November 2010

Britain’s Abu Ghraib

by News Sources 11.09.2010

The Guardian reports: Evidence of the alleged systematic and brutal mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at a secret British military interrogation centre that is being described as “the UK’s Abu Ghraib” emerged yesterday during high court proceedings brought by more than 200 former inmates. The court was told there was evidence that detainees were starved, deprived [...]

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US human rights abuses

by News Sources 11.09.2010

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Arundhati Roy on Obama’s wars, poverty and India’s Maoist rebels

by News Sources 11.08.2010

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John Feffer: Crusade 2.0

by TomDispatch 11.08.2010

Reprinted with permission of TomDispatch.com Almost two years and one disastrous election later, we’re still waiting for the other Barack Obama to make an appearance, and from the gab coming out of Washington right now, it looks like we’ll be twiddling our thumbs a bit longer (if not forever).  Once again, the sweet talk of [...]

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America’s ever-expanding knowledge deficit

by Paul Woodward 11.08.2010

At Salon, Justin Elliot reports: An August Pew poll found that a growing number of Americans — 18 percent — falsely believe that President Obama is a Muslim. Why does that figure keep rising? It’s a difficult question, but it may partly be explained by the remarkable success of videos like this one, which has [...]

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Anwar al Awlaki: wanted dead, not alive

by Paul Woodward 11.07.2010

Patrick Cockburn writes: Anwar al-Awlaki, the militant Islamic cleric in hiding in Yemen, was being denounced in the US and Britain last week as an arch-conspirator against the West, leading to hundreds of videos of his speeches and interviews being hurriedly removed from YouTube. Awlaki, an eloquent preacher, is alleged to have radicalised Roshonara Choudhry, [...]

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GOP senator pushes for war to ‘neuter’ Iran

by News Sources 11.07.2010

AFP reports: The United States faces a possible war with Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions and a “period of confrontation” with China over its currency, a top US lawmaker warned Saturday. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said his fellow conservative, fresh from their historic elections romp this week, support “bold” action to deal with Iran. [...]

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Bloomberg to America: lay off the Chinese

by News Sources 11.07.2010

The Wall Street Journal reports: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on a visit to Hong Kong and the neighboring city of Shenzhen, had some harsh criticism for his own fellow Americans: Stop blaming the Chinese for their problems. As the debate rages over China’s trade and currencies policies, the 68-year-old Bloomberg, now in his [...]

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Somewhere in hell, Joseph Stalin is smiling

by News Sources 11.07.2010

Tony Keller writes: In the 1930s, that great legal innovator Joseph Stalin introduced the show trial. The accused would stand up in court and willingly, even eagerly, confess to the most fantastical crimes. At the first great show trial, in 1936, Grigori Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and other former senior Communist party members admitted to being [...]

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Obama’s problem simply defined: it was the banks

by News Sources 11.07.2010

James K Galbraith writes: Bruce Bartlett says it was a failure to focus. Paul Krugman says it was a failure of nerve. Nancy Pelosi says it was the economy’s failure. Barack Obama says it was his own failure — to explain that he was, in fact, focused on the economy. As Krugman rightly stipulates, Monday-morning [...]

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Is Islamic finance the new challenge to Wall Street?

by News Sources 11.07.2010

Andrew Sheng writes: In the 1990s, Islamic finance was a fledgling fringe industry. But today, its size has grown from roughly US$150 billion to about US$1 trillion in size. This is of course still small relative to some of the largest global fund managers and universal banks, who manage more than US$1 trillion each. But [...]

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The Tea Party is tapping into legitimate grievances

by Paul Woodward 11.06.2010

Noam Chomsky writes: The U.S. midterm elections register a level of anger, fear and disillusionment in the country like nothing I can recall in my lifetime. Since the Democrats are in power, they bear the brunt of the revulsion over our current socioeconomic and political situation. More than half the “mainstream Americans” in a Rasmussen [...]

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Caliphate on the range? The shariah precedent in American courts

by News Sources 11.06.2010

Asma Uddin writes: Judging by how Oklahoma voted in the recent election, one might conclude that despite its tiny Muslim population, Oklahoma was on the verge of becoming an Islamic caliphate in Middle America. The reality is of course far different. Oklahoma State Question 755, which passed, asked voters whether state courts should be forbidden [...]

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Pentagon’s Cyber Command seeks authority to expand its battlefield

by News Sources 11.06.2010

A defense official quote in this report from the Washington Post says: “Al Qaeda is everywhere.” That’s the same as saying that anyone who has a blog is “everywhere” — presence on the web is by its nature global. Still, it’s a dubious claim when coming out of the mouth of a US government official [...]

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Beware the white Obama

by News Sources 11.05.2010

Pepe Escobar writes: The American right’s “road map” for these past two years has been to declare Obama an abysmal failure since January 20, 2008, and to do absolutely zilch to help the country out of its political/economic/cultural quagmire. Now – at least in theory – their bluff has been called by the American electorate. [...]

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YouTube bows to political pressure and removes Awlaki videos

by Paul Woodward 11.05.2010

On Wednesday, The Guardian reported: Hundreds of videos inciting violence, including some linked to the suspected al-Qaida mastermind of the cargo plane bomb plot, were removed from YouTube today. The videos were highlighted after the conviction of Roshonara Choudhry for attempting to kill the former [British] government minister Stephen Timms. She was radicalised watching internet [...]

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Chase Madar: All-American Gitmo

by TomDispatch 11.05.2010

Reprinted with permission of TomDispatch.com On his second day in the Oval Office, Barack Obama pledged to close the notorious prison at Guantánamo within a year, but as the Wall Street Journal recently put it, he “quickly retreated after opposition from Republicans and some Democratic lawmakers.”  And those were the good times! In the new post-election political landscape, [...]

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Reading al Qaeda’s signals from Yemen — and Pakistan

by Paul Woodward 11.04.2010

David Ignatius writes: Behind the latest terrorism plots is an al-Qaeda leadership that is getting battered in Pakistan but that is determined to strike back wherever it can – using a dispersed network and new tactics that are harder to detect. The package bombs sent last week from Yemen are one face of al-Qaeda’s continuing [...]

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Bill Clinton’s prayer for peace

by Paul Woodward 11.04.2010

Less than two weeks ago, while observers gathered around the fetid corpse of the Middle East peace process, once again looking to see whether it might miraculously spring back to life, Laura Rozen reported: [T]he New America Foundation’s Steve Clemons said he is convinced that the man who can help Obama bring peace to the [...]

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Obama is through with Middle East peacemaking — at least for now

by News Sources 11.04.2010

Larry Derfner writes: Whatever the Obama administration may say, it is through with Middle East peacemaking, at least for this term. It has zero leverage over Israel’s right-wing government because the roaring Republicans love this government and especially its prime minister. The Republicans love the settlements, love Israeli rule over the West Bank, love the [...]

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Tea Party going to Israel

by News Sources 11.03.2010

Ynet reports: First they took Washington, now they’ll take Jerusalem? With victory in the congressional elections less than a day old, Florida Senator Marco Rubio (Rep.) who considers himself a ‘Tea Party’ member, is set to arrive in Israel on Sunday. Rubio’s visit so soon after the election win is a move that strengthens assessments [...]

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Israel lobby claims election victory

by News Sources 11.03.2010

Whatever the outcome of yesterday’s election had been, the Israel lobby had good reason to claim victory. Josh Rogin writes: One prominent pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington is already praising the GOP takeover of the House of Representatives as a net benefit for Israel. “While Democrats are likely to keep control of the U.S. Senate, [...]

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Tariq Ali on Obama

by News Sources 11.03.2010

Author and political commentator, Tariq Ali (The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad), interviewed on Al Jazeera: (H/t Pulse.) Share

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How Wikileaks amplifies the Pentagon echo chamber

by News Sources 11.03.2010

At Columbia Journalism Review, Ali Gharib writes: A source provides details to the American government about the nefarious activities of a Middle Eastern country. That information ends up in scores of secret U.S. government documents. Subsequently, the information winds up on the front pages of major newspapers, and is heralded by war hawks in Washington [...]

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