Link: http://lukery.blogspot.com/2009/07/bombshell-bin-laden-worked-for-us-till.html

Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds dropped a bombshell on the Mike Malloy radio show, guest-hosted by Brad Friedman (audio, partial transcript). In the interview, Sibel says that the US maintained 'intimate relations' with Bin Laden, and the Taliban, "all the way until that day of September 11." These 'intimate relations' included using Bin Laden for 'operations' in Central Asia, including Xinjiang, China. These 'operations' involved using al Qaeda and the Taliban in the same manner "as we did during the Afghan and Soviet conflict," that is, fighting 'enemies' via proxies.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/econ-j31.shtml

This week brought new indications that any economic “recovery” in the US will not be shared by the working class. Telecommunications giant Verizon announced that it would eliminate 8,000 jobs by the end of the year, new data showed that the foreclosure crisis is continuing to mount, and weekly initial jobless benefit claims rose. What is emerging is a protracted period of extremely high unemployment and growing social misery, which will be used to further slash wages, increase productivity and lower the standard of living and social position of the working class.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/pers-j31.shtml

At the start of this week, German-based Deutsche Bank announced a huge increase in its profits. The bank reported a net profit of €1.1 billion in the second quarter of this year, nearly doubling its earnings over the same period last year (€645 million). The massive increase in Deutsche Bank's profits follows record earnings for US-based Goldman Sachs. Two weeks ago, the US investment bank posted profits of $3.44 billion (€2.44 billion) in the three months to June.

Link: http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/31/lawmaker-dares-gop-to-repeal-medicare/

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), hoping to force the GOP to put up or shut up on health reform, introduced an amendment Thursday night that would have repealed medicare, thereby forcing Republicans to show their support for the largest form of government-run healthcare in the U.S

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/07/31-8

Carla McCabe spent a decade building nuclear bombs at the sprawling Rocky Flats complex near Denver. When she developed a brain tumor and asked for help, federal officials told her that none of the toxic substances used at the top-secret bomb factory could have caused her cancer. Now, on the eighth anniversary of the federal program created to help sick nuclear weapons workers, the man who until recently was the program's top doctor says that McCabe, now 55, and many others like her are being improperly rejected.

Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aMiQmByND.2A

The U.S. Defense Department wants to accelerate by three years the deployment of a 30,000-pound bunker-buster bomb, a request that reflects growing unease over nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea. Comptroller Robert Hale, in a formal request to the four congressional defense committees earlier this month, asked permission to shift about $68 million in the Pentagon’s budget to this program to ensure the first four bombs could be mounted on stealthy B-2 bombers by July 2010.

Link: http://news.antiwar.com/2009/07/31/un-civilian-deaths-soar-in-afghanistan/

US Air Strikes, Taliban Bombings Responsible for Most Killings. As the eight-year long Afghanistan War continues to escalate, civilians are increasingly bearing the brunt of the attacks from both sides. A United Nations report today says that at least 1,013 civilians were killed in the first half of 2009, a 24% increase from the same period in 2008.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/31/warren-anderson-arrest-warrant

An New Delhi court issued a warrant today for the arrest of the former head of the American chemical company responsible for a gas leak that killed at least 10,000 people in Bhopal 25 years ago.

Link: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m56537&hd=&size=1&l=e

On Thursday, in a long-anticipated ruling (PDF), Judge Ellen Segan Huvelle granted the habeas corpus petition of Mohamed Jawad, an Afghan teenager seized after a grenade attack on a jeep containing two US soldiers and an Afghan translator in December 2002, and ordered the government to transfer him to the custody of the Afghan authorities, who have already stated that he will be released on arrival.

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn07312009.html

Time bombs tossed seemingly casually in the past month by his vice president and his secretary of state disclose president Obama, in the dawn of his first term, already the target of carefully meditated onslaughts by senior members of his own cabinet.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/world/141689/three_good_reasons_to_liquidate_our_empire_and_10_ways_to_do_it/

The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment will condemn the U.S. to a devastating trio of consequences. However ambitious President Barack Obama's domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch.

Link: http://www.truthout.org/073109J

The health care debate ripped the bandage from a long-festering wound in the Democratic party this week, splitting the progressives and the conservative Blue Dogs in the House of Representatives. After drawing a line in the sand on Thursday, progressive forces altered the course of the legislation, restoring a key provision.

Link: http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=11164

Despite its obvious benefits for our health and for the environment, organic food continues to be denigrated by the political and corporate establishment in Britain. The food industry, in alliance with pharmaceutical and big biotechnology companies, has waged a long, often cynical campaign to convince the public that mass-produced, chemically-assisted and intensively-farmed products are just as good as organic foods, despite mounting evidence to the contrary

Link: http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=11166

Former Kansas State Trooper Greg Evensen reports that there are plans for road-blocks to force vaccines with military personnel putting bracelets on people. Those who refuse to take the steel band with a microchip will be put on a prison bus and taken to a quarantine camp.

Link: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/31/exclusive_john_walker_lindhs_parents_discuss

In their first extended interview, the parents of John Walker Lindh, Marilyn Walker and Frank Lindh, join us for the hour to tell their son’s story. He was born in Washington, DC in 1981. At the age of sixteen, he converted to Islam. In 1999, Lindh left the United States for Yemen to study Arabic and the Koran. He later traveled to Pakistan and then to Afghanistan, before 9/11, where he received military training from the US-backed, Taliban-run Afghan Army to fight against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan’s civil war. He was captured in late 2001, found emaciated and wounded, one of the few to survive a massacre by the Northern Alliance. To his parents’ relief, he was handed to US forces, but they brutalized him, as well. Donald Rumsfeld had ordered them to “take the gloves off.” He was designated Detainee 001 in the war on terror. When he returned to the United States in January 2002, he was being held as a prisoner accused of conspiring to kill Americans. As part of a plea deal, Lindh pleaded guilty to serving in the Taliban army and carrying weapons and was given a twenty-year sentence.

Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14580

According to CNN, the Pentagon is "to establish regional teams of military personnel to assist civilian authorities in the event of a significant outbreak of the H1N1 virus this fall, according to Defense Department officials." "The proposal is awaiting final approval from Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The officials would not be identified because the proposal from U.S. Northern Command's Gen. Victor Renuart has not been approved by the secretary. As a first step, Gates is being asked to sign a so-called "execution order" that would authorize the military to begin to conduct the detailed planning to execute the proposed plan.

Link: http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/07/31/ziauddin-sardar-the-erasure-of-islam-introduction-by-gilad-atzmon/

After a decade of elaboration on Jewish ideology and identity I came to a conclusion that Jewish identity, politics and ideology can be grasped as different manifestations of ‘self love’. The Zionist loves himself being strong and crude (Sabra), the Jewish leftist loves himself being a ‘humanist’ and ‘tolerant’, yet, for some reason, he prefers to operate in ‘Jews only’ cells (Bund, Jews for Palestine, Jews for Peace, Jews against Zionism, etc.). It took me some years to gather that Jewish ideology, politics and identity is not just surrender to self-affection, it is also driven by resentment towards others.