that range, including their right to run for office, or express them at all.
The full record of what happened in NORAD on 9/11/2001 has been published.
They seem to have done their job as well as was possible with the few fighter planes and old equipment that they had--except for two fighter pilots, who screwed up and perhaps missed the chance to watch the plane that hit the Pentagon. But even if they had been right on top of it, they could not have done anything; these pilots were not authorized to shoot.
It appears that the FAA took half an hour or more to tell NORAD about each of the highjackings.
The NORAD tapes show no sign of Bush regime involvement in the attacks, but this absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The lack of authorization for fighter planes to shoot down hijacked planes was enough to make anything NORAD might have done irrelevant. It is possible that someone made sure they would not get this authorization in time. It could also have happened innocently.
Diebold voting machines hold two different programs. Diebold can certify the machine using one of them, then steal the election by switching to the other setting, then set it back -- and no one can ever tell.
Several kinds of evidence point to fraud in Mexico's presidential election. Candidate Lopez Obrador believes he won, but he demands only a careful recount, and says he will abide by the results of that recount.
Nutrients from agricultural runoff are helping bacteria and jellyfish kill off coral, fish, etc. in the ocean.
Scientists in the UK have rated various drugs in terms of the harm they do to society. They found that marijuana is less dangerous than tobacco or alcohol.
The Bush forces sent more Americans to Baghdad, saying this will check the violence of the civil war that they have provoked.
When Sunnis regard Americans in the Bush forces as protectors, despite all the murder and torture they have done, we can draw three conclusions. First, that the civil war is horrible. Second, that Iraqis are fools to fight each other instead of their common enemy. Three, that this may have been part of the Bush forces' plan--as I wondered a year or two ago.
Nothing could enable Bush to hold Iraq except to divide the Iraqis. I am not in a position to know which aspects of the present situation were specifically planned and arranged by the Bush forces, and which ones occurred by accident, but it is clear they intentionally played on and exacerbated Iraquis' preexisting hostilities. It is possible that the death squads that have been murdering Sunnis for a year, and appear to be part of the "Iraqi" police, were part of this plan.
I also wonder whether Zarqawi was encouraged by the Bush forces. What could be more useful for Bush than to encourage Iraqi Sunnis to kill Iraqi Shi'ites instead of the occupiers?
Put this together with the fact that the "bin Laden tapes" were just ideal for helping Bush in US domestic politics, that Al Qa'ida was started by the Pakistani ISI working with the US, and that the bin Laden family has been friends with the Bush family for decades, and one must wonder whether the cooperation and the plan go deeper. This is another reason why there must be a thorough and independent investigation of what led up to th 9/11 attacks -- one that makes sure Bush & friends cannot conceal evidence of their possible involvement in the name of government secrecy.
Bush and Blair propose to have NATO invade Lebanon as a proxy for Israel.
The FDA has been totally corrupted from the top down by its links with drug companies.
How can the children of the holocaust mete out the same racist rage?
Although Bush said he wants to close Guantanamo prison, in fact he is expanding it. What he said was probably pure lie.
Tom Hayden: I Was Israel's Dupe.
Bush is sabotaging the enforcement of civil rights laws by selectively hiring right-wing lawyers to do the job.
The Bush regime has been planning to invade Iran ever since 2001.
Global warming is responsible for record temperatures in Europe, say scientists. It accompanies a drought, and together they have damaged harvests.
Many US national parks are threatened by the effects of global warming.
Israel's foreign minister confirms what people had concluded: that Bush and Blair were protecting their invasion of Lebanon.
Calling Blair "Bush's guide dog" is interesting. A guide dog is a servant that helps a blind person get wherever he wants to go.
Senate Republicans, under strong pressure, agreed to investigate the "intelligence failures" that led to the invasion of Iraq. Now they are delaying the report.
A serious investigation would find that these errors were not failures, but rather a deliberate plan to fabricate excuses for war. The Republicans don't want to find that.
Since the Supreme Court ruled that Bush cannot imprison citizens without due process, Bush has proposed a law to authorize just that. This law would allow the government to keep anyone in prison indefinitely on mere suspicion of "aiding the enemy".
Since the worst enemy of the US is Dubya, this law would theoretically allow anyone who works for or helps Dubya to be imprisoned. But I doubt it will be used that way. I suspect it will be used to imprison anyone who is rumored to know someone who knows someone thought to be in Al Qa'ida. Or perhaps anyone who speaks in favor of the Iraqi resistance or condemns Bush's war. Republican officials have already called such conduct "aiding the enemy".
While a single drought is not simply and directly caused by global warming, we can be sure global warming will cause changes in rainfall patterns, so that some areas will generally get more than they used to, and others will generally get much less. Either way, the change can cause big problems.
Israel claims to attack civilians because Hezbollah fighters mingle with civilians; but they don't.
Bush and co. are trying to pass laws to save themselves from capital punishment, which they could face under US law for violating the Geneva Conventions.
I think it is wrong to execute criminals, even criminals who have killed hundreds of thousands of people as Bush has. Bush should be sentenced to life in prison, with Saddam Hussein as his cellmate.
Chinese activist 'broke his own neck', say the police who systematically harrassed him before.
An agreement among businesses aims at limiting the cutting of the rain forest to grow more soy beans.
However, such agreements are often undermined by cheating.
The American Bar Association denounces Bush's use of signing statements to disregard parts of laws.
Former Republican congressman McCloskey calls for the defeat of today's Republicans.
If they will allow votes against them to be counted, I think they don't have a chance.
US politics today show disturbing similarities to Germany in the 1920s.
However, the parallels are not complete; as far as I know, the Weimar Republic did count the votes honestly.
Paul Bremer knew in advance that his shock-privatization and imposed right-wing laws would make Iraqis angry. This stimulated to the resistance, which could still defeat Bush if only Iraqis will stop fighting each other.
Robert Fisk reports from an ambulance under Israeli air attack. Some Lebanese are now scared to have Red Cross ambulances near their homes, because Israel might attack them.
A proposed US law would require most schools and libraries to block access to blogging and "social networking" sites.
There's one good side: this would protect students from being lured by myspace.com into a dangerous liaison with the US military.
In the US, people are reported as "terrorist suspects" just to fill quotas.
Israeli fighters bombarded Gaza with hundreds of shells, killing two babies, and various other civilians, as well as Palestinian fighters.
Israel's attack on Lebanon was planned more than a year ago. Israel confirms this now, but the plan was discovered by Hezbollah, which published it in June.
US citizens: sign the Voters for Peace pledge.
Robert Fisk reports from Lebanon on the Israeli attacks that targeted the well-marked UN observer post for a whole day, and the smart bombs aimed at the red crosses on the top of ambulances.
The US and Russia signed a treaty to protect polar bears. But since the main threat is due to melting polar ice, it is not clear how the treaty could achieve its goal.
Tanya Reinhart: Why Bush and Israel used the opportunity to start a major war in Lebanon.
In Northern Europe, bees and the wildflowers they pollinate have declined precipitously.
Big decreases in biodiversity are dangerous; we never know which one might wipe us out.
The Israeli invasion of Lebanon has resulted in heavy ground fighting.
Greg Palast speculates that the Bush regime and Iran share an interest in nuclear worries that drive up the price oil.
WTO talks collapsed, sparing poor countries further control by the megacorporations.
Since Bush couldn't abolish the estate tax, he now plans to facilitate cheating on it.
While Bush rants about the (not entirely fictitious) danger of possible future Iranian nuclear weapons, he hypocritically brushes over Pakistani and Indian nuclear weapons production expansion plans.
Israel is using new weapons to attack bomb shelters which are full of refugees.
Israel attacked a UN base repeatedly for hours, ignoring UN complaints, and eventually killed 4 UN observers. Kofi Annan went so far as to say this was "apparently deliberate".
Those who are drunk on power sometimes practice visible cruelty simply as a means of intimidation. Is that what happened here?
An ex-CIA officer says that the Bush regime is planning to send troops to occupy Lebanon.
Israeli planes hit an ambulance in Lebanon with missile fire. They have shot at others but missed them.
The response makes it clear that Israel has no plans to try to avoid shooting at ambulances.
An unsafely run US railroad wants a government handout so it can transport hazardous cargoes at high speed right past the Mayo Clinic.
It sounds like a comedy version of government corruption, but corruption has gone so far in the US that it has become self-parody.
The US is supplying more bombs to Israel for attacking Lebanon.
Israel, Iran and the US: Who Will be Blamed for Nuclear War?
The Bush forces made a show of starting to "hand over control" to Iraqi quislings
However, events have shown that neither of them has much control over anything in Iraq.
As long as the "Iraqi government" cannot make its own decisions about the privatization and laws that Bush imposed, it is not really the Iraqi government.
The EU voted to fund stem cell research, overcoming resistance from religious fanatics that believe little balls of human cells (which have formed no organs) are sacred.
Parents now have a real reason to worry that their children may make dangerous acquaintances on the Internet.
Gay activists in Latvia were attacked by a mob of bigots. The police declined to protect them.
The excuse given for banning the Gay Pride march is instructive. Since the marchers have no intention of attacking anyone, the only possible "security" concern could be that bigots might attack them. To deny people their rights because they are threatened by bigots is itself an act of bigotry.
When Japanese officials go to the Yasukuni shrine, just what are they celebrating?
Turkey's Kurdish insurgency is heating up again and Turkey plans to send troops into northern Iraq, defying Bush.
Bush continues to "fight" Islamic extremism in ways that make it stronger.
Unnamed "senior Iraqi officials" now recognize that it is impossible to prevent Iraq from breaking up.
The second article shows how the Bush forces aggravate the civil war, preventing the militias from protecting Sunni-Shi'ite dividing lines in order to keep the violence down.
Bush cannot prevent the breakup of Iraq, but he can still make it slower and bloodier.
How Israel " minimizes civilian casualties": Step 1, order civilians to flee their homes. Step 2, fire missiles at their cars.
Many of Earth's great rivers are running dry, due directly or indirectly to human activity.
The government of Pakistan is unable to shut down Islamic subversive and terrorist activities, because they have too much popular support.
Afghanistan is close to anarchy, says a British general there.
I supported the war against the Taliban, but I have to admit that the results have turned out very bad (although they looked better for a while). I am not in a position to judge whether this outcome could have been avoided by sending more reconstruction money after the war, money that in fact was diverted to invading Iraq.
It was easy to defeat the Taliban in 2001-2002 because their oppressive rule had made them unpopular. It is impossible to suppress the Taliban militarily in areas where they have popular support. To he extent that this support comes down to money from opium, this supports the Taliban only because the Afghan government ries to forbid it.
Bush and Blair protected the Israeli offensive from UN interference.
The neocons that dominate Bush have a history of giving Israel unconditional backing, which enables Israel to steal the Palestinians' land and commit repeated war crimes.
100 Iraqis being killed each day, says UN. That's the equivalent of one 9/11 attack each month, all caused directly or indirectly by Bush's invasion of that country.
The Bush regime isn't satisfied with media concentration in America. Now the FCC wants to increase it yet again.
Uri Avnery on the fighting in Lebanon (and Gaza).