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THOSE TRICKY IRANIANS ARE NOW THREATENING TO COOPERATE
Eric S. Margolis
The confusion over Iran’s nuclear program mounts as accusations and denials intensify.
In an effort to browbeat Iran into nuclear submission, the US, Britain and France staged a bravura performance of political theatre last week by claiming to have just `discovered’ a secret Iran uranium enrichment plant near Qum. On cue, a carefully orchestrated media blitz trumpeted warnings of the alleged Iranian nuclear threat and `long-ranged missiles.’
In reality, the Qum plant was detected by US spy satellites over two years ago, and was known to the intelligence community. Iran claimed the plant will not begin enriching uranium for peaceful power for another 540 days. UN nuclear rules, to which Iran adheres, calls for 180 days notice.
Europe is under imminent threat
Christopher King
[Christopher King analyses the current state of relations between Europe and the United States. He argues that the US military presence in Europe, and the transformation of NATO into an American tool, is tantamount to military occupation and is an obstacle to the development of pan-European and European-Russian relations.]
The NATO First Act of the United States
The spectacular carnage and destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan have distracted our attention from the big picture, of which these appear to be a relatively small part.
Sometimes we have to adopt a new view of our world and this is one of those times. Because of the secrecy, propaganda and lies that now characterize our governments it is necessary to work backwards from their actions in the public domain to determine the truth. I wish to offer three data points that fit into the trend of the USA’s undisguised primary objective – to be the dominant military power in the world. This was reiterated by President Barack Obama at Annapolis Naval Academy (New York Times, 22 May 2009, speech text p.3, penultimate paragraph)
Mapping the Global Muslim Population
Pew Forum Executive Summary
A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Muslim Population.
A comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing 23% of an estimated 2009 world population of 6.8 billion.
While Muslims are found on all five inhabited continents, more than 60% of the global Muslim population is in Asia and about 20% is in the Middle East and North Africa. However, the Middle East-North Africa region has the highest percentage of Muslim-majority countries. Indeed, more than half of the 20 countries and territories [1] in that region have populations that are approximately 95% Muslim or greater.
More than 300 million Muslims, or one-fifth of the world's Muslim population, live in countries where Islam is not the majority religion. These minority Muslim populations are often quite large. India, for example, has the third-largest population of Muslims worldwide. China has more Muslims than Syria, while Russia is home to more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined.
WHO IS A JEW?
BY GILAD ATZMON
The question of "who is a Jew?" has been debated in Israel since it attained statehood. In the Jewish state the authorities, Rabbis and the media would dig into one’s bloodline with no shame whatsoever. For the Israelis and orthodox Jews, Jewishness is obviously a blood related concept. However, Jewishness and blood concerns are becoming a subject of a growing debate in the UK. In the last few days The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian are trying to decide whether Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a ‘self hating Jew’ or just an ordinary anti-Semite. Like the Israeli Rabbis they both dig into his bloodline.
Ahmadinejad is revealed to have a ‘Jewish past’ said the Daily Telegraph on Saturday. According to the paper, a photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 ‘clearly’ suggests that his family had Jewish roots. The Telegraph even found the ‘experts’ who suggested that ‘Mr Ahmadinejad's track record for hate-filled attacks on Jews could be an overcompensation to hide his past.’ Needless to say that Ahmadinejad has never come on record with a single anti-Jewish ‘hate- filled’ attack as The Telegraph suggests. He is indeed extremely critical of the Jewish state and its raison d'etre. He is also highly critical of the crude and manipulative mobilisation of the holocaust at the expense of the Palestinian people.
The Gaza War's Effect on Women
by Stephen Lendman
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights' (PCHR) new report, titled "Through Women's Eyes," highlights "the Gender-Specific Impact and Consequences of Operation Cast Lead" and the ongoing siege, including 12 case study examples "through the victims' words." Several are discussed below.
In patriarchal Palestinian society, women traditionally are caregivers while men typically head households and are the main breadwinners. As a result, when widows are thrust into this role, they're often victimized by cultural, social and economic discrimination and marginalization. In Gaza today, it's hard for women to get by alone, so widows must either live with family members or remarry. The alternative is a hard struggle alone, something most Palestinian women try to avoid, but post-conflict many have no choice.
Gore Vidal's United States of fury
Johann Hari
At 84, the writer and activist may be confined to a wheelchair, but his rage – at his country, its leaders and citizens – burns as fiercely as ever. Johann Hari watches the sparks fly.
In Russian, the phrase "gore vidal" means "he has seen grief". As Gore Vidal is wheeled towards me across an empty London hotel lobby, it seems for the first time like an apt translation. In the eight years since I saw him last, he has lost his partner of 50 years, most of his friends, most of his enemies, and the use of his legs. The man I met then – bristling with his own brilliance, scattering witticisms around like confetti – has withered. His skin is like parchment, but the famous cheekbones are still sharp beneath the crags. "It is so cold in here," he says, by way of introduction. "So fucking cold."
Gore Vidal is not only grieving for his own dead circle and his fading life, but for his country. At 83, he has lived through one third of the lifespan of the United States. If anyone incarnates the American century that has ended, it is him. He was America's greatest essayist, one of its best-selling novelists and the wit at every party. He holidayed with the Kennedys, cruised for men with Tennessee Williams, was urged to run for Congress by Eleanor Roosevelt, co-wrote some of the most iconic Hollywood films, damned US foreign policy from within, sued Truman Capote, got fellated by Jack Kerouac, watched his cousin Al Gore get elected President and still lose the White House, and – finally, bizarrely – befriended and championed the Oklahoma bomber, Timothy McVeigh.
Yet now, he says, it is clear the American experiment has been "a failure". It was all for nothing. Soon the country will be ranked "somewhere between Brazil and Argentina, where it belongs." The Empire will collapse militarily in Afghanistan; the nation will collapse internally when Obama is broken "by the madhouse" and the Chinese call in the country's debts. A ruined United States will then be "the Yellow Man's Burden", and "they'll have us running the coolie cars, or whatever it is they have in the way of transport".
LEADER OF UPCOMING WORLD SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION IS CHAVEZ / NOT OBAMA
Allen L Roland
President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez addresses the 61st session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, September 20, 2006. REUTERS/MikeSegar (UNITED STATES)
Brazil winning the 2016 Olympics and ousting Obama ( Chicago ) in the first round is a shot across the bow to America. There is a moral and spiritual revolution, of the people versus the global elite, occurring in South America and its leader is Venezuela's Hugo Chavez:
Here We Go Again - Democrats Turning off Their Voting Base
By Kevin B. Zeese
When it comes to war, the Obama administration fails to learn the lessons of 2006 and 2008 as well as the health care debate
Monday, October 5, 2009 may have been the beginning of the end of a Democratic majority in the House and Senate. Peace advocates demonstrated at the White House resulting in 61 arrests. The peace movement has grown tired of Obama’s failure to end the Iraq war, his escalation of the Afghanistan war, his expansion of the war into Pakistan and his growing military budget. They have turned their criticism onto him and the Democratic Congress but the Democrats are not listening.
Does President Obama remember how the Democrats regained the majority in the House and Senate? Does he remember how he bested Hillary Clinton in the primaries? Here’s a reminder.
Will Israel Ensure that History Repeats Itself?
By: Jeff Gates
The lead-up to the first U.S.-Iran talks in three decades saw a replay of the same modus operandi that induced the U.S. and its allies to invade Iraq in March 2003. Then as now, the invasion of Iran is consistent with a regime change agenda for Greater Israel described in a 1996 strategy document prepared by Jewish-Americans for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
As with Iraq, the threat of weapons of mass destruction is again marketed as a causa belli. As with Iraq, the claim is disputed by weapons inspectors and intelligence analysts. The Iraqi program had been shut down a dozen years before the invasion. In Iran, there is no evidence that uranium is being enriched beyond the low levels required for energy and medical purposes.
Afghanistan: Eight Years and Counting
Dennis Loo
Eight years ago, on Oct. 7, 2001, the U.S. launched a war upon Afghanistan.
What have eight years of war and occupation accomplished?
Government corruption is so rife and pervasive that even the U.S. State Department has condemned it. The recent elections are still being contested because of massive fraud. War and drug lords are part of the government.
Afghanistan is near the worst in the world in poverty rates, life expectancy, unemployment, child mortality, and lack of human rights. It remains, however, number one in opium production.
Thousands of Afghans have been killed and millions continue to be refugees – either within Afghanistan or driven to other nations. Large gatherings of people, including wedding and dinner parties, are considered legitimate targets by the US military for bombing. The results of this are predictable: Afghan anger and growing rage at the U.S.
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