Jim Miles

Overview

Robert Kagan is a difficult subject to analyze. At times his writing seems to be very honest and directly critical of U.S. intentions as well as being clearly honest about the sometimes “dangerous nation” aspect of its history and foreign policy. Underlying it all however is his own patriotic blindness that ends up always supporting U.S. exceptionalism and uniqueness, always expressing the egocentric viewpoint that the U.S. is the indispensable nation. The U.S. is not indispensable.

Nor is it a bastion of “democratic capitalism” that is the only way forward from here, here being a point in renewed history – according to Kagan – in which there are either “democrats” or “autocrats.” Kagan does not see in shades of gray, countries and politicians are either one or the other. His arguments, while seemingly coherent at certain points tend to dissolve into self-contradiction, the main contradiction being the solid criticism that “what you do speaks so loud I can’t hear what you say.” For all that Kagan tries to present as the positives of the U.S., of the underlying good intentions of the U.S. - at the same time recognizing its sometimes hard handed methods of interfering in other countries - he really does not understand that perceptions built on those hard handed actions over-ride all the rhetoric and jingoism about the greatness and indispensability of the U.S. as the world’s guide to a better world.

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Robert B. Reich

As the banking system collapses, politicians and journalists are ignoring one of the main causes of the crisis: massive inequality.

With the collapse of the banking system, politicians and journalists are looking back at all the warning signs they missed: the sudden popularity of sub-prime loans, the rise of securitized debt instruments, the abject failure of credit-rating agencies. But perhaps instead of proximate causes, we should have paid attention to a much more basic red flag: inequality.

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Stephen C. Webster

A career Army officer who survived the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, claims that no evacuation was ordered inside the Pentagon, despite flight controllers calling in warnings of approaching hijacked aircraft nearly 20 minutes before the building was struck.

According to a time-line of the attacks, the Federal Aviation Administration notified NORAD that American Airlines Flight 77 had been hijacked at 9:24 a.m. The Pentagon was not struck until 9:43 a.m.

On behalf of retired Army officer April Gallop, California attorney William Veale has filed a civil suit against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and former US Air Force General Richard Myers, who was acting chairman of the joint chiefs on 9/11. It alleges they engaged in conspiracy to facilitate the terrorist attacks and purposefully failed to warn those inside the Pentagon, contributing to injuries she and her two-month-old son incurred.

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Mickey Z.

It’s early November. I’m checking my mail when I decide to stand in front of my apartment building for a little air: Astoria, Queens, New York City, USA air.

I notice five sea gulls flying overhead—north to south—well above the buildings, asphalt, and internal combustion engines. No more than a few seconds later, another eight gulls pass so I decide to count. Why not? In no time, I’m over 50.

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Habib Siddiqui

Allegations of Israeli Terrorism

Israel plays an important role in American politics. So strong is the power and influence of the pro-Israeli Lobby that no politician can afford to appear anti-Israel by questioning, let alone chiding, her criminal, sadistic, state terrorism that is routinely practiced against the Palestinian people. Such queries, while freely discussed inside Israel by concerned Jews, sadly remain a taboo in the West.

If we stick to the definition of terrorism that is provided by Professor Richard Falk of the Princeton University, the first recorded episode of terrorism can probably be traced back to Samson in the Torah.[1] His is the classic case of what can be called suicide terrorism, now much practiced in vast territories from Asia to Latin America by those who believe that they have been wronged.

However for our purpose here, we shall limit this discussion to the last 90 years. Probably the first victim of Jewish terrorism in the post-WWI period was Jacob Israel de Haan, the Dutch Jewish novelist, poet, lawyer, and legal scholar, who wanted a peaceful negotiated settlement with the Arabs for the recognition of a Jewish state and the establishment of an official Palestinian state in Jordan within a federation. This alarmed the secular Zionist leadership and De Haan was assassinated on July 1, 1924 by the Haganah, a Zionist paramilitary force.[2]

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Middle East Online

Iraqi journalist faces up to seven years in jail for ‘offending the head of a foreign state’.

Sign the petition The Iraqi journalist who became a star in the Arab world when he hurled his shoes at visiting US President George W. Bush and called him a dog, appeared before a judge on Wednesday, his brother said.

Durgham al-Zaidi said he and another brother were told by the investigating judge that 29-year-old Muntazar al-Zaidi "had cooperated well," but gave no details.

Under Iraqi law, Zaidi faces up to seven years in jail for "offending the head of a foreign state."

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Chis Floyd

With this resolution, the entire world – the entire world – has turned its back on the people of Somalia. They have been abandoned as utterly, completely – and officially -- as any people in history.

We reported here last week about American plans to turn Somalia into a global free-fire zone, with powerful militaries from around the world given carte blanche to launch armed incursions into Somali territory and fill the nation's skies with bombers, fighters and missiles. This nightmare scenario --- an unlimited escalation of bloodshed and destruction in one of the most ravaged, shattered lands on earth – has now become a reality, as the Washington Post reports:

The UN Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to authorize nations to conduct military raids, on land and by air, against pirates plying the waters off the Somalia coast... The U.S.-drafted resolution authorizes nations to "use all necessary measures that are appropriate in Somalia" in pursuit of pirates, as long as they are approved by the country's transitional federal government.

The provision about the "approval" of the Somalia's "transitional federal government" is, of course, a cynical joke on the part of the Security Council. This so-called government – put in place by foreign invaders, riddled with warlords and paid CIA assets – has not only lost control of virtually the entire country; it is now in the process of completely disintegrating. In the past few days, the Somali president, Abdullahi Yusuf, dismissed Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein and appointed someone else in his place, as Reuters reports. The Somali parliament rejected Yusuf's move and reinstated Hussein, who met this week with his cabinet.

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Mark Glenn

Like the infamous three monkeys of the “See no evil/Hear no evil/Speak no evil” caricature, mainstream Jewish groups are pretending not to notice a recent piece appearing in an Orthodox newspaper calling for the slaughter of innocent civilians in Muslim countries.

Entitled “The Appropriate Response to Islamic Terror”, Lawrence Kulak writing in the 5 Towns Jewish Times opines that the “final solution” to the “Muslim Problem” the West faces today is simple–‘Kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.’ In particular, he and the newspaper carrying the piece are calling for the deliberate killing of innocent women and children as a form of collective punishment (a war crime by international law) to those who would dare attack the apple of God’s eye–Israel–or any of those fighting her wars for her. As of the moment of this writing, the lone organization sounding the alarm over the piece is CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations while at the same time all major Jewish organizations (yes, the same ones lecturing everyone else on a daily basis on issues of hate, bigotry, extremism and terror) are doing nothing to protest or distance themselves from the piece, the writer or publication.

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Gabriele Zamparini

Jonathan Steele from the Guardian wrote yesterday an article (*) on Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at Bush. I had sent him an e-mail earlier yesterday, asking to write about it (**) but that was of course not the reason Steele wrote his piece, or at least so I hope; I wouldn't like to be the one responsible for this other charade of journalism.

Jonathan Steele writes:

"The Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has condemned Zaidi's action as an insult to a foreign guest, but Maliki - who, of course, has no influence over Iraqi's [sic] independent prosecution service - must know that a harsh sentence will only damage his own new-found reputation as the nationalist who managed to get Bush to agree to a withdrawal timetable."

We all know Iraq's "independent prosecution service", we have seen it on TV two years ago when the last president of Iraq was lynched, of course, independently. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the United Nations have all written long reports on Iraq's "independent prosecution service" but Steele seems to be on the Moon. And Maliki's "new-found reputation"? But this is nothing.

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Stephen Lendman

George W. Bush. US president: January 20, 2001 - January 19, 2009. Born of privilege. Unimpressive by every measure. A history of underachievement. Chosen by big money. Arranged through electoral fraud. Installed by the Supreme Court. Empowered by a dubious "terrorist" act, and ending with a record unmatched by the worst of his predecessors. Assessing the Bush legacy - from its illegitimate birth; through its lawless, belligerent years; to the world potentially on the brink at its end. Exploring it fully as a change of command approaches, and an unenviable task awaits the new incumbent.

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