THAT DAY, This 9/11 and Bob Dylan Musical Prophets
eileen fleming
"His voice and lyrics haven't always been easy on the ear, but throughout his career Bob Dylan has never aimed to please. He's disturbed the peace and discomforted the powerful. President Kennedy could easily have been talking about Bob Dylan when he said that, "if sometimes great artists have been most critical of our society, it is because their concern for justice makes them aware that our nation falls short of its highest potential."-President Bill Clinton, 1997 [1]
On THAT DAY we call 9/11, after my initial shock and awe passed, in my inner ear I did hear America's Master Poet, Musician extraordinaire and caustic social critic with from his 1981 "Shot of Love" Album:
PermalinkLockerbie: Megrahi Was Framed
John Pilger
The hysteria over the release of the so-called Lockerbie bomber reveals much about the political and media class on both sides of the Atlantic, especially Britain. From Gordon Brown’s "repulsion" to Barack Obama’s "outrage," the theater of lies and hypocrisy is dutifully attended by those who call themselves journalists. "But what if Megrahi lives longer than three months?" whined a BBC reporter to the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond. "What will you say to your constituents, then?"
Horror of horrors that a dying man should live longer than prescribed before he "pays" for his "heinous crime": the description of the Scottish justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, whose "compassion" allowed Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to go home to Libya to "face justice from a higher power." Amen.
The American satirist Larry David once addressed a voluble crony as "a babbling brook of bullsh*t." --Such eloquence summarizes the circus of Megrahi’s release.
Prof Yehuda Hiss: the missing link in Palestinian organ theft?
Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook considers the role of Professor Yehuda Hiss, the chief Israeli state pathologist at the only institute in Israel that conducts autopsies, in the scandal over the theft of Palestinian body parts. He notes that Prof Hiss has never been jailed despite admitting to organ theft in the 1990s.
The hyperventilating by Israel’s leaders over a story published in a Swedish newspaper last month suggesting that the Israeli army assisted in organ theft from Palestinians has distracted attention from the disturbing allegations made by Palestinian families that were the basis of the article’s central claim.
The families’ fears that relatives, killed by the Israeli army, had body parts removed during unauthorized autopsies performed in Israel have been overshadowed by accusations of a “blood libel” directed against the reporter, Donald Bostrom, and the Aftonbladet newspaper, as well as the Swedish government and people.
Neoliberalism Needs Death Squads in Colombia
By Hans Bennett
In her new book Blood & Capital: The Paramilitarization of Colombia, author Jasmin Hristov writes: “For roughly forty years, the Colombian state has been playing a double game: prohibiting the formation of paramilitary groups with one law and facilitating their existence with another; condemning their barbarities and at the same time assisting their operations; promising to bring perpetrators of crime to justice, while opening the door to perpetual immunity; convicting them of narco-trafficking, yet profiting from their drug deals; announcing to the world the government’s persecution of paramilitary organizations, even though in reality these ‘illegal armed groups’ have been carrying out the dirty work unseemly for a state that claims to be democratic and worthy of billions of dollars in US military aid.”
Too few options for Barack Obama in Afghanistan
by Susenjit Guha
To win the war in Afghanistan, the United States will have to win the hearts and minds of the Afghans as well as the Pakistani people. And at the same time the Afghan leadership should tamp down on corruption and ensure that foreign aid goes to the right places while Pakistan has to take on the Taliban head-on.
But the ground reality is different and there is nothing to trigger optimism even after 8 years.
Top military officer Admiral Mike Mullen, in one of the most scathing criticisms of the war so far….in an article written for a US military publication, Joint Force Quarterly…. felt that instead of sending a positive message about US military action and development in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the efforts are hurting credibility as they do not coincide with what the populace sees on the ground.
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