As The World Squirmsã

 

~Serious Comment for Serious People - A Global Perspective for Just a Few Friends~

 

(Click here to view the latest issue of the  ‘Squirms’)

 

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

Archives & Resources

 

·       As The World Squirms

·       Menu – Constantly Updating Information Sources

·       Political Music & Music Videos

·      U.S. Israel Lobby & General (Videos, Commentaries, Interviews)

 

---

 

Google


 Search www.hotpolitics.com 

HINT: Use the new Google search engine (above) to locate a specific item within the Hotpoliticsã / As The World Squirmsã Archives. When Google locates a page (or list of promising pages) containing your search  keyword(s), use your Edit and Find Function (upper browser toolbar) to scroll directly through the selected search page(s) to your keyword(s).

 

 

 

 

 

---

(Click on Logo)

 

---

 

 

---

 

Special Comment

 

European Union says it will not support military action against Iran

The Canadian Press reports: “European Union foreign ministers say they will not support a military strike on Iran but want more talks to try to resolve worries Tehran might be developing nuclear weapons.

 

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband says it is now up to Iran to respond to global powers and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana after talks in Geneva on Saturday.

 

He says Britain and others involved in the negotiations with Iran are "100 per cent focused on a diplomatic resolution" to the Iranian issue.

 

The ministers discussed with Solana the Saturday meeting, which made little progress in resolving the standoff.

 

The U.S. and Israel have not ruled out a military strike on Iran if it does not give up uranium enrichment and heed United Nations Security Council demands aimed at dispelling fears over its nuclear plans.”

 

CENTCOM's Master Plan and U.S. Global Hegemony

Robert Higgs comments for LewRockwell.com: “Many people deny that the U.S. government presides over a global empire. If you speak of U.S. imperialism, they will fancy that you must be a decrepit Marxist-Leninist who has recently awakened after spending decades in a coma. Yet the facts cannot be denied, however much people's ideology may predispose them to distort or obfuscate those facts.

How can a government that maintains more than 800 military facilities in more than 140 different foreign countries be anything other than an imperial power? The hundreds of thousands of troops who operate those bases and conduct operations from them, not to mention the approximately 125,000 sailors and Marines aboard the U.S. warships that cruise the oceans, are not going door-to-door selling Girl Scout cookies. United States of America is the name; intimidation is the game.

Of course, the kingpins who control this massive machinery of coercion never describe it in such terms. In their lexis, American motives and actions are invariably noble. Listening to these bigwigs describe what the U.S. forces abroad are doing, you would never suspect that they seek anything but ‘regional stability,’ ‘security,’ ‘deterrence of potential regional aggressors,’ and ‘economic development and cooperation among nations.’ Inasmuch as hardly anybody favors instability, insecurity, international aggression, economic retrogression, and mutual strife among nations, the U.S. objectives, and hence the actions taken in their furtherance, would appear to be indisputably laudable.

Yet, from time to time, a U.S. leader lets slip an expression so revealing that it warrants a thousand times greater weight than the vague, mealy-mouthed banalities they routinely dispense. I came across such a statement recently. In seeking funds in 2007 for construction of a $62 million ammunition storage facility at Bagram Air Base, Admiral William J. Fallon, then the commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), referred to Bagram as ‘the centerpiece for the CENTCOM Master Plan for future access to and operations in Central Asia.’

Pause to savor this phrase for a moment; let it roll around in your mind: CENTCOM Master Plan for future access to and operations in Central Asia. What an intriguing expression! What dramatic images of future U.S. military actions it evokes! But can those actions be anything other than the very sort that empires undertake? Ask yourself: why does the U.S. military anticipate conducting operations in Central Asia, a region that lies thousands of miles from the United States and comprises countries that lack either the capacity or the intention to seriously harm Americans who mind their own business in their own national territory? Indeed, what is the U.S. military doing in Central Asia in the first place? Have you ever heard of 'the Great Game’? Continue…

 

 

Adm. Mullen: I'm Fighting Two Wars, I Don't Need a Third

The Jerusalem Post reports: The Pentagon's top military officer Adm. Mike Mullen on Sunday discussed the fallout from a potential attack against Tehran by either the US or Israel. ‘Right now I'm fighting two wars and I don't need a third one.’

 

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Mullen added, ‘I worry about the instability in that part of the world and, in fact, the possible unintended consequences of a strike like that and, in fact, having an impact throughout the region that would be difficult to both predict exactly what it would be and then the actions that we would have to take to contain it.’" Continue…

 

Winning Hearts and Minds…US Troops Kill Son of Iraqi Governor in Raid on House

The Herald Sun (Australia) reports: “US forces shot dead the 17-year-old son and another relative of the governor of northern Iraq's Salahuddin province in a raid today, local officials said.

The US military said it shot two armed men and later found out they were both related to the governor.

Governor Hamad al-Qaisi's brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Saad al-Qaisi, said American troops stormed a family house in the town of Beiji, where the governor's son Hussam and his cousin were staying.” Continue…

 

US military jails 'black holes', say US Attorneys for Afghan reporter
 AFP in Kabul reports: “US human rights lawyers charged Sunday that US military prisons are ‘legal black holes’ and the force is detaining journalists to ‘shut people up’ about activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

A vast detention camp planned for the main US base in Afghanistan will be a ‘second Guantanamo’ where laws do not apply, they said at a press conference about an Afghan reporter in US military custody without charge for nine months.

 

The US military is holding Jawad Ahmad, who has worked with Canadian Television (CTV), at its detention facility at Bagram north of Kabul on allegations he is an ‘unlawful enemy combatant.’

 

Ahmad is among 650 people being held at Bagram without trial, US-based International Justice Network executive director Tina Monshipour Foster told reporters.  Continue…

 

Britain's PM Backs Obama Plan for Iraq and Afghanistan

Jane Merrick, of The Independent UK: "Although he is refusing to set a detailed timetable for withdrawal, it is clear Mr Brown is in agreement with the US presidential candidate Barack Obama on the need for military action in Afghanistan to take priority. Both appear to be working to a 16-month timetable." Continue…

 

DELUSIONAL? McCain insists he was right, Obama wrong on Iraq

Tom Raum reports for the Associated Press (AP): “Republican John McCain worked on Monday to wrestle the spotlight from rival Barack Obama's tour of Iraq by insisting he was right and the Democrat was wrong about the war and releasing a new critical ad blaming higher gas prices on his opponent.

 

As Obama toured the war zones trailed by U.S. network TV anchors, McCain ridiculed him from afar during a visit with the first President George Bush at his summer home on the Atlantic. At the same time, the Republican contender released an eyebrow-raising new ad flatly blaming the Illinois senator for higher gasoline prices.” Continue…

 

35 years of drug war failure - Belated birthday greetings to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Bill Steigerwald comments for the Pittsburg Tribune-Review: “The DEA, which Richard Nixon created in 1973 and charged with the impossible but politically useful mission of winning the ‘all-out global war on the drug menace,’ turned 35 on July 1.

So, how's its track record after 35 years of difficult, often dangerous drug-war-making? If the DEA were a heroin addict, it would have overdosed on its own incompetence by age 6.

Despite its failures and the harm it's done to American society, however, the DEA has done more than merely survive. It's become a typically bloated, self-preserving federal bureaucracy whose power, budget and continuing existence bear no relation to its performance.” Continue…

 

VIDEO: Just for the mean-spirited, hell-of-it, Israeli soldier shoots Palestinian prisoner

The Guardian (UK) provides this video and comment: “Man had already been detained, blindfolded and cuffed when he was shot in the foot with a rubber-coated bullet at close range.”

 

US Official Preparing Scathing Report on Israel's West Bank Policies

Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff of Haaretz (Israel) report: “The United States security coordinator for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, retired general James Jones, is preparing an extremely critical report of Israel's policies in the territories and its attitude toward the Palestinian Authority's security services.

A few copies of the report's executive summary (or, according to some sources, a draft of it) have been given to senior Bush Administration officials, and
it is reportedly arousing considerable discomfort. In recent weeks, the administration has been debating whether to allow Jones to publish his full report, or whether to tell him to shelve it and make do with the summary, given the approaching end of President George Bush's term.” Continue…

 

I Know What Jews Like, and American Jews Hate Neocons and AIPAC

Spencer Ackerman reports for the Washington Independent: “Actually, J Street knows. The pro-peace/pro-Israel/pro-Palestine Jewish lobby just released a monster of a poll on American Jewish political attitudes. The takeaway: we're liberal as hell; we hate Bush; we know Bush has been a disaster for Israel; we'll support any peace deal the Israelis make; and the only thing we're uncomfortable with to that end is giving East Jerusalem back to the Palestinians.

Let's go down the line. Seventy-four percent of us view Bush unfavorably and 83 percent of us disapprove of his job performance. While 76 percent of the country as a whole says the U.S. is on the wrong track, an astonishing 90 percent of American Jews say the same. Only 21 percent of us approve of the Iraq war and only 29 percent think Bush is good for Israel, and those are clearly the schmucks that kissed ass in Hebrew school and snitched when the rest of us used the synagogue phone booth and cloakroom to make out.

When asked if the U.S. should or shouldn't actively broker Mideast peace, it broke down 55 percent for U.S. involvement and 30 percent against. J Street, the menschen, took that a step further and examined support for the hard choices piece requires. ‘Even if it meant the United States publicly stating its disagreements with both the Israelis and the Arabs?’ Yes -- 75 percent; no -- 25 percent. ‘Even if it meant the United States exerting pressure on both Israelis and Arabs to make the compromises necessary for peace?’ Yes -- 70 percent; no -- 30 percent.”
Continue…

 

Debunking Churchill: How Good Was the “Good War”?

Christopher Layne comments for the American Conservative Magazine: “In arguing that Winston Churchill helped bring on World War II, Pat Buchanan aimed at the wrong target. The perniciousness of Churchills role lies not in his contribution to the march to war but in the way he shaped historical memory of the events of that portentous decade.

During the 1930s, Churchill was sidelined politically and had no discernible influence on British policy. By the time he joined the cabinet in August 1939, the critical decisions that led Britain into World War II had already been made. But Churchill painted an infinitely more heroic picture of his role during the 1930s: that of a modern-day Cassandra. In The Gathering Storm, Churchill alleged thatexcept for himBritish leaders were willfully blind to the German threat and failed to meet it by rearming. Had Britain followed a differentChurchillianpolicy during the 1930s, he claimed, the disasters of 1940, and possibly war itself, might have been avoided.

Of course, Churchill did not aspire to write an objective history. As David Reynolds reminds us in his splendid In Command of History, Churchills dominant motive was to show that he was right, or at least as right as it seemed credible to claim.’ With respect to the events of the 1930s, Churchill wanted to prove that ‘the Second World War broke out because his policies were not adopted.’ But when the British archives were opened in the late 1960s, historians realized that Churchills version of events was distorted.

British leadersespecially Chamberlainwere not blind to the German threat and rearmed against it by building up the Royal Air Force and Navy. Under Chamberlains direction, London adopted a sophisticated strategy that aimed to combine diplomacy and deterrence to avoid war while allowing Britain to retain its empire and hold on to world-power status. Reynolds observes that during the 1930s, ‘Churchill was broadly at one with Chamberlain’ with respect to British strategic priorities. In a real sense, therefore, The Gathering Storm was a work of self-revisionism.” Continue…

 

 

---

 

 

 

 

---

 

“Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder

respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

 

~George Orwell~

 

Cambodia asks UN to intervene in 'imminent state of war' with Thailand

 

Bush Reaffirms Support for Kosovo

 

Brown prepares for likely Iraq withdrawal by 2010

 

Putin to Meet Bush in Beijing After Missile Warning

 

Natural Disasters In US Cost Insurers $6 Billion, Most Since 2001

 

Sarkozy wins constitution battle by single vote

 

Germans Urge Obama Not to Call for More Troops in Afghanistan

 

I'll pull out troops unless Israel halts West Bank raids, warns Abbas

 

Turkey said ready to invest $10 billion in Iran

 

Mubarak discuss expansion of cooperation with Russian leader Medvedev

 

Colonialists want to cut Sudan into pieces, says Ahmadinejad

 

American lawyer seeks to sue US over Iran threats

 

Chavez Goes Weapons Shopping in Russia Amid Arms Race

 

5 die as helicopter often used by Bolivia's president crashes

 

Lula Makes Defense of Democracy Before Chavez

 

Colombia and Brazil enter into military pact

 

Mexico's Peso Rises to 5-Year High After Interest-Rate Increase

 

As Nation starves, aid is stuck in port or inside warehouses in Haiti

 

Raul Castro to Redistribute Government Land to Private Farmers

 

UN Chief Says Billions Needed to Halt Global Food Crisis

 

South Korean Prime Minister accuses Japan of jeopardizing peace

 

India parliament launches nuclear debate in vote that could break Government

 

 

 

PERSPECTIVE

 

HE'S BACK! Ross Perot Sponsors New Public Interest Website

 

 

 

 

An extraordinarily prescient video interview with General Norman Schwarzkopf and Robert Gates - Deputy National Security Advisor to Former President George Bush Sr.

 

Why Invading Iraq Was A Very Stupid Idea…

 

(Click on blinking dot above for video)