James Cogan

In the wake of last Thursday’s election in Afghanistan, the US establishment is proceeding with plans for a further expansion of the war. Regardless of which candidate is ultimately installed as the president, their primary task will be to collaborate in stepped-up attempts to crush the growing armed resistance to the US-led occupation in Afghanistan and the border regions of Pakistan.

The election itself has been a debacle for US imperialism and its NATO allies. The majority of people in the ethnic Pashtun southern and eastern provinces followed the directions of the Taliban and boycotted the ballot altogether. While fear may have been a factor, it cannot be denied that the insurgency has broad popular support. The Pashtun population hates both the foreign forces and the puppet regime in Kabul, which have inflicted eight years of repression, corrupt officials and police and ongoing economic deprivation.

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Frida Berrigan

URUKNET: "You feel like a child playing around with a magnifying glass, burning up ants." That is how one Israeli soldier described Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defense Force’s (IDF) invasion of the Gaza Strip, which began in December 2008.

His is one of 54 testimonies collected by the Israeli organization Breaking the Silence in a 110-page report that paints a disturbing picture of urban warfare in one of the world’s most densely populated areas, where more than 1.5 million people occupy a narrow strip of land between Israel and the sea.

Another soldier, after recounting an incident in which his unit used civilians as human shields, described Gaza as a "moral twilight zone."

It is an apt term for Gaza’s wholesale destruction: homes demolished by Caterpillar D9 bulldozers (manufactured in the United States and armored by Israeli Military Industries) and set afire by white phosphorus canisters (made by Pine Bluff Arsenal, a U.S. Army installation in Pine Bluff, Ark.). Save the Children, a U.K.-based NGO, estimated that more than 500,000 people were displaced during the war, and, a month after the ceasefire, 100,000 remained homeless. The Palestinian Economic Development Council puts a $1.9-billion price tag on rebuilding from the 22-day war. It noted that even under ideal circumstances the work could take five years.

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Des Moore

Should We Believe (All) Scientists?

Some may say it ill behoves an economist to pass judgement on scientists: after all economists are obviously to blame for the current recession.

But reflecting on 28 years in Treasury (and subsequently), I conclude that many proposals by both economists and scientists do not warrant government intervention to “save” the economy and/or society. Modest expertise helped me, but my most important methodology is common sense questions – such as “how exactly will society (rather than a particular group) benefit if this proposal is implemented?”

I confess to having started with the belief that proposals by scientists should generally be accepted. After all, look at the improved living standards from the innumerable machines and medicines that scientific advances have allowed.

But when in 1972 I wrote a paper at the Royal College of Defence Studies in London on “Limits on the Supply of Resources”, I soon realised that even the best scientists need to be challenged. Worryingly, most pay little regard to either the continued upward trend in beneficial technology, or to the natural propensity for markets to encourage such developments through changes in prices. The combination of science and economics, I concluded, meant that we humans would not run out of resources even for the growing world population.

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by Stephen Lendman

On its web site, CA (Latin for food code) says:

"The Codex Alimentarius Commission was created in 1963 by the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN) and WHO (World Health Organization) to develop food standards, guidelines and related texts such as codes of practice under the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme. The main purposes of this Programme are protecting health of the consumers and ensuring fair trade practices in the food trade, and promoting coordination of all food standards work undertaken by international governmental and non-governmental organizations."

Whatever its founding purpose, CA is much different today because corporate interests control it - global pharmaceutical, food, and banking giants in league with complicit UN and government agencies to promote GMOs over healthy foods, and drugs over natural remedies by restricting or banning vitamin and dietary supplements, except ones they control. Organic food as well by irradiation and hidden synthetic additives or ingredients.

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By: Peter Chamberlin

Nearly all of the Pentagon’s counter-insurgency warfare doctrine has been based on distortions of the pirated theories of former president of the American Psychological Association, Prof. Martin Seligman. Now we learn that post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) treatments for war veterans have been developed from his work as well.

The US military has totally embraced Seligman’s controversial theories, twisting them to suit their deadly purposes, basing their computer-modeled psyops plans, plans for homeland security, even their recruitment strategies, upon his theories of “learned helplessness,” looking for ways to bring-about its most debilitating form, learned hopelessness. Every one of these programs is geared towards finding and exploiting the human breaking point.

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Mary Shaw

Back in the 1950s, Senator Joe McCarthy tried to instill fear in the American people over Communism. Many in Hollywood were accused of being Communists or Communist sympathizers. So were academics, trade unionists, and free thinkers in general.

Now McCarthyism is back, but updated for today's times. It is a new McCarthyism. And this time the perceived threat is "socialism".

The right-wing fear mongers have their sheep in a frenzy over allegations that Obama in general, and health care reform in particular, are leading this nation into "socialism".

The sheep are naive enough to fall for the spin machine that tries to equate socialism with Marxism and/or Communism. That's kind of like suggesting that all dogs are pit bulls. These people never were too appreciative of semantic nuance. And they apparently didn't pay a lot of attention in Poli Sci class, either.

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Allen L Roland

To: Intergalactic council

From: 2009 Intergalactic space probe expedition

Mission: Probe and Analyze planet XY7-2 / EARTH

Report: Once again, we have penetrated to within 2400 miles of Planet Earth and are currently holding and awaiting your instructions. ( see enlarged telephoto )

We have, once again, had the opportunity for some time to extensively analyze the predominant life forms that inhabit this planet and present the following observations;

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eileen fleming

"The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state," Neve Gordon, an American-born Jew who has lived in Israel for nearly 30 years and teaches political science at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, recently wrote in a Los Angeles Times op-ed.

Gordon also came to the conclusion that boycotting Israel may be the only way to save the country from itself.

As an American-born Christian I am in solidarity with that opinion.

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