Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered Since The U.S. Invaded Iraq “1,320,110"
www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html
Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America’sWar On Iraq 4,274
icasualties.org/oif/
The War in Iraq Costs
$662,357,709,947
See the cost in your community
nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182
Pentagon to Release Photos of Detainee Abuse
By Ann Scott Tyson
“This shows that the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was not aberrational but was systemic and widespread,” said Amrit Singh, an ACLU staff attorney involved with the 2004 Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that led to the promise to release the photographs. “This will underscore calls for accountability for that abuse.” Singh called for an independent investigation into torture and prisoner abuse and said it should be followed, if warranted, by criminal prosecutions.
informationclearinghouse.info/article22484.htm
Obama Rejects Truth Panel
Commission Would Have Investigated Abuses in Terrorism Fight
By Shailagh Murray and Paul Kane
Obama appeared to back away from a statement earlier this week that suggested he could support an independent commission to examine possible abuses, according to several attendees.
informationclearinghouse.info/article22483.htm
Reclaiming America’s Soul
By Paul Krugman
Never before have our leaders so utterly betrayed everything our nation stands for. “This government does not torture people,” declared former President Bush, but it did, and all the world knows it.
informationclearinghouse.info/article22489.htm
Gaza, Remember?
By Gideon Levy
The world once again has to clean up Israel’s mess. But Israel is setting more and more political conditions for providing emergency humanitarian aid ? empty excuses to leave Gaza in ruins and not offer aid that Gaza deserves and desperately needs.
informationclearinghouse.info/article22487.htm
Harman’s Wiretap Woes and the AIPAC Cabal
By Marcy Winograd
Who else has AIPAC colluded with on the Hill? If the tapes are out there, Harman got caught, but isn’t this a much larger story than just one woman bedazzled by men with money in their pockets and nuclear warheads in their backyards. It is time AIPAC register as a foreign lobbyist.
informationclearinghouse.info/article22486.htm
Why Did The Harman Case Break Now?
By Philip Weiss
The lobby has won through White House access of the sort Harman allegedly boasted of in the wiretapped call; and those who are critical of a Jewish state or its policies have been excluded and smeared, as antisemites.
informationclearinghouse.info/article22488.htm
Freedom… What Freedom?
US Jails Man over Hezbollah Channel
By Al Jazeera
A Pakistani man has been jailed by a US court for broadcasting Hezbollah’s television channel and selling it to customers in the US.
informationclearinghouse.info/article22485.htm
On Torture, the Pressure Builds
By Ray McGovern
Until now, Bush has managed to escape blame for his outrageous inactivity before 9/11 because his subordinates – first and foremost, Tenet – have covered up for him. Faustian bargain? Call it mutual blackmail, if you prefer the vernacular.
informationclearinghouse.info/article22479.htm
The Cancerous Rot at the Center of the Empire
By Jacob G. Hornberger
My question is: Why limit torture to suspected terrorists? Why not expand it to suspected murderers, drug dealers, robbers, and kidnappers? After all, can’t those types of people commit just as heinous an act as terrorists?
informationclearinghouse.info/article22480.htm
Why Does America Have a Drug War?
By Jacob G. Hornberger
Given that most people agree that the drug war has failed to achieve its supposed purpose after decades of warfare, an important question arises: Why is the drug war still being waged, especially when we consider all the collateral damage that this federal program has produced? Hasn’t the time arrived for Americans to demand an immediate end to the war on drugs?
informationclearinghouse.info/article22482.htm
What You Believe
“It’s An Illusion”
By John Harris
Filmed at the “Lawful Rebellion” Conference, The British Constitution Group, Stoke-on-Trent, 24th January 2009 by BBC5.tv.
informationclearinghouse.info/article22481.htm
Blasts Kill More Than 135 in Two Days in Iraq:
Two suicide bombers killed at least 75 people on Friday outside a revered Shiite shrine in northern Baghdad, igniting fears that the Iraqi capital could again descend into a cycle of sectarian violence.
snipurl.com/gn77j
Iranians banned to cross border to Iraq for pilgrimage visits:
Moussavi said the decision has been made following terrorist bombings in Iraqi holy cities since Thursday and killing or injuring of a number of Iranian pilgrims there as a result.
www.payvand.com/news/09/apr/1269.html
Rape, beatings and bribery: Iraqi police out of control:
In this vast and largely unaccountable security apparatus, with almost a million people in uniform, corruption is rife. One of the most common ploys is to arrest innocent people and then charge hundreds or even thousands of dollars for them to be released.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article6157590.ece
46 militants killed in Pakistan operation:
Forty six “militants” have been killed and 26 injured in the four-day military operation in the Orakzai Agency, tribal and official sources said on Thursday.
paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=214060
Pakistan Taliban in pullout:
The Pakistani Taliban has pulled back up to 500 of its fighters from Buner, just 100km away from the capital Islamabad, less than 24 hours after they entered the strategic district. The apparent withdrawal came a day after the Taliban clashed with regional forces, leaving one policemen dead.
english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/04/200942475627350333.html
Clinton: Pakistan a ‘moral threat’:
Speaking to US lawmakers, Clinton said the Pakistani government had to provide basic services to its people or risk seeing the Taliban, and other extremists, fill the vacuum.
www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2009-04/24/content_7711306.htm
Hillary Clinton admits US role in prevailing situation of Pakistan:
The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Friday said that the US was also partly responsible for the present conditions in Pakistan as it virtually abandoned country after the Soviets left Afghanistan.
snipurl.com/gn7b2
Afghan officials: clash kills least 12 “Taliban”:
International and Afghan troops clashed with Taliban insurgents in heavy fighting that left at least 12 “militants” dead in central Afghanistan on Friday, officials said.
snipurl.com/gn7c2
14 “insurgents” killed in S. Afghanistan:
Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) backed by the U.S.-led Coalition forces killed 14 insurgents in southern Afghan province of Helmand on Thursday, said a Coalition statement issued here on Friday.
news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/25/content_11252455.htm
CIA death squads killing with “impunity” in Afghanistan:
A United Nations investigator released a preliminary report last week citing widespread civilian deaths in Afghanistan, often at the hands of unaccountable units led by the CIA or other foreign intelligence agencies.
www.wsws.org/articles/2008/may2008/afgh-m19.shtml
India presses for Sri Lanka truce as casualties rise:
Indian envoys met Sri Lanka’s president on Friday after New Delhi demanded a truce in the closing phase of a 25-year war which U.N. data says may have killed almost 6,500 people in the last three months.
in.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idINCOL31851920090424?rpc=401&
Sri Lankan envoy rejects calls for humanitarian pause:
“We are demonstrating against genocide and racial discrimination in Sri Lanka, We want an immediate ceasefire. We want the UN to intervene to stop the genocide,” she said, as she joined demonstrators carrying the Tamil Tiger flag.
www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/AMMF-7REME2?OpenDocument
Sri Lanka must end its civilians’ ordeal:
The government must shoulder the bulk of the blame for the carnage. It initiated the latest and grimmest round of this long war by throwing the internationally brokered peace process aside, unilaterally ending the four-year ceasefire last year and insisting there could be a military solution to a political conflict.
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/24/sri-lanka-tamil-tigers
Israeli army Gaza “probe” lacks credibility : Amnesty:
There is a strikingly large gap between the “very small number” of mistakes referred to in the IDF’s briefing paper and the killing by Israeli forces of some 300 Palestinian children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians.
www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGUSA20090424001°¥=e
Manufacturing Consent For Attack On Iran:
Israeli foreign minister sees Iran as obstacle to Mideast peace:
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman sees Iran as the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East, he told the newspaper Jerusalem Post on Friday. He said it would not be possible to resolve a single problem in the region without first settling the issue of Iran’s controversial nuclear programme.
snipurl.com/gn7gq
Clinton: ‘Israel may lose Arab support on Iran’:
Clinton said Arab nations had conditioned helping Israel counter Iran on Jerusalem’s commitment to the peace process.
snipurl.com/gn7ht
Harman Wiretap Highlights Suspicions:
Intel Concerns of Dual Loyalty ‘Rooted Deep in the System’
www.forward.com/articles/105045/
Rwanda rebels kill 7, burn down houses in DR Congo:
The Secretary-General’s Special Representative Alan Doss was told that 5 children were among the dead and 255 houses torched in Luofu, North Kivu province, by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), said a report released on the U.N. website.
news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/24/content_11249299.htm
Two killed in Madagascar protests:
Eyewitnesses say one of them was a woman who was shot in the head.
snipurl.com/gn7k2
The tortured Iraq-al-Qaida connection:
The Bush administration used torture, not to defuse ticking time bombs, but to generate a false justification for the Iraq war
snipurl.com/gn7kv
Rice ‘approved torture methods’:
A US senate intelligence committee report said on Wednesday that Rice, then national security adviser, verbally gave the green light to the CIA in July 2002 to use waterboarding on Abu Zubaydah, an al-Qaeda suspect held in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/
04/2009423145748353446.html
Right wing threatens Obama over torture charges:
Denouncing Obama’s half-hearted criticism of the Bush administration’s torture policy as “Presidential Poison,” the leading right-wing voice of the American financial aristocracy warns, “His invitation to indict Bush officials will haunt Obama’s Presidency.
www.wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/pers-a24.shtml
The Consequences of Torture:
With this week’s myriad revelations on torture, the prospective targets of prosecution and impeachment have suddenly grown from the so-called Bush 6 to potentially dozens of officials, lawyers, and interrogators who brought us waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions, and “walling,” Here’s a look at the odds each group involved, from President Bush himself to mid-level lawyers, face of court proceedings.
snipurl.com/gn7nh
Obama legal team wants to limit defendants’ rights:
Supreme Court case is stark example of the White House seeking to limit rights.
snipurl.com/gn7p5
Canada ‘must press US over Khadr’:
A Canadian federal court has ordered the government to press the US for the return of a young Canadian being held at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009
/04/200942319176319436.html
Morales reveals ‘plot’ images:
Evo Morales, the Bolivian president, has shown Al Jazeera pictures of armed men he alleges were part of a plot to kill him. Morales has been criticised by the leaders of Hungary, Ireland and Croatia after three men linked to those countries were killed and two detained by Bolivian police last week in the regional opposition stronghold of Santa Cruz.
english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/
2009/04/200942322227906306.html
IMF predicts world recession will deepen:
The International Monetary Fund has slashed growth forecasts for every major country and urged governments to take forceful action to ensure the world economy’s recovery from a severe recession.
snipurl.com/gn7rw
GM eyes factory closures as Chapter 11 looms:
General Motors is preparing to shut the majority of its US factories for nine weeks over the summer as its chief financial officer (CFO) admitted a bankruptcy filing is “probable
snipurl.com/gn7so
U.S. Said to Seek a Chrysler Plan for Bankruptcy:
The Treasury Department is directing Chrysler to prepare a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing as soon as next week, people with direct knowledge of the talks said Thursday.
www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/business/24chrysler.html?_r=2&hp
Microsoft sales fall for first time in 23 years:
Microsoft Corp. said Thursday that declining PC sales hurt revenue, as the software giant reported quarterly sales that fell for the first time in its 23-year history as a public company.
money.cnn.com/2009/04/23/technology/microsoft_earnings/index.htm
Bank of America ‘forced to conceal’
Merrill rescue facts: Pressure from Fed and Treasury chiefs to complete purchase of Merrill Lynch despite ‘staggering’ losses
snipurl.com/gn7vk
April 23, 2009
At least 75 dead in two Iraq suicide bombings:
Two suicide bombers killed a total of at least 75 people in two separate attacks in Iraq Thursday, police said. A man killed 33 people and himself when he detonated explosives strapped to his body in a crowd queuing up for humanitarian aid in central Baghdad. At least 57 people were wounded in that attack, police told the German Press Agency dpa.
snipurl.com/gn7yv
Pakistani forces kill 38 militants in an operation:
Pakistani security forces Thursday said that about 38 militants have been killed in a military operation in a tribal agency near Afghan border. The speech was criticised widely at the time as hopelessly idealistic and even dangerous.
www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/
ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1992777&Language=en
2 Pak policemen killed in attack in Taliban-infiltrated Buner:
Pakistani security forces in the Taliban-infiltrated Buner region, located just 100 kms from Islamabad, were targeted by militants who killed two policemen amid reports that armed extremists had moved into yet another northwestern district near restive Swat valley.
snipurl.com/gn81a
Policeman, seven Taliban killed in clash: –
A policeman and seven Taliban militants were killed in a clash in western Afghanistan, local officials said.
snipurl.com/gn835
Iranian officer shot dead by Afghan guards’:
Afghan border guards said Thursday they had shot dead an Iranian sergeant in an exchange of gunfire sparked when he allegedly entered Afghan territory without authorisation.
news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090423/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanunrestiran
Afghan Taliban say claim of talks is “propaganda”:
Afghanistan’s Taliban denied on Wednesday that they were holding peace talks with the government, saying such claims were propaganda aimed at creating a schism among the militants.
www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE53L30020090422
War criminal says: Force must be an option – Blair:
Tony Blair has said the case for using military force to topple oppressive regimes is as strong as it ever was – despite events in Iraq and Afghanistan
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8013827.stm
Tony Blair Calls on World to Wage War on Militant Islam:
Mr Blair was speaking almost ten years to the day since he gave an address in Chicago at the height of the Kosovo crisis when he set out what he described as a “doctrine of international community” that sought to justify intervention, including military intervention, not only when a nation’s interests are directly engaged but also where there exists a humanitarian crisis or gross oppression of a civilian population.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6153607.ece
Israel defies US and destroys Palestinian home:
Brushing aside international criticism, Israel demolished a Palestinian house in East Jerusalem in the latest in a series of actions that critics say is racheting up tensions in the city, harming chances for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
snipurl.com/gn88q
Norwegian lawyers file complaint accusing 10 Israelis of Gaza war crimes:
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and opposition leader Tzipi Livni were among those named in the complaint, the lawyers said.
www.courant.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-eu-
norway-israel-gaza-complaint,0,3819943.story
Pelosi knew Harman was overheard on wiretap:
She said that when a member of Congress is recorded as part of a wiretapped conversation, intelligence officials inform congressional leaders.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30321210/
CIA first proposed waterboarding in May 2002:
The document released Wednesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee provides the most detailed timeline yet for how the CIA’s harsh interrogation program was conceived and approved.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2009/04/22/AR2009042202666.html
Document: Cheney, Rice signed off on interrogation techniques:
A newly declassified narrative of the Bush administration’s advice to the CIA on harsh interrogations shows that the small group of Justice Department lawyers who wrote memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques were operating not on their own but with direction from top administration officials, including then-Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66727.html
US senators urge no prosecutions for ‘torture’ memo writers:
“In the interest of national security, it is the future, rather than the past, on which we believe America?s gaze must be fixed,” said Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham, as well as Joseph Lieberman
news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090422/pl_afp/
usattacksmilitaryjusticecongressletter
Netherlands Wants US ‘Hague Invasion Act’ Scrapped:
The Netherlands wants the US to abolish the act that legitimises the use of force to free Americans if they should fall into the hands of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
www.nisnews.nl/public/230409_3.htm
Weekly jobless claims up more than expected:
The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment compensation rose to a seasonally adjusted 640,000, up from a revised 613,000 the previous week. That was slightly above analysts’ expectations of 635,000.
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30364714