Stephen Lendman

Elected Haiti's president in 1990. Its first ever democratically chosen one. By a sweeping two-thirds majority. Took office in February 1991. Deposed by an army-led coup in September with all the earmarks of being made-in-Washington. Returned to office in October 1994. Served until February 1996. According to Haitian law, he couldn't succeed himself. Reelect in November 2000 with 90% of the vote. Took office in February 2001. Served until February 29, 2004 when, in the middle of the night, US marines deposed him and forced him into exile.

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ddjango

Despite our very justified fears of false flags and election theft, in all probability, sometime on Wednesday morning, Barack Hussein Obama, the young US Senator from Illinois, will be this country's President-elect.

His handlers have engineered a remarkable campaign, beginning with his keynote address at the 1994 DNC . . .

"Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope? . . .

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D. H. Williams

Who is Rahm Emanuel? As many Americans celebrate the historic victory of Barack Obama this evening most will be completely unaware of the central figures in his administration who will direct and implement major policies and legislation changing the lives of every citizen. While the average voter may not give a moments thought to who the members of an Obama administration will be the Obama team has already selected candidates to fill those positions. According to a well placed Democratic aid Barack Obama personally selected Rahm Emanuel to be his Chief of Staff. A key figure from Obama’s hometown of Chicago will be Congressman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) fourth ranking Democrat in the House. Rahm Emanuel joined the Clinton’s in 1991 directing the campaign’s finances. Following the campaign Rahm became a senior adviser to Bill Clinton and severed in the Clinton administration holding various titles. Rahm was one of the original architects of NAFTA and aggressive anti- gun laws passed by the Clinton administration.

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Prof. Peter Erlinder

Once again, the suffering of African people caught up in a war that makes little sense to non-Africans has made the front pages in western media, as more than a million people have been displaced in the past week by re-newed fighting in the Eastern Congo. For most Americans who don’t pay much attention to the details of African history and politics, the humanitarian disaster in the Congo has exploded into public consciousness, as if the 25-year war to control Central Africa began only yesterday. The "Congo story" Behind the Headlines: But, in fact, the human rights disaster that the people of the world are watching on our TV screens is just the most recent human tragedy in a 25 year struggle for economic and political dominance in Central Africa that has been raging since the decline and eventual collapse of the Soviet influence in Africa in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. A sad fact of the 20th Century is that, even after the end of formal "colonialism" in the mid-20th Century, ruling African elites in virtually every African nation have looked to one or more powerful "sponsors" in the developed world to gain or retain power. And, to grab the personal wealth that goes with political/military power in Africa.

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Xymphora

From the Daily Star (Lebanon):

"Two men arrested for running an Israeli spy ring in the Bekaa Valley are relatives of a suicide hijacker who piloted a plane in the September 11, 2001, attacks, a security source told The Daily Star on Sunday. The Lebanese Army announced on Saturday that it had arrested two people suspected of involvement with a spy network that gathered information for Israel's intelligence services.

The army said that the men had been arrested on Friday, but the source said that they were actually captured two weeks ago and the discovery of the arrests by the media prompted the army to announce their capture. The army said the men had admitted 'gathering information on political party offices and monitoring the movements of party figures for the enemy.'

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Fred Reed

The US Becomes What It Wasn't. The Pentagon, methinks, is out of control. We no longer have a military in service to the state, but a state in service to the military. Few notice (I suspect) because of two ingrained habits of mind.

First, we think of the President as just that, the President, the country’s civilian governor who, oh yeah, is technically the Commander-in-Chief. “Technically,” because he isn’t really in the military and doesn’t strut about in a uniform with ribbons and feathers. He seems more a CEO than a general.

Second, we tend to think of the military as a federal department under civilian control. The Pentagon carries out policy, we believe, but doesn’t make it. Would it were so.

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William Hughes

“Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.” - Will Rogers

Back in the late 50s, I was an aide-de-camp to the Hon. Michael J. “Iron Mike” McHale, 6th District City Councilman in Baltimore City. Around that time, there was a hotly contested citywide municipal election going on. McHale, now deceased, went to a meeting with the then leader of his South Baltimore organization, Julian “Fats” Carrick. They met in a downtown office, with Philip H. Goodman--one of the key political bosses in town, who later served as a mayor of Baltimore (1962-3). According to McHale, Goodman tossed a stack of twenty dollar bills on the table. “This is your ‘walk around money’ for your organization’s support,” Goodman cracked. (1) Carrick, now deceased, nodded his approval and scooped up the cash. On the ride back home, Mr. Carrick told Councilman McHale: “Without these greenbacks, Thomas Jefferson couldn’t get elected today!!”

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Khalid Amayreh

Palestinian Authority (PA) officials and spokesmen have been lying through their teeth lately about their increasingly vile treatment of the Palestinian people.

These people have been claiming, nearly on a daily basis, that their American-paid and trained forces are not arresting political activists and that only “criminals” and “terrorist elements” are being hounded and arrested.

Well, we who live here in the West Bank, don’t have to be presumptive about what is happening in our neighborhoods, streets, towns and villages these days. We see the daily arrests with our own eyes, we know the detainees, we know their families and their friends. Hence, we don’t even have to compare and contrast various accounts of the disgraceful onslaught by the PA against the Palestinian masses. Things are simply too plain to be controversial.

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By Sameh A. Habeeb

We, Palestinians, are aspiring to any glimpse of hope to establishing our promising country of Palestine. Originally, that glimpse of hope grew when Israelis realized in the nineties that a real peace will not be achieved apart from an Independent Palestinian state. That time, the world agreed on that concept and peace deal (Oslo) was held in Washington D.C, after the first Bush had left office.

Regardless of Oslo and its disadvantages we started the self governing in the West Bank and Gaza Strip awaiting the transitional period in the next stages. But as many expected things went deep down after Israel approved that, it was unconcerned in any peace agreement that relied on giving us land in exchange for peace.

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Len Hart

If you believe that Sarah Palin is an exemplary product of what can be achieved with the GOP in charge of the nation's education, then --by all means --vote for McCain/Palin. Knowing that what Sarah Palin achieved educationally, your own daughter might come to believe that the human beings walked beside dinosaurs only six thousand years ago.

It was on this day four years ago that George W. Bush 'won' a second term with a promise to help the 'democracies' of Afghanistan and Iraq 'grow in strength and freedom'.

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