By Katherine Smith PhD

The timing of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee, which on August 2, 2010 formally brought a case against Congresswoman Maxine Waters, one of America’s most enduring liberal and fierce Anti War politicians, and the WikiLeaks of tens of thousands of Army documents related to the war in Afghanistan may be connected.

Speculation by bloggers, including John Young of Cryptome.com, and an expose at The Intel Hub that the WikiLeaks is part of a disinformation operation, and that the documents themselves could even be fake, should put every left leaning American on Yellow alert.

Fox News wasted no time exploiting the WikiLeaks documents to further vilify Iran, pointing out that the documents indicate the U.S. belief that Iran is arming the Taliban insurgency. This adds another layer to Fox's steady stream of propaganda that has flowed over the years advocating for an attack on the country, and stands as a reason why some believe the leak was staged. WikiLeaks documents-- disinformation or not-- are being used for anti-Iran propaganda, OpEdNews

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by Stephen Lendman

Manning, of course, is the courageous Army intelligence analyst turned whistleblower, who admitted leaking:

-- "260,000 classified United States diplomatic cables and video of a (US) airstrike in Afghanistan that killed 97 civilians last year," and

-- an "explosive (39 minute) video of an American helicopter attack in Baghdad that left 12 people dead, including two employees of the Reuters news agency" - "collateral murder" he felt obligated to expose.

It got him in trouble. On June 7, the military in Iraq arrested him, saying:

"The Department of Defense takes the management of classified information very seriously because it affects our national security, the lives of our soldiers, and our operations abroad."

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Joe Quinn Sott.net

Mainstream Media darling - Julian Assange

A friend recently asked me what I thought of the wikileaks business. The person said that they were still a little idealistic, and perhapst there are still some "good guys" out there who can really make a difference. I wondered, in terms of the wikileaks documents, precisely what kind of change could be hoped for? After all, we are talking about documents that describe US military activity in Afghanistan, in all their gory and criminal details. I presumed then that the difference that so many are hoping that the wikileaks documents (and their purveyor, Julian Assange) will make, is nothing less than the halting of the American Empire's unholy crusade across the Middle East and S.E. Asia. Now that would be nice!

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by Keith Johnson

July may have gone out with a whimper, but August may very well come in with a BANG!

The eighth month on the Gregorian calendar has a notoriously violent past. World War I kicked in to high gear on August 4, 1914 when Great Britain declared war on Germany (after they refused to withdraw from Belgium). World War II went up in smoke on August 9th, 1945 when the U.S. dropped its 2nd nuclear bomb—on the people of Japan—at Nagasaki. Will August 10th, 2010 go down in history as the beginning of World War III?

Indulge me.

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Kevin Zeese

Or will both sides generalize about the worst of the other and allow militarists to win?

Senator Lindsay Graham, a war supporting senator from South Carolina, said what he fears most is a left-right alliance against the Afghanistan War. He recognizes that such an alliance could stop war funding and force American troops to return home. But, the masters of war may not have to use divide and rule tactics because many war opponents on both sides of the political spectrum seem too willing to divide themselves.

The recent war funding vote in Congress, while showing some progress in legislators voting against war, also showed that a left-only anti-war movement will never succeed in achieving its ends. The Democrats were divided but that was not enough. Despite broad opposition among Americans to the Afghan War, widespread evidence of its failure and leaks of tens of thousands of military documents showing that as bad as the war has been reported, it is worse; the Congress voted by a landslide to pour tens of billions into the failed war.

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Joel S. Hirschhorn

Months, years and then decades slip by. Despite an avalanche of information burying me everyday I had not read or heard anything about 9/11 truth for many, many months. Sometimes movements become so marginalized that they no longer have enough vitality to stay within the consciousness of very many people.

I am sure, of course, that there are 9/11 truthers out there that still give and attend talks, write and receive emails and have lively conversations about the insanity of the official government story about 9/11 surviving and various alternative explanations of what really happened. Yet, in not too many weeks, another 9/11 anniversary will be here. And maybe then I will be hit again with chatter about what really happened on that past fateful and awful day. But today it is this writing by me that is my 9/11 truth: Hardly any Americans are concerned about 9/11 truth and there is no real interest in Congress in launching a new investigation.

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by Phil Rockstroh

Given the level of cultural absurdity at large, both the commercially tormented landscape and the mass media dominated mindscape of the United States seem a Gogol goof-take.

If a person had traveled forward in time, arriving from even the recent past, of say, twenty-five to thirty-years ago, and looked upon the present day United States -- he would have thought he had entered some alternative universe inhabited by deranged grotesques. Resembling a dadist reality television program, a sizable portion of the populace of the US (save our ugly, contemporary, sweatshop-assembled clothing) could pass for George Grosz or Max Beckmann caricatures from Weimar Republic Germany.

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Allen L Roland

Julian Assange, the elusive founder of WikiLeaks, is dedicated to transparency and truth in a world of deception and lies. His whistleblower platform has already unmasked atrocities in Iraq, Army procurement scandals in Iraq and now atrocities and scandals in Afghanistan. Like a caped Avenger ~ He will soon be zeroing in on several more abuses of power.

I'm a firm believer that when arrogance, deceit and abuse of power become truly oppressive ~ as they did under the Cheney/Bush administration ~ a door will eventually open and expose this dark world of darkness to the blinding light of the truth.

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by Cindy Sheehan

Before my son, Casey, was killed in Iraq on April 04, 2004, I was a mother of four, worried about all my children—but especially the one who was going to be deployed to Iraq—sometimes working as many as three jobs to survive, and only peripherally aware of the harsher realities of living in an Empire.

When Shocking and Awful rained down on Iraq, the military “operation” was then called: Operation Iraqi Liberation—but the geniuses in the War Selling Department figured out that the acronym was too obvious, so it was changed to Operation Iraqi Freedom, which is the name that was on all of my son’s paperwork and medals after he was killed.

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by Mary Pitt

The time is running short for the Liberal movement who placed President Obama in the White House to get serious about the programs that are needed NOW, not next year or the year after or sometime in the future. The Republicans, the Party of HELL, NO have kicked the can down the road and will not rest until we are all in the ditch and they will not relent until we have jouneyed all the way to that famous creek. We need to increase the pressure on Congress until they all cry, "Uncle". We must apply pressure in every way we can think of to get what the unemployed, the underemployed, and their families on the way back up to thinking about The American Dream.

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