The Anti-Empire Report
by William Blum / July 4th, 2009 ()
What is there about the Iranian election of June 12 that has led to it being one of the leading stories in media around the world every day since? Elections whose results are seriously challenged have taken place in most countries at one time or another in recent decades. Countless Americans believe that the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 were stolen by the Republicans, and not just inside the voting machines and in the counting process, but prior to the actual voting as well with numerous Republican Party dirty tricks designed to keep poor and black voters off voting …
We Are Most Free When We Are Most Bound to Others
by Robert Jensen / July 4th, 2009 ()
Power is typically approached as a question of dominance and submission. Power is marked by the ability to impose or the ability to resist that imposition. This is what some have called “power-over,” ((The power-over/power-with distinction is usually credited to Mary Parker Follett, a theorist, political organizer, and social activist who wrote several influential books in the first half of the twentieth century. The terms are used today in a variety of academic, political, and business settings. I first encountered this term in discussions with feminist activists. For a review, see “Feminist Perspectives on Power,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, …
by Stuart Littlewood / July 4th, 2009 ()
On Tuesday the Israeli navy, in a blatant act of piracy on the high seas, assaulted the vessel ‘Spirit of Humanity’ and abducted six British nationals who were taking part in a voyage of mercy. The tiny unarmed ship was bringing a humanitarian cargo of medicines, children’s toys and reconstruction materials to the devastated people of Gaza.
Israel’s murderous 22-day offensive last December/January left more than 50,000 homes, 800 industrial properties, 200 schools, 39 mosques and two churches damaged or destroyed. The International Committee of the Red Cross says the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza are “trapped in despair”, …
by Gareth Porter / July 4th, 2009 ()
The Barack Obama administration has given new prominence to a Bush administration charge that Iran is providing military training and assistance to the Taliban in Afghanistan, for which no evidence has ever been produced, and which has been discredited by data obtained by IPS from the Pentagon itself.
The new twist in the charge is that it is being made in the context of serious talks between NATO officials and Iran involving possible Iranian cooperation in NATO’s logistical support for the war against the insurgents in Afghanistan.
Since the early to mid-1990s, Iranian policy in Afghanistan has been more consistently and …
by Ian Williams / July 4th, 2009 ()
There was an old song, “There are more questions than answers,” that comes to mind while looking at the results of the worldpublicopinion.org poll of global opinion of national leaders on the global stage released on Monday.
While some elements are fairly predictable, and almost welcome from a liberal, social democratic point of view, like United States President Barack Obama’s star rating and the dire overall ratings for Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the poll, which interrogated almost 20,000 people across the globe from April 4 to June 12 about which world leaders they trusted, …
Packin’ Pistols for God and Country: NRA Christians Stake Claim on Patriotism and America
by Bill Berkowitz / July 4th, 2009 ()
If you don’t quite get that, for many in this country, the connection between guns and God is as American as burgers and fries, baseball and beer, and July 4th and fireworks, you should have been at the New Bethel Church in Louisville, Kentucky, on Saturday, June 27, where Pastor Ken Pagano welcomed more than 200 people – most of them packing guns (albeit unloaded) — to an event called the “Open Carry Celebration.”
According to the New Bethel Church website, the “Open Carry Celebration” was held on a Saturday instead of a Sunday, so that it was clear …
by Martha Rosenberg / July 4th, 2009 ()
CHICAGO — You would have thought it was Wrigley Field not the Hyatt Regency Chicago.
When President Obama told gathered physicians at the American Medical Association’s annual meeting in his home town this month, “I’m not advocating caps on malpractice awards which I believe can be unfair to people who’ve been wrongfully harmed,” he was booed like Chicago Cub Milton Bradey. “Yank him,” was probably next.
Who remembered that in 1993 a similar message by his Secretary of State–another homey named Hillary–received a standing ovation? (Though the long knives did come out later.)
Of course you can’t blame the 236,000 member AMA for …
by Stephen Lendman / July 4th, 2009 ()
First written in 1972, it was updated in a 2003 edition that’s every bit as relevant now – thus this review focusing on Hudson’s new preface, introduction, and detailed account of the book’s theme.
He revisited it in his 2008-09 Project Censored award- winning article titled: “Economic Meltdown – The ‘Dollar Glut’ is What Finances America’s Global Military Build-up” in which he explains the following – the “inter-related dynamics” of:
– “surplus (US) dollars pouring into the rest of the world for yet further financial speculation and corporate takeovers;”
– global central banks “recyl(ing) these dollar inflows (into) US Treasury bonds to …
by Manuel Garcia Jr. / July 3rd, 2009 ()
The recent loss of Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330-200, has raised many doubts among the flying public and even some aviation professionals about the safety of the newest generation of passenger airplanes. These new airliners have composite materials replacing metal for many structural elements and control surfaces, and they are reliant on computer-controlled flight and navigation systems.
The impetus for developing this new generation of airliners is the need to improve fuel economy so as to maintain the profitability of the passenger air transport industry. Between 1986 and 2001, the world price of crude oil remained steady at …
by Don Monkerud / July 3rd, 2009 ()
In June 2009, the U.S. economy saw its second steepest decline in 27 years. New jobless claims increased, business inventories fell and exports plunged as bad economic news persisted.
Will the once high-flying American wealth machine continue to produce the vast inequalities of the past?
Only two years ago, Steve Forbes, CEO of Forbes magazine, declared 2007 “the richest year ever in human history.” During eight years of the Bush Administration, the 400 richest Americans, who now own more than the bottom 150 million Americans, increased their net worth by $700 billion. In 2005, the top one percent claimed 22 percent …
“A Previously Unknown Individual”
by Allen Joe / July 3rd, 2009 ()
James Hickman left for work at a local steel mill just before nine o’clock on the night of January 16, 1947. He was a thirty-nine year-old African American and the father of nine children. The Hickmans lived in Chicago in difficult, overcrowded conditions in a tenement owned by their landlord, David Coleman, who was also African-American. Sometime shortly after 11:30 p.m., Annie Hickman, James’ wife, said she “heard paper popping” in the ceiling. It was fire.
Panic ensued. The one hallway leading out of their attic apartment was engulfed in flames. Charles, Annie and James’ 19-year-old son, made a …
by Ira Glunts / July 3rd, 2009 ()
The very public disagreement about the “settlement freeze” came as a complete surprise to many observers. People who make a business of following Israeli-U.S. politics had concluded that there would continue to be little public friction between the two close allies, at least not until final status issues were negotiated with the Palestinians, and maybe not even then.
The assumption that any disputes would occur behind the scenes became open to question during the Netanyahu-Obama press conference, when the two leaders claimed they were basically in agreement, but then made statements which demonstrated that the opposite …
by Tom Burghardt / July 3rd, 2009 ()
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates signed a memorandum June 23 that announced the launch of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM). A scheme by securocrats in the works for several years, the order specifies that the new office will be a “subordinate unified command” under U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM).
According to the memorandum, CYBERCOM “will reach initial operating capability (IOC) not later than October 2009 and full operating capability (FOC) not later than October 2010.”
Gates has recommended that this new Pentagon domain be led by Lt. General Keith Alexander, the current Director of the ultra-spooky National Security Agency (NSA). Under the …
by Benjamin Dangl / June 30th, 2009 ()
Worldwide condemnation has followed the coup that unseated President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras on Sunday, June 28. Nationwide mobilizations and a general strike demanding that Zelaya be returned to power are growing in spite of increased military repression. One protester outside the government palace in Honduras told reporters that if Roberto Micheletti, the leader installed by the coup, wants to enter the palace, “he had better do so by air” because if he goes by land “we will stop him.”
On early Sunday morning, approximately 100 soldiers entered the home of the left-leaning Zelaya, forcefully removed him and, while he was …
PART 5: Freeh Became "Defense Lawyer" for Saudis on Khobar
by Gareth Porter / June 30th, 2009 ()
WASHINGTON — In early November 1998, Louis Freeh sent an FBI team off to observe Saudi secret police officials interviewing eight Shi’a detainees from behind a one-way mirror at the Riyadh detention center. He planned to use the Shi’a testimony to show that Iran was behind the bombing.
As expected, the stories told by the detainees recapitulated the outlines of the Shi’a plot that had already been described by the Saudis two years earlier. Now there were even more tantalizing details of direct Iranian involvement.
One of the detainees said Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps General Ahmad Sherifi had personally selected the Khobar …
by Jonathan Cook / June 30th, 2009 ()
Nazareth — Israel’s watchdog body on medical ethics has failed to investigate evidence that doctors working in detention facilities are turning a blind eye to cases of torture, according to Israeli human rights groups.
The Israeli Medical Association (IMA) has ignored repeated requests to examine such evidence, the rights groups say, even though it has been presented with examples of Israeli doctors who have broken their legal and ethical duty towards Palestinians in their care.
The accusations will add fuel to a campaign backed by hundreds of doctors from around the world to force Yoram Blachar, who heads the IMA, …
by Stephen Soldz / June 30th, 2009 ()
Today a number of psychological, health, and human rights organizations released the following statement criticizing the American Psychological Association (APA) Board of Directors failure to accept responsibility for the APA’s role in facilitating psychologists’ participation in abusive national security interrogations. The coalition statement responds to a June 18 open letter from the APA Board acknowledging for the first time that psychologists have engaged in torture, but making no reference to the APA Board’s own apparently unanimous support extending over several years for psychologists’ right to participate in detainee interrogations.
The APA letter follows years of reports that psychologists designed, helped conduct, …
Part 4: FBI Ignored Compelling Evidence of bin Laden Role
by Gareth Porter / June 29th, 2009 ()
WASHINGTON — Osama Bin Laden had made no secret of his intention to attack the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia. He had been calling for such attacks to drive it from the country since his first fatwa calling for jihad against Western “occupation” of Islamic lands in early 1992.
On Jul. 11, 1995, he had written an “Open Letter” to King Fahd advocating a campaign of guerilla attacks to drive U.S. military forces out of the Kingdom.
Bin Laden’s al Qaeda organization began carrying out that campaign later that same year. On Nov. 13, 1995 a car bomb destroyed the Office …
by Clifton Ross / June 29th, 2009 ()
Even in the best of times a coup in Honduras wouldn’t get much coverage in the U.S. since most North Americans couldn’t find the country on a map and, moreover, would have no reason to do so. Nevertheless, those in the U.S. who have been alert to the changes in Latin America over the past decade and almost everyone south of the border know that the coup d’etat (or “golpe de estado”) against President Manuel Zelaya has profound implications for the region and, in fact, all of Latin America. While the US press will glance from their intent gaze at …
by Greg Moses / June 29th, 2009 ()
From a distance the Chinese mainland appears to be snorting through the global depression like a fire-breathing dragon. But a closer look at internet discourse reveals a giant in the throes of aftershock. When we hear tones of irritation from Chinese officials regarding “dollar problems” we could on the one hand consider their pain.
On the other hand, whether you are listening to pro-dollar or anti-dollar partisans today, there is an eerie agreement between Marxist and Friedmanite alike that return on capital is the main thing. What we need to hear more often from both sides of the global …
