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 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.
House Judiciary Trio Calls for Impeach Cheney Hearings
by John Nichols Three senior members of the House Judiciary Committee have called for the immediate opening of impeachment hearings for Vice President Richard Cheney.
Democrats Robert Wexler of Florida, Luis Gutierrez of Illinois and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin on Friday distributed a statement, “A Case for Hearings,” that declares, “The issues at hand are too serious to ignore, including credible allegations of abuse of power that if proven may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under our constitution.
"The charges against Vice President Cheney relate to his deceptive actions leading up to the Iraq war, the revelation of the identity of a covert agent for political retaliation, and the illegal wiretapping of American citizens.”
Bill and Hill's Dangerous Game
by Nicholas von Hoffman In the last couple of days Barack Obama has found out what Paula Jones must have felt like after being worked over by the Clinton organization. Ms. Clinton goes slap, slap, slap across his face as husband Bill lets the Illinois Senator have it below the belt.
Nipped, kicked, jabbed, socked, bitten and bopped by the Clintons and their liegemen, Obama has been fighting back as best he can. Hence his attempts the other night in South Carolina, in what was called a debate.
Muqtada al-Sadr's Power Grab
by Mohamad Bazzi The bad boy of Iraqi politics is going back to school. Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of Iraq's largest Shiite militia, is studying to become an ayatollah.
It might seem like a minor development within Iraq's notoriously insular Shiite politics, especially against the backdrop of daily bloodshed. But Sadr's decision has enormous implications for Iraqis and the United States.
The 33 year-old Sadr is taking a long view, showing greater political skill than the United States and his Iraqi rivals usually give him credit for.
Fallout from the Gaza Earthquake
by Patrick Seale The mass break-out of some 700,000 Palestinians from Israel’s open-air prison at Gaza has profoundly changed the political landscape of the Middle East. In magnitude, it can be compared to the impact on Europe of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nothing will be the same again. There can be no return to the past.
"We
have nothing to say to Hamas. We speak to them when we interrogate them
in our prisons." - Defense Minister, Ehud Barak
All the main actors in the drama -- Israel, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, the European Union and the United States itself -- will have to rethink their policies in the light of new realities.
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.
The World Bank — which has to be applauded for having made the first such attempt — started making international comparisons of poverty only about two decades back. For obvious reasons of convenience it developed two simple notions of poverty. The US Treasury being the power behind the institution, and the dollar being the reserve currency by design, the lower poverty line was set at $1 a day per capita. Those below it were considered to be “the poorest of the poor”. The upper poverty line was set at $2 a day. Those living on $1—2 a day were still poor, but not as badly off. The updated numbers today, corrected for inflation, are $1.08 and $2.15.
The vagaries of purchasing power (dis)parities
However, there was a problem. It was realized that $1 goes much farther in purchasing necessary items of consumption in a poor country compared to a rich one. (Moreover, exchange rates do not take into account non—traded goods.) Using prevailing exchange rates, Rs.45 can buy more in India than $1 can in America. So unless it was corrected for the lower cost of living in poor countries — enabling access to a bigger amount of real goods for the same amount of money — this measure of poverty was likely to give an overestimate of the number of poor people living in absolute poverty. To make purchasing power across countries comparable, economists developed what is known as the PPP (purchasing power parity) index. Taking into account the lower cost of living in impoverished countries, a conversion factor is now applied to market exchange rates to calculate what is minimally necessary to survive there.
7. In Harm’s Way (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : Bill C. Davis
by Bill C. Davis
It sounds cozy – almost storybook. “In harm’s way.” This phrase presents what is happening to and with American troops as a static reality. Harm was there waiting for the troops to arrive and they got in the way of this thing that was coiled ready to meet the unsuspecting soldiers.
The implication is that “harm’s way” is disconnected from any provocative action. It’s presented as a prickly natural phenomenon – a bee sting, an ice patch, poison ivy – harm’s way.
The reality is that more than being “in harm’s way” – they are in the wrong place. It was wrong in 2003 and it’s wrong now. They are in the middle of a cyclone ignited by an immoral decision – by a collection of immoral decisions and abdications.
The soldiers obeyed and they are prime agents of and targets for the reprisals. Harm’s Way wasn’t waiting there – it’s been released.
People using this phrase were the same people who voted to give George W. Bush the authority to use in a way he alone saw fit, these troops they are now so concerned with.
Suicide blast outside India's embassy in Kabul kills at least 41
by CBC News
Two diplomats, dozens of Afghan visa seekers among victims
A suicide car bomb detonated outside the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan's capital Monday, ripping through the building and killing at least 41 people, including two senior diplomats.
About 140 people were injured, officials said.
The attack is the deadliest in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, and the worst in Afghanistan since a suicide bomber killed more than 100 people at a dog-fighting competition in Kandahar province in February.
Imagine with me a moment George W. Bush and his collaborators dressed in the iconic orange jump suits made familiar to the world through images from Abu Ghraib, Bagram Airbase, and Guantanamo Bay.
Manacled and being led away to spend the rest of his natural life safely confined where he can do no more harm, imagine justice finally and fairly being served.
It may be a less possible scenario than even the darkest cynic would think.
Imperial Disaster Warning (from the Government Accountability Office)
by C. L. Cook
Perched on a "burning platform" is how David Walker of the non-partisan GAO describes the nation under George W. Bush. In an interview with the Financial Times, Walker implored the administration, and the citizenry learn from the fall of ancient Rome.
It's a scarifying message to the nation, made more frightening when considering: David Walker is no mere bureaucrat beefing from the bowels of another dissed and/or neglected government department; David Walker is the Number One comptroller for federal government spending, whose only job is to look at the books and determine what a given administration is doing and where its policy is likely to lead the country financially. And if Walker's take is worth anything, it's the end of days soon, should drastic measures not be taken now.
by C. L. Cook The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has good news and bad for Canada within its second of four reports regarding global climate change, released Friday in Brussels. The good news is: Canada is better able to weather global climate change than poorer nations. Other than that, the report is a stern warning to all nations, citizens, and businesses to get serious about changing the way we do things.
Despite what some of the participating scientists who prepared the report say was a "softening" of the message for political purposes, there is little good news contained within "Climate Change 2007" Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for anyone, anywhere on the planet.
Creating Kristallnacht: Hate Baiting at the National Post
by C. L. Cook
Canada's National Post broke a sensational story; a story so big, the flagship of the CanWest Global media monolith denied its nationwide dailies, keeping the scoop to themselves.
Today, [Fri. May 19, 2006] the Post reported Iran has signed into law a provision requiring Iranian Jews and Christians wear identifying badges declaring their religious affiliation.
Below the 18 point high headline, a picture of a man and woman, circa Hitler's Germany, each sporting the infamous Yellow Star of David stitched to their overcoats. It's a stunning development, one that should shock the world, and finally convince all of Iran's despotism. But of course, the National Post story is a complete fabrication; a fact Canwest itself is now "reporting."
A word of caution on US claims of Iranian weapons killing GIs: If reporters could all stop the heavy breathing for a moment, they might ask the folks at the White House and in the Pentagon to explain why those bombs that they displayed as "evidence" of Iranian perfidy had English words and numbers on them, instead of Persian.
Is there a Draft in the Air?
by C. L. Cook The number one for Iraq at U.S. Central Command let fly a balloon in an interview with National Public Radio today, saying reintroducing the forced induction of Americans into the armed services is an option that has never been "off the table," letting hang the implicit question of a return to the draft that created mayhem throughout the United States the last time it was enacted, during America's war against Vietnam and South East Asia.
Much has changed in the interim, and Americans by and large do not expect their children could find themselves, without enlisting, patrolling the streets of Falluja or the outskirts of Kandahar.
The execution of Saddam Hussein is necessary, we are told, in order to re-establish the principles of law and order and justice in Iraq, after decades of his arbitrary tyranny. That's why he was not given over to summary justice, a la Mussolini, but was subjected to a "fair trial" under "rules of law." Having been found guilty by this formal legal procedure, he has been duly and legitimately sentenced to die, by hanging, again in accordance with impartial processes of law established by the American liberation of Iraq. (For a somewhat different view of the situation, see the post below.)
But what are we told today by the New York Times? That Saddam will likely be hanged willy-nilly, hugger-mugger, chop-chop, without any bother about those silly-billy legal procedures of a democratic government – you know, the freedom and democracy for which Bush has sacrificed almost 3,000 American lives (topping Osama bin Laden's body count) and more than half a million innocent Iraqis.
From the NYT:
Another senior administration official said later Thursday night that Iraqi officials had told the White House to expect the execution on Saturday, Baghdad time. In Iraq, where the Constitution requires that the Iraqi president and his two deputies sign all execution orders, officials said it was unlikely that legal formalities would stand in the way. The president, Jalal Talabani, had not received the documents by late Thursday.
But a government official familiar with the process said that little objection would be raised if the execution took place almost immediately. “Even if it happens tonight, no one is going to make an issue out of the procedure,” the official said.
Why, it almost seems that…one would almost think…I mean, gosh, it's hard to believe but…could it be this whole "freedom and democracy and law" stuff was just -- how to put it politely, in keeping with the civility demanded of us by all the Broders and Liebermans of the world? – could it be it was just howling bullshit peddled by bloodthirsty predators determined to have their way no matter what the cost? Could it be that – help me out here, Dave, Joe – could it be that we've been, you know, lied to?
But let us not be intemperate. Let us not be uncivil. Let us each pledge, here and now, that when the time comes, we will ensure that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney and their many accomplices in Saddamian mass murder will receive a truly fair and impartial trial, and that we will never allow them to be executed outside of the "legal formalities." No, let us stoutly assure those gentlemen (and ladies) that we, at least, will always "make an issue out of the procedure" that guarantees their rights under the rule of law.
This deadly cloud of unknowing has enveloped the entire chain of command, from the witless president who didn't know the difference between Sunni and Shia Islam to the troops on the ground who believed – as they were no doubt drilled to believe – that the invasion was "payback for 9/11," a righteous war of self-defense against a terrorist nation that had attacked America.
This implacable ignorance was on perfect display this week in a "feel-good" story put out by one of the Pentagon's myriad PR engines: "Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Official Website of Multi-National Force – Iraq." (Oddly enough, the official website of the "Multi-National Force" is entirely in English, and geared exclusively to American operations. Apparently, all the other vast armies in the "Multi-National Force" don't need to know what's going on in this collaborative, cooperative multi-national operation.)
George W. Bush's innumerable sycopants like to potray him as a down-to-earth man of the people:
a man's man, tough and fearless, a good-ole-boy Texas rancher more at
home in the scrub brush and desert dirt than in the clean, carpeted
corridors of power in Washington.
What then to make of the jarring
cognitive dissonance that arises from the portrait of Bush evoked by a
passing anecdote briefly noted in the Washington Examiner:
the president as a prissy, panicky, possibly obsessive-compulsive prig,
requiring a servant to stand next to him and sanitize his hands after
pressing the flesh with a visitor?
John Yoo has been getting a bit of guff in the liberal media recently for some legal memoranda he wrote a while back defending the president's right -- and duty -- to protect the American people from terrorism. This criticism is as short-sighted as it is pernicious -- and we are here today to defend this good and faithful public servant against the unwarranted calumnies that have besmirched his name.
Fortunately for the security of our Republic, the far left's
attempt to turn Yoo's patriotic labors into yet another
persnickety"moral outrage," a la Abu Ghraib or My Lai or Wounded Knee,
hasn't really taken off.
War Without End, Amen: Into the Afghan Abyss with Obama
by Chris Floyd
I
have disagreed vehemently with Patrick Buchanan on almost every issue
over the years, but he is right on the money when he says that Barack
Obama's Afghanistan strategy is an eerie replication of Lyndon
Johnson's Vietnam strategy, and will almost certainly have the same
result: years and years of death and ruin, ending in defeat. Buchanan
charts it out:
...[W]ithout any visible strategy for
victory, Barack is recommending the same course LBJ took after the
death of JFK. Johnson bombed North Vietnam in 1964, landed Marines in
1965 and built U.S. forces from 16,000 advisers on Nov. 22, 1963, to
525,000 troops in January of 1969. Gradual escalation, which is exactly
what Barack is recommending....
This is an extremely important article at a very dangerous moment in our nation's history. In a political scene that was even slightly sane, this piece would be dominating the national discourse. It should be printed in the New York Times and Washington Post, it should be the topic of every political yap show on television, people should be talking about it between downs and during commercials while they watch the NFL playoffs.
This article speaks truth – the stone-hard truth – to power. Or as Dylan said, "Every one of those words rang true, and glowed like burning coal." Here we have a prominent, American-based Iranian dissident peeling away the pernicious myths and lies that encrust the American understanding of the situation in Iran. This deliberately manufactured crud is so thick that it is almost impossible to have any kind of genuine debate about what is happening before our eyes: the slow, methodical, step-by-step, relentless, implacable march of the Bush Administration toward war with Iran. They want that war, they are planning for that war – and they will have that war, sooner rather than later, if they are not stopped somehow.
No Country for Old Men: The Reality of Iran in the Shadow of War
by Chris Floyd
When it comes, it will come quickly. No big build-up, no new "roll-out of the product." The groundwork has already been laid, the specious casus beli already embraced, enthusiastically, by Congress. Proposed legislation to "compel" Bush to seek Congressional approval for an attack will be ignored, just as Bush blatantly ignores any Congressional stricture he dislikes. If he decides to launch an attack on Iran, no institutional or legal fetter will stop him. That's the stark truth of the matter.
The attack will probably be a limited one at first, with the immediate "reasons" being offered up afterwards or in media res. After all, who is going to seriously question the Commander-in-Chief when our brave boys are in the air over enemy territory in Iran?
Killing Time: Countdown Quickens for Bush War on Iran
by Chris Floyd
The countdown to war with Iran has entered its final stages now. Citing testimony elicited – by one means or another – from two Iraqi Shiite captives and a Lebanese man who has been held in one of Bush's secret prisons, U.S. military officials are now formally charging that Iranian government officials directly planned operations that killed American soldiers in Iraq.
Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner said the evidence obtained from the captives proves that Iran's Qud Force – one of those deep cover, gloves-off, Special Ops kind of units so beloved of the Bushists and their bootlickers – are arming and training Shiite militia groups to attack American and Iraqi government forces. That would be the same Iraqi government that is controlled by, er, Iranian-armed and trained militia groups who are also being armed and trained by the Bush Administration.
Down in the Flood: The Senate's Blank Check for War on Iran
by Chris Floyd As you may know -- unless you rely on the corporate media for your news, of course -- yesterday the U.S. Senate unanimously declared that Iran was committing acts of war against the United States: a 97-0 vote to give George W. Bush a clear and unmistakable casus belli for attacking Iran whenever Dick Cheney tells him to.
The bipartisan Senate resolution – the brainchild (or rather the bilechild) of Fightin' Joe Lieberman – affirmed as official fact all of the specious, unproven, ever-changing allegations of direct Iranian involvement in attacks on the American forces now occupying Iraq. The Senators appear to have relied heavily on the recent New York Times story by Michael Gordon that stove-piped unchallenged Pentagon spin directly onto the paper's front page. As Firedoglake points out, John McCain cited the heavily criticized story on the Senate floor as he cast his vote.
Surging Toward War With Iran
by Chris Floyd If you have any doubt that the Bush Administration is planning a military strike against Iran, then check out the lead story in today's Guardian: Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq. The story, which is based entirely -- entirely -- on the unchallenged statements of three anonymous "American officials," not only alleges that Iran is "already committing daily acts of war against US and British forces" -- including the increasing mortar attacks on the Green Zone -- but also asserts that Tehran has entered into an active military alliance with al-Qaeda.
Together, this new axis of evil will launch a "nationwide, Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive" aimed at undermining the scheduled September progress report from U.S. General David Petraeus on the vaunted "surge." Oh, and to top it all off, the same officials told the Guardian's stenographer, Simon Tisdall, that Iran has now also allied itself with its long-time enemy, the Taliban, and are helping kill Americans in Afghanistan as well.
'Anti-War' Democrats Give Bush Victory on a Platter
by Chris Floyd I've been writing on the "War for Oil," piecemeal, for years (e.g., Claiming the Prize: Bush Surge Aimed at Securing Iraqi Oil), but Richard Behan has provided one of the best, most succinct summaries of the Bush Administration's true aims in their war of aggression against Iraq in "George Bush's Land Mine: If the Iraqi People Get Revenue Sharing, They Lose Their Oil to Exxon.
As Behan notes, the new "Iraqi oil law" (originally written, in English, by Bush's own oily cronies) will essentially transfer up to 80 percent of Iraq's oil revenues into the coffers of American and British oil companies, for decades to come. This plan was conceived long before the war -- and long before the 9/11 attacks used to justify the war. As Behan notes: "This bizarre circumstance is the end-game of the brilliant, ever-deceitful maneuvering by the Bush Administration in conducting the entire scenario of the 'global war on terror.'"
Ninth Circle: The Widening Gyre of Iraq's Death Spiral
by Chris Floyd
If you would like a glimpse of the raging, death-clotted hell that George W. Bush and his willing executioners in the bipartisan American Establishment have created in Iraq, then steel yourself and plunge into Nir Rosen's shattering report in the latest issue of Boston Review: No Going Back.
Rosen, long one of the most dogged and fearless truth-tellers about Iraq, portrays a reality light-years away from the obscenely mendacious and ignorant American "debate" over Bush's rapine and its consequences.
The Next Quagmire
by Chris Hedges The most effective diplomats, like the most effective intelligence officers and foreign correspondents, possess empathy. They have the intellectual, cultural and linguistic literacy to get inside the heads of those they must analyze or cover.
They know the vast array of historical, religious, economic and cultural antecedents that go into making up decisions and reactions. And because of this—endowed with the ability to communicate and more able to find ways of resolving conflicts through diplomacy—they are less prone to blunders.
But we live in an age where dialogue is dismissed and empathy is suspect. We prefer the illusion that we can dictate events through force. It hasn’t worked well in Iraq. It hasn’t worked well in Afghanistan. And it won’t work in Iran. But those who once tried to reach out and understand, who developed expertise to explain the world to us and ourselves to the world, no longer have a voice in the new imperial project. We are instead governed and informed by moral and intellectual trolls.
The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness
by CHRIS HEDGES & LAILA AL-ARIAN Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.
Their stories, recorded and typed into thousands of pages of transcripts, reveal disturbing patterns of behavior by American troops in Iraq. Dozens of those interviewed witnessed Iraqi civilians, including children, dying from American firepower. Some participated in such killings; others treated or investigated civilian casualties after the fact. Many also heard such stories, in detail, from members of their unit. The soldiers, sailors and marines emphasized that not all troops took part in indiscriminate killings. Many said that these acts were perpetrated by a minority. But they nevertheless described such acts as common and said they often go unreported--and almost always go unpunished.
Juan Cole recently heard Craig speak at the conference of the
Central Eurasian Studies Society.
Craig Murray on Manufacturing Terror
Oil, Lily Pad Bases and Torture
The
Bush administration has been about "the Greater Middle East" (including
Central Asia). It has been about basing rights in those areas. It says
it is fighting a "war on terror" that is unlike past wars and may go on
for decades. It has been about rounding up and torturing large numbers
of Iraqis, Afghans and others. This region has most of the world's
proven oil and gas reserves.
Boys
and girls, it is because torture is what provides evidence for large
important networks of terrorists where there aren't really any, or
aren't very many, or aren't enough to justify 800 military bases and a
$500 billion military budget.
I was at the conference of the
Central Eurasian Studies Society the last couple of days. Saturday
evening, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray addressed us.
He served in Tashkent 2002 through 2004. Murray was providing copies of
his new book, "Murder in Samarkand," which unfortunately is not yet
available in the United States.
Where Nobody is Accountable
by Ali al-Fadhily Killings, crime, lack of medical care, collapse of education, the list goes on. But with the occupation by U.S.-led forces now into a fifth year, and a supposedly democratic government in place, no one knows who to hold accountable for all that is going wrong.
It is the occupation forces, particularly the United States and Britain, that must be held accountable, many Iraqis say.
"It is good of these people to discuss accountability for theft, but the most important thing to account for is Iraqi blood," Numan Ahmed, a human rights activist from the Adhamiya neighbourhood in Baghdad told IPS.
Tensions Run High After Sunni Killings
by Dahr Jamail The killings of two pro-government Sunni Muslims has raised tensions across Lebanon. Rival political leaders have called for calm amidst fear that the killings could spark civil strife.
The Lebanese police found the bodies Thursday of a pro-government supporter and a 12-year-old boy abducted earlier this week. The abduction was believed to be in retaliation for the killing earlier this year of a Shia Muslim opposition activist.
A Dream Called Electricity
by Ali al-Fadhily Simmering in the summer heat, Iraqis now have a dream called electricity. It is a part of the bigger dream of reconstruction that collapsed. On all measurable levels, the infrastructure is worse than under the former regime of Saddam Hussein, even when it was crippled by the harshest economic sanctions in modern history.
Iraqis lack security, jobs, potable water, and these days when it really pinches, electricity.
Refugees Caught Between Deportation and Death Threats
by Ali al-Fadhily Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis driven out of their country by violence are now faced with detention abroad, or a homecoming to death threats.
More than two million Iraqis, in a population of about 25 million, have taken refuge in many countries. Only a few have won official status as refugees. Most refugees in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and many other countries stay on as illegal residents, facing threats of deportation and imprisonment.
"To deport an Iraqi refugee is to issue a death warrant," Ali Jassim, an Iraqi journalist recently deported from Lebanon told IPS in Baghdad. "The Lebanese authorities are applying regular migration rules to Iraqis, meaning that most Iraqis in Lebanon will be deported."
Damascus, Syria Dr Omar al-Khattab fled Iraq just over a year ago after receiving death threats. At that time, he was working at Balad General Hospital, 50km north of Baghdad.
"I had to leave my home, my work and my salary so now I'm living here jobless and am just barely surviving," he said during an interview inside an almost bare apartment in the Al-Qudsiya suburb of Damascus.
"In my hospital alone, of five surgeons only one remains. We were three orthopaedics but now there are none, and only 25 per cent of the resident doctors remain."
Iraq is the most dangerous place in the world for journalists. Along with names and dates, the Brussels Tribunal has listed the circumstances under which Iraqi media personnel have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. This extremely credible report cites 195 as dead. If non-Iraqi media representatives are included, the figure goes beyond 200. Both figures are well in excess of the media fatalities suffered in Vietnam or during World War II.
The primary reason why reporting from Iraq is dangerous for all journalists is the horrific security situation. Iraqi journalists reporting from the streets are in perpetual danger. If any of the countless militias does not want a certain story made public, it will make sure that the journalist has filed his or her last story. Not to mention the scores of reporter deaths which have been the combined handiwork of the Iraqi government, occupation forces and/or criminal gangs.
CHALLENGES 2007-2008: Iraq Progresses To Some of its Worst
by Dahr Jamail Despite all the claims of improvements, 2007 has been the worst year yet in Iraq.
One of the first big moves this year was the launch of a troop "surge" by the U.S. government in mid-February. The goal was to improve security in Baghdad and the western al-Anbar province, the two most violent areas. By June, an additional 28,000 troops had been deployed to Iraq, bringing the total number up to more than 160,000.
By autumn, there were over 175,000 U.S. military personnel in Iraq. This is the highest number of U.S. troops deployed yet, and while the U.S. government continues to talk of withdrawing some, the numbers on the ground appear to contradict these promises.
'Awakening' Forces Arouse New Conflicts
by Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail The controversial move of the U.S. military to back Sunni "Awakening" forces has created another wedge between Sunni and Shia political groups.
Following disputes between the tribal groups assembled into Awakening forces and the Iraqi government, the creation of these forces has become also a political issue.
Security Meet Ends, Insecurity Does Not
Inter Press Service Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily
BAGHDAD, Mar 12 (IPS) - The security conference held last Saturday in Baghdad produced statements, drew mortar fire, and brought little hope of security. The conference, which was attended by representatives from 13 countries including Syria, Iran and the United States, was held inside the heavily fortified "green zone" in central Baghdad.
Representatives from Iraq's six neighbouring countries (Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait and Syria) and delegates from the five permanent UN Security Council countries (the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France) were present along with several Arab representatives.
Have the Tigris and Euphrates Run Dry?
by Ali al-Fadhily
Two of the largest rivers of the region run through Iraq, so why are Iraqis desperate for lack of water?
The vast majority of Iraqis live by the Euphrates river, and the Tigris with its many tributaries.
The two rivers join near Basra city in the south to form the Shat al-Arab river basin. Iraq is also gifted with high quality ground water resources; about a fifth of the territory is farmland.
Banners 
Three senior members of the House Judiciary Committee have called for the immediate opening of impeachment hearings for Vice President Richard Cheney.
In the last couple of days Barack Obama has found out what Paula Jones must have felt like after being worked over by the Clinton organization. Ms. Clinton goes slap, slap, slap across his face as husband Bill lets the Illinois Senator have it below the belt.
The mass break-out of some 700,000 Palestinians from Israel’s open-air prison at Gaza has profoundly changed the political landscape of the Middle East. In magnitude, it can be compared to the impact on Europe of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nothing will be the same again. There can be no return to the past. 
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. 
The World Bank — which has to be applauded for having made the first such attempt — started making international comparisons of poverty only about two decades back. For obvious reasons of convenience it developed two simple notions of poverty. The US Treasury being the power behind the institution, and the dollar being the reserve currency by design, the lower poverty line was set at $1 a day per capita. Those below it were considered to be “the poorest of the poor”. The upper poverty line was set at $2 a day. Those living on $1—2 a day were still poor, but not as badly off. The updated numbers today, corrected for inflation, are $1.08 and $2.15.
It sounds cozy – almost storybook. “In harm’s way.” This phrase presents what is happening to and with American troops as a static reality. Harm was there waiting for the troops to arrive and they got in the way of this thing that was coiled ready to meet the unsuspecting soldiers.
Imagine with me a moment George W. Bush and his collaborators dressed in the iconic orange jump suits made familiar to the world through images from Abu Ghraib, Bagram Airbase, and Guantanamo Bay. 
Perched on a "burning platform" is how David Walker of the non-partisan GAO describes the nation under George W. Bush. In an interview with the Financial Times, Walker implored the administration, and the citizenry learn from the fall of ancient Rome.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has 
Canada's National Post broke a sensational story; a story so big, the flagship of the CanWest Global media monolith denied its nationwide dailies, keeping the scoop to themselves. 
The number one for Iraq at U.S. Central Command let fly a balloon in an interview with National Public Radio today, saying reintroducing the forced induction of Americans into the armed services is an option that has never been "off the table," letting hang the implicit question of a return to the draft that created mayhem throughout the United States the last time it was enacted, during America's war against Vietnam and South East Asia.
George W. Bush's innumerable sycopants like to potray him as a down-to-earth man of the people:
a man's man, tough and fearless, a good-ole-boy Texas rancher more at
home in the scrub brush and desert dirt than in the clean, carpeted
corridors of power in Washington.
printed in the New York Times and Washington Post, it should be the topic of every political yap show on television, people should be talking about it between downs and during commercials while they watch the NFL playoffs.
The countdown to war with Iran has entered its final stages now. Citing testimony elicited – by one means or another – from two Iraqi Shiite captives and a Lebanese man who has been held in one of Bush's secret prisons, U.S. military officials are now formally charging that Iranian government officials directly planned operations that killed American soldiers in Iraq.
As you may know -- unless you rely on the corporate media for your news, of course -- yesterday the U.S. Senate unanimously declared that Iran was committing acts of war against the United States: a 97-0 vote to give George W. Bush a clear and unmistakable casus belli for attacking Iran whenever Dick Cheney tells him to. 
If you have any doubt that the Bush Administration is planning a military strike against Iran, then check out the lead story in 
I've been writing on the "War for Oil," piecemeal, for years (e.g., 
If you would like a glimpse of the raging, death-clotted hell that George W. Bush and his willing executioners in the bipartisan American Establishment have created in Iraq, then steel yourself and plunge into Nir Rosen's shattering report in the latest issue of Boston Review: 
The most effective diplomats, like the most effective intelligence officers and foreign correspondents, possess empathy. They have the intellectual, cultural and linguistic literacy to get inside the heads of those they must analyze or cover. 
Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts. 
Juan Cole recently heard Craig speak at the conference of the
Central Eurasian Studies Society. 
Killings, crime, lack of medical care, collapse of education, the list goes on. But with the occupation by U.S.-led forces now into a fifth year, and a supposedly democratic government in place, no one knows who to hold accountable for all that is going wrong.
The killings of two pro-government Sunni Muslims has raised tensions across Lebanon. Rival political leaders have called for calm amidst fear that the killings could spark civil strife.
Simmering in the summer heat, Iraqis now have a dream called electricity. It is a part of the bigger dream of reconstruction that collapsed. On all measurable levels, the infrastructure is worse than under the former regime of Saddam Hussein, even when it was crippled by the harshest economic sanctions in modern history.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis driven out of their country by violence are now faced with detention abroad, or a homecoming to death threats.
Dr Omar al-Khattab fled Iraq just over a year ago after receiving death threats. At that time, he was working at Balad General Hospital, 50km north of Baghdad.
Iraq is the most dangerous place in the world for journalists. Along with names and dates, the Brussels Tribunal has listed the circumstances under which Iraqi media personnel have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. This extremely credible report cites 195 as dead. If non-Iraqi media representatives are included, the figure goes beyond 200. Both figures are well in excess of the media fatalities suffered in Vietnam or during World War II. 
Despite all the claims of improvements, 2007 has been the worst year yet in Iraq.
BAGHDAD, Mar 12 (IPS) - The security conference held last Saturday in Baghdad produced statements, drew mortar fire, and brought little hope of security. The conference, which was attended by representatives from 13 countries including Syria, Iran and the United States, was held inside the heavily fortified "green zone" in central Baghdad.