Updates from September, 2009 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • InI 08:43 on September 9, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Re. 9/11 Launching the International Campaign for Mounir El Motassadeq By Elias Davidsson 

    Dear friends,

    The Committee for Mounir el Motassadeq launches today an international campaign for the reopening of his case, after a Hamburg (Germany) court sentenced him to 15 years in prison, for allegedly helping his friends, Mohamed Atta and Co. to prepare the attacks of 9/11. Mounir is doubly innocent. First, he did not know anything of the preparations for 9/11. And second, there is not a shred of evidence that his friends, Mohammed Atta and Co. participated in the attacks of 9/11.

    By demanding the reopening of the trial, it is our aim to force a judicial determination that there exists no evidence of Muslim participation in the attacks of 9/11. We expect, evidently, that the US and German governments will fiercely oppose any attempt to reopen the case because such reopening could – if the court acts impartially – undermine the official legend of 9/11, the raison-d’être of the Western Alliance, and the basis of the the War on Terror and the Occupation of Afghanistan. However, the wrongful condemnation of Mounir presents a unique and historical opportunity to reveal to the public the extent of political, judicial and moral rot, that afflicts even a country such as Germany, which claims to have learned lessons from history.

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  • InI 08:16 on September 9, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    "Wall Street's 9/11": Did Lehman Brothers Fall or Was It Pushed? By Ellen Brown 

    8 September, 2009 — Global Research – Web of Debt

    A year after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, questions still swirl around its collapse. Lawrence MacDonald, whose book A Colossal Failure of Common Sense came out in July 2009, maintains that the bank was not in substantially worse shape than other major Wall Street banks. He says Lehman was just “put to sleep. They put the pillow over the face of Lehman Brothers and they put her to sleep.” The question is, why?

    The Lehman bankruptcy is widely considered to be the watershed event that changed the rules of the game for those Wall Street banks considered “too big to fail.” The bankruptcy option was ruled out once and for all. The taxpayers would have to keep throwing money at the banks, no matter how corrupt, ill-managed or undeserving. As Dean Baker noted in April 2009:

    “Geithner has supposedly ruled out the bankruptcy option because when he, along with Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, tried letting Lehman Brothers go under last fall, it didn’t turn out very well. Of course, it is not necessary to go the route of an uncontrolled bankruptcy that Geithner and Co. pursued with Lehman. . . . [But] the Geithner crew insists that there are no alternatives to his plan; we have to just keep giving hundreds of billions of dollars to the banks . . . , further enriching the bankers who wrecked the economy.”

    Although Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on Monday, September 15, 2008, it was actually “bombed” on September 11, when the biggest one-day drop in its stock and highest trading volume occurred before bankruptcy. Lehman CEO Richard Fuld maintained that the 158 year old bank was brought down by unsubstantiated rumors and illegal naked short selling. Although short selling (selling shares you don’t own) is legal, the short seller is required to have shares lined up to borrow and replace to cover the sale. Failure to buy the shares back in the next three trading days is called a “fail to deliver.” Christopher Cox, who was chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2008, said in a July 2009 article that naked short selling “can allow manipulators to force prices down far lower than would be possible in legitimate short-selling conditions.” By September 11, 2008, according to the SEC, as many as 32.8 million Lehman shares had been sold and not delivered – a 57-fold increase over the peak of the prior year. For a very large company like Lehman, with plenty of “float” (available shares for trading), this unprecedented number was highly suspicious and warranted serious investigation. But the SEC, which was criticized for failing to follow up even on tips that Bernie Madoff’s business was a ponzi scheme, has yet to announce the results of any investigation.

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  • InI 10:32 on September 8, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Men with Guns, in Kabul and Washington By Norman Solomon 

    For those who believe in making war, Kabul is a notable work product. After 30 years, the results are in: a devastated city.

    A stale witticism calls Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai “the mayor of Kabul.” Now, not even. On block after block in the Afghan capital, AK-47s are conspicuous in the hands of men on guard against a near future. Widely seen as corrupt, inept and — with massive election fraud — now illegitimate, Karzai’s government is losing its grip along with its credibility.

    Meanwhile, a war-stoking mindset is replicating itself at the highest reaches of official Washington — even while polls tell us that the pro-war spin has been losing ground. For the U.S. public, dwindling support for the war in Afghanistan has reached a tipping point. But, as you’ve probably heard, the war must go on.

    Kabul’s streets are blowing with harsh dust, a brutal harvest of chronic war that has destroyed trees and irrigation on mountains around the city.

    Visiting Kabul in late August, I met a lot of wonderful people, doing their best in the midst of grim and lethal realities. The city seemed thick with pessimism.

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  • InI 16:40 on September 7, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Following Afghan Election, NATO Intensifies Deployments, Carnage By Rick Rozoff 

    6 September, 2009 — stop NATO

    After NATO pledged 5,000 more troops for the war in Afghanistan at its sixtieth anniversary summit In Strasbourg, France and Kehl, Germany this April, U.S. President Barack Obama hailed the commitment as representing ‘a strong down payment on the future of our mission in Afghanistan and on the future of NATO.’

    The Alliance offer was in addition to Obama’s own vow to deploy 21,000 more American forces to the war-wracked nation where the U.S. is waging its longest war since that in Vietnam and NATO is fighting the first ground and first Asian war in its history. A conflict that will enter its ninth calendar year next month.

    Not, never, willing to acknowledge that the Afghan war is in fact a war, Washington and Brussels from the time of the summit until now have attempted to justify their troop buildups in South Asia as motivated primarily by insuring that the second presidential election in Afghanistan since the joint U.S.-NATO invasion of 2001 proceeded uninterrupted. A ruthless counterinsurgency and bombing campaign was thus portrayed as another war for democracy.

    The election occurred on August 20, seventeen days ago, and the results are to date inconclusive, with incumbent president Hamid Karzai in the lead with less than 50% of the vote and former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah with enough votes to force a run-off election.

    A second round of elections will provide the pretext for NATO and the Pentagon to maintain current inflated troop numbers in the country, deployments that were announced by the contributing nations’ governments as short-term ones specifically designated for August’s election.

    All that has occurred in the past two and a half weeks, however, belies claims by the U.S. and its NATO allies that anything other than an escalating, expanding and protracted war in South Asia is intended.

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  • InI 14:00 on September 7, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    A New Message for Labour Day 2009? By Leo Panitch 

    7 September, 2009 — The Bullet A Socialist Project e-bulletin – No. 251

    Workers of the world unite!

    What is the significance of the way not only Keynes but even Marx has been brought back into fashion amidst the global economic crisis? This is a question well worth pondering on the day that is officially designated to celebrate the class that Marx saw as carrying the promise – and the responsibility – of creating a better world.

    Twenty years ago, many cast Marx’s ideas into the dustbin of history along with the statist Communist regimes that collapsed in 1989. Yet Marx, who more than any 19th century liberal economist or philosopher insisted that the state was an imposition on society, and looked forward to it ‘withering away’ after a proletarian revolution, would have been the severest critic of those regimes. As Schumpeter once said, there was as little in common between Marx and Stalinism as there was Jesus and the Inquisition.

    In any case, as the globalization of capitalism quickened through the 1990s, it actually became more fashionable than ever to quote Marx, especially on how “the need for a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe,” creating in the process “a world in its own image.” But what was usually left out when the Communist Manifesto was quoted in this way in the 1990s was Marx’s prescience on capitalist globalization “paving the way for more extensive and exhaustive crises.”

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  • InI 10:58 on September 7, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Lockerbie: Megrahi Was Framed By John Pilger 

    6 September, 2009 — John Pilger

    The hysteria over the release of the so-called Lockerbie bomber reveals much about the political and media class on both sides of the Atlantic, especially Britain. From Gordon Brown’s ‘repulsion’ to Barack Obama’s ‘outrage,’ the theater of lies and hypocrisy is dutifully attended by those who call themselves journalists. ‘But what if Megrahi lives longer than three months?’ whined a BBC reporter to the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond. ‘What will you say to your constituents, then?’

    Horror of horrors that a dying man should live longer than prescribed before he ‘pays’ for his ‘heinous crime’: the description of the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, whose ‘compassion’ allowed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to go home to Libya to ‘face justice from a higher power.’ Amen.

    The American satirist Larry David once addressed a voluble crony as ‘a babbling brook of bullsh*t.’ Such eloquence summarizes the circus of Megrahi’s release.

    No one in authority has had the guts to state the truth about the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above the Scottish village of Lockerbie on 21 December 1988 in which 270 people were killed. The governments in England and Scotland in effect blackmailed Megrahi into dropping his appeal as a condition of his immediate release. Of course there were oil and arms deals under way with Libya; but had Megrahi proceeded with his appeal, some 600 pages of new and deliberately suppressed evidence would have set the seal on his innocence and given us more than a glimpse of how and why he was stitched up for the benefit of ‘strategic interests.’

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  • InI 10:37 on September 7, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Kawther Salam – Palestinian Organs for Sale and Experiments 

    6 September, 2009 — Kawther.info

    organ-01.jpgMany Palestinian bodies which had their organs removed are still in the refrigerators of the Israeli jails and hospitals, and many Palestinian bodies (about 300) which had their organs removed are still in secret and cemeteries with numbered graves. Israel is the only State in the world which continues holding the bodies of Palestinian victims and pursues it’s criminal policies as a cover for concealing up the proof of the theft of Palestinian organs. Since the seventies, Israel refuses to give these bodies back to their families in a clear violation to basic norms of human behavior, Israeli laws, the Geneva conventions and other international treaties”.organ-02.jpg (Click on pictures to see them bigger).

    The body of Martyr Mahmoud Touman, one of several people who carried out an operation against Israel in 1994, was returned to his family a month after the operation. His family stated that all the internal organs of their son had been purloined, and the family has pictures which prove the Israeli crime.

    The body of the Palestinian woman Daren Abu Eisha, who was killed by the Israelis on 27/2/2002 near a military checkpoint in the West Bank, is still held in Israel. Her mother wishes that the Israelis give her back the body of her daughter, so that she can bury it properly before her own death.

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  • InI 08:15 on September 7, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Art as Resistance By Dahr Jamail 

    6 September, 2009 — t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    “Throughout history, culture and art have always been the celebration of freedom under oppression.” – Author unknown

    Soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have tough truths to tell, and it has been well demonstrated that the establishment media does not want to broadcast these. Given the lack of an outlet for anti-war voices in the corporate media, many contemporary veterans and active-duty soldiers have embraced the arts as a tool for resistance, communication and healing. They have made use of a wide range of visual and performing arts – through theater, poetry, painting, writing, and other creative expression – to affirm their own opposition to the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

    The first Warrior Writers Project was led by veteran Lovella Calica. To help other veterans deal with their experiences in Iraq, she encouraged them to write. Those who were willing to do so were asked to share their writings with the group. An anthology of these compositions was produced as the book Warrior Writers: Move, Shoot and Communicate. Calica has since gone on to lead three writing workshops with veterans, and has published a second book, Warrior Writers: Re-making Sense.

    The goal of the Warrior Writers Project is to provide “tools and space for community building, healing and redefinition … Through writing/artistic workshops that are based on experiences in the military and in Iraq, the veterans unbury their secrets and connect with each other on a personal and artistic level. The writing from the workshops is compiled into books, performances and exhibits that provide a lens into the hearts of people who have a deep and intimate relationship with the Iraq war.”

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  • InI 07:47 on September 7, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Video: Palestine – Like Never Before (Never Before Campaign) 

    This video is inspired by Victor Hugo’s saying: “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come”



    more about “Palestine: Like Never Before (Never B…“, posted with vodpod


     

  • InI 17:30 on September 6, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    The Real News Network – Mr. Zelaya goes to Washington 

    Ousted Honduran President brings his story to DC, receives a deceptive response from US State Dept.

    Honduran coup

    The resistance to the military coup in Honduras has entered its 71st straight day of direct action in the streets of that country. Meanwhile, the United States Department of State still has yet to officially declare the events a ‘military coup’, an identification that would require, under US law, the cutting of all financial aid and diplomatic ties. For this reason and others, Manuel Zelaya came back to Washington to get additional commitments from Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. While Clinton did make some commitments on suspending more visas and not recognizing the upcoming elections in Honduras, the story of the US involvement in resolving the coup is still dominated by the support the US provides to the de facto regime. This was further deepened by the revelation that the International Monetary Fund, itself largely controlled by the US Treasury Department, has allocated $150 million to the coup government. Zelaya spoke to George Washington University about his view of Honduran democracy and why that led to his forced expulsion from his country.




     

  • InI 08:17 on September 6, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Confronting Russia? U.S. Marines In The Caucasus By Rick Rozoff 

    4 September, 2009 — Global Research

    On August 21 the chief of the U.S. Marine Corps, General James Conway, arrived in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi to begin the training of his host country’s military for deployment to the Afghan war theater under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

    “During the meeting the sides discussed a broad spectrum of Georgian-U.S bilateral relations and the situation in Georgia’s occupied territory.”[1] Occupied territory(ies) meant Abkhazia and South Ossetia, now independent nations with Russian troops stationed in both.

    Conway met with Georgian Defense Minister Davit (Vasil) Sikharulidze, who on the same day gave an interview to the Associated Press in which he said that the training provided by the U.S. Marine Corps could be employed, in addition to counterinsurgency operations in South Asia, in his country’s “very difficult security environment.”

    Associated Press reported that “Asked if he was referring to the possibility of another war with Russia, he said, ‘In general, yes.’”

    The Georgian defense chief added, “This experience will be important for the Georgian armed forces itself — for the level of training.”[2]

    Sikharulidze was forced to retract his comments within hours of their utterance, and not because they weren’t true but because they were all too accurate. The Pentagon was not eager to have this cat be let out of the bag.

    Three days later American military instructors arrived in Georgia on the heels of the visit of Marine Commandant Conway, whose previous campaigns included the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the first assault on Fallujah in that nation in 2004.

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  • InI 07:35 on September 6, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Forced Vaccinations and Financial Chaos Selected Articles 1-4 September, 2009 

    4 September, 2009 — Global Research

    Award Winning Movie: “SUPERPOWER”:
    – by Barbara-Anne Steegmuller – 2009-09-08

    America’s “War on Terrorism”
     Book by Michel Chossudovsky
    – 2009-09-07

    Predicting Worse Ahead from America’s Economic Crisis
    – by Stephen Lendman – 2009-09-04

    How to Reverse Financial Tyranny: “We Shall Prevail”
     Text presented to the American Monetary Institute 2009 Conference
    – by Richard C. Cook – 2009-09-04

    A Protracted Period of “Economic Adjustment”: How Bad Will It Get?
     Collapse in Consumer Spending
    – by Mike Whitney – 2009-09-04

    G.W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Tony Blair: War Criminals Scheduled To Visit Canada In October
    – by Lawyers Against the War – 2009-09-04

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  • InI 17:35 on September 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    The Real News Network – Prosecuting Israel for war crimes 

    Deputy Prosecutor of Int’l Criminal Court discusses the Palestinian Authority appeal to join the court.

    Who benefits from Israeli occupation?
    Lia Tarachansky speaks to Fatou Bensouda, the Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) about the Palestinian Authority’s appeal to join the group of nations over which the court has jurisdiction. Bensouda says that before the ICC can investigate the perpetration of war crimes during Israel’s recent attack on Gaza, the court would have to rule on whether it has jurisdiction in the Palestinian Territories. For that, there would have to be clear borders identified, a task the UN would have to take on. Once the court rules on jurisdiction it would be able to prosecute anyone who committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide within the territory, even if (such as in the case of Israel) the perpetrator is not part of the International Court.

    Bio
    Fatou Bensouda was elected in 2004 to the post of Deputy Prosecutor by the Assembly of State Parties of the International Criminal Court. She is in charge of the Prosecution Division of the Office of the Prosecutor. Prior to joining the International Criminal Court, Bensouda served as the Senior Legal Advisor and Head of The Legal Advisory Unit at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Before that, she was the Minister of Justice of The Gambia.

     

  • InI 10:37 on September 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Haitham Sabbah – Obama's 'Peace Plan' Revealed 

    4 September, 2009 — Palestine Think Tank

    A draft of the Obama peace plan, which is expected to be released at the UN Assembly meeting in New York, or at the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, has surfaced.

    The International Middle East Media Center’s website leaked the alleged draft of Obama’s peace plan given to them by Palestinian Legislator Hasan Khreisha. Khreisha added that the draft has been widely distributed among Palestinian and Arab leaders and the Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, recently discussed the plan during his visit to the White House.

    According to Khreisha, the draft includes ten main points detailed as follows:

    1. International presence in the Jordan Valley, Palestinian Plains area, and other areas in the West Bank.
    2. Annexing some parts of East Jerusalem to remain under Israeli control, while Muslim holy site would be under Arab control.
    3. All Palestinian factions would be dissolved and transformed into political parties.
    4. Large settlement blocs in the West Bank would remain under Israeli control, while negotiations would be conducted within three months of the plan agreement?, to discuss the future of smaller settlements.
    5. Several areas in the West Bank would be disarmed, and Israeli would maintain aerial control.
    6. Intensifying the Palestinian-Israeli security coordination.
    7. The Palestinian Authority would not be allowed to have military alliances with regional countries.
    8. The United States would guarantee the establishment of a Palestinian State in the summer of 2011.
    9. Allowing an agreed upon number of refugees to return, and to be settled in the Plains area and other areas in the West Bank, particularly in the cities of Ramallah and Nablus. A special fund for supporting the refugees would also be established.
    10. Israel starts releasing the Palestinian political detainees immediately after the peace deal is signed. Three years would be allocated for the release of the detainees.

    No one can be sure this is the final draft of the Obama peace plan, but it has the resonance of credibility.

    Besides its many flaws, the peace plan should have begun with ending the US/Israel siege of Gaza. That would have been a signal that the US and Israel are really serious about peace in the Holy Land. The plan fails to address boarders, water, trade and the apartheid wall.

    The 11,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel will be released over a period of “three years”, longer than Guantanamo Bay. The question we want to ask is: will Marwan Barghoutti be released in time to partake in the negotiations? The answer to this is obviously, no.

    US expect Israel to accept these terms on the premise that the Obama Administration adopts a stronger position towards halting Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The same nuclear program that US chief of intelligence has confirmed in his findings in a 2007 report, did not exist.

    Even if Abbas and Arab administration accept this plan (which will not be accepted by majority of Palestinian people and millions of their supporters around the world), Israel will again fool US Administration to fulfill their part toward Iran but in return Israel will not move one step towards peace.

    Another four to eight years – the age of Obama Administration in office – will pass, nothing will change on ground more than more Palestinian lands will be stolen by Israel and more Palestinians and innocents in both sides will be killed.

     

  • InI 10:06 on September 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Vaccine Campaigns and Global Militarization – Selected Articles 27 August – 1 September, 2009 

    1 September, 2009 — Global Research

    SUPPORT GLOBAL RESEARCH
    – 2009-09-08

    Award Winning Movie: “SUPERPOWER”:
    – by Barbara-Anne Steegmuller – 2009-09-08

    America’s “War on Terrorism”
     Book by Michel Chossudovsky
    – 2009-09-07

    Jack Rasmus, Jeffrey Smith, Webster Tarpley, Rick Rozoff and William Cook on The Global Research News Hour
     Program details, 31 Aug – Sept 4
    – 2009-09-04

    Karl Marx and the Global Economic Crisis
     Are we getting good Marx? I think not
    – by William Bowles – 2009-09-01

    Resisting Homophobia in the Military
    – by Dahr Jamail – 2009-09-01

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  • InI 09:25 on September 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    The Rise of Mercenary Armies: A Threat to Global Security By Sherwood Ross 

    31 August, 2009 — Global Research

    The growing use of private armies not only subjects target populations to savage warfare but makes it easier for the White House to subvert domestic public opinion and wage wars.

    Americans are less inclined to oppose a war that is being fought by hired foreign mercenaries, even when their own tax dollars are being squandered to fund it.

    “The increasing use of contractors, private forces, or, as some would say, ‘mercenaries’ makes wars easier to begin and to fight—it just takes money and not the citizenry,” said Michael Ratner, of New York’s Center for Constitutional Rights. “To the extent a population is called upon to go to war, there is resistance, a necessary resistance to prevent wars of self-aggrandizement, foolish wars, and, in the case of the United States, hegemonic imperialist wars.”

    Indeed, the Pentagon learned the perils of the draft from the massive public protests it provoked during the Viet Nam war. Today, it would prefer, and is working toward, an electronic battlefield where the fighting is done by robots guided by sophisticated surveillance systems that will minimize U.S. casualties. Meanwhile, it tolerates the use of private contractors to help fight its battles.

    Iraq offers a heart-breaking example of a war in which contract fighters so inflamed the public they were sent to “liberate” that when fighting broke out in Fallujah the bodies of privateer Blackwater’s four slain mercenaries were desecrated by enraged mobs. This horrific scene was televised globally and prompted the U.S. to make a punishing, retaliatory military assault upon Fallujah, causing widespread death and destruction.

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  • InI 08:48 on September 4, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    LONGVIEW: Deer Hunting With Jesus 

    Much has been said about white working-class voters. But those who’ve been doing all the talking are pollsters and political operatives. As part of our Long View series, ANP traveled to rural Virginia to talk to someone who’s lived the life and knows from personal experience what those voters are thinking — author Joe Bageant. His highly-acclaimed recent book, Deer Hunting With Jesus, was lauded by one reviewer as a “raging, hilarious, and profane love song to the great American redneck.” In addition to being that, it’s also one of the most prescient pieces of analysis about American politics and culture in this election year (2008).

    more about “LONGVIEW: Deer Hunting With Jesus“, posted with vodpod


     

  • InI 08:30 on September 4, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Class War at the Copenhagen Climate Change Talks 

    3 September, 2009 — Climate and Capitalism

    Climate change too is class war. Copenhagen is the next battle.

    Editorial from the coming issue of Socialist Resistance, Thanks to Liam Mac Uaid for making it available.

    In December the world’s rulers will meet in Copenhagen to discuss what they will do when the notably unsuccessful Kyoto Protocol expires. They won’t be alone. Lobbyists from the aviation, petrochemical and mining industries will be pressurising them in defence of their ‘right’ to alter the planet’s climate by pumping millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

    Writing in this issue Phil Thornhill of the Campaign Against Climate Change says of Kyoto, ‘it was so weak and so full of holes that it was not going to achieve any significant concrete results.’ In Copenhagen the stakes are much higher. Earlier this year Kim Carstensen of the WWF said, ‘We are at the point where our climate system is starting to spin out of control… the latest science confirms that we are now seeing devastating consequences of warming that were not expected to hit for decades.’

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  • InI 11:50 on September 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Video: Benjamin Zephaniah, "Money" 


    more about “Benjamin Zephaniah, “Money”“, posted with vodpod

    “Children are dying, spies and spying,
    Refugees are fleeing, politicians are lying,
    And deals are done and webs are spun,
    Laws keep the third world on the run.”

    Click here to download “Money” in MP3.

    Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah, born and raised in Birmingham, England, is a poet. Rejecting the appointment as an officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2003, Zephaniah wrote:

    Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that word “empire”; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised. It is because of this concept of empire that my British education led me to believe that the history of black people started with slavery and that we were born slaves, and should therefore be grateful that we were given freedom by our caring white masters. It is because of this idea of empire that black people like myself don’t even know our true names or our true historical culture. I am not one of those who are obsessed with their roots, and I’m certainly not suffering from a crisis of identity; my obsession is about the future and the political rights of all people. Benjamin Zephaniah OBE — no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire.

    His poem “Money” is included in City Psalms (1992).

     

  • InI 10:49 on September 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    William Blum: Anti-Empire Report, Number 73 

    2 September, 2009 — Anti-Empire Report, Number 73

    ‘And on the most exalted throne in the world sits nothing but a man’s arse.’ — Montaigne

    William BlumIf there’s anyone out there who is not already thoroughly cynical about those on the board of directors of the planet, the latest chapter in the saga of the bombing of PanAm 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland might just be enough to push them over the edge.

    Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person ever convicted for the December 21, 1988 bombing, was released from his Scottish imprisonment August 21 supposedly because of his terminal cancer and sent home to Libya, where he received a hero’s welcome. President Obama said that the jubilant welcome Megrahi received was ‘highly objectionable’. His White House spokesman Robert Gibbs added that the welcoming scenes in Libya were ‘outrageous and disgusting’. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was ‘angry and repulsed’, while his foreign secretary, David Miliband, termed the celebratory images ‘deeply upsetting.’ Miliband warned: ‘How the Libyan government handles itself in the next few days will be very significant in the way the world views Libya’s reentry into the civilized community of nations.’[1]

    Ah yes, ‘the civilized community of nations’, that place we so often hear about but so seldom get to actually see. American officials, British officials, and Scottish officials know that Megrahi is innocent. They know that Iran financed the PFLP-GC, a Palestinian group, to carry out the bombing with the cooperation of Syria, in retaliation for the American naval ship, the Vincennes, shooting down an Iranian passenger plane in July of the same year, which took the lives of more people than did the 103 bombing. And it should be pointed out that the Vincennes captain, plus the officer in command of air warfare, and the crew were all awarded medals or ribbons afterward.[2] No one in the US government or media found this objectionable or outrageous, or disgusting or repulsive. The United States has always insisted that the shooting down of the Iranian plane was an ‘accident’. Why then give awards to those responsible?

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