Pacific Free Press was launched in March 2007 by Dutch-Canadian Richard
Kastelein of V.O.F. Expathos, in the Netherlands along with Chris Cook- CFUV radio journalist and Editor in Chief of Pacific Free Press. Cook is based in , Victoria, British Columbia.
The site is a sister to Atlantic Free Press and Brick Ogden an American Expatriate in Amsterdam has been a key supporter of this project.
The mission of Pacific Free 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. Pacific Free 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.
NATO's Afghan Quagmire
by Patrick Seale NATO -- the North Atlantic Treaty Organization -- is the world’s most powerful military alliance. It has two million men under its command, a thousand helicopters and countless other military resources. Yet it is facing failure, if not actual defeat, in Afghanistan. Why?
The answer is simple. The Afghan war was misconceived from the very start. It was decided in rage and haste by Washington, without proper thought or planning, in response to al-Qaida’s 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States.
Lust and Caution in China
by Peter Kwong In China’s paternalistic society, all cultural programs are vetted for questionable content. Sex, violence, and immoral presentations are weeded out for fear that people would follow and act upon them -- and lead the country into chaos.
That is one reason only 20 foreign-made films per-year are allowed for screening in China -- and, of course, only after censors at the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) cut out footage they deem improper.
Crashing on the rocks of hubris, the ship Neocon is finally going down and small little furry creatures, commonly known as rats but which once acted onboard like Goliaths, are falling over each other in their mad scurry to jump the ship.
The Neocon propped Bush Administration is preparing to cut and run from Iraq. The most convincing sign of this came when it emerged that Bechtel Corp, one of the biggest construction firms in the world, was leaving the country for good with no new contract to continue the job.
As America prepares to slink out of Iraq, leaving behind legions of demons let lose on Iraqi streets and more than half a million corpses, the discredited Neocons too are jumping the ship taking along with them their myopic vision of U.S. foreign policy that they had used to steer not just America but the whole world into perilous waters.
The stampede was started by William F. Buckley, Jr., that diehard conservative and the pied piper for the American establishments. In a February 2006 piece in his Right wing’s mouth piece journal, National Review, he conceded;
"One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. … Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans."
On Saturday December 30th, at 6:05 Iraq time, in Abu Ghraib prison, Saddam Hussain was executed not for the mass killing of some 100,000 Kurds, but for killing 148 Iraqis in the small town of Dujail who were allegedly involved in a plot to kill him in 1982. His soul left behind his body dangling at the end of the hangman’s rope to join the restless souls of some of his victims still haunting the murky chambers of his infamous prison.
Left behind also are his rejoicing murderers…the incumbent US President, the British Prime minister and, to a varying degree, a host of other Western leaders. The poetic irony is that Saddam’s executioners were once his bosom buddies too.
As many as 100,000 Kurds were killed in 1988. Why then was Saddam tried by a kangaroo court and executed for killing 148 men and boys in the Shiite town of Dujail in 1982? Why this sham trial was pursued with such fervor by the United States of America that the New York Times in its May 21st issue of this year had to observe that:
"The American influence has been undeniably pervasive, with about 90 percent of the $145 million in annual costs for the court and associated investigations paid for by the United States Justice Department, and lawyers sent by Washington acting as advisers."
5. No Mr. Buckley, No (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : Anwaar Hussain
by Anwaar Hussain,
Dear Mr. Buckley,
Writing in National Review Online in February 2006, you William F. Buckley Jr. its Editor at Large and a diehard conservative icon, admitted that the U.S. mission in Iraq has failed but gave the following reason for the disaster;
“Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans…………they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.”
No Mr. Buckley, no. You are muddying the water.
Since your chant has now been taken up by many Cons, Neocons and Repubs, the record must be set straight.
Mr.
Buckley, your great country went to war with a nation that was already
impoverished by more than 20 years of war and American led, UN-imposed
sanctions. The immediate aftermath of the war found the traumatized
Iraqi society without a recognized head of state or a working
administration with well over 70 highly fragmented political parties
pulling their unfortunate country in every which way.
Mr. Menzies, as you know I, as one of the candidates for Macleod Riding in the last election, made very clear statements about this threat to our Canadian sovereignty and attempted to inform constituents. At that time you were very evasive and in fact attempted to call my concerns ‘fear mongering’.
I would suggest that my awareness was either more up to date than yours at the time, or you were not privy to this information. Perhaps you could clarify your reasons for not addressing this issue during the election?
Nagin's Never Land: Bulldozers on the Mississippi
by C. L. Cook
The mayor didn't attend the meeting, but later held a press conference, where he congratulated city council for its unanimous decision on a difficult problem.
It's a story of a rare political consensus, agreed in the limelight cast by city, state, national, and international media; everyone wanted to know what the stricken city of New Orleans' leaders would do to address the masses of displaced citizens, locked out of their homes since the disastrous hurricane and flood suffered more than two years ago.
The American public has been berated since the beginnings of the George W. Bush, (or Iraq) phase of the War With No End, for their lack of self-sacrifice.
Amongst the American "left," it was not uncommon, before the depth of the total and entirely abysmal disaster unleashed upon the Middle East was made too obvious to ignore, "liberal" commentators chided fellow citizens who would support a war policy, but not bite the bullet at home as crass hypocrites. This despite the Commander in Chief's stated belief that Americans continuing their lives as usual, and even going to Disneyland, was the best way to show the Terrorists they couldn't win.
The news is out: I'm a hate-filled, anti-semitic, racist. That according to a typically one-sided assessment of the case of Hate Crimes charges emanating one Harry Abrams, and his colleagues at the British Columbia branch of the B'nai Brith written up in "Canada's national newspaper," The Globe and Mail.
I wrote about the case in these pages last week, and though Sid Tafler, the author of the Globe item, and self-confessed Israel supporter, didn't bother to call me, he did cite a couple of my articles. So, I'll check my inclination to criminal bias, and reproduce his piece as it appears in today's G$M below, but before doing so will let you know, as Sid doesn't make it clear: The society in question does not accept the charge of racism, and will contest it with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
No Peace at the Border for Pastors: Humanitarian Goods for Cuba Seized in Texas
by C. L. Cook At approximately 9:30 am local time today, the 19th annual Caravan to Cuba convoy attempted to cross from the United States into Mexico at McAllen, Texas. At this hour, U.S. border authorities are holding up the 'Friendshipment" while agents search for and confiscate all donated computers.
There is so far no indication U.S. authorities will prevent other essential items included on America's broad embargoed materials list passing through the checkpoint, or harass further American and international volunteers en route via Mexico to the Caribbean island nation.
For those still clinging to the remote hope that a political solution to America's wars could be finally broached by a newly emboldened and empowered Democratic party, last week's non-binding resolution on Iraq should prove a sufficiently pointed stake to drive through the heart of any surviving naivete. That the resolution failed to garner the 60% Senate support needed to move forward is the lesser failure; what this bit of mealy-mouthed, weedling legalese illustrates is the profound depth of America's moral paucity.
As Washington waits with bated bipartisan breath to unwrap the shiny Christmas present known as "the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group," it becomes more and more obvious that the newly empowered Democrats are walking into a trap.
But it's not an artful contrivance prepared for their demise by the infinitely devious Karl Rove -- the "political genius" who, since his appearance on the national stage, has managed to lose two elections (2000 and 2004) and eke out very narrow, dubious victories in two others. (And it wasn't Rove who cheated Bush into office in 2000, so that doesn't count even as a technical KO for him. The post-election coup d'etat was directed by Bush family fixer James Baker -- now chairman of the, er, Iraq Study Group.)
No, the trap awaiting the Democrats has been laid by reality itself. As so often noted here before, there is no good solution to the blood-puking hell that George W. Bush has wrought in Iraq. There is no path out of this killing field that won't involve more slaughter, more suffering, more hate, more grief. No "bipartisan panel" – certainly not one led by the lifelong peddler of Bush Family snake oil, Jim Baker, and the Democratic whitewasher for all seasons, Lee Hamilton – is going to find some new, unlooked-for way to untangle this knotted gut. They can only sift through the same reality that we all can see. The options are extremely limited, and all of them have ugly consequences.
Writer and documentary-maker Edward Cox gives a mostly excellent analysis of the situation in a recent Guardian article, Same as it Ever Was. (He is, I think, off base in a brief look at the 2008 presidential election, but this is a minor point in a penetrating takedown of the wildly unrealistic expectations rising around the "Baker Commission.") Very briefly, the main choices break down this way:
13. No Refuge (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : Chris Floyd
No Mercy: Bush Refugee Treatment an Echo of Brutal Bi-Partisan Policies
by Chris Floyd We wrote here yesterday of the Bush Administration's policy toward refugees fleeing the "Terror War" invasion of Somalia: to bomb them indiscriminately, capture them at gunpoint and "render" them to the torture chambers of Bush's close ally, the dictatorship in Ethiopia.
These are heinous acts, indeed -- war crimes by any measure -- but it would be wrong to think that the repugnant Bush Faction was somehow uniquely evil in this regard. As AP's release of long-suppressed Pentagon documents this week shows, mercilessness toward refugees is a venerable tradition in American military policy, reaching back in this case to the Korean War, when hundreds, perhaps thousands of innocent people were slaughtered at the order of the nation's top government officials.
Rancid "Progressivism": It's the State of the Union, Jack
by Chris Floyd In 1977, at the height of the cold war, I interviewed the Charter 77 dissidents in Czechoslovakia, writes John Pilger. They warned that complacency and silence could destroy liberty and democracy as effectively as tanks.
"We're actually better off than you in the west," said a writer, measuring his irony. "Unlike you, we have no illusions."
John Pilger delivers a blistering state of the kingdom assessment of Great Britain after 10 years of New Labour's Clinton-style "humanitarian interventionism" and pro-business "centrism."
He finds a wasteland of shredded liberties, runaway inequality -- and the blood of tens of thousands of slaughtered innocents on the soft, well-manicured hands of the nation's "progressive" leaders.
The U.S. weapons -- as many as 2,000 enter Mexico each day, according to a Mexican government study -- are crucial tools in an astoundingly barbaric war between rival cartels that has cost 4,000 lives in the past 18 months and sent law enforcement agencies in Washington and Mexico City into crisis mode…
The arms traffickers have left Mexico awash in AK-47s, pistols, telescope sighting devices, grenades, grenade launchers and high-powered ammunition, such as the so-called cop-killer bullets believed to be able to penetrate bulletproof vests… law enforcement officers on both sides of the border have never seen anything like the flood of guns now surging into Mexico.
Number Crunching: Death Count Politics
by Chris Floyd
In an age where Hitlerian wars of aggression are considered standard practice for "healthy" democracies (with only the "competence" of their execution being a fit subject for debate), it is difficult, if not impossible, to single out a single element of the grotesque carnival as the most macabre. But surely the warmongers' game-playing with the death toll of slaughtered Iraqis is a prime candidate.
Throughout George W. Bush's rape of Iraq, which was launched on a sea of lies and spin, the warmakers and their innumerable sycophants and transcribers in the media have relentlessly downplayed the number of Iraqis being killed in the conflict -- when they deign to notice the darker-hued dead at all, that is.
The TV-B-Gone, which fits in the palm of the hand, is a universal remote whose sole purpose and power is to shut down televisions. During last year's Super Bowl Sunday, it resulted in at least one thrown bottle, two near fist-fights, twenty-seven (by my count) disappeared Hail Marys, touchdowns, and tackles, one half-time show half-seen (or seen, rather, in a kind of slow motion shutter effect — I with TV-B-Gone closing the screen, the bartender mashing finger into the on-button like a man poking out eyes), and one near-hammering-into-pulp of a writer waving a TV-B-Gone.
I deployed across Brooklyn that fateful Super Bowl 2006 with a single unit for a test run, assaulting mostly sports bars and taverns and also one restaurant (where no one in the crowd, not even the staff, noticed the quieting of the television — for me, a key indicator). I have since been terrorizing televisions almost daily. I go nowhere without the TV-B-Gone. I have killed televisions in Charles de Gaulle Airport, in Heathrow, on the streets of Paris, in the restaurants of small Utah towns, in a Virgin Megastore on Manhattan island, and in countless Brooklyn bars.
Mitch Altman, the 50-year-old inventor of the TV-B-Gone, tells me that when he feels depressed he arms himself and heads into the streets. "It's almost a compulsion for me. When I see a TV going in a public place, I go out of my way to turn it off," he says. "Imagine a room where there's an uptight person wearing really bright clothing and jumping up and down and yelling. It's hard to be relaxed when that person is present. When a TV goes off, I notice people's shoulders and arms relax — the body language changes completely. When I'm feeling blue, I turn off a television or two and life just seems a whole lot better."
Our News Narratives and Missing Counter-Narratives
IN THE NEWS LAST NIGHT
by Danny Schechter
Al-Sadr Says Attack Americans, Not Iraqis…Hunger Strike Underway at Guantanamo…Calls Increase for Gonzalez To Resign and Imus to Lose His Show…Rudy Now Says Iran Was Behind 9/11…Outrage at British Sailors Who Want To Sell Their Stories…Gas Prices Up 18 cents in two weeks….
David Brooks of the NY Times has figured it out: that old saw from Cool Hand Luke is back: "What we have is a lack of communication." That saying was actually uttered twice in a film set in a prison camp. Maybe we are all in that camp now. Brooks puts his limited understanding this on display in reference to US (as if WE are monolithic on the issues) versus THEM who are didactic, prejudiced and uninformed.
He writes of the differences between Arab thinkers (of all persuasions) and American policy wonks: "What we have is not a clash of civilizations, but a gap between civilizations, increasingly without common narratives, common goals or means of communication."
IRAN SANCTIONS PASSED
NYPD EXPOSED FOR POLITICAL
SPYING
PERSONAL TESTIMONY ON MORTGAGE MELTDOWN
The conflict with Iran tops the news:
CNN: The U.N. Security Council unanimously adopts a draft resolution to
impose sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program…The Iranians claim
British forces confessed to have violated their border—See below for the new
anti-Iranian PR offensive orchestrated Israeli cooperation.
WASHINGTON POST: The 15 to 0 vote came one day after President Mahmoud
Admadinejad canceled plans to travel to New York to confront the Security
Council, leaving his foreign minister to speak in his place. It unfolded as 15
British sailors and marines seized by Iranian naval forces were transferred to
Tehran, escalating diplomatic tensions between the two countries.
The 15-nation panel imposed the latest sanctions in response to Iran's
refusal to abide by repeated U.N. demands to stop its most sensitive nuclear
activities, including the enrichment of uranium and the reprocessing of spent
nuclear fuel.
CNN LAST NIGHT: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned that "those
seeking to impose sanctions against Iran will suffer a greater damage
themselves," according to Iran's state-run news agency.
With Democrats in control of Congress again, it's time to start a national campaign for impeachment.
Nancy Pelosi may say no impeachment, but the American public wants it to happen. They know that this administration is a clear and present danger to Constitutional government and to the rule of law, and they want Congress to act.
In order to get Pelosi and the rest of Congress to obey their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, a coalition of organizations is meeting this Saturday at 1 in Philadelphia, just a block north of Independence Hall where over two centuries ago the Constitution was written and signed. Groups including Gold Star Families for Peace, Democrats.com, Veterans for Peace, Code Pink, Impeachpac, and others, joined by representatives from such organizations as NOW, Constitution Summer and the After Downing Street Coalition, will be plotting on how to build a national movement.
Among the plans being discussed are a march on the Capital in January and delivery of a million signatures on an impeachment petition.
There will also be a panel of bloggers, including yours truly, talking about how to get impeachment into the media and public consciousness.
Tickets to this historic event are $10 at the door, but readers of this column can get theirs free by going to national impeachment movement. Look there too for a schedule of events, directions to the Constitution Center and Kirby Hall, where the forum will be held.
Spread the word, and let's make impeachment happen!
Friday, 10 November 2006 | 1196 Hit(s)0 comment(s)
Doonesbury, Dennis and Dick
by Dave Lindorff Impeachment has finally made it into the mainstream press, but it’s taken a cartoonist to do it. Gary Trudeau, over the past few days, has been running talk of impeachment in his “Doonsbury” comic strip (check it out).
Soon impeachment may reach the news pages, with word that Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) is planning to introduce a bill of impeachment in the House against Vice President Dick Cheney. (Of course, it wouldn’t be surprising if the mainstream media ignored that action, just as they’ve studiously ignored Kucinich’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.).
22. No Blood For Face! (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : Dave Lindorff
by Dave Lindorff
This isn't blood for oil; it's blood for face.
President Bush's "new and improved" plan for "prevailing" in the Iraq War he started almost four years ago — to send an additional 21,500 US troops into the chaos of Baghdad and Anbar Province — turns out to be nothing more than a coward's way of trying to avoid having to say the war has been lost.
Over 3000 Americans and several hundred thousand innocent Iraqis have died because Bush and his handlers decided early in his first disastrous administration that they needed a bully little war to solidify his position, win the Congress, and grab dictatorial powers by setting him up as a "war president."
The scheme worked at first. Bush got his war, he won control of Congress in 2002, and squeaked back into office in 2004, all by running as a commander in chief in time of war. He also managed to usurp powers from Congress and undermine the Constitution, again by playing commander in chief.
23. Next Attack (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : David Rovics
The Next Attack Is Coming — Six Years After 9/11
by David Rovics My friend Robert woke me up from my slumber at his cabin next to the Hoosier National Forest. “They’re saying we’re under attack.” I came inside and listened to NPR with him.
At this point they weren’t sure whether it was military or commercial planes involved. My immediate thought was, there’s no country’s leadership in the world who’d do this, no leader wants to attack the US on US soil and risk having their own nation annihilated by US retaliation. Then the second plane hit, and they were confirming that these were, in fact, commercial planes that had been hijacked.
At that point, like so many others in the US and around the world who had not been living in a cave for the past century, my next thought was, why did it take them so long?
Unbeknownst to many Americans, there is overwhelming consensus among scientists that we are very close to reaching a point of no turning back on global warming, which is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. We are approaching a point at which all of the following will become unavoidable: massive desertification, rising sea level, explosive growth of insect populations, widespread habitat destruction, mass extinctions, mass migrations (including of humans), the disappearance of sea life, and in all likelihood wars over drinking water that will make the wars over oil look civilized. These changes are likely to lead to human disease, starvation, and death on a scale that will dwarf the current reality, much less what Americans are currently able to imagine. The desperation and suffering involved, combined with the too-late awareness of the planet's fate, will almost certainly bring about a blossoming of religious and magical thinking that will make current American evangelists look reasonable.
As the end of human civilization begins to look inevitable, myths that make it look desirable will grow in popularity. Enlightenment notions of human progress will reach extinction as the long-term planning of slow projects becomes seen as futile. Of course, we're almost at that point already. Were we not, we would not be destroying the world of our great grandchildren with the mad furiousness with which we are knowingly destroying it. That is, some of us know we are doing it. And most of us lack the future-historical attention span to process the knowledge. We are pounded with such a flood of infotainment about this week that next century is unthinkable. And so we don't think about it, for now. But unless we very quickly think and act, global warming will take over and violently instruct us or our children as to what we will think about.
What were the demonstrations in Washington, DC and in several other US cities on January 27 really about? What did they accomplish? Does anyone really care?
US-Iraq-Demonstration
Thousands of people on Saturday staged
demonstration in several American cities, including the capital, in
protest at war-mongering policies of the US President George W Bush.
The demonstrators called for an end to Bush's approach toward the war
in Iraq and stressed the need for urgent return of the American troops
to their home country.
The demonstrators shouted slogans such as, "We do not want another Vietnam".
In Washington, the crowd heard speeches by more than a dozen veterans,
anti-war activists, religious leaders, Hollywood celebrities and
political leaders like Jesse Jackson, a longtime African-American civil
rights activist . . .
Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters have rallied outside congress
chanting "bring our troops home," in an attempt to pressure the
government to quit Iraq.
Veterans and military families joined some congressmen, peace groups
and actors to urge congress and George Bush, the US president, to stop
funding the war and pull troops from Iraq.
"I thought I was serving honourably. Instead, I was sent to war ... for
causes that have proved fraudulent," Garett Reppenhagen, a former
sniper and Iraq war veteran, said at Saturday's rally . . .
truthout:
"Hundreds of Thousands of Protesters Converge on Capitol Hill." There's a problem here, my friends. This headline links internally to a reprint of Ian Urbana's NYT
piece, headlined "Protest Focuses on Troop Increase for Iraq", which
begins, "Tens of thousands of protesters converged on the National Mall
on Saturday to oppose President Bush's plan for a troop increase in
Iraq in what organizers hoped would be one of the largest shows of
antiwar sentiment in the nation's capital since the war began."
Depending on who you read, there are now somewhere between thirty
and forty thousand private military personnel just in Iraq. That makes
them the second biggest army in that beleaguered country. And you're
not only paying for them, but they're making big bucks, especially when
you add waste and corruption to the profits. And not only are they not
subject to congressional oversight, they're also not accountable for
any war crimes they commit.
These folks not only provide
security for the multinational corporations trying to do business in
Iraq, they also are hired and deployed by private companies to fight
right along side government forces. We used to call these people
"mercenaries".
Spring in Afghanistan has turned now into a season of doom and gloom, for it
brings recurring bloody battle into bloom. While NATO and the American military
commanders are talking about inflicting a lasting blow to the remnants of the
Taliban, the latter brag about crushing the Americans like Russians in 1980s.
Amidst such a cacophony of pretensions, innocent Afghan civilians are helplessly
awaiting the end of war through a political dialogue that can end tragedy in
their country. President Karzai has announced negotiation with the Taliban this
past week.
Six years on, since the fall of the Taliban, NATO and the US-led coalition forces,
have achieved little by solely emphasising on military strategy in this country.
Several military operations code-named: Jawbreaker, Mountain Loin, Screaming
Eagles, Anaconda, Operation Snipe, Dragon’s Fury, and so on have failed to capture
the highest al-qaida or Taliban hierarchy. The only thing achieved was the
resurgence of the Taliban and reorganisation of al-qaida in safe hideouts in
Pakistan.
Adding to the anxiety, al-Qaida and Taliban have large swaths of the Pakistani
north-western tribal areas under control, where they feel safe and free to promote
their ideology and terrorist operations against the West. Al-Qaida is “cultivating
stronger operational connections and relationships that radiate outward from
their leader’s secure hideout in Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle
East, North Africa and Europe,” said the outgoing Director of the US National
Intelligence, Mr John Negroponte recently in a testimony to the Senate.
Another disturbing factor that is threatening to wreck the policy of building
democracy and defeating terrorism in Afghanistan is a lack of unity among the
NATO member countries. In the face of an increasing surge of Taliban, NATO’s
European member countries seem to be divided over war strategy. Media reports
indicate that the British troops feel a shortage of military hardware, Bulgarian
troops are in need of new boots, French and Australian special-forces have already
left the country, while German, Italian, and Spanish troops are unhappy to venture
into the Taliban-infested south and east of the country.
"As Extremist a Neocon and Warmonger as It Gets"
Meet Eliot Cohen, Condi's New Deputy
by GARY LEUPP
Afghanistan constitutes just one front in World War IV, and the battles there just one campaign. . . . First, if one front in this war is the contest for free and moderate governance in the Muslim world, the U.S. should throw its weight behind pro-Western and anticlerical forces there. The immediate choice lies before the U.S. government in regard to Iran. We can either make tactical accommodations with the regime there in return for modest (or illusory) sharing of intelligence, reduced support for some terrorist groups and the like, or do everything in our power to support a civil society that loathes the mullahs and yearns to overturn their rule. It will be wise, moral and unpopular (among some of our allies) to choose the latter course. The overthrow of the first theocratic revolutionary Muslim state and its replacement by a moderate or secular government, however, would be no less important a victory in this war than the annihilation of bin Laden.
The guy who wrote that, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on November 20, 2001, was Eliot Cohen, a professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. As the Director of the Strategic Studies department at SAIS, he has been called "the most influential neoconservative in academe."
Violent Repression At NATO Summit in Romania
by UK Indymedia At approximately 12:30pm on 2nd April hundreds of Romanian police violently raided a convergence center in Bucharest, the country’s capital. The convergence space was set up to facilitate an anti-NATO gathering and was legally rented.
It is reported that during the raid at least two protesters were hospitalized. Various reports state people are badly beaten while in custody and even while taken to hospital.
Numerous people are reported to be seriously injured and some have been refused medical assistance while in custody.
Anti-Nuclear Camp In Siberia imc-uk-features In the early morning of 21st July, neo-nazi skinheads launched a vicious and unprovoked attack on an anti-nuclear protest camp in Angarsk, Siberia, Russia (see map).
The nazis violently attacked activists in their sleeping bags and tents with iron rods, knives and air pressure guns. 21 year old Ilya Borodaenko from Nachodka suffered a head-fracture during the attack and later died in hospital from his injuries. At least nine others have been reported to be seriously injured, one of which has had both their legs broken. Tents were set on fire and several belongings were stolen.
Financial help and other forms of solidarity are urgently needed. Contact xmakimax (at) gmail.com or ogopogos (at) gmail.com if you are able to offer some.
The NAFTA Gaff Revisited: The Audacity of Hillary Clinton
by Jack Random Imagine the smile that curled the lips of Senator Hillary Clinton when, on the eve of the Ohio and Texas primaries, she came across a story from the Canadian press that her opponent had delivered a duplicitous message on NAFTA to the Canadian government: We are going to play some political games with NAFTA but don’t worry, we are not serious.
Clinton knew full well that it was in fact her people that had contacted the conservative, pro NAFTA, pro Free Trade government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to deliver that same message: We intend to play political games but it is only for show. We will not act. We will not renegotiate NAFTA to include the rights of labor.
32. Not So Wonderful (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : James Kunstler
by James Kunstler
It's a Wonderful Life, Frank Capra's 1946 Christmas card to America, is full of strange and bitter lessons about who we were and who we have become. It also illustrates the perversity of history -- the fact that things sometimes end up the opposite of the way we expect.
The movie concerns the life and career of one George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) and his neighbors in the prototypical main street town of Bedford Falls. The story's arc runs roughly from about 1910 to the 1946 "present." By the 1920s, young George yearns to break free of the "crummy little town" (as he calls it), but circumstances keep him bound to it through the years, and to the family business, a little local "building and loan" bank of the kind that also used to be called "thrifts" and later "savings and loans," now extinct institutions.
Bailey Building and Loan gets whipsawed by the boom of the 1920s and then the Great Depression. World War Two comes and goes. Over the decades, George is bedeviled by the town villain, scheming rival banker Mr. (no first name) Potter (Lionel Barrymore), who is always trying to shut down or take over Bailey Building and Loan.
Eventually, Mr. Potter gets the better of George, who attempts suicide, but is saved by an avuncular guardian angel named Clarence, who shows George how much worse off his town (and, by extension, the world) would be if George had never been born. The rest is George coming to his senses on Christmas Eve, amid caroling and bell ringing, realizing how wonderful all the vicissitudes of small town life, and family, and banking really have been.
no heritage tree certificates for bear mountain residents
by janine bandcroft
relativenewz.ca i'm approaching the end of two weeks living in an old, almost heritage house in an old, tree-lined neighbourhood. on the wall of this house is a plaque, reminding its inhabitants of their responsibility to protect the heritage designated trees that grace their lawn. the plaque reads:
"heritage tree certificate -- heritage trees are special. their designation is based on accurate botanical identification, detailed research and consideration by members of the heritage tree project, committee, and the concurrence of the owner. their status is reviewed regularly, and they are officially recorded with the appropriate local government. thank you for caring about and protecting heritage trees."
and there's a quote from william blake: 'a tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.'
If it seems to you you're getting the same news no matter which channel you watch, you're right, and you can thank newspaper consolidation for that. There are only three or four major newspapers left in this country, The New York Times, The Washington Post, among them; there is only one Reuters, one Associated Press, and now the FCC is investigating claims by Rep. Maurice Hinchey, a New York congressman, that CBS television is "seeking to consolidate newsrooms," (United Press International) thereby introducing the concept of central command to television newsrooms.
Opportunity to Call for the Disbanding of NATO
by Joan Russow PhD It is reported that a high level meeting of NATO Generals will be held on September 7 and 8, at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Victoria B.C. Several years ago, a NATO meeting, proposed in Victoria, was canceled because of anticipation of community opposition, which would have required expensive security measures.
Apparently NATO, after conducting two Trident Fury Exercises in Victoria, feels emboldened enough to hold a high level meeting in Victoria. This time, with the mounting opposition towards NATO's involvement in Afghanistan, the high level NATO meeting will hopefully receive the opposition it deserves.
No matter how awful you think our government and political system have become, odds are you do not know about this travesty of justice, an incredible failure to honor our fabled Constitution. This failure has removed the sovereignty of we the people, and made Congress much more powerful than it should be. Let me acknowledge that even though I have been pegged as “Democracy’s Mr. Fix It,” until recently I too was ignorant about this blatant disregard for a key part of our Constitution.
Our Founders were acutely aware of the need to create a mechanism for we the people to, when necessary, circumvent the political power of the federal government. They built in a critically important form of direct democracy that, however, our elected MISrepresentatives have refused to implement. Here it is: Article V of our Constitution specifies two distinct routes to amending our Constitution: “The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress…”
Conventions to consider constitutional amendments should be seen as peaceful revolutions – a remedy specified in our Constitution for addressing a national government and political system that no longer serves public interests. Congress has been so corrupted for so long that it has blatantly ignored the constitutional provision for conventions. It wants exclusive power over amending our Constitution in violation of the Constitution itself.
Terms of Use 
NATO -- the North Atlantic Treaty Organization -- is the world’s most powerful military alliance. It has two million men under its command, a thousand helicopters and countless other military resources. Yet it is facing failure, if not actual defeat, in Afghanistan. Why?
The Neocon propped Bush Administration is preparing to cut and run from Iraq. The most convincing sign of this came when it emerged that Bechtel Corp, one of the biggest construction firms in the world, was leaving the country for good with no new contract to continue the job. 
Dear Mr. Buckley, 
Mr. Menzies, as you know I, as one of the candidates for Macleod Riding in the last election, made very clear statements about this threat to our Canadian sovereignty and attempted to inform constituents. At that time you were very evasive and in fact attempted to call my concerns ‘fear mongering’. 
The mayor didn't attend the meeting, but later held a press conference, where he congratulated city council for its unanimous decision on a difficult problem. 
The American public has been berated since the beginnings of the George W. Bush, (or Iraq) phase of the War With No End, for their lack of self-sacrifice. 
The news is out: I'm a hate-filled, anti-semitic, racist. That according to a typically one-sided assessment of the case of Hate Crimes charges emanating one Harry Abrams, and his colleagues at the British Columbia branch of the B'nai Brith written up in "Canada's national newspaper," The Globe and Mail. 
At approximately 9:30 am local time today, the 
For those still clinging to the remote hope that a political solution to America's wars could be finally broached by a newly emboldened and empowered Democratic party, last week's non-binding resolution on Iraq should prove a sufficiently pointed stake to drive through the heart of any surviving naivete. That the resolution failed to garner the 60% Senate support needed to move forward is the lesser failure; what this bit of mealy-mouthed, weedling legalese illustrates is the profound depth of America's moral paucity. 
We wrote here yesterday of the 
In 1977, at the height of the cold war, I interviewed the Charter 77 dissidents in Czechoslovakia, writes John Pilger. They warned that complacency and silence could destroy liberty and democracy as effectively as tanks. 
Our text for today: 
The TV-B-Gone, which fits in the palm of the hand, is a universal remote whose sole purpose and power is to shut down televisions. During last year's Super Bowl Sunday, it resulted in at least one thrown bottle, two near fist-fights, twenty-seven (by my count) disappeared Hail Marys, touchdowns, and tackles, one half-time show half-seen (or seen, rather, in a kind of slow motion shutter effect — I with TV-B-Gone closing the screen, the bartender mashing finger into the on-button like a man poking out eyes), and one near-hammering-into-pulp of a writer waving a TV-B-Gone. 
Al-Sadr Says Attack Americans, Not Iraqis…Hunger Strike Underway at Guantanamo…Calls Increase for Gonzalez To Resign and Imus to Lose His Show…Rudy Now Says Iran Was Behind 9/11…Outrage at British Sailors Who Want To Sell Their Stories…Gas Prices Up 18 cents in two weeks…. 
NEWS DISSECTOR March 26, 2007
Impeachment has finally made it into the mainstream press, but it’s taken a cartoonist to do it. Gary Trudeau, over the past few days, has been running talk of impeachment in his “Doonsbury” comic strip (
This isn't blood for oil; it's blood for face. 
My friend Robert woke me up from my slumber at his cabin next to the Hoosier National Forest. “They’re saying we’re under attack.” I came inside and listened to NPR with him. 
Unbeknownst to many Americans, there is overwhelming consensus among scientists that we are very close to reaching a point of no turning back on global warming, which is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. We are approaching a point at which all of the following will become unavoidable: massive desertification, rising sea level, explosive growth of insect populations, widespread habitat destruction, mass extinctions, mass migrations (including of humans), the disappearance of sea life, and in all likelihood wars over drinking water that will make the wars over oil look civilized. These changes are likely to lead to human disease, starvation, and death on a scale that will dwarf the current reality, much less what Americans are currently able to imagine. The desperation and suffering involved, combined with the too-late awareness of the planet's fate, will almost certainly bring about a blossoming of religious and magical thinking that will make current American evangelists look reasonable. 
Depending on who you read, there are now somewhere between thirty
and forty thousand private military personnel just in Iraq. That makes
them the second biggest army in that beleaguered country. And you're
not only paying for them, but they're making big bucks, especially when
you add waste and corruption to the profits. And not only are they not
subject to congressional oversight, they're also not accountable for
any war crimes they commit.
Spring in Afghanistan has turned now into a season of doom and gloom, for it
brings recurring bloody battle into bloom. While NATO and the American military
commanders are talking about inflicting a lasting blow to the remnants of the
Taliban, the latter brag about crushing the Americans like Russians in 1980s.
Afghanistan constitutes just one front in World War IV, and the battles there just one campaign. . . . First, if one front in this war is the contest for free and moderate governance in the Muslim world, the U.S. should throw its weight behind pro-Western and anticlerical forces there. The immediate choice lies before the U.S. government in regard to Iran. We can either make tactical accommodations with the regime there in return for modest (or illusory) sharing of intelligence, reduced support for some terrorist groups and the like, or do everything in our power to support a civil society that loathes the mullahs and yearns to overturn their rule. It will be wise, moral and unpopular (among some of our allies) to choose the latter course. The overthrow of the first theocratic revolutionary Muslim state and its replacement by a moderate or secular government, however, would be no less important a victory in this war than the annihilation of bin Laden. 
At approximately 12:30pm on 2nd April hundreds of Romanian police violently raided a convergence center in Bucharest, the country’s capital. The convergence space was set up to facilitate an anti-NATO gathering and was legally rented. 
In the early morning of 21st July, neo-nazi skinheads launched a vicious and unprovoked attack on an anti-nuclear protest camp in Angarsk, Siberia, Russia (see map). 
Imagine the smile that curled the lips of Senator Hillary Clinton when, on the eve of the Ohio and Texas primaries, she came across a story from the Canadian press that her opponent had delivered a duplicitous message on NAFTA to the Canadian government: We are going to play some political games with NAFTA but don’t worry, we are not serious. 
If it seems to you you're getting the same news no matter which channel you watch, you're right, and you can thank newspaper consolidation for that. There are only three or four major newspapers left in this country, The New York Times, The Washington Post, among them; there is only one Reuters, one Associated Press, and now the FCC is investigating claims by Rep. Maurice Hinchey, a New York congressman, that CBS television is "seeking to consolidate newsrooms," (United Press International) thereby introducing the concept of central command to television newsrooms. 
It is reported that a high level meeting of NATO Generals will be held on September 7 and 8, at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Victoria B.C. Several years ago, a NATO meeting, proposed in Victoria, was canceled because of anticipation of community opposition, which would have required expensive security measures. 
