MIDDLE EAST

Asia Times: What 'staying the course' really means

The Bush administration has put into operation an utterly paradoxical and self-defeating strategy. First, its policies inflame the region, feeding the growth of political Islam and its extremist as well as terrorist offshoots. Then, as in Iraq - and as seems to be the case in Syria and Egypt - it seeks "regime change" in countries where it knows that the chief opposition and likely inheritor of power will be the Muslim Brotherhood or its ilk. This is a formula for endless war in the region.

FACISM

Toronto Post: Fascism then. Fascism now?

When people think of fascism, they imagine Rows of goose-stepping storm troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.

IRAQ

New Yorker: Where is the Iraq war headed next?
By Seymour M. Hersh

The covert war in Iraq has expanded in recent months to Syria. A composite American Special Forces team, known as an S.M.U., for “special-mission unit,” has been ordered, under stringent cover, to target suspected supporters of the Iraqi insurgency across the border

SYRIA: MEHLIS REPORT

Reuters: Syrian witness says Hariri's son forced him to lie

A man has appeared on Syrian state television saying Lebanese officials, including the son of Rafik al-Hariri, had forced him to testify falsely to a U.N. inquiry into the former Lebanese prime minister's assassination.Hosam Taher Hosam, a Syrian who said he had worked with Syrian and Lebanese intelligence during Syria's military presence in Lebanon, said in a programme aired on Sunday that an elaborate scheme of torture, threats and bribery had forced him to testify to chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis.His appearance came after Damascus agreed to allow five Syrian officials to be questioned by Mehlis at U.N. offices in Vienna in connection with Hariri's February 14 assassination.

IRAQ: DEATH SQUADS

Globalresearch: Crying Wolf: Media Disinformation and Death Squads in Occupied Iraq
by Max Fuller

The phenomenon of death squads operating in Iraq has become generally accepted over recent months. However, in its treatment of the issue, the mainstream media has zealously followed a line of attributing extrajudicial killings to unaccountable Shia militias who have risen to prominence with the electoral victory of Ibramhim Jafaari’s Shia-led government in January. The following article examines both the way in which the information has been widely presented and whether that presentation has any actual basis in fact. Concluding that the attribution to Shia militias is unsustainable, the article considers who the intellectual authors of these crimes against humanity are and what purpose they serve in the context of the ongoing occupation of the country.

"recommended reading"

USA: CHEMICAL WEAPONS

One of the rationals given by the Bush Administration to invade Iraq was that "Saddam gassed his own people" i.e the Kurds which Saddam wouldn't have called his own people himself i guess. Not to mention that a CIA report blames the whole incident on Iran (There is the possibility that the report was false because the USA was allied with Iraq in the Iran/Iraq war). Now after first denying the use of white phosphorus by US Forces, than telling it has not been used against civilians and is therfore no chemical weapon, a CIA report from 1991 comes to light which is calling white phosphorus a "chemical weapon" but remember its just a chemical weapon if the enemy is using it. Is there a Hypocrite of the Year award?

NZ Herald: Saddam's Use Of Chem Weapons Bad - US Use Just Fine...
Report Drops Fallujah Bombshell

The controversy over the American use of white phosphorus as a weapon of war in Fallujah deepened yesterday when it was revealed that a US intelligence assessment had characterised WP as a "chemical weapon".

The report was made in late February 1991 during the Iraqi crackdown on the Kurdish uprising that followed the coalition victory against Iraq.

"Iraqi forces loyal to President Saddam may have possibly used white phosphorous (WP) chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels and the populace in Erbil and Dohuk. "The WP chemical was delivered by artillery rounds and helicopter gunships."

Ranucci commented that "when Saddam used WP it was a chemical weapon but when the Americans use it, it's a conventional weapon. The injuries it inflicts, however, are just as terrible, however you describe it".

Watch the Report on Rai:
Windows Media - Real Video & Windows Media Arabic Version

BUSH WANTED TO BOMB AL-JAZEERA

Mirror: EXCLUSIVE: BUSH PLOT TO BOMB HIS ARAB ALLY

PRESIDENT Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a "Top Secret" No 10 memo reveals.

But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash.

A source said: "There's no doubt what Bush wanted, and no doubt Blair didn't want him to do it." Al-Jazeera is accused by the US of fuelling the Iraqi insurgency.

The attack would have led to a massacre of innocents on the territory of a key ally, enraged the Middle East and almost certainly have sparked bloody retaliation.

A source said last night: "The memo is explosive and hugely damaging to Bush.

IRAQ: TIMETABLE FOR WITHDRAW

AFP: Iraqi leaders demand timetable for troop withdrawal

CAIRO - Iraqi leaders reached a tentative agreement Monday to demand a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from their war-torn country during talks ahead of a reconciliation conference to be held next year. Dozens of leaders representing most of Iraq's factions have been holding tough talks in Cairo since Saturday in a bid to reach a common agenda. In a draft final statement, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, they demanded "a timetable for the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops".

USA: NEW ORLEANS

Time: New Orleans Today: It's Worse Than You Think

Neighborhoods are still dark, garbage piles up on the street, and bodies are still being found. The city's pain is a nation's shame

VENEZUELA

AIN: The Pentgon's Plans To Invade Venezuela

The United States has military contingency plans aimed against Venezuela, contrary to the UN Charter and the document guiding relations between members of the Organizations of American States (OAS).

Big News: RE: Documents regarding invasion plan in Venezuela

JOHN RENDON

Rense: The Man Who Sold The War

Meet John Rendon, Bush'sGeneral In The Propaganda War

"I am not a national-security strategist or a military tactician," he declared. "I am a politician, a person who uses communication to meet public-policy or corporate-policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception manager." To explain his philosophy, Rendon paraphrased a journalist he knew from his days as a staffer on the presidential campaigns of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter: "This is probably best described in the words of Hunter S. Thompson, when he wrote, 'When things turn weird, the weird turn pro.'"

"Recommended reading"

CNN: CHENEY

Drudge: CNN MARKS CHENEY

As this DRUDGE REPORT screen capture reveals, while one 'X' flashed over Cheney's face CNN ran a headline at the bottom of its screen: "CHENEY: I DO NOT BELIEVE IT IS WRONG TO CRITICIZE."

DRM

BoingBoing.net: iTunes creates a security hole?

A security research company has reported that Apple's iTunes software creates vulnerabilities in Windows XP and Mac OS X that allow remote parties to install and execute code on your computer -- basically, the vulnerability means that your computer can be taken over by an attacker who can then hijack your connection, your files, and your privacy.

USA

LA Times: This isn't the real America by Jimmy Carter
JIMMY CARTER was the 39th president of the United States

IN RECENT YEARS, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican. These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights.

EDWARD LUTTWAK

Rense: Schwarz - Luttwak's Coup D'Etat - A Practical Handbook

My last update introduced you to Edward Luttwak, a hardliner Zionist with ideas about Israel that many Israelis find harsh and belligerent. Mr. Luttwak actually made the well-known comment about bombing in 1990 or 1991, just before George H.W. Bush attacked Iraq in a set-up of Saddam Hussein. In the same way, George W. Bush pulled a set-up in 2003

CHEMTRAILS

Las Vegas Tribune: Chemtrails Are Over Las Vegas

Editor's Note: Las Vegas residents are increasingly noticing the appearance of chemical trails overhead. They appear EVERY weekend without fail, the only exception being the two weeks after September 11, 2001. Such "chemtrails" are substantially different in appearance to the normal condensation trails left by jet airliners. The difference is that while condensation trails are composed of water vapor that dissipates rapidly, "chemtrails" linger much longer and spread out over time to eventually cover the sky with a thin haze. This week the Las Vegas Tribune begins a two-part article to examine the undeniable and mysterious phenomena of Chemtrails Over Las Vegas.

IRAQ: TORTURE

Guardian: International outcry greets allegations of police abuse

· Ministers launch inquiry after detainees found
· Shia paramilitaries now control force, say Sunnis

Manfred Novak, the UN special envoy on torture, based in Geneva, yesterday called for an independent inquiry. He has received various allegations of torture and degrading treatment by both US and Iraqi forces in Iraq. "That torture is still practised in Iraq after Saddam Hussein is no secret," he said.


Reuters: Iraqi says he was held with hundreds in secret jail

An Iraqi man told on Thursday how he was tortured along with hundreds of other detainees in an Interior Ministry building similar to a secret bunker at the centre of a prisoner abuse scandal.

"There was an average of 800 prisoners at any one time in a building controlled by the Wolf Brigades (Interior Ministry special forces)," the man, who asked that he only be identified by his initials H.H., told Reuters.

"They had lists of people and lists of charges and they tortured people to get confessions."


The Times: On the spot: 'torture prison is tip of the iceberg'

"There is not the same kind of shock and controversy over the discovery of the basement prison in Jadriya as there was over abuse scandal Abu Ghraib, because everyone has known for some time that this has been going on. Everyone knows someone to whom this has happened. "There is more of a sense of relief that it has finally been brought into the open - although people are angry that it has taken so long.


FT: Torture photos fuel scandal of secret Iraqi jail

Graphic photographs of injuries allegedly suffered by detainees in Iraqi custody surfaced today as the government attempted to dismiss international criticism over a secret torture prison.


ICH: Torture Photos gathered from contacts in Iraq

Warning: The pictures are very disturbing and should only be viewed by a mature audience

IRAQ: US WAR CRIMES

Counterpunch: How the Pentagon Justifies Phosphorous Bombs on Fallujah

In Post Saddam Iraq, There are No Civilians

it is important to note how slippery the Pentagon is being about its claim not to have used this dreadful weapon against "civilians."

In a grotesque and blatant war crime, the U.S. began this assault by first encircling Fallujah, and then declaring that it would allow women, children and old people to leave, but not "men and boys of fighting age" (whatever that may be). Several hundred people in a group of families trying to flee the city over the weekend were actually detained, and then, after allowing the women and children to go, U.S. troops tested the men's hands for gunpowder traces. Finding none, they nonetheless sent them back to the doomed city to face their fate.

By trapping as many as 100,000 men and boys in the city before invading it, the U.S., acting for all the world more like a group of Bosnian Serb thugs than like the army of the Free World, has assured that it will be killing many, many civilians, but we won't be hearing much about that. As far as the Pentagon and Centcom in Iraq go, the dead in Fallujah are and will be all rebels. If they die, they must have died fighting.

Besides the fact that denying civilians the right to flee a battlezone is in itself a war crime under the Geneva conventions, US actions before and during the assault and destruction of Fallujah mean that current assertions that white phosphorus weapons were not used against civilians are total lies. The Pentagon simply defined away all people left, or stranded, or trapped in the city as insurgents.

IRAQ

Washington Post: Among Insurgents in Iraq, Few Foreigners Are Found

Analysis of offensive in Tall Afar suggests U.S., Iraq may be inflating foreign role in insurgency.

IRAQ: WMD

Guardian: The US used chemical weapons in Iraq - and then lied about it

Did US troops use chemical weapons in Falluja? The answer is yes. The proof is not to be found in the documentary broadcast on Italian TV last week, which has generated gigabytes of hype on the internet. It's a turkey, whose evidence that white phosphorus was fired at Iraqi troops is flimsy and circumstantial. But the bloggers debating it found the smoking gun