Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered Since The U.S. Invaded Iraq “1,284,105"
www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html
Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America’sWar On Iraq 4,209
icasualties.org/oif/
The War And Occupation Of Iraq Costs
$580,446,010,083
See the cost in your community
nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182
‘I Was Still Holding my Grandson’s Hand – The Rest Was Gone’
By Clancy Chassay
“We were walking, I was holding my grandson’s hand, then there was a loud noise and everything went white. When I opened my eyes, everybody was screaming. I was lying metres from where I had been, I was still holding my grandson’s hand but the rest of him was gone. I looked around and saw pieces of bodies everywhere. I couldn’t make out which part was which.”
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21484.htm
The American-Made Insurgency in Afghanistan
A Million McVeighs Now
By Chris Floyd
The “Good War” in Afghanistan – the Bush-launched war that Barack Obama tells us we must fight and win – continues to deteriorate before our eyes. Just like every other operation in the so-called “War on Terror” (another Bush-launched campaign that Obama has fully embraced as his own), the Afghan war, now in its seventh year, has proven entirely counter-productive to its stated aims.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21488.htm
A Hypocrite as Our Diplomat in Chief
By John R. MacArthur
So far, the president-elect’s Cabinet choices make a joke of the liberals who backed him in the hope that something fundamental might change in America’s belligerent behavior abroad. As the neo-conservative Max Boot approvingly observed, the appointment of Gen. James Jones as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the retention of Robert Gates as defense secretary “could just as easily have come from a President McCain.”
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21492.htm
Drunk George Tenet Lashed out at Bush’s Neocons:
‘The Jews’ who tried to ‘pin the Iraq WMD fiasco on him.’
By Think Progress
Former CIA director George Tenet “drunk on scotch, flailing about Prince Bandar’s Riyadh pool, screaming about the Bush Administration officials who were just then trying to pin the Iraq WMD fiasco on him.” Tyler reports that Tenet also “mocked the neoconservatives in the Bush administration” as “the Jews”:
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21485.htm
London Banker: “The market has failed, and officialdom is perpetuating that failure.”
By Mike Whitney
It is now clear to me that policy makers in the West are determined to apply every available resource to underpinning failure, misallocation and executive excess. As this discourages the honest saver from parting with cash, policy makers are ensuring that deflation will wreak its havoc on the financial and real economies of the world.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21486.htm
The Best and the Brightest Led America Off a Cliff
By Chris Hedges
The multiple failures that beset the country, from our mismanaged economy to our shredded constitutional rights to our lack of universal health care to our imperial debacles in the Middle East, can be laid at the feet of our elite universities. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford, along with most other elite schools, do a poor job educating students to think.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21487.htm
At Last, A Date
By George Monbiot
For the first time, the International Energy Agency has produced a date for peak oil. And it’s not reassuring.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21490.htm
Time To Wake Up And Smell the Economy
By Jon Ronnquist
For a time we were all kings, walking tall beneath the banner of imagined destiny. In the east the grateful poor toiled at our behest and sang songs of praise to their generous masters beyond the sea.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21489.htm
Stand Up Against Bush’s Giveaway of America’s Redrock Wilderness
By Robert Redford
In three days, this Friday, 110,000 acres of majestic Utah wild lands go on the auction block, to be sold to the highest bidders in the oil and gas industry. It’s a last-ditch effort by a corrupt administration to further enrich its friends in the dirty fuels business. If they succeed, they’ll leave a wasteland behind them.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21491.htm
Baghdad blast kills 18:
At least 18 people have been killed and 53 injured in a double explosion in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on the day Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a surprise visit.
www.capitalradio.co.uk/news-travel/world/baghdad-blast-kills-18/
Iraq wants all non-US troops out by July:
THE Iraqi cabinet has approved a bill calling for all foreign soldiers except for American forces to pull out of the country by the end of July, a top MP said.
www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/
0,21985,24812712-5005961,00.html
UK troops ‘to leave Iraq by May’:
British forces will wrap up their mission in Iraq in the first half of next year, Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, has announced during a surprise visit to Baghdad.
english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/
2008/12/2008121710235457645.html
Not So Fast:
American and Iraqi military and diplomatic officials insist that a residual U.S. force of considerable size is likely to remain for the medium to long term, as will the U.S. bases in Iraq that Democrats over the last two years have insisted must not be permanent.
www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=3692
c736-406c-4ee1-9bb9-4ec6cc15531f
State Department: Drop Blackwater In Iraq:
An internal State Department report says Blackwater Worldwide may lose its license to work in Iraq and recommends that the agency prepare alternative means to protect its diplomats there.
www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/17/state
-department-drop-bla_n_151754.html
Bush shoe thrower Muntazer al-Zaidi ‘too injured’ for court:
THE Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at United States President George W. Bush has appeared before a judge in his jail cell because he is too injured to appear in a courtroom, his brother says.
www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/
0,25197,24815225-12335,00.html
Turkish fighter planes bombard Iraqi Kurd areas:
Turkish warplanes struck Kurdish guerrilla targets in northern Iraq on Wednesday, the Turkish military said, the second consecutive day of strikes.
archive.gulfnews.com/region/Iraq/10268155.html
US and Afghan forces kill suspected militants; reports call them civilians:
People who were in the compound said the dead were civilians and that none of them had fired on the troops, according to a spokesman for the governor’s office of Khost province.
tinyurl.com/3omeq6
Gunmen attack new Afghan supply route:
An armed gang carried out the first attack on a secondary southern supply route for foreign troops in Afghanistan, as thousands of lorry drivers continue to boycott the main route through the Khyber Pass.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5361455.ece
No firm proof gunmen came from Pakistan: Zardari:
Rejecting Indian claims yet again that there is ‘clear evidence’ suggesting the Mumbai terror attacks originated inside Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday told BBC there is still no conclusive proof.
dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=
2008\12\18\story_18-12-2008_pg1_1
Russia justifies arms sales to Iran:
A senior Russian official says military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran will continue to ensure stability in the Middle East
www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=78746§ionid=351020101
From the sublime to the ridiculous:
Barak claims Iran would nuke US:
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak says Iran would attack the United States if it acquired ‘even a primitive nuclear weapon’.
www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=78785§ionid=351020202
Israeli attack kills Gazan man:
A Palestinian man has been killed and two others injured in an Israeli air raid on the town of Beit Lahiya, Gazan medics have said.
tinyurl.com/49u5js
Israel: Starving Gaza for Christmas:
You know it’s getting bad in Gaza when Mr Murdoch’s London Times announces Gaza families eat grass as Israel locks border.
sydwalker.info/blog/2008/12/17/israel-starving-gaza-for-christmas/
Poll: Most Israelis oppose Arab peace plan:
Sixty-six percent of Palestinians support the Arab League initiative that calls for a full withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders, while only 36% of Israelis support the plan, according to a poll released on Tuesday.
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=12287282211
88&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Russia alarmed by planned U.S. bases in Central Asia: –
A senior Russian military official expressed concern on Tuesday about what he said were U.S. plans to set up military bases in the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
en.rian.ru/russia/20081216/118886117.html
UN chief rules out Somalia force:
On Tuesday US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for a UN force to be sent to the conflict-hit nation.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7788898.stm
Morales urges action over Cuba:
Evo Morales, the Bolivian president, has said that all Latin American nations should expel US ambassadors in their country’s until the American economic embargo against Cuba is ended.
english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/
2008/12/20081217165622147627.html
Guantanamo ‘worst place on Earth’:
AN Algerian-born man who has just been freed from Guantanamo Bay has described the US “war on terror” camp as the worst place on Earth, in an interview published in a Bosnian newspaper.
www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/
0,25197,24816310-12335,00.html
Disgraced financier Bernie Madoff to be electronically tagged:
The latest sensational twist in the mushrooming financial scandal came as 70-year-old Madoff fled his £6million New York apartment and went into hiding to escape furious creditors, many of them former friends and lifelong business associates.
tinyurl.com/3g2sqk
Bernie Madoff’s Victims: The List:
Word on the identities of Bernie Madoff’s clients / victimes continues to emerge. The total losses reported so far add up to about $30 billion.
clusterstock.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/bernie-madoff-hosed-client-list
Opec agrees record oil output cut:
The reduction in output will mean that Opec is taking 4.2 million barrels of oil out of the global market per day compared to September levels.
english.aljazeera.net/business/2008/12/20081217165656601509.html
Peak Oil: George Monbiot meets … Fatih Birol:
Britain’s leading green commentator tackles the International Energy Authority’s chief economist, who reveals for the first time a startling and worrying prediction for the date of peak oil. Read the peak oil feature and add your comment
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/
2008/dec/15/fatih-birol-george-monbiot
Dollar No Longer Haven After Fed Moves Rate Near Zero:
The world’s biggest currency-trading firms say the dollar’s appeal as a haven amid the financial crisis all but evaporated.
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20
601083&sid=aSmEfH_9_GxE&refer=currency
Chrysler Shuts For A Month and Chevy Volt Delayed:
Chrysler LLC said Wednesday that it will shut down all its North American production for at least one month starting December 19.
tinyurl.com/4rmzyn
‘75% in US bear the brunt of recession’:
In almost one home in five (18 percent) someone has lost a job in recent months, and in more than a quarter (27 percent) a worker has had his or her pay cut or working hours reduced, the poll found.
www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=78781§ionid=3510213