This rant is for Molly Ivins, one on my short list of people I always wanted to be like when I grew up. Hell, I still do. God bless her.

 I’m a big fan of Robin Hood, the 12th century noble highwayman who, from his lurk in Sherwood Forest would prey upon the fatted courtiers of an evil, usurper king and bedevil acolytes of the pretender’s enablers, Guy of Gisbourne and the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham; all in the name of good King Richard Coeur de Lion, engaged as he was in crusading to free and defend the distant Holy land. So it was with heavy heart I heard this week of the death of all Robin engendered, and the end to the dreams he and his merry men held for an eternal abolishment of the tyranny and despotism King John represented.

If this is true, then why has the United States not already declared war on Iran?

In what alternative universe would Washington allow another nation to direct attacks that kill U.S. troops without responding?

by Chris Floyd

The reaction from actual Iraqis on the just-released report by the "Iraq Study Group"? They don't like it; it won't work; it's largely a tissue of fantasies and shows no grasp of the true situation in Iraq; it has nothing to do with solving Iraq's problems but everything to do with the American Establishment's desperate attempt to save face, no matter how many people must be slaughtered in the process.

But why should we listen to these wretched malcontents in Iraq? How the hell could they know more about the reality of their lives than Jim "Bagman" Baker and Lee "Whitewash for Hire" Hamilton and Harriet "Here's the PB&J, George" Miers and Ed "Porn Man" Meese? I mean, come on: who on God's green earth knows more about the political, social, ethnic, historical, religious and military complexities of Iraq than Ed Meese? The Heritage Foundation's Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy?  Man, he's the go-to guy for all things Iraqi! There's no freaking, frigging way that any Hakim or Abdul or Nouri or Motqada or Mahmoud is gonna have any  greater insight on Iraq than Ed Meese. Are you kidding me?

As Bush outlines his new Iraq strategy, he may well mention the new U.S. airstrikes in Somalia that targeted Islamic extremists. He can cite the war on terrorism's multiple fronts. It fits in with his fight-them-abroad-not-at-home thesis. Administration allies suggest the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia in 1993 helped strengthen the al-Qaida terror network.

"Just as the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan emboldened and enlarged al-Qaida, just as our withdrawal from Somalia encouraged them to go find more targets, our defeat in Iraq would expand the numbers of terrorists and embolden them to seek new strategic targets," said Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas, a Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee.

by Chris Floyd
Anyone of a certain age — and not a very great one at that — knows perfectly well from their own experience how the country's infrastructure has been allowed to wither and rot over the past three decades.

They can see with their own eyes how the absolute ascendancy of crony capitalism — the rigged "free market" feasting on gargantuan pork and sweetheart laws laid out by well-bribed pols — has transformed the country into an ugly, crumbling, slap-dash monoculture laid over broken roads, abandoned cities and hard, harsh lives.

Peace March Expected to be Among Largest Since War Began

by David Swanson

Here's a statement that's blasphemy both in the peace movement and in the halls of the warmongers:

Here's the situation we're in.  President Bush and his gang lied us into a war.  The occupation of Iraq has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction or 9-11 or Saddam Hussein or democracy or making Americans more safe.  There is no reason for this war respectable enough to discuss in public.  And so, the U.S. corporate media does not discuss the reason, or absence of any reason, for the war.  Instead we're treated to endless debates over whether the war is a civil war, or we're given hundreds of hours of coverage of a report that has no legal force and no coherent point to it.  Or we learn all about new appointees and how their personalities differ from those of the outgoing war-makers.  Or we learn about new committee chairs and power-shifts in Congress.  Or we hear about polls and surveys on the war.  Or media coverage focuses on whether to escalate the war by sending in an additional number of troops that is small relative to the number already there. 

All of these stories, including the story of Bush's expected proposal for escalation of the occupation, serve the same purpose: they allow the U.S. media to claim to be covering the war without actually discussing what purpose the war serves and without showing us what the war is doing to people.

by Ehsan Azari

Afghanistan is one of the countries that war criminals and human right offenders enjoy inexorable impunity as long as they are on the sides of the winner. This is a formula being played out in Afghanistan, the unconscious of the world, a cauldron with the boiling killing and death instincts. This is a place where the East, the West, and Afghans themselves have done for centuries their worst.

On Thursday 1st of February, the Afghan Wolesi Jirga Lower House passed a legislation that grants amnesty for any militia or party member accused of human right abuses in the past quarter of a century. The cruel irony is that some of the legislators themselves are on the Human Rights Watch list accused of war crimes and other human right violations. The legislation of amnesty has to be approved by Mishranu Jirgah Upper House and signed by President Karzai. Even if this never takes place, there is a lot more to it than that. War crimes and human right violence in Afghanistan places a heavy burden on the conscience of the international community.

Even though Ms Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner of Human Right, expressed concerns on this legislation, it is most unlikely that the victims of very serious human right violations in Afghanistan will ever see justice done to their torturers. This controversial law has been voted in under the nose of tens of thousands of NATO troops serving in the country to fight the Taliban-led insurgency, calling into question the alliance mission. Whereas In 1999 NATO vigorously began arresting scores of Serb and Croat military officers accused of human-right violations to stand trial at the Hague Tribunal. Besides such a law that grants impunity for war criminals and human rights violations, is a flagrant breach of the declaration of universal human rights that should belong to everyone, everywhere.

"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace." - George W. Bush, June 2002

"Given unlimited time and unlimited support, we're winning the war." - US Army Gen. John Abizaid, when asked how the United States was doing in Iraq, September 2006