Useful tool

America and Israel must be so pleased; yet another pliant Palestinian leader: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday he would decree a change in Palestinian electoral rules that might make it harder for Hamas Islamists to maintain the parliamentary majority they won last year. Such moves will only increase the popularity of Hamas and…

Orwell would be envious

You know that something is terribly wrong with the Beltway psyche when Joe Lieberman’s ideology is considered serious, while Mike Gravel and Ron Paul, the ones opposed to the war in Iraq and to American military domination around the world, are regarded as insane lunatics, total losers, not fit even to be heard in public…

Right wing hysterics over Scott Thomas

For those not familiar with the Scott Thomas saga, he’s a soldier in Iraq who wrote a couple of columns (using a pseudonym) for The New Republic (TNR), describing the ways in which war robs us of our humanity. He cited examples of one soldier who dug up a skull and wore it on his…

Nutters for Israel

Christians United for Israel’s annual Washington-Israel Summit was held in mid-July. Be afraid. If Zionists truly think that such people are their friends, then Israel is in more trouble than even I believe.

Shameless and desperate

The search for a reason to attack Iran continues apace. While demonstrating a remarkable ability to maintain a straight face, the Bush administration and indeed, both political parties, continue to insist that Iran has no business in Iraq. A senior US official in Baghdad told the Guardian in May that Iran was fighting a proxy…

Israel falling

David Remnick, The New Yorker, July 30: In this atmosphere of post-traumatic gloom, Avraham Burg, a former Speaker of the Knesset, managed to inflame the Israeli public (left, right, and center) with little more than an interview in the liberal daily Ha’aretz, promoting his recent book, “Defeating Hitler.” Short of being Prime Minister, Burg could…

Who is teaching them to hate from an early age?

While on the subject of torture, in spite of Israel’s abysmal human rights record, the abduction of children is rarely mentioned. A report issued by Defense for Children International (DCI), called “Children Behind Bars”, found that during 2006 and the first half of 2007, the vast majority of children apprehended by the Israeli forces were…

Central Torture Agency

Chalmers Johnson on the sordid and utterly unaccountable activities of the CIA. It must make the Americans so proud (the handful who know about it, that is.) Over to Johnson: The CIA’s incessant, almost always misguided, attempts to determine how other people should govern themselves; its secret support for fascists (e.g., Greece under George Papadopoulos),…

Teaching those Arabs a lesson

As if the Iraqis need yet another problem in their lives: Iraq’s environment minister blamed Monday the use of depleted uranium weapons by U.S. forces during the 2003 Operation Shock and Awe for the current surge in cancer cases across the country. As a result of “at least 350 sites in Iraq being contaminated during…

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