Atlantic Free Press was launched in September 2006 by Dutch-Canadian R.G.
Kastelein of V.O.F. Expathos, in the Netherlands and American Expatriate Chris Floyd of
Oxford, UK.
Brick Ogden, an American Expatriate in Amsterdam has been a key supporter of this project.
Assistant Editor Canadian Chris Cook hails from Victoria, British Columbia and Senior Writer Paul William Roberts is based in Toronto - but often on the road.
The mission of AF Press is simple: to dig out nuggets of truth from
the slag-heap of lies, ignorance and witless diversion that has buried
public discourse today. AF Press provides a new venue for
disseminating hard news and insightful, fact-based analysis of the
harsh realities too often ignored or distorted by the mainstream press.
First the Republicans lost their majority status in Congress. Then the Iraq Study Group sent the White House its report card and gave it a failing grade. It looked like Dick Cheney had finally been put in his rightful place –- the ceremonial office vice presidents have traditionally occupied.
But this is a man who's alternately schmoozed and clawed his way to the executive heights in both government and business. Also, he's suffered four heart attacks and the onset of congestive heart failure. Not to mention undergoing a bypass operation, as well as an angioplasty, the implantation of a defibrillator, and the repair of an aneurysm in an artery.
Any resemblance to one of those horror movie characters that can't be killed is not coincidental.
So formidable a foe is Cheney that appointed dragon slayer Patrick Fitzgerald is either still girding his loins or has abandoned his quest to indict him as quixotic. In other words, counting out Cheney is premature. In fact, Robert Dreyfuss recently described him as "suddenly revived."
Those who persist in believing Bush has been counseled to sideline Cheney would be wise to ask themselves this: Which of Bush's advisors suffers from a death wish?
As if Iraq never happened, top Democrats align themselves with the administration on Iran.
"Oh, they'd never let that happen."
Heard that reaction when you've expressed concern that the administration might authorize an attack on Iran? The Democratic Congress, it's assumed, would surely defer to its war-weary constituency and bar the administration from starting another one. But with Americans focused on Iraq, the Democrats don't need to defer to public opinion on Iran like they do with Iraq.
In fact, according to John Byrne in Raw Story, leading Democratic members of Congress are "uncertain" about how to handle Iran. Their pronouncements on the use of force are not only few and far between but perfunctory in nature.
Take new House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. He recently informed The Jerusalem Post that force was "not an option we want to consider until we know there is no other option." But, he added, "I've not ruled that out."
Hoyer, wrote reporter Hilary Leila Krieger, claimed that his view "is shared by his party, rejecting assertions that the Democrats would be weaker than the Republicans on Iran." Nothing like a public admission by a Democrat that he never met an act of war he wouldn't rubber-stamp.
"The idea that there's a military
solution is absolutely bonkers."
-- Mohamed ElBaradei
When you hear a word like
"bonkers" coming from the mouth of a Nobel laureate, you know he's at
wit's end.
The head of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) is not the only one afraid the
US will
attack
Iran. Even
some Republicans are on red alert. According to a resolution Representative
Walter Jones (NC) has introduced to the House, it's "crystal clear"
that the authority Congress granted the administration to wage war on
Iraq wasn't
one-size-fits-all.
If Bush & Co. want to attack
Iran,
they've got to fill out new forms and go to the back of the line again.
Nor does much of the Pentagon have the
stomach for it, as reported by The Times
of
London, with
a handful of admirals and army generals considering resigning in the face of a
preemptive strike by the
US. But
it wouldn't be the first time the military is dragged kicking and screaming
into war. Besides, the Air Force, as usual, is down with bombing.
Just for argument's sake, let's give
the administration one last benefit of the doubt. Is attacking
Iran
really all that "bonkers"?
Attack Iran
and the "homeland" won't know what hit it.
Remember the stories our parents or grandparents used to tell us about World War II? For those still stateside, goods such as meat, sugar, gasoline, and clothing were rationed. The manufacture of passenger cars was disconotinued because automobile plants were diverted to the war effort.
Also, in 1940, only ten percent of Americans were subject to federal withholding tax; by 1944 nearly all were. In fact, President Roosevelt even tried to impose a 100% (say what?) tax on incomes over $25,000. Needless to say, he was unsuccessful.
Americans might have grumbled, but in retrospect most cherish their memories of contributing to the war effort. Many joined the USO; others the Civil Air Patrol. And, of course, women migrated en masse to the work force for the first time.
Nothing like national sacrifice to bring us together as a people.
5. Conning Condi (Opinion/Opinion)
Author :
by Russel Wellen
In a surprise move, writes Jim Lobe on Antiwar.com, "U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has appointed a prominent neoconservative hawk and leading champion of the
Iraq war to the post of State Department Counselor." Her right-hand man, Philip Zelikow, who was also executive director of the 9/11 Commission and gained further notoriety when he proclaimed that they invaded Iraq to protect
Israel, resigned. He'll be replaced by Elliot Cohen, an American Enterprise Institute type, who learned at the feet of Paul Wolfowitz.
In fact, writes Lobe, Cohen was "particularly scathing about [the Iraq Study Group's] recommendations for Washington to directly engage Syria and Iran and revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process — recommendations which Rice herself has explicitly endorsed in the last few weeks."
With Rice spreading her diplomatic wings ever wider — besides promoting the Syria-Iran talks, she did an end run around Cheney on
North Korea — what gives? Is this just another example of her "one step forward, two steps back" syndrome when it comes to promoting diplomacy over force?
A recent CBS News/New York Times poll showed that 65 percent of Americans endorsed diplomacy with Iran, while 10 percent favored military action. But when asked by an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll if the US should "destroy Iran's ability to construct nuclear weapons," the percentage that advocated an attack rose to 43 with 47 percent demurring.
The same poll also asked if we should attack Iran if it were found responsible for exporting roadside-bomb technology to Iraq. Those in favor were now in the majority — 55 percent — while 45 percent opposed.
The degree to which our opinions are manipulated by the introduction of mounting threats to the equation, as if from a dropper into an experiment, suggests we're unacquainted with the issue. Recent news of Iran seizing British sailors and marines would, if included in a future poll, also undoubtedly tilt answers to the martial side.
But opinion polls are predicated on the assumption that the public is informed. However, as Christopher Shea once observed in a Salon article on the effects of voter ignorance:
"Most people base their votes, and their answers to polls, on only the vaguest feelings about how the economy, or life, is treating them."
Ideally, the polls would have prefaced the above questions with another: "Are you aware that the US is considering a military strike on Iran?" To many respondents, it might have been news.
Americans don't talk about Iraq in polite company.
It may not be borne out by research and data, but in recent years Americans have become more civil to each other. For instance, in New York City, once the benchmark for rudeness, it's now common to hear "pardon me" and "sorry" issuing from the mouths of New Yorkers shouldering past each other on the streets or in the subways.
When asked, those living and working in New York even stop to give directions. In fact, it's not hard to imagine a tourist, when asked about New York's infamous reputation, reply: "New Yorkers rude? That's one of those urban myths, right?"
New York's civility is partly due to one-time mayor Rudolph Giuliani's heavy-handed war on crime as well as his attention, however petty, to "quality-of-life" issues. But it's also a result of national enforcement of civil rights codes in the workplace and schools.
I have just figured out why Republigoats are so eager to establish a "guest worker" program in the United States of America. It is because they believe that money grows on trees, and they are concerned that they will need someone to harvest it for them.
I tuned in to C-Span Radio on the internets yesterday. I got in just in time to listen to them debating "PAYGO." PAYGO, according to the C-Span Congressional Glossary, "compels new spending or tax changes to not add to the federal deficit. New proposals must either be 'budget neutral' or offset with savings derived from existing funds."
The first time I heard the concept of "pay as you go" referred to as the odd D.C. contraction "PAYGO," it fell out of the current president's hula-jawed mouth. It made me laugh very hard. Only later did I learn that PAYGO is actually Washingtonese.
The interesting thing about this afternoon's debate on this portion of House rules was how shocking and foreign the concept of "paying for things with money you actually have" is to Republigoats. Republigoat after Republigoat stood up and warned that, if this crazy lunatic plan of the Democrats was approved—get ready for this—it might lead to tax increases.
Here's Republigoat Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana: "...I will oppose this element of the rules package having to do with the 'pay-as-you-go' provisions, which, while they sound in a common sense way attractive, this particular version, I believe, is lacking for three reasons. I believe it is a weak and watered-down version of PAYGO proposals of the past, including Democratic Party proposals of the past. Number two, it doesn't reduce current spending levels or require a reduction of current spending levels. And number three, it is, as so many of my colleagues have said, a means of justifying tax increases on working families, small businesses, and family farms. In a very real sense, the American people ought to know that this proposal translates to, 'You pay as Congress goes on spending.'"
9. The War Is Stupid (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : Aaron B. Pryor
by Aaron B. Pryor
A few years ago, I felt that I needed a simple phrase that would distill everything I needed to know about the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States into one simple sentence. The phrase came to me as if it dropped out of the sky and bonked me in the noggin.
The war is stupid.
It is. Every piece of it, any piece of it, the very idea of it, its aims, its implementation, its offered justifications, its every single solitary failure, stupid is, stupid does, stupid.
In discussing Iraq, I often find myself quoting a little movie that made a bit of a stir in 1983, "War Games," a film that was likely the beginning of my unexplainable crush on Ally Sheedy, a film where the mega-computer Joshua about to end the world concludes prophetically that the only winning move is not to play. This is indeed the case regarding Iraq. Every time I hear a Republigoat whine that the Democrats don't have any good answers, my reply is that it's because there are no good answers, because the only good answer was used up in March 2003, the one where we don't invade Iraq.
The news was mixed to good to what the hell for those of us who plug in daily to the Air America Radio network, good because the troubled little network has a backer, mixed because Al Franken is hanging up his microphone — perhaps to chase bigger and better things — and to what the hell because Franken's departure leads to the rocket promotion of a bearded professor of a man called Thom Hartmann.
For those of you living in a cave, provided that the cave has food, heat, cable, and every other amenity besides a satellite radio receiver or a high-speed Internet connection, the announcement came down at noon today, as Franken himself announced that the Greens of New York would be purchasing the property and that he, Al Franken, would leave the microphone Feb. 14. He did not provide the two of this one-two punch and tell us if he intended to run against Norm Coleman in Minnie Soda.
It is, surely, a relief to know that the Air America Radio has a backer and that it will survive. It would have been a profound shame to have lost this, once the pluckiest presence in the genre, indeed, that which formed the genre, which previously had consisted of Hurricane Randi in the Sunshine State, Alan Colmes at the improbably Fox "News," Big Ed, and the chronic SFX-abusing Stephanie Miller. Before the Air America, there was some scratching at the gate but no leaping over and no explosive smashing through. Say what you will of the network's reliance on brand and big name dropping. It got them through the door, and it was Franken — whose "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot" was so groundbreaking it's difficult to remember that it was — who led the crush.
So realize how much oxygen Franken's departure will suck out and how, once again, the Air America seems rather unprepared for the transition.
This rant is for Molly Ivins, one on my short list of people I always wanted to be like when I grew up. Hell, I still do. God bless her.
As a sometimes fan of the Adult Swim television program called "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" and as a never ever fan of the current administration and the "war" on "terror," I adore the recent news from Boston.
That Lite-Brite-like frames portraying Ignignokt and Err flipping the bird could lead to such absurd depths, it has many tasty levels to it. It's like when some conservatives took Stephen Colbert seriously. It's like when Ashcroft erected the big curtain to cover up a boobie. What it's like is, that only a narc would discover a graphic of the Mooninite Marauders and conclude that it's terrorism.
The only reason it isn't as absurd on its face as it could be is that it stands in comparison next to the larger effort that spawned it, the phrase that forces me to break out the scare quotes, the "war" on "terror."
America, I think, was too quick to swallow this monstrous absurdity. We've declared war on poverty, on cancer, and on drugs, but each of those declarations comes with an implied understanding that these "wars" on inantimate objects and concepts are somewhat hyperbolic. The current president has actually declared "war" on a tactic, a war that's unwinnable on its face since you lose so long as there's a boy and a bomb and a dream anywhere in the world and since success can only be gauged by what doesn't happen.
On October 17th, with Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, and Donald Rumsfeld standing behind him, George W. Bush solemnly announced, “in memory of the victims of September 11th, it is my honor to sign the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law.”
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
“In memory of the victims of September 11th,” Bush passed a law that Robyn Blumner of the St. Petersburg Times calls “an obscenity against liberty and decency” and that the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) calls “unconstitutional and un-American.” A fitting tribute indeed for the victims whose names have been manipulated by this administration to justify everything from invading Iraq, to the USA PATRIOT Act, to torture, to tax cuts. This “honor” to the victims of September 11th is a national disgrace for which the Bush administration, both houses of Congress, and the media are to blame.
While the White House struggles to convince the nation that the MCA is perfectly legal and essential in order for the CIA to continue “one of the most successful intelligence efforts in American history,” the true implications of this act must be made clear. Out of the many dubious clauses in the act, the most egregious is the one that eliminates the writ of habeas corpus (the right to challenge the legality of one’s imprisonment), a fundamental right that dates back to the Magna Carta. In his First Inaugural Address in 1801, Thomas Jefferson said, “Freedom of the person under the protection of the habeas corpus I deem [one of the] essential principles of our government." Ironically, the Supreme Court case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which held that Bush’s original military tribunals were illegal and made the Congressionally approved MCA necessary, would never have occurred if the MCA had been in effect, as it was petitioned by a detainee.
Over the past several years, people who care about what is
happening in the world and who feel compelled to tell the truth about it have
had a tremendous realization: we have
the means of production to make media.This realization has spurred a media revolution in which the traditional
model of passively consuming the news through a corporate filter has given way
to a new model of active citizenship and aggressive truth-telling.
It is a clear sign of the democratization of the media when
the Internet, once the headquarters of only the political fringe, provides such
a strong progressive community that the “Net-Roots” can influence an election
on any scale. For a long time, it was
only the independent and alternative media that questioned the policies of this
government, while the mainstream media became either dormant or complicit.
Of the many atrocities and crimes committed by the United States in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, the military’s use of Agent Orange has left the most destructive legacy, resulting in the ongoing suffering of Vietnamese citizens and U.S. veterans. This is what was done.
“…This is the crime of which I accuse my country…and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it…But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.”
James Baldwin, Letter to my Nephew on the 100th Anniversary of the Emancipation
War is Hell, but, for many, so is the aftermath, the ensuing “peace” that emerges out of war’s dust and ashes. Long after the last bullet tears through the flesh of the last soldier, the Hell of pain, suffering, and trauma remains. Though military operations in the Vietnam War have been over for decades, the war continues to rage each day in the form of children born with severe deformities, desiccated land that was once rich and arable, and veterans on both sides of the conflict who frequently develop new symptoms and are constantly plagued by old ones.The devastating effects of Agent Orange, a defoliant used to thin out the Vietnam jungle and destroy enemy crops, are a blemish on the U.S. national record and a glaring reminder of American foreign policy that has little respect for life and law. Decades later, the lethal effects linger, but there has been no justice.
In late 1961, despite strident objections from the State Department over the potential effects on civilians, the use of “burn down” herbicides in Vietnam was authorized by President Kennedy as part of “Operation Hades,” which would soon become “Operation Ranch Hand.” These defoliation and crop destruction efforts continued at a moderate pace until the war escalated in the mid-1960s. By early 1965, a new herbicide called “Agent Orange” was introduced.
Of the many atrocities and crimes committed by the United States in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, the military’s use of Agent Orange has left the most destructive legacy, resulting in the ongoing suffering of both Vietnamese citizens and U.S. veterans, for whom there has been little justice or reconciliation. This is what must be done.
The devastating effects of Agent Orange are a blemish on the U.S. national record and an obstacle impeding true reconciliation between the U.S. government and both Vietnamese and American victims of the toxic herbicide (for information about Agent Orange and its effects, see “Part 1: What Was Done” [link to Part 1]). For this reason, issues of international law, justice, and corporate and governmental responsibility must be addressed clearly and directly. Those who are currently suffering from the poisonous effects of Agent Orange, though, have found that the struggle for justice can be as toxic.
While most discussion of President George W. Bush’s foreign policy centers around the much maligned invasion of Iraq, the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, and the escalating tension with Iran, only slight attention is usually given by the media and the public to this administration’s policies in Africa concerning the HIV/AIDS crisis. Bush, in fact, is responsible for a “dramatic increase in U.S. aid to Africa,” boosting “direct development and humanitarian aid…to more than $4 billion a year from $1.4 billion in 2001,” thanks to the passage of the AIDS Leadership Act in 2003. Behind these impressive numbers, though, are underlying issues that have outraged some international health and aid organizations, invigorating a debate over how aid should be distributed and what the priorities should be. One of the most controversial clauses in the AIDS Leadership Act states that federal funding is unavailable “to any group or organization that does not have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.” Stipulations like this one, which is currently the subject of ongoing litigation, have served to undermine the potential of foreign aid to curb the epidemic of HIV/AIDS in Africa.
During his State of the Union address in 2003, Bush proposed the AIDS Leadership Act, claiming that “this comprehensive plan will prevent 7 million new AIDS infections, treat at least 2 million people with life-extending drugs and provide humane care for millions of people suffering from AIDS and for children orphaned by AIDS.”
Modern day Somalia became a nation of profound paradox and a web of political conundrum — a country where perception is always reality; where the “mundane” is a cherished deadly thrill; where “new” political dynamics are nothing but old, and, where potential “solutions” are problems. But, that is not all.
Once again, Somalia became a magnetic political rink that lures powerful entities with incompatible strategic interests into a potentially deadly competition that causes more suffering for that dying state.
In the past it was between the super powers of the Cold War who armed Somalia to the danger zone and paved the way to its ongoing demise. Today, it is between partners on the “global war on terror” with dichotomous interests: Ethiopia — a country lately became known as ‘the Hegemon of the Horn’ — and Washington.
Beneath the veneer of their mutual strategic interest highlighted by their recent military cooperation against the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) there is an intriguing political undercurrent that is rapidly gathering momentum as Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the leadership of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) continue their “business as usual” approach and implement a successive, haphazard set of initiatives that proven to add fuel to inter-clan deadly polarization and keep Somalia in perpetual chaos. The reckless invasion of the residence of an influential clan leader as he met with other clan elders and the former president of the Transitional National Government is but one such example.
The prospect of the ill-advised partnership between Meles Zenawi’s Ethiopia and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) ever solving the Somali problem is dead on arrival.
And though their ferocious military campaign has created a horrific carnage that the International Committee for Red Cross called “the worst in 15 years” and the UN described the worst humanitarian crises of the day, the duo continue to garner support from Washington whose initial interest was to hunt down “three global terrorist” desperadoes, but now seem to be comfortably laying in the middle of a dangerous intersection; blindfolded, with a big stick in the hand.
Some observers suspect willful blindness staged by the hawkish wing of the administration to pave the way for what could eventually lead to a full-fledged U.S. military involvement. These observers point out to a pattern of questionable decisions the administration continues to make in dealing with the situation in Somalia .
Perhaps the most inflammatory among them is the ill-timed visit of the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Jendayi Frazer, to Baidoa to meet with President Abdullahi Yusuf as the highest ranking U.S. official to visit Somalia in recent years.
Just like all other actions, speaking the truth has its reaction and indeed price.
A few months ago, I was honored to join two Middle East experts — Professor John Mueller and Professor John Quigley — in a panel discussion on Jimmy Carter’s “controversial” book (Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid).
As I, a small-time writer, was franticly searching for material to make me sound halfway intelligent, I came across numerous articles, essays, and reviews that offered little or no refutation of the content of the book and instead focused on the author’s alleged “anti-Semitic” motive.
Leading that ad hominem campaign was none other than Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard. No surprise there, as the long time civil-libertarian has lately turned into a blatant advocate of legalizing torture, executing collective punishment, and sustaining the brutal subjugation of the Palestinian people.
As I continued my search, I was distracted by a profoundly more caustic campaign of character assassination by Dershowitz and company aimed at Assistant Professor Norman Finkelstein of DePaul.
As the latest summit to discuss a post-Kyoto treaty continues in New York this week, the single most revealing statement has already been spoken: “We need to climate-proof economic growth”. These few words, told to reporters by the UN’s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, during the recent Vienna round of talks, define the blinded establishment approach to tackling climate change.[1] Only if continued trade liberalisation and corporate profits are kept sacrosanct, remains the assumption, is it possible to consider even a broad agreement on future cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.
With dire weather events and studies being reported on an almost daily basis, fewer sceptics are able to dismiss the reality of dangerous climate change. In the same week as around 1,000 diplomats, scientists, business leaders and environmental activists from 158 countries attended the U.N.’s Vienna Climate Change Talks, a top security think-tank stated that climate change could have global security implications “on a par with nuclear war unless urgent action is taken”,[2] whilst leading scientists warned of a looming “global food crisis” that will require more food to be produced over the next 50 years than has been produced during the past 10,000 years combined.[3]
The rapidity of these dystopian predictions has grown to Faustian proportions; the year 2007 already has the dubious accolade of witnessing the most extreme weather events on record,[4] as characterised by the millions of Africans just hit by some of the worst floods in a generation in which villagers were “wiped off the map”.[5] This summer, the collapse of the Arctic ice cap (losing a third of its ice since measurements began 30 years ago and “stunning” experts)[6] was topped off by the latest UN study from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who now believe that the tipping point for widespread catastrophe – involving a two degrees rise in global temperatures - is “very unlikely” to be avoided.[7]
Common sense
Common sense would presume that the resulting questions for policymakers, long since removed from a debate on mans culpability, must inevitably focus on how to achieve a wholesale reorganisation of society to drastically decrease fossil fuel use, curb excessive consumption, and reform the global economic framework to ensure that all countries can live sustainably within ecological limits. The collective government response to date, however, makes it seem like the countless thousands of lives being destroyed by flash floods, famines and desertification are living in a parallel world to the business-as-usual dealings of multinational corporations.
The stalemate reached during the Vienna talks reiterates the ongoing blindness to climate change reality demonstrated by government leaders. China, which continues to open up two coal-fired power plants a week, refuses to cut emissions if it means sacrificing economic growth, compared with the US senior climate negotiator who said that the E.U.’s goal of slashing emissions to half of 1990 levels by 2050 would “be a very tough target to meet”[8] – even though the IPCC determine that an 80 percent reduction in ‘global’ greenhouse-gas emissions is needed before 2050.
At the same time as Japan, Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada and Russia all argued that the level of emissions cuts required should “be kept open”,[9] a Worldwatch Institute report was released that showed more wood was removed from forests in 2005 than ever before, more steel and aluminium was produced in 2006 than in previous world records, and inconceivable billions of tonnes of fossil fuels and oil are increasingly being consumed.[10] The more urgent and fundamental question, therefore, is what factors continue to drive this one way ticket towards ecological disaster, and what social measures really need to be taken if cataclysmic global warming is to be forestalled?
21. The Temporal Talisman (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : Ahmed A/Kadir (Shiine)
by Ahmed A/Kadir (Shiine)
The plight is extremely massive, a mist of dust and smoke covers the entire city of Mogadishu, the indiscriminate Shelling of the Ethiopian army is still unremitting, but the covered concealed tragedy is finally transpired and turned to a visible heartbreaking catastrophe.
Since the Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia, the Situation of war devastated Somalia was getting worse and tainted to a point where thousands were killed, others were banned to bury the bodies of their beloved ones, much more wounded and couldn’t be transported to the overloaded poorly facilitated hospitals, millions flee from their homes and the humanitarian aid was rebuffed to reach them.
Mogadishu, the capital city is totally demolished, crowded city markets, hospitals and other public places are the targets of the Ethiopian tanks and mortar shells. The sidewalks of the major streets are nastily destructed, dug then hollowed out and today like the border line between the two neighboring countries are the trenches of the Ethiopian troops.
After the city markets were devastated and isolated, that magnified the scarcity of food supplies, the Ethiopian troops cordoned many residential areas, constraining poor civilians including infants and unfit ailing elders to stay in their homes for several days with no food or water, and a bullet was simply fed for those that came out for foodstuffs. That was really a death sentence that silently killed hundreds of innocent civilians that luckily survived from their merciless indiscriminate shelling.
Michael O’McCarthy has been many things during his eventful and occasionally tumultuous life. Not only has he been a journalist, poet, novelist, film producer and artist, he has also been what you might call a political prisoner. He walks, in other words, the walk. On his good days, he says, he is “a revolutionary humanist” and on his bad ones, he “simply hates the ruling class.”
Well, yes, judging from his new novel, Rebels in Hell (iUniverse), O’McCarthy hates the ruling class with a sort of white-hot intensity. He proves himself to be a polemical fictionalist in the mold of Orwell and Huxley. Take his protagonist, Healy, an idealistic writer whose ire was “focused on the politicians who had stolen the country for the rich.” Hmmmm. Sounds familiar. Healy’s foil is Miguel, the assassin for hire who learned his craft (extremely well!) in the U.S. Marines.
The deal between Cheney and Libby was made some time ago and itisthis ~ if Libby was indicted by Fitzgerald, Cheney would guarantee his pardon by Bush andLibbywould never spend a day in prison. The clock is running...
It is common beltway knowledge that Libby took the rap for Cheney and that this administration is, in essence, a Dick Cheney administration with Bushserving as its oblivious cheerleader.
As such, it is just a matterof when ( notif ) before Bush ( who answers to Cheney ) will pardon Libby and it most likely will be during the July Independence day recess or the Summer Congressional recess in early August ~ which is when most ofthe Cheney/Bushdirty work is done ( Bolton appointment to the UN is a classic example )
That gives theWhite Houseplenty of time to build their pardon case~for the prospect of Cheney's chief of staff in the clinker ~ as visible evidence of this corrupt administration's abuse of power ~ would be too much for these arrogant moral cowards to face.
The pressure to pardon Libby will come from outside led by the neoconpipe organTHE WEEKLY STANDARD.Peter Baker writes in the Washington Post last week of their strategy ~ The Weekly Standard followed with a cutting article accusing Bush of abandoning Libby: "So much for loyalty, or decency, or courage. For President Bush, loyalty is apparently a one-way street; decency is something he's for as long as he doesn't have to take any risks in its behalf; and courage — well, that's nowhere to be seen. Many of us used to respect President Bush. Can one respect him still?"
Bush will be seen, or spun, as bowing to the pressure from within his party to do the compassionate thingand pardon Libby ~ while, in reality, the decision has already been made and only the date remains a question mark.
Meanwhile U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton isrightfullyholding the line on prison time ~ as the Center for American Progress reports.
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radioshow TRUTHTALK onwww.conscioustalk.net
In wartime, everything is done to subvert the moral force of love and connection but in the end — only love prevail
-Allen L Roland
The great dilemma of our times is that America is at odds with the great coming together of mankind.
Europe is creating a great nation state and America is isolating itself with its Cheney/Bush unilateral preemptive neo-conservative war agenda.
As such, we are disconnected from the world — we are the last holdout.
It was Teilhard de Chardin who wrote:
"If there were no real propensity to unite, even at a prodigiously rudimentary level, indeed, even in the molecule itself — it would be physically impossible for love to appear higher up in the ' hominized ' or human form."
It is ego consciousness that negates this universal urge to unite and we, as a nation, are still embedded in that cocoon of separateness and isolation — from which only love and connectedness can free us.
My friend Rita Corriel puts it this way:
"For me, the antichrist is all that negates the 'connecting principle'..It is the 'anti heart', we might say. It is that which creates alienation.. Supposedly, Dante described 'hell' as a place where "nothing connects to nothing."
With our illegal and brutal occupation of Iraq are we not approaching a hell — where nothing connects to nothing.
Listen to the poetic words of Manuel Valenzuela as he describes war:
"For war — that human weakness created by warmongering leaders that send to battle the mostly young, ignorant, easily manipulated, testosterone-filled members of the lower castes of any one tribe – unleashes in human beings a most vicious animal from the deepest reaches of our psyches. The primordial necessity to kill, the hunger to maim and rape, the desire to inflict pain and suffering is therefore reborn, free to act indiscriminately, away from the menacing glow of the rule of law and the watchful eye of humanity."
25. Tillman's Revenge (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : Allen L Roland
by Allen L. Roland
The execution and silencing of Pat Tillman could well be the singular event which will lead to the downfall of the Cheney/Bush crime syndicate and their ongoing abuse of power - as such, the poster boy for Bush's war could well become the poster boy for Bush's demise.
- Allen L Roland
The American people can reluctantly go along with the Bush administration's WMD charade in justifying its attack of Iraq and even their Katrina response fiasco but it will unequivocally not go along with the deliberate execution of Pat Tillman because he was about to go public with his misgivings about Bush's photo op war with Iraq.
Tillman will get his revenge when Congress reopens the investigation of Tillman's death and it should be sooner than later ~ for this will be the singular event which could well lead to the downfall of the Cheney/Bush crime syndicate and their ongoing abuse of power.
As such, Pat Tillman who was the poster boy for Bush's war could ironically become the poster boy for Bush's downfall.
Consider this, Tillman was deeply troubled by the war. In fact, he was overheard speaking out about the Iraq invasion and telling another soldier to vote for Kerry. The Progressive Review reveals that Tillman's favorite author was none other than Norm Chomsky. A visit with Chomsky was set up for as soon as Tillman returned. It seem most likely he was planning to speak out loudly and publicly against the war when his tour was over.
Step in, Billy Perry, Paratrooper-Rifleman with the 101st Airborne Division during the TET Offensive in 1968 to explore the technical aspect of how Tillman's injuries may or may not have been executed;
" NOBODY, 'cept Superman, can hold an automatic weapon steady enough to deliver a shot group onto somebody's forehead, on full automatic, further than 1 foot away. If there is a "shot group", then the shots were administered on "semi", and Tillmann was dead after the 1st shot, and his head was held steady, for shots #2, & #3 " ( PROBABLY AGAINST THE GROUND )
But here is the zinger ~ Tillman kept an extensive journal since he was 16 and guarded it with his life. A journal in which I am sure he shared his deep reservations about what he was seeing and experiencing in the middle east.Two days after his death, the journal, along with almost all of his other personal affects, disappeared.
Why is this an important story ? Because, if proven true, it is direct evidence of the lengths these neocon fanatics, who are running our Republic, will go to implement their grand global political design. As such, the planned execution of a prominent dissenter makes it far easier to entertain the possibility of a planned 9/11 event and coverup at the expense of thousands of innocent American lives.
The progressive Internet and media is rightfully circling and smelling blood in the water as witnessed by Keith Olberman's recent short interview of Gen Wesley Clark, on this very same subject - Click here.
REOPEN PAT TILLMAN'S WRONGFUL DEATH INVESTIGATION
Freelance columnist Allen L Roland is available for comments , interviews and speaking engagements ( allen@allenroland.com )
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net
Wednesday, 01 August 2007 | 761 Hit(s)1 comment(s)
We now have six years of evidence that George Bush is not all there. The occupant of the White House has consistently demonstrated an extraordinary ability to evade reality and a reckless proclivity to steer the nation by a distorted compass made up of cocaine-induced delusions and two decades of insobriety. Add to this mix a little religious fanaticism and a gigantic ego that serves to accentuate an acute case of intellectual dwarfism.
In Bush, we have a man who accepts only the counsel of those that agree with his rudimentary understanding of history. The man is a gambling fool – the kind of loser who doubles up as his political fortunes evaporate.
It seems forgotten that the 9/11 atrocities happened on the president’s watch. Turn back the clock and witness a distraught nation rallying around the president and giving him a carte blanche to react as he saw fit. Recall that virtually every government around the world instinctively embraced America, wished her well, demonstrated solidarity and offered full cooperation in hunting down the terrorists responsible for the carnage.
In the months that followed, the president’s popularity went through the roof – some polls had him standing taller than any of his predecessors with a 90% approval rating. Instead of holding him accountable for his failure to protect the nation from threats that were all too apparent, he was granted a mandate to reshape the world and dilute our sacred civil liberties.
You can read all about the nasty business of washing war crimes at the Washington Post. They start with fixing the headline. “Death in Haditha” - not ‘mass murder in Haditha’ or ‘Another American Atrocity in Iraq.’ Next, forget the damning details, screw the truth and give the perpetrators all the room in the world to blame their conduct on ‘mistakes’ made in the heat of battle amidst the fog of war.
There never was any mystery about what happened in Haditha. Four of the victims were students and the fifth was a taxi driver giving them a lift back from school. One of the Marines involved in the executions later urinated on the bodies. The same company of marines continued their killing spree by butchering twenty other civilians, including women and children. As usual, the Pentagon managed to cover up the story for a few months. Fortunately, in this instance, the survivors got to tell their story.
Remember the name of the rotten excuse of a journalist who covered the story for the Washington Post – Josh White. After giving an obligatory sanitized version of the facts, he speculates that “the accounts provide evidence that as the Marines came under attack, they responded in ways that are difficult to reconcile with their rules of engagement.” Really! Is that it? Maybe we should throw the book at this death squad attired in Marine uniforms for the crime of “breaching the rules of engagement.” That should at least qualify as a misdemeanor of some sort.
You can’t make this stuff up. George Bush believes that “the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude.” On the other side of the political divide, Presidential hopeful Joseph Biden - a sponsor of the anti-surge legislation pending before Congress - maintains that we’ve “done enough for the Iraqis.”
What a strange war we’re having Iraq. After four years of shifting rationales, Americans remain clueless about why Bush opened this Pandora’s box. The cold math that led to this disastrous imperial project is just too much for the pundits to own up to.
Far too many Americans trip over whatever happens to be the latest rationale for sending half our army half way around the world to fight a people that did us no harm. Even the anti-war camp is crowded with pundits whose gripe de jour is that Bush is a messianic Samaritan idealist who miscalculated the cost of exporting liberty to Iraqi ingrates.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s very gratifying to see the war party’s constituency dwindle to an irredentist thirty percent of the population. It wasn’t so long ago that opponents of the Iraq war were rewarded with scarlet letters identifying them as subversive Al-Qaeda apologists.
As cheerleaders for Israel go, it is hard to beat Alan Dershowitz. If ever there was a coward and a hypocrite – it has to be this Likudnik operator who postures as a ‘liberal’ in search of an ‘honest debate’ on the merits of tormenting the Palestinians.
Debate this, Alan. On March 28, 1988 – you published an article in the Seattle Times titled “Israel is still a genuine democracy.” I recall the article because I responded to it with an editorial of my own. I challenge you to defend that article in a public forum.
In that particular work of fiction, you characterized the repression of the Palestinians as “occasional overreactions.” Dr Jennifer Leaning of the Harvard Medical School had a different take. Commenting on the behavior of the Israeli troops during the first Intifada, she reported that “they do not appear to be out of control. That is one of the darker things we saw. These are not aberrations. The pattern is controlled, a systematic pattern over a wide geographical area. It’s as if they’ve been instructed.”
In a contemporary Haaretz article, Doctor Charles Greenbaum, a psychologist at Hebrew University, revealed that Israeli officers had been given orders “to break property, break legs and arms, hit people even while not dispersing a demonstration.” He continued: “soldiers will laugh at an incident when they beat people up or imitate a woman who was screaming because they took away her child.”
Who would have expected any other results from an official policy of “force, might and beatings” intended to “put the fear of death into Arabs?” Dershowitz might recall that the authors of these words were Prime Minister Shamir and Defense Minister Rabin.
Get out your beltway dictionaries. It’s time to translate Feith-based intelligence from Pentagonese to plain English. A long delayed three year internal Pentagon review has determined that Douglas Feith orchestrated the deliberate and systematic corruption of pre-war intelligence. As a consequence, the Pentagon's inspector general has rendered the verdict that Feith’s conduct was ‘inappropriate’ but ‘authorized’ and ‘legal.’
An indignant Feith was quick to take exception to the Inspector’s finding. He defended his record of falsifying intelligence as ‘good government.’ The unrepentant Likudnik was quoted as saying "I disagree with the inspector general's opinions here mainly because, if heeded, they would discourage policy officials from asking tough questions about the quality of CIA work." Even in Pentagonese – that spells Chutzpah.
Never mind that Feith’s doctored intelligence was used to coerce the American public into supporting the invasion of a country that posed no threat to the United States. Four years on, the occupation of our Iraqi colony continues to claim a hundred souls a day at a cost of two billion dollars a week. Regardless, by Pentagon standards, there was nothing ‘illegal’ about the conspiracy to bamboozle a traumatized post-911 America into believing that Iraq was responsible for the atrocities at the World Trade Center.
Let’s begin with the inspector general’s assessment of Feith’s ‘inappropriate’ activities. "The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy developed, produced, and then disseminated alternative intelligence assessments on the Iraq and al-Qaeda relationship, which included some conclusions that were inconsistent with the consensus of the Intelligence Community, to senior decision-makers. While such actions were not illegal or unauthorized, the actions were, in our opinion, inappropriate given that the intelligence assessments were intelligence products and did not clearly show the various with the consensus of the Intelligence Community. This condition occurred because of an expanded role and mission of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy from policy formulation to alternative intelligence analysis and dissemination. As a result, the Office of the Undersecretary for Defense Policy did not provide
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First the Republicans lost their majority status in Congress. Then the Iraq Study Group sent the White House its report card and gave it a failing grade. It looked like Dick Cheney had finally been put in his rightful place –- the ceremonial office vice presidents have traditionally occupied.
Heard that reaction when you've expressed concern that the administration might authorize an attack on Iran? The Democratic Congress, it's assumed, would surely defer to its war-weary constituency and bar the administration from starting another one. But with Americans focused on Iraq, the Democrats don't need to defer to public opinion on Iran like they do with Iraq.
In a surprise move, 
A recent CBS News/New York Times poll showed that 65 percent of Americans endorsed diplomacy with Iran, while 10 percent favored military action. But when asked by an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll if the US should "destroy Iran's ability to construct nuclear weapons," the percentage that advocated an attack rose to 43 with 47 percent demurring.
I have just figured out why Republigoats are so eager to establish a "guest worker" program in the United States of America. It is because they believe that money grows on trees, and they are concerned that they will need someone to harvest it for them. 
A few years ago, I felt that I needed a simple phrase that would distill everything I needed to know about the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States into one simple sentence. The phrase came to me as if it dropped out of the sky and bonked me in the noggin. 
The news was mixed to good to what the hell for those of us who plug in daily to the Air America Radio network, good because the troubled little network has a backer, mixed because Al Franken is hanging up his microphone — perhaps to chase bigger and better things — and to what the hell because Franken's departure leads to the rocket promotion of a bearded professor of a man called Thom Hartmann. 
As a sometimes fan of the Adult Swim television program called "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" and as a never ever fan of the current administration and the "war" on "terror," I adore the recent news from Boston.
On October 17th, with Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, and Donald Rumsfeld standing behind him, George W. Bush 
by Aaron Sussman 
While most discussion of President George W. Bush’s foreign policy centers around the much maligned invasion of Iraq, the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, and the escalating tension with Iran, only slight attention is usually given by the media and the public to this administration’s policies in Africa concerning the HIV/AIDS crisis. Bush, in fact, is responsible for a “
Modern day Somalia became a nation of profound paradox and a web of political conundrum — a country where perception is always reality; where the “mundane” is a cherished deadly thrill; where “new” political dynamics are nothing but old, and, where potential “solutions” are problems. But, that is not all. 
The prospect of the ill-advised partnership between Meles Zenawi’s Ethiopia and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) ever solving the Somali problem is dead on arrival. 
Just like all other actions, speaking the truth has its reaction and indeed price. 
As the latest summit to discuss a post-Kyoto treaty continues in New York this week, the single most revealing statement has already been spoken: “We need to climate-proof economic growth”. These few words, told to reporters by the UN’s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, during the recent Vienna round of talks, define the blinded establishment approach to tackling climate change.[1] Only if continued trade liberalisation and corporate profits are kept sacrosanct, remains the assumption, is it possible to consider even a broad agreement on future cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions. 
The execution and silencing of Pat Tillman could well be the singular event which will lead to the downfall of the Cheney/Bush crime syndicate and their ongoing abuse of power - as such, the poster boy for Bush's war could well become the poster boy for Bush's demise.
We now have six years of evidence that George Bush is not all there. The occupant of the White House has consistently demonstrated an extraordinary ability to evade reality and a reckless proclivity to steer the nation by a distorted compass made up of cocaine-induced delusions and two decades of insobriety. Add to this mix a little religious fanaticism and a gigantic ego that serves to accentuate an acute case of intellectual dwarfism. 
As cheerleaders for Israel go, it is hard to beat Alan Dershowitz. If ever there was a coward and a hypocrite – it has to be this Likudnik operator who postures as a ‘liberal’ in search of an ‘honest debate’ on the merits of tormenting the Palestinians. 
Get out your beltway dictionaries. It’s time to translate Feith-based intelligence from Pentagonese to plain English. A long delayed three year internal Pentagon review has determined that Douglas Feith orchestrated the deliberate and systematic corruption of pre-war intelligence. As a consequence, the Pentagon's inspector general has rendered the verdict that Feith’s conduct was ‘inappropriate’ but ‘authorized’ and ‘legal.’