Dive into the archives.
- Your Tax Dollars at Work
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is helping Israel to construct an apartheid road infrastructure in the occupied Palestinian West Bank by financing nearly a quarter of the segregated road system primarily for the benefit of Israeli settlers. USAID’s figures state that the agency has financed 235 km of roads in the West [...]
- What If There Are Settlers Among Them?
A senior American diplomat recently told representatives of the Israeli Defense and Foreign ministries, “I don’t want your security officers to check our cars. What if there are settlers among them? I will not have my people end up like (slain Prime Minister Yitzhak) Rabin.” (full article…)
- And You’re “Unfairly Portrayed” As a Dove
President Shimon Peres tells Washington Post prime minister’s agreement to two-state solution, freezing of settlements connotes shift from right-wing ideology; adds that Netanyahu is unfairly portrayed as an extremist in US (full article…)
- That Oil is Ours Dammit!
Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens told Congress on Wednesday that U.S. energy companies are “entitled” to some of Iraq’s crude because of the large number of American troops that lost their lives fighting in the country and the U.S. taxpayer money spent in Iraq. (full article…)
- What the US Media Chooses to Ignore
The use of Baluchi elements, for example, is problematic, Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East, told me. “The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al Qaeda,” Baer told me. “These [...]
- Glenn Greenwald on American Hypocrisy
One of the taboo topics in the American media is how the U.S. Government routinely violates the principles we espouse for, and try to impose on, the rest of the world. We systematically torture Muslims and then cover it up and protect our torturers while preaching accountability and the rule of law; we condemn deprivations [...]
- Rape and the GOP
First, you are required to get over your initial disgust that such legislation is even necessary, that such clauses even exist and that the Pentagon is already doing business with such contractors (hi, Halliburton/KBR!), and that there has already been a truly horrible case validating it, wherein a 20-year-old female employee was allegedly gang-raped by [...]
- Obama’s Bombs
An Afghan woman and a child were killed in a joint NATO-Afghan operation against insurgents in Afghanistan on Friday, sparking a protest by a group of angry villagers. (full article…)
- Oil Corruption
In 2003, U.S. diplomatist Peter Galbraith resigned at the end of a distinguished, 24-year government career. Over the years that followed, he worked as a contract-based adviser to leaders in Iraq’s Kurdish community, while also arguing passionately in public media that Iraq’s Kurds should be given maximum independence from Baghdad – including full control over [...]
- Don’t Worry, We Never Doubted It
American officials say Washington will likely exercise its veto power if report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza is brought to a Security Council vote. (full article…)
- Spies
Republican members of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus said the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) have tried to plant “spies” within key national-security committees in order to shape legislative policy. (full article…) This is interesting (and shameful)… When an Islamic lobby groups gets interns inside Congress, they’re called spies and House members cite passages from [...]
- The Big Question
So are British troops in Afghanistan there to defend the UK from al-Qa’ida attack, as Gordon Brown says? No, we are there because the priority of British foreign policy is to stick close to the Americans. The Americans are still trying to work out why they are there, but President Obama is also citing the [...]
- Something Iran and the U.S. Have in Common
Amnesty International has condemned the execution of Behnoud Shojaee, a 21-year-old Iranian, at Tehran’s Evin Prison at dawn on Sunday, for a murder he was accused of having committed when he was 17. (full article…)
- Afghanistan, Eight Years On
Invading Afghanistan was a clear war crime, despite the tendency to term it the “good war” by so-called antiwar voices in the West. Instead of treating the 9/11 attacks as a unique crime and cooperating with the international community to arrest Bin-Laden and his acolytes, Bush launched his Global War on Terror and invaded Afghanistan [...]
- Atoms For Peace
For all the recent uproar over Iran’s nuclear program, little attention has been paid to the fact that the country which first provided Tehran with nuclear equipment was the United States. In 1967, under the “Atoms for Peace” program launched by President Eisenhower, the US sold the Shah of Iran’s government a 5-megawatt, light-water type [...]
- It’s Clear Who He Takes His Orders From
The decision by the United Nations Human Rights Council to delay the vote on the findings of its report into the Gaza conflict – in line with a request by the Palestinian Authority – has shocked the Palestinian public. Palestinian sources told Haaretz that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made the decision to delay the vote [...]
- This is “Change”
His successor in the White House is now sending different signals. US President Barack Obama began his career as an opponent of the Iraq war, but now, after moving to the White House, he too is making use of the superpower’s military might. Obama is increasing US troop numbers in Afghanistan while, in neighboring Pakistan, [...]
- Déjà Vu
Not all are persuaded. Glenn Greenwald, an author and a left-leaning blogger for the online magazine Salon, called the parallels with the charges that Iraq had so-called weapons of mass destruction in 2002 “substantial and disturbing.” “The administration is making inflammatory claims about another country’s W.M.D. program and intentions without providing any evidence,” he said. [...]
- Obama’s Bombs
Afghan tribal elders said Thursday that eight people, at least five of them civilians, were killed in an airstrike in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday. An American military spokeswoman, Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, confirmed the airstrike, in the Nad Ali district of the troubled province of Helmand, but declined to estimate the number of casualties before a [...]
- Don’t Hold Your Breath
PA source: US to press Israel on settlements (full article…)
- Land of the “Free”
The New York Philharmonic scratched its trip to Cuba at the end of October because the United States government was barring a group of patrons from going along, the orchestra said on Thursday. (full article…)
- U.S. Pressure & the Lousy Palestinian Authority
In a startling shift, the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council dropped its efforts to forward a report accusing Israel of possible war crimes to the Security Council, under pressure from the United States, diplomats said Thursday. (full article…)
- Dahlan
In August the charismatic Dahlan, 47, who has worked closely with the Israelis and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, was elected to Fatah’s 18-member Central Committee, the movement’s executive body, at landmark legislative elections. (full article…) I suppose they already forgot that this “charismatic” figure was the force behind the U.S.-backed failed coup in Gaza… [...]
- NYT Fails To Mention that Noriega Was Also “Made in America”
Time magazine observed that “his fledgling regime distinctly bore the label ‘Made in U.S.A.’ ” Always sensitive to any hint of Yankee imperialism, Latin American governments, including Communist Cuba and Chile’s right-wing military regime, sharply criticized the United States’ action and the new Panamanian government — even though some of these countries had severely castigated [...]
- Capable… But Willing?
Ms. Rice denied a double standard. The report had a lopsided focus on Israel, which is capable of investigating possible war crimes, while Sudan is not, she said. (full article…)
- The Downside of American Torture
Prolonged stress from the CIA’s harsh interrogations could have impaired the memories of terrorist suspects, diminishing their ability to recall and provide the detailed information the spy agency sought, according to a scientific paper published Monday. (full article…)
- Salman Rushdie’s Sage Assessment (Writing in 2002)
Western critics of America’s Afghan campaign are enraged because they have been shown to be wrong at every step: no, US forces weren’t humiliated the way the Russians had been; and yes, the air strikes did work; and no, the Northern Alliance didn’t massacre people in Kabul; and yes, the Taliban did crumble away like [...]
- Abu Aardvark’s Verdict
I’ve had plenty of criticisms of the Obama team’s tactical choices along the way — letting the settlements battle draw out, not acting to alleviate the Gaza disaster, unreasonably expecting Arab concessions in response to tepid Israeli statements, and do on. But they’ve made it clear that the time for games is coming to an [...]
- The Washington Post Hands Over Palestinian Land to Israel
The administration also concluded, wrongly, that obtaining an unconditional Israeli settlement freeze was an essential first step. In fact settlements are no longer a strategic obstacle to peace; as a practical matter, most of the construction is in areas that will not be part of a Palestinian state. (full article…) This is the kind of [...]
- Scale Back
President Barack Obama is considering VP Joe Biden’s idea to scale back the troop presence in Afghanistan. (full article…)
- Language Skills
About a third of Foreign Service officers in jobs that require language skills don’t have the proficiency required to do their jobs, hurting America’s ability to advocate its interests around the world, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office. The report, which has not yet been released, but was obtained by The [...]
- Scare Tactics from Your Friendly HMO
Many elderly Las Vegas residents were alarmed and confused Wednesday after receiving a mailer with an enclosed letter signed by the Chief Medical Officer of Humana Medicare, Philip Painter, claiming that Congress and the President are considering proposals to cut “important benefits and services” of Medicare. (full article…)
- Noam Chomsky On the 9/11 Conspiracy Kooks
First of all, I don’t think much of those theories, but I am bombarded with letters about this subject. It’s not only a huge industry but it’s kind of a fanatic industry. Many other people think I ought to change my priorities. But of the couple of hundred letters I’m getting every day, the flood [...]
- We Already Know the U.S. Was Involved
“I think there is no doubt that in 2002, the United States had at the very least full knowledge about the coup, and could even have been directly involved,” Carter said in an interview with El Tiempo published Sunday. (full article…)
- Life Expectancy Among African Americans Rivals North Korea
Overall whites in Louisiana can expect to outlive African Americans by more than four years. The gap is larger when considering geography and race combined. Whites in Orleans Parish outlive their African American neighbors, on average, by a full decade. African American life span in Orleans, at 69.3 years, is nearly as low as that [...]
- The Bush Years
Last week, the Census Bureau released a statistical report on the last year of George W. Bush’s presidency. The numbers were brutal. On every indicator, Americans lost ground during the Bush era. The median income slumped. The poverty rate increased. The percentage of Americans without health insurance rose. (full article…)
- This is “Change”
In a troubling legal brief filed last week, the Obama administration followed the disreputable example of the Bush White House by opposing judicial review of military detentions, even for a discrete segment of prisoners: the 30 or so non-Afghan Bagram prisoners who were seized outside Afghanistan, far from any recognizable battlefield, and who have been [...]
- Does Anyone Ask What the Afghans Want?
Coupled with this was a requirement for new tactics, like training more Nato troops in local languages so they would be “seen as guests of the Afghan people and their government, not an occupying army”. (full article…)
- Apologists For Torture
But we have a political culture which believes, literally, that the CIA must operate above and beyond the law (recall Joe Klein’s argument against torture prosecutions: CIA agents “behave extra-legally for the greater good of the nation”). Even though the American people have enacted numerous laws through their Congress which explicitly criminalize certain behavior on [...]
- Demoralized
On Friday, seven former CIA directors urged President Obama to end the inquiry, arguing that it would inhibit intelligence operations in the future and demoralize agency employees who believed they had been cleared by previous investigators. (full article…)
- Corruption in Washington
In the period between Election Day last November and the end of June, the groups scheduled 70 fundraisers for members of Congress. Along the way, they made $6 million in federal campaign contributions. Thirty-five of those 70 wingdings — half! — were thrown by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its lobbyists. And a third [...]
- (US-Backed) Yemeni War Crimes Getting Little Attention
In the most recent fighting, the army carried out three air raids and blew up houses in Saada city – under government control – on Friday. About 87 people died on Wednesday in an air raid at a makeshift camp for displaced persons in Harf Sufyan in Saada. Navi Pillay, the chief of the UN [...]
- The Value of an Afghan Life
The two were immediately taken into custody and for four days whisked from hideout to hideout, in an effort to avoid detection. However, coalition forces were monitoring their cell-phone conversations and a helicopter-borne rescue operation was soon mounted by British commandos. The commandos stormed the hideout and Munadi, dressed in Afghan clothes, came out shouting [...]
- Already Underway
“The Israelis and the United States are close to a deal and are agreed in principle on the broad strokes, but Israel’s piece is contingent on similar gestures from the Palestinians and the Arabs. And the Palestinians are refusing to deal,” is how one source characterized the current state of play. The drive to blame [...]
- The Cost of U.S. Propaganda
Alhurra, set up under former President George W. Bush to broadcast an American perspective of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, was the subject of a joint investigation last year by ProPublica and CBS’ 60 Minutes. The investigation and a series of ProPublica articles revealed serious staff problems, financial mismanagement and long-standing concerns inside [...]
- If True, This is Some Good News
In a move with potentially major strategic implications, U.S. President Barack Obama announced Thursday he is scrapping plans by the George W. Bush administration to deploy long-range-missile defence systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. (full article…)
- Unbalanced, One-Sided & Basically Unacceptable
We have long expressed our very serious concern with the mandate that was given (to Goldstone’s team) by the Human Rights Council prior to our joining the Council, which we viewed as unbalanced, one-sided and basically unacceptable. (full article…) Strange, the same adjectives have been used to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza.
- Death Penalty
Prison officers described how, after about an hour of hunting for a suitable vein, Broom helped them by turning on to his side, by moving rubber tubing along his arm and by flexing his hand and muscles. At one point, technicians found what appeared to be a suitable vein but it collapsed as they inserted [...]
- So Much For That “Richest In the World” Cliché
A new report on global wealth says that Europe has overtaken the United States to become the richest region in the world. But the Americans still have more millionaires then the EU — and should you want to marry one, you might be better off in Singapore or the Middle East. (full article…)
- 100,000
There are about 1.4 billion Muslims in the world. Embedded withing this healthy body are, perhaps, 100,000 people who are eager and active in pursuit of the goal of killing us. Just as successful treatment of cancer requires killing of the malignant cells, we will need to kill this small minority, since we have no [...]
- American Politics
Take Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the chairman of the influential Senate Finance Committee, leader of the bipartisan “Gang of Six” spearheading the Finance Committee’s healthcare negotiations, and architect of that committee’s much anticipated healthcare legislation. He’s also one of the top five recipients of health industry-related money in Congress, pocketing $2.9 million in his career. [...]
- This is “Change”
The two candidates’ starkly different reactions to that ruling was supposed to underscore one of the true differences between them: that Obama, the Constitutional Law Professor, would insist on adherence to core Constitutional liberties even while prosecuting the War on Terror, but McCain wouldn’t. Yet here we are, barely more than a year later, and [...]
- This is “Change”
US President Barack Obama extended the White House’s 47-year trade embargo against Cuba on Tuesday – missing an opportunity to improve the human rights situation for people on the island. (more…)
- Obama’s War
The top US commander today signalled for the first time that Washington will almost certainly deploy more troops to Afghanistan later this year. (more…)
- Ask Yourself
Ask yourself: Wouldn’t the U.S. have been safer and more secure if all the money, effort and planning had gone toward “nation-building” in America? Or do you really think we’re safer now, with an official unemployment rate of 9.7 percent, an underemployment rate of 16.8 percent, and a record 25.5 percent teen unemployment rate, with [...]
- Dictators the U.S. Likes
In January 2007, the country’s ruler, King Abdullah II, announced his intention to develop a peaceful nuclear program, a plan that has US backing. (more…)
- How 9/11 Should Be Remembered
After 9/11, it could all have been different, profoundly different. And if it had, there would have been no children imprisoned without charges or release dates in our gulag in Cuba; there would have been no unmanned drones slaughtering wedding parties in the rural backlands of Afghanistan or the Iraqi desert; there would have been [...]
- Land of the Free
A hundred yards further on, Cathy sits on a bench. “I’m exhausted,” she says. “I have no insurance, no job, no place to live.” Cathy sleeps in subway carriages or on the benches in Tompkins Square Park. She’s a bag lady now in a raincoat, with all her belongings in a shopping cart. Cathy used [...]
- Moral Depravity
There is no question that many of the detainees who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo — and still are imprisoned there — are innocent. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that they have the constitutional right to a habeas corpus hearing, federal judges in 28 out of 33 cases have found insufficient evidence [...]
- US Worst in Preventable Death Ranking
| Reuters
France, Japan and Australia rated best and the United States worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations, researchers said on Tuesday. (more…)
- Too Drunk or Too Hungover
US General Stanley McChrystal, head of the International Forces in Afghanistan (Isaf), decided to bar boozing after launching an investigation into the bombing in northern Afghanistan. Staff at the Kabul headquarters were ‘either drunk or too hungover’ to answer his questions. (more…)
- Bush’s Standards
Mr Keller was not an obvious choice for the job — he spoke no Middle Eastern languages, and was not an expert on al-Qaeda or Pakistan. (more…)
- This is Zionism
Three days after the U.S. administration criticized the decision of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to authorize the construction of hundreds of new housing units in settlements, the Israel Lands Administration published tenders for the construction of 486 apartments in the neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev in East Jerusalem. (more…)
- In the NYT Letters Section
The only real solution %u2014 one that replaces the profit motive with actually keeping us healthy and operates in most civilized nations on the planet %u2014 has already been taken off the negotiating table by our government-corporate plutocracy, and that is a single-payer system.(more…)
- An “Imperial” Presence
Pakistanis are reacting to what many here see as an “imperial” American presence, echoing Iraq and Afghanistan, with Washington dictating to the Pakistani military and the government. Polls show that Pakistanis regard the U.S., formally a close ally and the country’s biggest donor, as a hostile power. (more…)
- This is “Change”
“Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again,” Obama said. “If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people.”(more…)
- This is American Capitalism
Despite a recession that knocked down global arms sales last year, the United States expanded its role as the world’s leading weapons supplier, increasing its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals, according to a new Congressional study. The United States signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, or 68.4 [...]
- Self-Hating Jews
Netanyahu appears to be suffering from confusion and paranoia. He is convinced that the media are after him, that his aides are leaking information against him and that the American administration wants him out of office. Two months after his visit to Washington, he is still finding it difficult to communication normally with the White [...]
- The Crux of U.S. Policy in the Middle East
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told Christian Zionists that U.S. policies in the Middle East must be “firmly grounded” in Judeo-Christian principles. (more…)
- Some Good News
The U.S. government revoked the visas of four members of Honduras’s de facto government Tuesday, escalating the pressure on officials there to reinstate the president, who was kicked out of the country a month ago. (more…)
- Less Subtle U.S. Propaganda
The scrolling electronic sign, a low-tech version of New York’s Time Square ticker, escalated the US’s propaganda war with Cuba’s leader three years ago by flashing human rights messages in five-foot high crimson letters. But history, or more specifically Barack Obama, appears to have pulled the plug on the billboard which flitted across 25 windows [...]
- “Stupidly”
Obama’s choice of words might not have been politic, but he was merely stating the obvious when he said the police behaved “stupidly.” (more…)
- The Bush Doctrine Becomes the Obama Doctrine
Fighting between Islamist militias and government-aligned forces has caused 204,000 people to flee Mogadishu since May and forced the closure of some of the Somali capital’s few health centres, the UN refugee agency said today. (more…)
- Popular Opinion
A new survey of global opinion reveals strong negative feelings toward U.S. foreign policy, even as an average of 61 percent of those polled have at least some confidence in President Barack Obama to make sound decisions. (more…)
- This is “Change”
As the predictions for global warming get more and more alarming, talks on a worldwide climate treaty have stalled — largely due to the United States.(more…)
- Angry Arab Reports…
A person who knows a lot about Middle East affairs and knows the persons in question, tells me that contrary what is widely perceived, Dayton hates Muhammad Dahlan and Dahlan hates Dayton. Dayton never forgave Dahlan for the performance of his gangs in Gaza against Hamas. (more…)
- Unreported in the U.S.
The English-language cousin of the Qatar based news channel Al Jazeera launched yesterday in the Washington D.C. area after signing its first major U.S. cable deal with non-commercial MHz Networks last week. The MHz deal means 2.3 million subscribers will now have access to the channel, adding to the 140 million households currently receiving Al [...]
- Joke of the Day
The United States, Mr. Biden said in an interview broadcast on ABC’s “This Week,” “cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do.” (more…)
- War Profiteer
A baker scraping by when American tanks rolled into Baghdad, Mr. Mohsin recently spent $50,000 to throw a one-night bacchanal at the exclusive Hunting Club here. When guests visit his second home, in Baghdad, he proudly shows off the two peacocks he imported from Dubai, to join a menagerie of exotic birds that he sometimes [...]
- This is “Change”
The government will agree to preserve the secret overseas sites where a defendant in a terror case was once held and, his lawyers say, subjected to harsh interrogation techniques after his capture in 2004, a prosecutor indicated in court in New York on Thursday. (more…)
