The Dream.......46 years later

CommonDreams reports and records:

"Today marks the 46th anniversary of the March On Washington. On Aug. 28, 1963, over 200,000 people marched for civil rights and, at the Lincoln Memorial, heard Martin Luther King deliver his "I Have A Dream" speech.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

The enemies of press freedom to blame for journalists who disappear

Reporters Without Borders reports on those brave journalists who simply "disappear" whilst discharging their duties to report to the world on whatever assignment they are on. Remember......without an ever-vigilant press, or media altogether, Governments are free to do whatever they want away from public gaze.

"As the world marks the 26th International Day of the Disappeared on 30 August, Reporters Without Borders has provided a grim reminder that nothing has been heard, sometimes for years, of scores of journalists, who have been kidnapped, arrested or simply kept “appointments” that turned out to be traps.

“Whether carried out by agents of the state or local criminals bent on settling scores, the many disappearances of journalists highlights the fact that the enemies of press freedom have no hesitation in using the most cowardly and despicable methods to gag journalists. We restate our support for the families of the disappeared and we share the pain they suffer in the waiting and uncertainty about their fate”, the worldwide press freedom organisation said."

Yep, Oil Did It!

Many said that Britain's interests in obtaining Libyan oil was the prime motivation in the recent release of the Lockerbie bomber on humanitarian grounds.

The suggestion was met with indignation by the UK's Foreign Secretary.

The TimesOnLine now reports in "Lockerbie bomber 'set free for oil'" that, yes indeed, political considerations, principally access to oil in Libya, drove the deal to release the convicted bomber.

"The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

The letters were sent two years ago by Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to Kenny MacAskill, his counterpart in Scotland, who has been widely criticised for taking the formal decision to permit Megrahi’s release.

The correspondence makes it plain that the key decision to include Megrahi in a deal with Libya to allow prisoners to return home was, in fact, taken in London for British national interests."

Two way traffic?

Credit to Larry Wright, The Detroit News

It's a matter of how you communicate

Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations at Harvard University. He is a respected academic who gained a degree of fame with the book he co-authorised, the best-selling The Israel Question.

In a piece "Actions Speak Louder Than Words" on FP which ought to be compulsory reading for all US politicians - as indeed all politicians in whatever country - Walt rightly highlights that it's not what one says but the actions which count. That message is particularly important given that the Americans, in particular, have said one thing and acted totally otherwise. Just think urging countries to follow the rule of law and then act contrary ro that with things like Gitmo, renditioning, torturing prisoners, holding people for years without trial, etc. etc.

"Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has reportedly penned a "searing critique" of efforts to improve U.S. relations with the Muslim world via "strategic communication." According to the New York Times, Mullen argues that "we need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate."

Sounds right to me. Like most great powers, and especially dominant ones, the United States tends to believe that its motives are pure, that its noble aims are apparent to all, and that other peoples ought to be grateful for its self-less assistance. (Never mind that U.S. foreign policy is mostly driven by perceived self-interest, even if we don't like to admit it to ourselves). If people overseas are mad at us, this must be due to a some sort of misunderstanding. If we just explained it to them a little better, they would support whatever it is we are doing, even if it involves reorganizing their way of life, helping select who runs their country, supporting various allies even when they are mis-behaving, or sending Predators or cruise missiles from afar to blow up suspected terrorist sites on their soil. And if anti-Americanism isn't just a misunderstanding, it is because some misguided people "hate our values." Whatever it is, it's never our fault.

To his credit, Mullen appears to be acknowledging that U.S. actions really do have consequences--including negative consequences--and maybe we ought to think about them differently."

Some sound and timely advice from Arch. Tutu

"The lesson that Israel must learn from the Holocaust is that it can never get security through fences, walls and guns" Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa told Haaretz Thursday.

Commenting on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement in Germany Thursday that the lesson of the Holocaust is that Israel should always defend itself, Tutu noted that "in South Africa, they tried to get security from the barrel of a gun. They never got it. They got security when the human rights of all were recognized and respected."

Read the full Haaretz article here. Failure by the Israelis to listen to, and adopt, Tutu's sage advice will almost certainly result in a myriad of problems for Israel, not the least of which it's very existence.

Middle East Talks? Doomed at Birth

As there is talk in the media about some sort of resolution of the present stand-off between the Israelis and the USA with respect to the on-going building and expansion of settlements by the Israelis - as well starting up, yet again, talks between the Israelis and Palestinians - Seth Freedman, writing from Israel in "Obama’s Middle East breakthrough? Dream on" on The First Post, says there is more than considerable reason for scepticism:

"News of Barack Obama's apparent breakthrough in the Middle East peace process makes for great copy, but the announcement's beauty is only skin deep. His 'success' simply amounts to having forced Prime Minister Netanyahu to agree to a freeze in settlement construction as a means to get both sides - Israelis and Palestinians - to the negotiating table.

While any kind of concession on the part of the hardline Israeli government must be seen as a positive sign, past form is the best guide as to how the latest round of peace talks will ultimately pan out.

Successive Israeli, Palestinian and international politicians have come, seen, and failed to conquer the seemingly insurmountable obstacles on the path to a true and lasting resolution to the conflict. Despite all the fanfare surrounding Obama's attempts at bridging the gulf between the two sides, the fact that Netanyahu has dug his heels in so hard at the first hurdle - settlement construction - indicates the near impossible task that lies ahead.

Obama squeezing a temporary cessation to settlement building like blood from a stone does not augur well for the far more serious items on the agenda.

According to Israeli officials, the Palestinian right of return is out of the question, likewise the suggestion to divide Jerusalem and give the eastern half to the Palestinians as their capital. Yet both issues are of sacrosanct importance to the Palestinian people, and any offer falling short on those fronts will see today's optimism quickly fizzle out once again."

The Really Good Life - post the US Govt. [US$173 billion] Bailout

Abby Zimet writing on CommonDreams:

"Now that we've bailed out massive insurer AIG to the tune of $173 billion, it's gratifying to see its new CEO Robert Benmosche making good on our faith in him. A few days after taking the job, which pays up to $10.5 million - 3 in cash, 4 in stock, 3.5 in bonuses - he went on vacation at his Croatian villa, with its 12 bathrooms, Italian tiles, French tapestries, wine cellar, vineyards and sweeping view of the Adriatic. While there, he is working hard, sometimes making three calls a day! Given that, he cannot understand the ire of those "lynch mobs with pitchforks" who begrudge him his life.

"At the end of the day none of us are entitled to anything. It is what we earn."

Afghanistan Apocalypse

Whilst we await the results of the so-called recent presidential election in Afghanistan - with increasingly more and more reports casting doubt on the integrity of the voting which took place - the predictions for the War in Afghanistan seem to be becoming more gloomy and dire by the day.

Robert Dreyfuss, writing in The Nation in "Afghanistan Apocalypse" says:

"Yesterday afternoon at the Brookings Institution, four analysts portrayed a bleak and terrifying vision of the current state of affairs in Afghanistan in the wake of the presidential election. All four were hawkish, reflecting a growing consensus in the Washington establishment that the Afghanistan war is only just beginning.

Their conclusions: (1) A significant escalation of the war will be necessary to avoid utter defeat. (2) Even if tens of thousands of troops are added to the US occupation, it won't be possible to determine if the US/NATO effort is succeeding until eighteen months later. (3) Even if the United States turns the tide in Afghanistan, no significant drawdown of US forces will take place until five years have passed.
The experts at the panel were Bruce Riedel, a 30-year CIA veteran and adviser to four presidents, who chaired President Obama's Afghan task force; Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert and adviser to General David Petraeus; Tony Cordesman, a conservative military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; and Kim Kagan, head of the Institute for the Study of War.

Not a single panelist questioned the goals, purpose or objectives of the Afghan war. Not one said anything about a political solution to the war, about negotiations, or about diplomacy. Not one questioned the viability of an open-ended commitment to the war. And none of them had any doubts about the strategic necessity of defeating the Taliban and its allies. Although the growing political opposition to the war was referenced in passing -- more than half of Americans say the the war isn't worth fighting, and liberal-left members of Congress are beginning to raise objections -- the panel seemed to believe that President Obama can and must ignore politics and push to expand the war when General McChrystal, as expected, recommends an increase in the the level of US forces once again. O'Hanlon, a well-connected, ultra-hawkish Democrat who backed the war in Iraq, said that the chances that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi will lead congressional opposition to the war in Afghanistan in 2009-2010 are zero. "Congress will not pull the rug out from under Barack Obama, before the mid-term elections," he asserted, calling the very idea "unthinkable" and "political suicide."

O'Hanlon, who had just returned from Afghanistan, acknowledged that McChrystal is "fully aware that, right now, America is not winning this war."

Continue reading here.

Teddy Kennedy: The Real Deal

Acres of newsprint has already been written in relation to the passing of Teddy Kennedy.

Forget about the some of the hyperbole and clearly incorrect claims [one notable one that Kennedy was the "son of Camelot"] but this tribute by Robert Scheer in "The Real Deal" writing in The Nation is sober and seems nuanced:

"The light has gone out, and with it that infectious warm laugh and intensely progressive commitment of the best of the Kennedys. Not, at this point, to take anything away from the memory of his siblings—Bobby, whom I also got to know, was pretty terrific in his last years—but Sen. Ted Kennedy was the real deal.

Unable to move with his brothers’ intellectual alacrity, sometimes plodding in impromptu expression but smooth and skillful while reading from a script, the youngest Kennedy made up for his shortcomings early in his Senate career by resolutely working the substance of issues. His principled determination, plus his capacity to truly care about the real-world outcomes of legislation for ordinary people rather than its impact on his or anyone else’s election, became his signature qualities as a lawmaker. But for those same reasons, he also wanted legislation passed, and his ability to work with the opposition, as he did three years ago with John McCain on immigration reform, now grants him a legacy as one of the nation’s great senators.

Oddly enough, for one born into such immense familial expectations, he was a surprisingly accessible and down-to-earth politician in the eyes of most journalists who covered him."

In Love and War

From CommonDreams:

"As poignant testimony that life goes on, even in Gaza, Rana and Mahmoud al-Zourby were recently married in a bittersweet union, the bridegroom in his wheelchair, the bride guiding him. Though Mahmoud lost his eyesight and right leg in the Israeli assault on Gaza, Rana says this marriage is like any other - "a life-long commitment, for better or worse."

"No bomb can ever take his heart." – Rana al-Zourby, on her new husband."

Bottled Water loses its lustre

The Boston Globe reports in "Bottled-water scam finally feels squeeze on the decline" on the over-hyped fad of drinking bottled water:

"We don't miss the water when the cash runs dry. Bottled water, that is. That refreshing news came recently as Nestle reported nearly a 5 percent drop in bottled water sales in North America and Western Europe. That company bottles water under the familiar names of Poland Spring, Perrier, S. Pellegrino, and Deer Park.

Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coke’s Dasani reported declining or weakening bottled-water sales as well. The president of Pepsi’s North American bottling group, Rob King, said in a July conference call, “In just a tough economic environment, one of the first things that a shopper can do is consume tap water as opposed to purchasing bottled water.’’

The sad part is that ending the bottled-water fad took a recession, when common sense should have kicked in long ago.

While some bottled water does come from the natural springs and mountain lakes depicted on the labels, most is just municipal tap water - water that is packaged and sold at enormous cost. Two years ago, the Earth Policy Institute estimated that each gallon of bottled water costs $10 a gallon to go from the groundwater to your lips. Each bottle of water kicks the environment twice, first with unnecessary plastic containers and then with the fuel that is burned to transport this heavy liquid load to your door, supermarket, or vending machine. The cost is currently four times the cost of a gallon of regular gasoline."

Must Read Report

The Report just released about the CIA's torture methods, will doubtlessly lead into various "interesting" directions.

Former lawyer, Glenn Greenwald, who now writes on Salon, says:

"I wrote earlier today about Eric Holder's decision to "review" whether criminal prosecutions are warranted in connection with the torture of Terrorism suspects -- that can be read here -- but I want to write separately about the release today of the 2004 CIA's Inspector General Report (.pdf), both because it's extraordinary in its own right and because it underscores how unjust it would be to prosecute only low-level interrogators rather than the high-level officials who implemented the torture regime. Initially, it should be emphasized that yet again, it is not the Congress or the establishment media which is uncovering these abuses and forcing disclosure of government misconduct. Rather, it is the ACLU (with which I consult) that, along with other human rights organizations, has had to fill the void left by those failed institutions, using their own funds to pursue litigation to compel disclosure. Without their efforts, we would know vastly less than we know now about the crimes our government committed."

Continue reading truly horrifying extracts of the actual Report here.......

As Greenwald says:

"Perhaps worst of all, the Report notes that many of the detainees who were subjected to this treatment were so treated due to "assessments that were unsupported by credible intelligence" -- meaning there was no real reason to think they had done anything wrong whatsoever. As has been known for quite some time, many of the people who were tortured by the United States were completely innocent -- guilty of absolutely nothing."

On Obama: The fruit loops out there....

It is bad enough to read that gun-toting individuals have been attending town hall meetings at which Obama has been speaking, but the looneys out there have been having a field day accusing the new president of a range of things.

The Economist tries to put the whole thing in some sort of context, whilst giving some examples of the extreme views and positions taken by seemingly far too many Americans:

"Some of Barack Obama’s detractors content themselves with arguing that he is a bad president. Others go further. “Birthers” insist that he was not born in the United States and is therefore constitutionally barred from being president. Yet Mr Obama’s birth certificate says he was born in Hawaii, and there is not a shred of evidence to the contrary. There is even an announcement of his birth in the archive of the Honolulu Advertiser, a local newspaper. Yet the internet crackles with theories as to how all this was faked so that, 48 years later, Mr Obama could impose a socialist state on America. And a YouGov poll for The Economist found that 26% of Republicans think Mr Obama is probably foreign-born.

Other conspiracy theories about Mr Obama are even loopier. For example, some Americans think he is the Antichrist. The evidence for this, apparently, is that in the Bible Jesus is quoted as predicting that Satan will come down like lightning from heaven, and the words for “lightning” and “heaven” in Hebrew sound a bit like “Barack Obama”. Plus, his presidential limo is nicknamed “The Beast”. For those who think this is too far-fetched, there is the theory that Mr Obama is a closet Nazi. He thinks abortion should be legal. Historically, some abortion advocates have also been eugenicists. Therefore he must be one of them. Also, he wants to discourage smoking. So did Hitler!"

Read the complete piece here.

Sink or swim?

Credit to Daryl Cagle at MSNBC

Continued: Lockerbie - and those doubts

The debate about the soundness of the finding of guilt of the Lockerbie bomber - or the alleged one - continues, and it looks like it will do so for quite some time.

consortiumnews.com has a piece which details the myriad of doubts cast over the verdict of guilt of one of the two presented for trial. That in itself, as the author points out, is more than curious, given that essentially the same evidence was led against both accused.

"The truth about what happened at Lockerbie appears quite a bit more complex than the cookie-cutter version presented by the mainstream media. Several longtime observers of the al-Megrahi case have concluded that it has always been weak, at best.

According to British journalist Hugh Miles in a 2007 article for London Review of Books, many “lawyers, politicians, diplomats and relatives of Lockerbie victims now believe that the former Libyan intelligence officer is innocent.”

Miles quoted Robert Black QC, an Edinburgh University professor emeritus of Scottish law, as saying, “No reasonable tribunal, on the evidence heard at the original trial, should or could have convicted him and it is an absolute disgrace and outrage what the Scottish court did.”

Al-Megrahi was tried along with fellow Libyan intelligence officer Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah. With distraught relatives of victims filling the courtroom, the Scottish judges understandably feared the reaction to two not guilty verdicts. Instead, the judges acquitted Fhimah and found al-Megrahi guilty.

A U.N. observer to the trial, Austrian philosophy Professor Hans Koschler, noted, "You cannot come out with a verdict of guilty for one and innocent for the other when they were both being tried with the same evidence.”

Lockerbie's [600 page] hidden evidence

Whether it be a media beat-up or not, there are many [principally in the US] outraged by the release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber, whilst there is much considered opinion that the now released bomber is innocent.

The Morning Star reports:

"Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi's release on compassionate grounds, although welcomed by many campaigners in Britain, means we are no further forward in terms of establishing the truth regarding the Lockerbie bombing.

For many, Megrahi was a convenient scapegoat, deflecting attention away from a wealth of evidence which would bring into question the official version of events.

This suspicion has deepened with the suggestion that Megrahi had been forced to withdraw his appeal against conviction or be refused leave to return to Libya to see out his dying days.

An estimated 600 pages of evidence, much of which may prove Megrahi's innocence, has been withheld from the public."

And:

"Despite the large amount of evidence pointing to Iranian or Syrian involvement, these lines of inquiry abruptly ended, apparently with a phone call from George Bush Senior to Margaret Thatcher warning her to stop Scottish police digging.

It is argued that the pending invasion of Iraq required the support of Iran and Syria, both of whom had pariah status a year earlier, and that therefore exposing their involvement in the atrocity was not helpful.

A politically expedient scapegoat was sought.

Libya fitted neatly into the frame. It was commonly regarded as a terrorist state with a history of funding and supporting armed groups including the IRA and its leader Muammar Gaddafi had been branded a "mad dog" by Ronald Reagan."

What? Ethnic cleansing?

Jewish lobby groups know no bounds! Now, as The Guardian reports, pro-Israel groups in the US are claiming that Obama is engaged in ethnic cleansing by seeking the cessation of the building of settlements. In fact, he is being anti-semitic, they claim.

"Hardline pro-Israel groups in the US have been confronting President Barack Obama's demands for a halt to settlement expansion by accusing him of promoting the ethnic cleansing of Jews and jeopardising Israel's security.

Members of Congress allied with Israel and powerful lobby groups in Washington are also trying to shift the focus of administration policy from the Jewish settlements, arguing they are not an obstacle to peace, to demands for Arab governments to recognise Israel.

The strategy, intertwined with a similar campaign by Israeli politicians and officials, has taken on added urgency because of Obama's demands, first laid down during a testy meeting in May with the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, that Israel freeze all settlement construction in the West Bank."

Movies: Mike Moore does it again

AlterNet reports:

"Two years after his last critique of the nation’s governing bodies in 2007’s ‘Sicko,’ agitprop documentarian Michael Moore is back with a new movie — and this time, his target is the economy. In a just-released teaser clip for Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore puts on his trademark baseball cap to go after corporate America.

“It’s a crime story,” Michael Moore says of his latest documentary, in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly. “But it’s also a war story about class warfare. And a vampire movie, with the upper 1 percent feeding off the rest of us. And, of course, it’s also a love story. Only it’s about an abusive relationship.”

“I made this movie as if it was going to be the last movie I was allowed to make,” the Michigan native concluded before adding “Oh, and by the way, it’s a comedy.”

The film is already up for the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, which takes place Sept. 2-12 in Venice, Italy.

Moore’s latest will also headline at the Toronto film fest in September."

Go here to view the video clip.



Obama: Sanguine v Anxiety

The voices are getting louder, the polls not looking so good and the attacks more and more strident.

Obama is facing the test of whether all that smooth rhetoric whilst campaigning - and speeches since then aided by a teleprompter - are translating into something being seen to being actually done. The report card to date isn't all that impressive - especially as one sees policies of the Bush Administration continuing.

With Obama's attempt to introduce health reform, he is encountering brickbats galore apart from offensive attacks from various quarters.

Bob Herbert, writing in "Voices of Anxiety" in The NY Times, perhaps reflects thinking in the US:

"The president may be sanguine, but the same cannot be said of the general public, including some of Mr. Obama’s most ardent supporters. The American people are worried sick over the economy, which may be sprouting green shoots from Ben Bernanke’s lofty perspective but not from the humble standpoint of the many millions who are unemployed, or those who are still working but barely able to pay their bills and hold onto their homes.

This is the reality that underlies the anxiety over the president’s ragged effort to achieve health care reform. Forget the certifiables who are scrawling Hitler mustaches on pictures of the president. Many sane and intelligent people who voted for Mr. Obama and sincerely want him to succeed have legitimate concerns about the timing of this health reform initiative and the way it is unfolding."

Glenn Greenwald also takes up the issue over at Salon:

"Paul Krugman has an excellent column today arguing that progressives have backlashed so intensely over the prospect of Obama's dropping the public option because -- for reasons extending far beyond specific health care issues -- they no longer trust the President. Citing Obama's steadfast continuation of Bush/Cheney Terrorism policies, the administration's extreme coziness with crisis-causing banks, and the endless retreats on health care, Krugman says that "a backlash in the progressive base . . . has been building for months" and that "progressives are now in revolt. Mr. Obama took their trust for granted, and in the process lost it."

Democracy doesn't mean freedom

OK, the elections in Afghanistan have taken place. Now the world awaits the result.

Meanwhile, veteran journalist, author and commentator Robert Fisk in a piece in The Independent "Democracy will not bring freedom" questions what sort of democracy one might look to in countries such as Afghanistan:

"We still think we can offer Afghans the fruits of our all-so-perfect Western society. We still believe in the Age of Enlightenment and that all we have to do is fiddle with Afghan laws and leave behind us a democratic, gender-equal, human rights-filled society.

True, there are brave souls who fight for this in Afghanistan – and pay for their struggle with their lives – but if you walk into a remote village in, say, Nangarhar province, you can no more persuade its tribal elders of the benefits of women's education than you could persuade Henry VIII of the benefits of parliamentary democracy. Thus the benefits we wish to bestow upon the people of Afghanistan are either cherry-picked (the money comes in handy for the government's corrupt coffers and the election reinforces tribal loyalties) or ignored. In the meantime, Nato soldiers go on dying for the pitiful illusion that we can clean the place up. We can't. We are not going to."

1 to Nethanyhu, 0 to Obama

Obama has spoken of the America's desire that Israel cease its building and extension of the ever-growing settlements - the source of so much friction in the on-going Israel-Palestinian conflict.

As Obama has seemingly stopped in his tracks from doing anything to halt Israel's actions in relation to the settlements, The Washington Post reports that Nethanyhu has garnered support for standing up to the US president:

"For five months, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been fending off U.S. pressure to halt the expansion of West Bank settlements. Now he is reaping dividends for his defiance.

Although Israeli leaders have historically been reluctant to publicly break with the United States for fear of paying a price in domestic support, polls show that Netanyahu's strategy is working. And that means that after months of diplomacy, the quick breakthrough that President Obama had hoped would restart peace talks has instead turned into a familiar stalemate.

Arab states largely have rebuffed Obama's request for an overture to Israel until the settlement issue is resolved -- a stand that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak emphasized in a meeting with Obama on Tuesday -- and the Palestinians have said a settlement freeze is a precondition for resuming negotiations. Meanwhile, the Israeli public seems to have rallied around Netanyahu's refusal to halt all settlement construction, a backlash that intensified when the Obama administration made clear that it wanted Israel to stop building Jewish homes in some parts of Jerusalem as well as in the occupied West Bank.

In Israel, the dynamic seems to have shifted further from any dramatic concessions. Netanyahu "scored points" for standing up to Obama, said Yoel Hasson, a member of parliament from the opposition Kadima party. In contrast to the United States' public demands for a settlement freeze, signaled early in the relationship between the two new governments, "I think the U.S. understands that it is better for them to do everything with Netanyahu more quietly," Hasson said."

The GOP and "freedom of speech" out of control

For non-Americans observing what is said and done in America can mostly be more than vexing and amazing. Freedom of speech is one thing, as also the apparent unfettered right to bear arms, almost no matter where or in whatever circumstances, but the seeming legitimacy given to the loony right-wingers or shock-jocks, is truly astounding.

Brit Johann Hari writing in The Independent in "Republicans, religion and the triumph of unreason" comments on the state of play in the US in relation to a number of matters:

"Since Obama's rise, the US right has been skipping frantically from one fantasy to another, like a person in the throes of a mental breakdown. It started when they claimed he was a secret Muslim, and – at the same time – that he was a member of a black nationalist church that hated white people. Then, once these arguments were rejected and Obama won, they began to argue that he was born in Kenya and secretly smuggled into the United States as a baby, and the Hawaiian authorities conspired to fake his US birth certificate. So he is ineligible to rule and the office of President should pass to... the Republican runner-up, John McCain.

These aren't fringe phenomena: a Research 200 poll found that a majority of Republicans and Southerners say Obama wasn't born in the US, or aren't sure. A steady steam of Republican congressmen have been jabbering that Obama has "questions to answer". No amount of hard evidence – here's his birth certificate, here's a picture of his mother heavily pregnant in Hawaii, here's the announcement of his birth in the local Hawaiian paper – can pierce this conviction.

This trend has reached its apotheosis this summer with the Republican Party now claiming en masse that Obama wants to set up "death panels" to euthanise the old and disabled. Yes: Sarah Palin really has claimed – with a straight face – that Barack Obama wants to kill her baby."

Hilary.....and that man!

Credit to Theo Moudakis

What, If He's Innocent We Can't Execute Him?

To watch the American judicial system from afar is more than amazing.

Some of the pronouncements made by judges, including those on the Supreme Court, are not only astounding but breathtaking.

Just read the following from CommonDreams.org and try and not choke when reflecting on the fact that this has been said by a judge, a lawyer [?] and human being:

"After 18 years on Death Row, Troy Davis will finally get a chance to prove his oft-stated innocence in a killing after the Supreme Court took the rare step of ordering a federal court in Georgia to re-consider his case. The decision comes after seven witnesses recanted their testimony against him, several people implicated a main witness as the killer, and 27 former prosecutors and judges filed a brief supporting Davis. Astonishingly, in a dissent from the court ruling, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that "actual innocence" is no reason not to execute someone. In light of his remarks, we again welcome Sonia Sotomayor, who did not rule on the case, to the court.

"This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent."

See also Scott Horton, writing on the same subject in "Culture of Death" in Harper's Magazine.

Amidst mayhem and threats......an election?

Tomorrow [Thursday] sees Afghanistan hold its second election in recent years.

Whilst there are several candidates for the Presidency, the omens for the election are far from encouraging. Leaving aside the violence already occurring in the country - even in downtown Kabul - not to be overlooked is the Taliban which has openly threatened that if it sees those with purple marks on their finger [indicating that they have voted] that they will cut off that finger. Some incentive to go and vote!

In a piece headed "As Afghanistan Votes, Will the Taliban Win?" The NY Times has a selection of pieces from people in Afghanistan giving their perspective of the elction. Go here to read the 4 reports.

Meanwhile, over at The Nation Robert Dreyfuss, writing in "Karzai, the Pashtuns, and the Taliban" on the election says:

"The prospects for Afghanistan's election on Thursday are murky, at best.

The Taliban are threatening to disrupt the vote in areas south and east of Kabul, where they are strong, and say that they will take reprisals against anyone who votes. "Afghans must boycott the deceitful American project and head for the trenches of holy war," said a communique from the Taliban. The Taliban, which is overwhelmingly Pashtun, is apparently counting on its ability to persuade or intimidate Pashtuns to stay away from the polls, which could doom or weaken Karzai. An excellent analysis in the New York Times by Dexter Filkins notes that the Pashtun vote is critical to Karzai's chances on Thursday:

"Five years ago, Mr. Karzai rode to an election victory on a wave of support from his fellow Pashtuns, who make up about 40 percent of Afghanistan's population."

No justice here!

"The last person to see Syed Mehmood Hashmi as a free man was his friend Mohammed Haroon Saleem, who on June 6, 2006, drove Hashmi to London's Heathrow Airport, walked him to the security checkpoint, and watched him hoist his bag and head for the gate. But Hashmi never made his flight. At passport control, constables pulled him from the line and told him they had an extradition warrant on behalf of the US government. He was to be charged with aiding Al Qaeda.

Today Hashmi, who is 29, sits in a windowless cell, in solitary confinement. He is not allowed to watch television or listen to the radio or read a newspaper unless it is at least 30 days old and censored. He is not allowed to speak to guards, other inmates, or the media, or to write anyone but his attorney and his family (once a week on three single-sided pages). The only people cleared to visit, besides his lawyer, are his mother and father, but he couldn't see them for three months after he was caught shadowboxing in his cell—an infraction that cost him visiting privileges. Hashmi's lawyer, Sean Maher, says the isolation is slowly driving his client mad.

Hashmi is not in Guantanamo Bay, nor is he an enemy combatant. He's a US citizen, born in Pakistan and raised in Flushing, Queens, facing trial in federal court in Manhattan. His home for the past two years has been the Special Housing Unit at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a stone's throw from the Brooklyn Bridge. Hashmi might be guilty, he might not. We may never know—because when he goes before judge and jury later this year he won't get a fair trial. Much of the government's evidence against him is secret, and he can't see it because he doesn't have a security clearance. Maher, who does have a security clearance, can't see much of it either. Maher finds this incredible."

Yes folks, despite all the hype coming from the Obama White House about closing down Gitmo in 12 months, the US still maintains a totally unjust legal system - read the full Mother Jones article here - as the above so very clearly shows

If the US wants to convince foreign nations, especially those with large Muslim populations, that the way to go is to have proper justice system then what he happened at Gitmo, and above, is not going to persuade anyone that the American way is the one to follow.

Critical Warning: Asia facing food crisis

It's more than a timely warning - especially for those in the world who are satisfactorily housed and have an abundance of food and water available to them.

The Guardian reports in "Asia facing unprecedented food shortage, UN report says":

"Asia faces an unprecedented food crisis and huge social unrest unless hundreds of billions of dollars are invested in better irrigation systems to grow crops for its burgeoning population, according to a UN report published today.

India, China, Pakistan and other large countries avoided famines in the 1970s and 1980s only because they built giant state-sponsored irrigation systems and introduced better seeds and fertilisers. But the extra 1.5 billion people expected to live on the continent by 2050 will double Asia's demand for food, says the report from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Bank-funded International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

A combination of very little new land left for cultivation, an increasingly unpredictable climate and water supplies stretched to the limit means the only realistic option to feed people in the future will be better management of existing water supplies, according to the report.

"There is no new land or water to develop so we have to make more use of what we have. Existing irrigation systems are often 50 to 70 years old. They are leaking and water is evaporating. We urgently need a new generation of irrigation. That is the only way we are going to feed everyone," said Colin Chartres, who is the director general of IWMI."

The Truth Warrior

There are few academics in the US who can bring to bear the sort of knowledge, background and expertise that Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago can. Now known, with co-author, Stephen Walt, as the author of the best-selling book The Israel Lobby, Mearsheimer's expertise extends beyond the Middle East.

In an excellent piece in the Sydney Ideas Quarterly, Antony Loewenstein profiles Mearsheimer:

"With the death of Samuel Huntington last year, Mearsheimer’s prominence in the field is virtually undisputed. Huntington, the author of the controversial Clash of Civilisations, was a spur to Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's even more controversial book, The Israel Lobby and US Policy. Walt, from Harvard University, explained in the magazine Foreign Policy, that although both of them often disagreed with Huntington, 'some of his own writings contain similar warnings about the distorting influence that ethnic groups could have on US foreign policy'."

And:

"Mearsheimer, who has been teaching political science at the University of Chicago since 1982, laments that over time, intellectuals in the academy have had less impact on public life. 'This is the function of two factors,' he said. 'One, with increasing professionalism, intellectuals find themselves talking more and more to each other and to students than to the general public. Second, when the Cold War first started, the US had very little intellectual capital in Washington, so what happened in the academic world had more impact on the policy world. It's no accident that some of the first national security advisors were from the academic world, such as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski.'

As a leading opponent of the war, Mearsheimer rarely appears in its pages. It is depressing, he says, adding that those who were right about Iraq remain largely unpublished in the US mainstream media today while the neocons and their backers continue to pollute op-ed pages across the country."

Biking Out of Iraq

As the news out of Afghanistan increases, so correspondingly, does the reporting out of Iraq diminish even more. That there are increasing sectarian bombings in the country - with large numbers of deaths and injury - hardly rates any media coverage.

One can't help be left with the impression that what the Coalition of the Willing would have us all believe is that things are going along pretty well now in Iraq. If only it were so!

TomDispatch.com in a posting "Biking Out of Iraq" details where things are at:

"The Bush administration invaded Iraq in March 2003 with a force of approximately 130,000 troops. Top White House and Pentagon officials like Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz were convinced that, by August, those troops, welcomed with open arms by the oppressed Iraqis, would be drawn down to 30,000-40,000 and housed in newly built, permanent military bases largely away from the country's urban areas. This was to be part of what now is called a "strategic partnership" in the Middle East.

Almost five and a half years later, the United States still has approximately 130,000 troops in Iraq. Top administration officials are now talking about "modestly accelerated" rates of troop withdrawal, if all goes well. By August 2010, the Obama administration expects to have only 30,000-50,000 troops housed mainly on American mega-bases largely away from urban areas, part of a special American/Iraqi strategic partnership in the region.

This passes for progress in Iraq."

Continue reading here.

Water! A Human Right?

Water! It's a commodity that many people take for granted.

In the US, the almost universal habit of providing water at the restaurant table - and far too large a glass to boot - sees a lot of water simply wasted. Just observe how many diners either actually drink any of the water in the glass let alone finish the glass.

IPS [Inter Press Service] now reports in "Should Water Be Legislated as a Human Right?" that the powers-that-be have realised that something has to be done about the availability and access to water:

"The growing commercialisation of water - and the widespread influence of the bottling industry worldwide - is triggering a rising demand for the legal classification of one of the basic necessities of life as a human right.

"We definitely need a covenant or [an international] treaty on the right to water so as to establish once and for all that no one on earth must be denied water because of inability to pay," says Maude Barlow, a senior adviser to the President of the U.N. General Assembly, on water issues.

"We’ve got to protect water as a human right," she said, pointing out that the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva would be the most likely venue to propose such a covenant.

But it would be best, she added, if it were ratified by the 192-member General Assembly, currently presided over by Fr. Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, a former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua.

"We need at the United Nations more than a human rights remedy," Barlow told IPS. "We need a plan of action for the General Assembly."

The U.N. says that close to 880 million people - mostly in the developing world - lack adequate access to clean water. By 2030, close to 4 billion people could be living in areas suffering severe water stress, mostly in South Asia and China.

A study commissioned by the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), released in March, said the global market for water supply, sanitation and water efficiency is worth over 250 billion dollars - and is likely to grow to nearly 660 billion dollars by 2020."

Israel imposes yet more restrictions

The Israelis have always tightly controlled who enters Gaza. So much for the much-vaunted withdrawal of the Israeli's from the tiny strip of land!

However, unlike Israelis, those holding foreign passports have hitherto been permitted access to the West Bank. Until now that is!

The National reports in "New Israeli rules curb travel from West Bank" that now foreigners, in breach of international law and the Oslo Accord, are to be restricted from going into the West Bank:

"In an echo of restrictions already firmly in place in Gaza, Israel has begun barring movement between Israel and the West Bank for anyone holding a foreign passport, including humanitarian aid workers and thousands of Palestinian residents.

The new policy is designed to force foreign citizens to choose between visiting Israel, including East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed illegally, and the West Bank. In most cases, travel between the two areas will no longer be possible.

The new regulation is in breach of Israel’s commitments under the Oslo accords to western governments that their citizens would be given continued access to the occupied territories.

Israel, which controls the population register for both Israelis and Palestinians, has not suggested there are any security justifications for the new restriction.

Human rights groups complain that the rule change will further separate East Jerusalem, the planned capital of a Palestinian state, from the West Bank. It is also expected to add to the pressures on families where one member holds a foreign passport to leave the region and disrupt the assistance aid organisations are able to give Palestinians."

Rupert will get you - one way or the other!

Credit to Danziger in The NY Times

So that's where the money went!

"In numbers that Paul Krugman has called "truly amazing," a recently updated paper by a Berkeley economist finds that income inequality in the U.S. is at an all-time high, surpassing even the inequities of the Depression. Professor Emmanuel Saez found that, during the feed-the-rich Bush years of 2002-2007, the top 1 percent of Americans enjoyed two thirds of the income growth."

from CommonDreams.org

Afghanistan: Is this what we are fighting for?

With elections coming up in Afghanistan next week - and the corrupt Pres. Karzai probably going to win re-election - it will be recalled that one of the reasons the US and its allies are fighting in the already war-torn country is to enshrine democratic values, etc. etc.

One does have to wonder! Is this the sort of country worthy of pouring untold billions of dollars into aside from the human cost in lives and injury?

The Guardian reports in "Afghanistan passes 'barbaric' law diminishing women's rights":

"Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.

"It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights Watch said."

Yes, newspapers are still needed

As the debate continues about what to do as newspapers increasingly disappear - and there is discussion about charging users accessing newspaper content on line - Jeff Sparrow, writing on newmatilda.com [an excellent Australian online publication] discusses the Australian experience, especially the fact that the first-class ABC [not to be confused ABC in the USA] is free:

"It's true that the internet poses new challenges to the media, but they are not entirely without precedent. When radio came to Australia, that technology seemed as magical as the web does now, a wondrous and instantaneous format capable of transforming life in a big country with a small population. Yet it quickly became apparent that there was no obvious business model under which private operators would use radio to its full potential. Who would broadcast to the bush, for instance? Who would establish a serious newsroom, rather than simply producing light entertainment? From very early on, it was apparent that the provision of high-quality broadcasts reaching country and city alike required public funding."

And:

"We're now at a juncture with print journalism. Newspapers traditionally perform an important social function, and one for which there remains no obvious alternative. Even the most serious TV and radio broadcasts cannot cover complex stories with the same depth as the written word. And while the blogging revolution has immensely enriched the analysis of the news, the great majority of online sites specialise in commentary, implicitly relying on reports produced elsewhere. For the most part, that elsewhere is a newspaper, an institution that not only publishes information but that has the resources to uncover it. To take the most obvious example, investigative journalism — time consuming, expensive and sometimes dangerous — happens either in newspapers or not at all."

The growing numbers of militias in the USA

As if the USA isn't confronted with enough issues to keep it focused on those alone - health care, the economy, unemployment, the war in Afghanistan, etc. etc. - today sees a Report issued by the respected Southern Poverty Law Centre on the growth of militias in the country.

The Report, in speaking for itself, reflects something very threatening happening and trend in America:

"The 1990s saw the rise and fall of the virulently antigovernment "Patriot" movement, made up of paramilitary militias, tax defiers and so-called "sovereign citizens." Sparked by a combination of anger at the federal government and the deaths of political dissenters at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas, the movement took off in the middle of the decade and continued to grow even after 168 people were left dead by the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma City's federal building — an attack, the deadliest ever by domestic U.S. terrorists, carried out by men steeped in the rhetoric and conspiracy theories of the militias. In the years that followed, a truly remarkable number of criminal plots came out of the movement. But by early this century, the Patriots had largely faded, weakened by systematic prosecutions, aversion to growing violence, and a new, highly conservative president.

They're back. Almost a decade after largely disappearing from public view, right-wing militias, ideologically driven tax defiers and sovereign citizens are appearing in large numbers around the country. "Paper terrorism" — the use of property liens and citizens' "courts" to harass enemies — is on the rise. And once-popular militia conspiracy theories are making the rounds again, this time accompanied by nativist theories about secret Mexican plans to "reconquer" the American Southwest. One law enforcement agency has found 50 new militia training groups — one of them made up of present and former police officers and soldiers. Authorities around the country are reporting a worrying uptick in Patriot activities and propaganda. "This is the most significant growth we've seen in 10 to 12 years," says one. "All it's lacking is a spark. I think it's only a matter of time before you see threats and violence."

A key difference this time is that the federal government — the entity that almost the entire radical right views as its primary enemy — is headed by a black man. That, coupled with high levels of non-white immigration and a decline in the percentage of whites overall in America, has helped to racialize the Patriot movement, which in the past was not primarily motivated by race hate. One result has been a remarkable rash of domestic terror incidents since the presidential campaign, most of them related to anger over the election of Barack Obama. At the same time, ostensibly mainstream politicians and media pundits have helped to spread Patriot and related propaganda, from conspiracy theories about a secret network of U.S. concentration camps to wholly unsubstantiated claims about the president's country of birth."

A worthy Prize.....and priceless [!] brickbats

It has just been announced that renowned author, journalist, commentator and filmmaker, John Pilger, is to be awarded the Sydney Peace Prize.

Before the ink has been dry on the page, out come the usual suspects to attack not only Pilger but those who have made the Award. Stand up members of the Australian Jewish community - and take a bow!

What is "interesting" is how Pilger is pilloried. The verbiage used, as on one other Australian web site written by an ignoramus [not worthy of mentioning or linking to] which refers to Pilger as "the man is a joke among the serious-minded."

Er, ahem! The naysayers might care to just take a look at Wikipedia [here] to inform themselves of the large number of doctoral awards to Pilger and the huge number of awards he has garnered over the years to make him the most awarded journalist.

Obama fails to make the mark.....and worse, follows Bush

As some "mark" the so-called "milestone" of Obama having been in office for 200 days - what is there to celebrate given that it is a 4 year term? - increasingly Obama is being shown to be no different to his predecessor let alone meeting the promises he made during the presidential campaign last year.

Scott Horton, writing in The Guardian in "Obama's torture hangover", writes:

"Barack Obama gained the presidency with promises to restore America's fidelity to international law. A lawyer and law professor, he attacked the Bush administration's legal shortcuts in the "war on terror" and made a pledge to close Guantánamo. Since his inauguration, he has offered lofty rhetoric and reiterated pledges to end the Guantánamo camps, forbid torture and end the process of "extraordinary" renditions involving black sites. But his actions fall remarkably short of his words."

More troubling is what emerges from another piece "Target Of Obama-Era Rendition Alleges Torture" Horton has written - this time for The Huffington Post:

"Raymond Azar, a 45-year-old Lebanese construction manager with a grade school education, is employed by Sima International, a Lebanon-based contractor that does work for the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also has the unlikely distinction of being the first target of a rendition carried out on the Obama watch.

According to court papers, on April 7, 2009, Azar and a Lebanese-American colleague, Dinorah Cobos, were seized by "at least eight" heavily armed FBI agents in Kabul, Afghanistan, where they had traveled for a meeting to discuss the status of one of his company's U.S. government contracts. The trip ended with Azar alighting in manacles from a Gulfstream V executive jet in Manassas, Virginia, where he was formally arrested and charged in a federal antitrust probe.

This rendition involved no black sites and was clearly driven by a desire to get the target quickly before a court. Also unlike renditions of the Bush-era, the target wasn't even a terror suspect; rather, he was suspected of fraud. But in a troubling intimation of the last administration, accusations of torture hover menacingly over the case. According to papers filed by his lawyers, Azar was threatened, subjected to coercive interrogation techniques and induced to sign a confession. Azar claims he was hooded, stripped naked (while being photographed) and subjected to a "body cavity search."

Former PM: Get Real!

The piece will draw criticism from the usual suspects, but for the former Australian PM, Malcolm Fraser, to write - and for that matter The Age to publish the piece - about how Israel, and the rest of the world, must see things for what they are in the Middle east, is more than encouraging.

As Fraser, rightly, says, like it or not, Hamas was democratically elected, and refusing to acknowledge that fact and engage in negotiations with it, is to the detriment of the entire Middle East. Furthermore, Fraser, again rightly, says that Israel must be stopped from developing those wretched settlements in the West bank and East Jerusalem.

"Australia could urge, as others have done, that Hamas be brought in from the cold. But do we have the courage? In doing so, we would be a real partner of the US contributing to peace in the Middle East and removing an important source and inspiration for fundamentalist terrorists.

"Fear of criticism from the Jewish lobby in Australia has so far prevented Australian governments taking effective action. If we want to be a real ally to the US, if we want justice and peace, we have an opportunity.

Read the full piece "The isolation of Hamas is impeding peace" here.

Will that be a cofffe or a laptop?

Our world - well, at least in America, if The New York Times is to be believed in this piece "Breakfast Can Wait. The Day’s First Stop Is Online":

"Technology has shaken up plenty of life’s routines, but for many people it has completely altered the once predictable rituals at the start of the day.

This is morning in America in the Internet age. After six to eight hours of network deprivation — also known as sleep — people are increasingly waking up and lunging for cellphones and laptops, sometimes even before swinging their legs to the floor and tending to more biologically urgent activities."

Another blow to a more civilised way of life?

Renditioning won't go away

The San Francisco Chronicle reports in "U.S. battling CIA rendition case in 3 courts":

"The Obama administration is fighting on multiple fronts - in courts in San Francisco, Washington and London - to keep an official veil of secrecy over the treatment of a former prisoner who says he was tortured at Guantanamo Bay.

The administration has asked a federal appeals court in San Francisco to reconsider its ruling allowing Binyam Mohamed and four other former or current prisoners to sue a Bay Area company for allegedly flying them to overseas torture chambers for the CIA.

Obama administration lawyers also argued that Mohamed's attorneys had violated secrecy procedures by writing a letter to President Obama, accompanied by a blacked-out document, asking him to disclose their client's treatment. A federal judge ordered Mohamed's lawyers to answer contempt-of-court charges in May that were punishable by up to six months in jail, but has since dropped those charges.

Most recently, a British government lawyer told her nation's High Court last month that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had threatened to limit U.S. intelligence-sharing with Great Britain if the court disclosed details of Mohamed's treatment in Guantanamo."

The sooner the whole apparatus of renditioning and all that has entailed - let alone those responsible for it - sees the light of day and scrutiny, the better.

'There is no refuge, no place to go to deal with your grief'

The Independent writes:

"In the first ever unauthorised dispatch from an officer on the frontline, one young Captain offers a brutally honest account of life in Afghanistan, revealing the pain of losing comrades, the frustration at the lack of equipment, and the sense that the conflict seems unending and, at times, unwinnable

The author's name has been withheld".

Read the blunt dispatch here.

Troubling, and a wake-up call to politicians who so readily launch into war.......

Forget about text books......

Nothing is forever!.....as this piece in The NY Times reveals in "As Classrooms Go Digital, Textbooks Are History":

Now it is text books, traditionally used by school students everywhere, which are under challenge, and probably extinction, as teachers and their pupils use online facilities via their laptops.

"At Empire High School in Vail, Ariz., students use computers provided by the school to get their lessons, do their homework and hear podcasts of their teachers’ science lectures.

Down the road, at Cienega High School, students who own laptops can register for “digital sections” of several English, history and science classes. And throughout the district, a Beyond Textbooks initiative encourages teachers to create — and share — lessons that incorporate their own PowerPoint presentations, along with videos and research materials they find by sifting through reliable Internet sites.

Textbooks have not gone the way of the scroll yet, but many educators say that it will not be long before they are replaced by digital versions — or supplanted altogether by lessons assembled from the wealth of free courseware, educational games, videos and projects on the Web."

A rare insight into Gaza

Hamas is deemed a terrorist organisation by many countries around the world. Yet, as a democratically elected party, it governs the 1.5 million people in Gaza.

Now, as we all know, not only did the Israelis pound the small piece of land, Gaza, during the recent Gaza War, but in effect, the place has been under blockade by the Israelis for nearly 2 years. All reports out of Gaza by NGO's speak of the hardship the people are suffering - be it lack of food and water or basic amenities, let alone building materials to re-build what the Israeli bombs destroyed.

Antony Loewenstein provides an otherwise rare insight into Gaza in a piece in The Nation, following a visit to Gaza which ended last week:

"Israel's recent war against Gaza has been condemned by virtually every human rights group in the world. An Israeli NGO of combat soldiers called Breaking the Silence released a report in July, based on the testimony of veterans of the Gaza campaign, that found excessive violence and the use of human shields during the battle. Noam Chayut, co-founder of the group, told me recently in Tel Aviv that many veterans were shocked by the Israeli army's behavior but still believed in the morality of the war itself.

Gaza creates contradictions in us all. I went there in July to investigate everything from war damage and the Western-led siege to the rule of Hamas and freedom of speech. Hamas control of Gaza is often seen as an impediment to peace. Militancy, extremism, terrorism and deadly rockets create an image of fundamentalism and irrationality."

Not so fast, Rupert!

A few days ago Rupert Murdoch, when presenting the latest accounts for his News Corp. - not a good "result" by the way - asserted people would have to pay if they wanted to read quality journalism on the net.

Hold on, Rupert! The reaction from your prospective customers has been less than favourable - as The SMH reports:

"Readers of the Rupert Murdoch-owned news.com.au website have panned his announcement that pay walls are to be erected around all News Corp-owned news websites.

A comment thread attached to a report about the announcement contained about 140 replies from readers – most of then opposed to the move and many of them threatening to quit News Corp websites when charges are applied.

The reaction of Bill of Bendigo was typical of the type of response on the thread: “I'm clearing my bookmarks right now,” he wrote. “Bye Bye.”

The thread was later removed from the story and buried, although the link itself was still live at the time of writing.

Speaking during the announcement of News Corp's full-year earnings, Murdoch predicted that move would prove a success and that others would follow his lead.

“Quality journalism is not cheap,” the 78-year-old mogul said. “An industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalising its ability to produce good reporting.”

The reference to "quality journalism” has also come in for its fair share of ridicule from news.com.au readers.

"'Quality reporting does not come cheap.' I agree," reads a comment posted by Dean of Brisbane. "But we are talking about News Corp here - not quality reporting. I currently pay exactly what I think it is worth - FREE."

Afghanistan: A very, very long haul - a decade in fact!

The Americans, and its allies, are presently bogged down in Afghanistan. British opinion is beginning to question their country's involvement in the conflict. Meanwhile, the human cost in deaths and injuries for the US continues to grow at a fairly alarming rate.

Not to minimise the human cost, the monetary one is tremendous. It also now is becoming apparent that the US will be bogged down in Afghanistan for what some say could be up to a decade - as The Washington Post reports:

"As the Obama administration expands U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, military experts are warning that the United States is taking on security and political commitments that will last at least a decade and a cost that will probably eclipse that of the Iraq war.

Since the invasion of Afghanistan eight years ago, the United States has spent $223 billion on war-related funding for that country, according to the Congressional Research Service. Aid expenditures, excluding the cost of combat operations, have grown exponentially, from $982 million in 2003 to $9.3 billion last year."

Palin's wackiness

The debate in the US on reforming its disfunctional and poor health system - well, at least for the over 45 million who don't have any health insurance - is hotting up.

The opponents to the sort of reforms Obama is pushing are becoming more strident and extreme in their opposition.

The latest to come out against the reform is none other than "our" Sarah Palin, one time Governor of Alaska and VP on the Sen. McCain ticket for the 2008 presidential election.

Read Palin on TPM and ponder.......this woman is seriosuly being touted as a presidential candidate in 2012?

"In a new posting on her Facebook account, former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) made a dire statement about health care reform -- that it could result in an Obama-created "death panel" killing her infant son with Down Syndrome:

'The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.'

And she pointed Americans' attention to a recent speech by none other than Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), warning of the dastardly involvement of Rahm Emanuel's brother, who is a doctor, in the health care debate:

'Rep. Michele Bachmann highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president's health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff, in a floor speech to the House of Representatives. I commend her for being a voice for the most precious members of our society, our children and our seniors.'

Apt!

Dark days for China's liberals

RConversation reports:

"The people in this picture are not dissidents. They are civil rights lawyers who have been trying to work within the bounds of China's legal system and constitution to help ordinary Chinese people who are neither rich nor powerful nor politically connected. They have not been trying to organize an overthrow of the regime. Yes they're liberals in the Chinese political context - similar to how the ACLU and the EFF are liberal within the American context. Their rough equivalents in American political culture would be NPR-listening liberal democrats who work in public interest law with a lot of pro-bono cases and class-action lawsuits."

Troubling indeed! Perhaps we shouldn't be all that surprised. Continue reading the piece, in full, here.

Seeing and calling things as they really are

The fact that the Israelis want to erase the Nakba from the Palestinian's narrative, others see things very differently. And then there are all those settlements that keep on creeping onwards and outwards. Meanwhile, the Israelis posture about what they are doing or are prepared to do. One need not be cynical, and sceptical, to conclude that whatever the Israelis might say, their actions speak for themselves.

Two perspectives, from different parts of the world.

First from the San Francisco Chronicle:

"Peace will remain elusive so long as Israel's approach to Palestinian refugees is to erase them from history; when Palestinian property in the West Bank continues to be expropriated and developed for Israel; or when Palestinian families must be uprooted and their homes demolished because they are not Jews. The pressure of the Obama administration on the Israeli government must not wane. Beyond the call to freeze all settlement activity, President Obama should insist on equal rights for Palestinians, and oppose discriminatory Israeli policies that only prolong the Nakba."

Secondly, from a very good editorial in Haaretz:

"The eviction of two Palestinian families from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, in order to replace them with Jewish families, predictably sparked harsh condemnations. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged the government to refrain from such actions, which she described as "provocative."

The sight of the evicted Palestinian families, who had lived in these houses for decades, paints Israel in the world's eyes as a country that maintains a cruel regime of occupation, oppresses the weak and strives to create political facts in the disputed city under the guise of the "rule of law."