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.
Nineteen people are facing charges including assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest following a demonstration at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver late Friday.
Vancouver police and RCMP officers arrested several students when they staged an impromptu rally at UBC.
(CBC) Police said they were called by campus security and arrested 19 people.
A large crowd of UBC students had gathered outside the Student Union Building to demonstrate against the redevelopment of a grassy knoll at the location. A bonfire was lit as the protest neared its end.
The fight in defence of targeted anti-war and social justice activist Alison Bodine has reached a critical point on the eve of her scheduled November 17th exclusion from Canada.
It has been over 2 months since Alison was harassed as a political activist after border agents found antiwar materials in her car.
The political targeting then continued, when she was arrested by Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) as she attempted to exit Canada on September 13th. Currently Alison Bodine is Co-chair, executive committee member and spokesperson of Mobilization
Against War and Occupation (MAWO) in Vancouver, BC.
Shadow and Swamp: A Brief Discursion on 9/11
by Chris Floyd
A commenter asked recently about my take on 9/11. In light of the anniversary (which I noted here; see also Jon Schwarz's piece here), I thought this might be a good time to set out, very briefly, what I think on the subject.
It's really quite simple and, to my mind, self-evident: the "official" story of what happened on September 11, 2001, is not a complete or accurate account. (We should of course speak of official stories, because there have been several shifting, contradictory scenarios offered by the great and the good in the six years since the attack.
However, for clarity's sake, we'll stick with the singular for now, and will assume -- as the entire media and political establishment does -- that the report by the Hamilton-Kean 9/11 Commission is the final "official" version.)
Remembering When the Government Was at Least Approachable
by Dave Lindorff We’ve come a long way towards imperial government in the US—towards a view of the relationship between the federal government, and especially the administration, and the citizenry that has more of a ruler-subjects than a democratic feel to it.
Now I know it is easy to gloss over the way things were, and since I spent a few days in federal prison for protesting the Indochina War at the Pentagon in 1967, after being beaten by federal marshals for doing nothing more than exercising my constitutional right to protest on public ground, I am well aware that 40 years ago we were also often treated like serfs. But that said, there was something different back then—a sense that you could deal with powerful officials as an equal.
9/11 Truth Movement vs. 9/11 Truth: Or, who are these people and why do they keep yelling at me?
by David Rovics I found myself once again singing at an antiwar rally two weeks ago, and once again being confronted by a red-faced white man with an ominous hand-written sign reading, "9/11 was a lie."
Most of the crowd was filing off for the post-rally march, aside from a few of my loyal fans who were sticking around for the rest of my set. Among them was the red-faced man, apparently not a fan, who walked towards the small stage with the wild-eyed certainty of a zealot.
"Wake up, David Rovics! David Rovics, wake up to the truth of 9/11!" He was screaming at the top of his lungs, standing about two feet from me. (I continued with the song.) In case I didn't get the message the first time, the red-faced man repeated his mantra. "Wake up! Wake up to the truth of 9/11!"
The Third Tier Candidates: Why Vote for Dennis Kucinich?
by Jack Random The politics of pragmatism has become so prevalent in mainstream politics that the independent left has gone into overdrive to disown the concept.
Spitting in the wind of conventional wisdom – historically, a noble endeavor – it has become a progressive badge of honor to have opposed Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 election.
There are many reasons for progressives and independents to hold disdain for the Kerry campaign but few among us would argue that the nation is better off because Kerry was not elected – or rather that his electoral victory was undone by subterfuge in Ohio.
Torture Policies Undermine 9/11 Case
by Jason Leopold The Pentagon’s decision to drop war-crimes charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani, the alleged “20th hijacker” in the 9/11 attacks, again underscores the consequences of the Bush administration’s descent into torture and other abusive treatment of “war on terror” detainees.
If al-Qahtani’s case had gone forward, the U.S. government would have been forced to reveal its own violations of the Geneva Convention, anti-torture statutes and the laws of war, according to lawyers representing al-Qahtani.
If 3,000 people had not died on September 11, 2001, a report released by the CIA’s inspector general would be laughable. “A CIA report released Tuesday blames the top leadership of the agency for major lapses in fighting al-Qaida and outlines how intelligence officials missed numerous opportunities to thwart two hijackers prior to the Sept. 11 attacks,” reports NBC.
“The 19-page executive summary, written by the CIA’s inspector general, finds extensive fault with the actions of former director George Tenet and other CIA leaders.”
And what, pray tell, are these “major lapses” in “fighting al-Qaida,” the mostly smoke and mirrors terrorist organization named after a mujahideen database?
10. 9/11 Version 2.0 (Opinion/Opinion)
Author : Paul Craig Roberts
My wake-up call: Watch for another 9/11-WMD experience
by Paul Craig Roberts This is a wake-up call that we are about to experience another 9/11-WMD experience. The wake-up call is unlikely to be effective, because the American attitude toward government changed fundamentally 70-odd years ago.
Prior to the 1930s, Americans were suspicious of government, but with the arrival of the Great Depression, Tojo, and Hitler, President Franklin D. Roosevelt convinced Americans that government existed to protect them from rapacious private interests and foreign threats.
Today, Americans are more likely to give the benefit of the doubt to government than they are to family members, friends, and those who would warn them about the government’s protection.
Youth, Elders, Artists, Pastors Challenge the Blockade of Cuba
by Pastors for Peace
More than 100 Pastors for Peace volunteers from the US, Canada, and Europe have assembled in McAllen, TX to challenge the immoral US blockade on trade and travel to Cuba.
Participants in the 19th US/Cuba Friendshipment Caravan arrived last night in McAllen and are currently preparing for their journey. They are camped out at Our Savior Lutheran Church for several days to inventory the 100 tons of aid they have collected for Cuba, to decorate and maintain their vehicles, and to prepare their border-crossing strategy.
The Bomb Squads: How to Survive a Gaza Refugee Camp
by Ramzy Baroud We waited breathless. Breathing heavily was hazardous under these somewhat exceptional circumstances. The army, my father often advised, was sensitive to the slightest movements or sounds, including a whisper, a cough, or God forbid, a sneeze. Thus we sat completely still.
Muneer, my younger brother was entrusted with the mission of peering through the rusty holes in the front door. It bothered me that I was not the one elected for the seemingly perilous mission. My father explained that Muneer was smaller and quicker, he could negotiate his way back and forth, seamlessly, between the observation ground and the room where everyone was hiding.
Don't ask for what you never had,' is the underlying message made by supporters of Israel when they claim Palestine was never a state to begin with.
The contention is, of course, easily refutable. Following the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th Century, colonial powers plotted to divide the spoils. When Britain and France signed the secretive Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916, which divided the spheres of influence in west Asia, there were hardly any 'nation-states' in the region which would fit contemporary definitions of the term.
September 11: Relevant Questions
by Ramzy Baroud Osama bin Laden has once again managed to occupy the stage and to insist on his relevance to the story of September 11, 2001. In his most recent video message, released by Reuters a few days before the sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, bin Laden voiced some typically absurd statements, calling on Americans to embrace Islam and so forth.
What is really worth noting in bin Laden's message, however, is not the message itself, but the underlying factors that can be deduced from it. First, bin Laden wished to convey that he is alive and well and thus the US military efforts have failed miserably. Second, his reappearance - a first since October 2004 - will be analyzed endlessly by hundreds of "experts" who will inundate widespread audiences with every possible interpretation - the fact that he looked healthy, that he dyed his beard, that he dressed in Arab attire as opposed to a military fatigue and a Kalashnikov by his side, that he read from a paper and so on.
CBS Falsifies Iraq War History
by Robert Parry There’s a cynical old saying that the victors write the history. CBS’s “60 Minutes” demonstrated how that process works on Jan. 27 in airing Scott Pelley’s interview with the FBI agent who de-briefed former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
In a world of objective reality, a reporter might say that the United States launched an unprovoked invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, under the false pretense that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, even after Iraq had repeatedly – and accurately – announced that its WMD had been destroyed in the 1990s.
This June will mark an anniversary that will live in infamy for the people affected by the event it commemorates following a far greater one 19 years earlier on May 14, 1948.
On June 5, 1967, Israel launched its so-called "Six-Day (preemptive) War" against three of its neighboring Arab states — Egypt, Jordan and Syria — claiming it was in self-defense to avoid annihilation Israeli leaders later admitted was spurious and false cover for a large-scale long-planned, calculated war of aggression it believed it could easily win and did.
I just watched the Congressional briefing on the Lancet Iraqi casualty study: "650,000 excess deaths in Iraq". Speaking were Gilbert Burnham, Les Roberts, and Juan Cole. The briefing was organized by Rep, Kucinich, with the support of rep. Ron Paul.
The briefing was to discuss the October 2006 study Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey,which appeared in the British medical journal The Lancet. This study estimated that 655,000 more Iraqis had died ("excess deaths") since the invasion than would have died if the prewar rate of death (mortality) had continued. It further estimated that about 600,000 of these had died from violence.
I have great respect for Rep. Kucinich, who kept the entire briefing focused on the effects of the fighting on the Iraqi people and on Iraqi society. It is the first time I've seen anyone from the U.S. government focus on Iraqis and what they have experienced and what they are suffering. For example, he asked about the effects on Iraqi society of the loss of so many young men. He also asked about the creation of Iraqi orphans. Unfortunately, none of the three scholars had any real information on these topics, a sign of how little we really know about what is going on in that unfortunate country.
MidEast News 
The fight in defence of targeted anti-war and social justice activist Alison Bodine has reached a critical point on the eve of her scheduled November 17th exclusion from Canada. 
Willie Rodriguez 
A commenter asked recently about my take on 9/11. In light of the anniversary (which 
I found myself once again singing at an antiwar rally two weeks ago, and once again being confronted by a red-faced white man with an ominous hand-written sign reading, "9/11 was a lie." 
If 3,000 people had not died on September 11, 2001, a report released by the CIA’s inspector general would be laughable. “A CIA report released Tuesday blames the top leadership of the agency for major lapses in fighting al-Qaida and outlines how intelligence officials missed numerous opportunities to thwart two hijackers prior to the Sept. 11 attacks,” 
This is a wake-up call that we are about to experience another 9/11-WMD experience. The wake-up call is unlikely to be effective, because the American attitude toward government changed fundamentally 70-odd years ago. 
There’s a cynical old saying that the victors write the history. CBS’s “60 Minutes” demonstrated how that process works on Jan. 27 in airing Scott Pelley’s interview with the FBI agent who de-briefed former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
This June will mark an anniversary that will live in infamy for the people affected by the event it commemorates following a far greater one 19 years earlier on May 14, 1948.
I just watched the Congressional briefing on the Lancet Iraqi casualty study: "650,000 excess deaths in Iraq". Speaking were Gilbert Burnham, Les Roberts, and Juan Cole. The briefing was organized by Rep, Kucinich, with the support of rep. Ron Paul. 
