The Carp of Truth: Jack Straw, Colin Powell and the Smoking Guns of War Crime
Chris Floyd
February 9, 2010 – …Yes, Mr Straw. He is trying to tell you, and the world, that he has the paper in his hand documenting your conversation with Colin Powell: a clear admission of the war crime of military aggression, as it reveals that there was not even a pretense of a legally justifiable casus belli among the American and British leaders — just the cold, pre-determined intention to attack. (And Powell, as we all remember, was the “good American,” the “honorable American” in the run-up to war, a “decent man” who somehow got “railroaded” into making a false case for war before the entire world at the UN. A man so honorable and decent that the progressive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama proudly claimed him as one of his advisers, even as the million corpses from the war that Powell and Straw knowingly and willingly helped launch were rotting in the ground.) But, as Ames notes, these kinds of oblique references are “the best we will get for now” from the panel: “At the end, Sir John Chilcot said that, however revealing the sessions have been, the great bulk of the evidence, telling us ‘what really went on behind the scenes,’ is in the documents.” And the documents have not been and probably will not be released — at least not for many decades, by which time Blair and Straw and Powell and Bush will have all lived out their days in wealth and comfort…

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Afghan resistance statement
On the So-called Re-integration
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
February 9, 2010 – The recent American tactic to lure away members of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan under the name of re-integration is the old formula of colonialism which says divide and rule. This is the formula which the British colonialism was using in the 19th and 20th centuries to subjugate the proud Afghans but it failed to conquer Afghanistan. Similarly, during the past eight years, the enemy used all wicked tactics including military power, torture, blind bombardment and detainment but they have utterly failed to bar the Afghans from their struggle for independence of their country or derail the resistance from its course. Now, they are moribundly trying again to drive a wedge among the ranks of the Mujahideen by giving them bribery and providing them jobs. This will also bring in nothing for the enemy — only they will repeat the historical mistake once again…

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Iraq: Chalabi and Lami Also Control the “Independent” Elections Commission
Reidar Visser
February 9, 2010 – One of the many remarkable aspects of the continuing de-Baathification saga has been the apparent willingness of the Iraqi elections commission (IHEC) to more or less mechanically follow the recommendations of the accountability and justice board and its two leading figures, Ahmad Chalabi and Ali Faysal al-Lami. Nonetheless, until now the IHEC has at least maintained a semblance of formal independence in its decision-making by providing its own “independent” consideration of the advice from the justice and accountability board before implementing it. This was the procedure that was followed for example in the recent exclusion of 511 candidates for the 7 March parliamentary elections.However, with the release of the minutes from one of the latest meetings of the IHEC, both its independence and the distinction between the elections commission and the accountability and justice board are thrown into question in a serious way. Recently, on top of the ban of 500 plus candidates, the IHEC also moved to cancel the approval of nine political entities…

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Haiti; ‘Support of U.S. National Interests’
Felicity Arbuthnot
February 9, 2010 – The earthquake in Haiti has been described as “catastrophic”, with Port-au-Prince: “ a capital in ruins, schools, homes, churches, historic buildings and businesses … dozens and dozens gone.”(London) Guardian. The death toll may be as high as two hundred thousand. Whole families have been lost; sometimes just one shattered relative survives, with uncounted traumatised, bewildered orphans in a country where broadly half the population are under fifteen. Hospitals are either destroyed, damaged or have scant or no medication, anaesthetics and surgical necessities. The dead have been buried in mass graves, unidentified, their names known only to their God. Nature, it seems, has achieved in hours, what George Herbert Walker Bush, William Jefferson Clinton, and George W. Bush have done to Iraq and Afghanistan over nineteen years and nine years respectively (with a little help from Prime Ministers Anthony Charles Lynton Blair and predecessor, John Major .) And, as with Iraq and Afghanistan, it can only get worse. Fast…

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Growing Hunger in America
Stephen Lendman
February 9, 2010 – In January 2010, Feeding America (FA, formerly America’s Second Harvest) released its disturbing new report on growing hunger titled, “Hunger in America 2010.” The Chicago-based organization is the nation’s “leading domestic hunger-relief charity,” serving the needy “through a nationwide network of member food banks, over 200 in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.” Its study is based on interviews with over 62,000 clients served by the FA network, as well as information provided by 37,000 FA agencies – emergency food providers, including food pantries, soup kitchens, and emergency shelters for short-term residents…

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America’s Shadowy Base World
Tom Engelhardt & Nick Turse
February 9, 2010 – …Nearly a decade after the Bush administration launched its invasion of Afghanistan, TomDispatch offers the first actual count of American, NATO, and other coalition bases there, as well as facilities used by the Afghan security forces. Such bases range from relatively small sites like Shinwar to mega-bases that resemble small American towns. Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last year…

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Descent Into Barbarism: The US and NATO Wage War on the World
Finian Cunningham
February 9, 2010 – The argument is won: capitalism as an effective system to organise society and provide for human needs has expired. The evidence is conclusive. Trillions of dollars to kickstart the economy in the US and Europe may have given an ephemeral lease of life to the financial class to spin the casino wheel once again, but it is more apparent by the day that the tentative “recovery” has spluttered to a standstill. Gridlocked by unprecedented levels of personal and national debts, the engine of production – the real economy – is in a state of rigor mortis…Similar historic junctures have been witnessed before when capitalism floundered from its inexorable tendency to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Disturbingly, the release valve for the system and its bankruptcy has always been war. Death and destruction is the lender of last resort to an economic system that – despite itself – inevitably polarises wealth to an unworkable degree. The First and Second World Wars – claiming more than 70 million over a period of less than 10 years lives – were effectively the ultimate, grotesque bailouts. In our time, war, it seems, has already begun…

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What Israel gets away with
Australians for Palestine
February 9, 2010 – The following questions elicit the same answer in each instance. No other country in the world conducts itself at home and in world affairs with such impunity as Israel. This raises the question, why does Israel get away with it time and time again while other countries are condemned and punished? It is time that we demand answers from are leaders and insist that Israel be held accountable for its breaches..

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Israeli Army Open Fire on Gazan Farmers and International Observors
International Solidarity Movement (ISM)
February 9, 2010- Gazan farmers whose land lies in Israeli defined buffer zone accompanied by international observers have been held down in their field by live gunfire. The Israeli army shot live ammunition for a quarter of an hour after finding the unarmed group fertilizing wheat crops. The international observers loudly informed the soldiers they were unarmed civilians, but the bullets only landed closer. Khuza’a is located 7 kilometers southeast of Khan Yunis. It is about a kilometer from the fence that serves as a border between Israel and Gaza…

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Israeli Knesset decides not to return confiscated Arab lands
Palestinian Information Center
February 9, 2010— The Israeli Knesset (parliament) on Monday endorsed the second and third reading of a draft resolution allowing the return of confiscated lands to their real owners if they weren’t utilized but the new resolution excluded the lands confiscated from Palestinian citizens. Arab Knesset member Dr. Jamal Zahalka condemned the resolution, asserting that the Israeli MPs exerted tremendous efforts to formulate the resolution with the one and only aim that is to bloc any form of justice in dealing with the confiscated Palestinian lands…

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U.S. Non-Profit Targeted Rights Group over Goldstone
By Eli Clifton
February 9, 2010 – A campaign of attacks against the New Israel Fund (NIF), a U.S.-based progressive organisation that supports human rights groups in Israel, has gained attention in both the Israeli and U.S. media, raising questions about the role played by foreign non-profits and non-governmental organisations in influencing Israeli government policy. But an IPS investigation into publicly available tax records has shed light on where funding for the attacks may have originated…

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Iraq snaphsot – February 9, 2010
The Common Ills
Tuesday, February 9, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, Dan Choi gets some welcome news while service member Marc Hall could use some, Americans and Brits do not believe the illegal war ends in 2011, the banning of candidates continues in Iraq (and appears final) and more… Last week an appeals body ruled the 500 plus banned candidates could run and that the charges against them would be examined after the election. Little Nouri threw a fit. The same body rejected their own decision yesterday. Kholoud Ramzi (niqash) observes: The Iraqi list, which suffered most from exclusions said that the outcome of the high-level meeting was a dreadful case of back-tracking. Haydar al-Mullah, the Iraqi List’s spokesperson said, “What is an attempt to assassinate Iraqi democracy and the separation of powers between the different authorities. Political pressure was exerted on the Appeal Commission to issue decisions that are in harmony with the expectations of some ruling parties.”…

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