FIPR reports that the ID card scheme will be an expensive failure for its stated purposes such as preventing terrorism.
In Iraq, "we"
(meaning the Bush forces) are the barbarians.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
I disagree partly with one point in this article: it criticizes American Liberals for a point of view that I have not seen anyone actually endorse. Speaking as a Liberal, I don't think the Liberals I know would consider the mutilation of a few dead bodies more important than the killing of thousands of civilians.
Canadian police appear to be
using foreign
governments to arrest traveling Canadian citizens, and bypass
their human rights.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Flooding caused by global climate change could cause $40 billion damage annually in the UK by the end of this century (and proportionally more in the rest of the world). Even with the greatest possible efforts to hold back global warming, the damage will increase. Without great efforts, it will increase more.
Global warming is far more dangerous than terrorism. A hot spell killed over ten thousand people in France last summer--more than all the non-state-sponsored terrorism since 2000.
The UN launched an independent investigation into charges that the
Iraq oil-for-food program was corrupted by Saddam Hussein.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
There are rumors that the investigation might be given up to buy support from various countries for a UN legitimization of Bush control in Iraq.
Many problems with vote counting are expected in the 2004 US election, as Republicans walk out of the US Civil Rights Commission which is trying to address them.
Sibel Edmonds was blocked from testifying about Bush administration lies, but will have another hearing on June 14. Public support is needed.
The Bush forces
threatened to enter Najaf, demanding that Al-Sadr
"fight with ideas not guns". How strange, because he was doing
exactly that until the Bush forces
closed his newspaper. It looks
like they condemn all opposition whether it is peaceful or violent.
That's "democracy" for you, Bush style.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Meanwhile, the Bush forces in Baghdad started firing randomly after they were attacked, and killed four Iraqi children. Bush continues to insist that only supporters of Saddam Hussein, or foreigners, would fight back after that kind of treatment.
Here is the letter that 50 former British diplomats signed, criticizing Blair's mideast policy.
Afghan women burn themselves to death in despair because they are mistreated by their husbands and in-laws.
Future Iraqi Security Forces Are
Already
Unraveling.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Two ways to terrorize the public:
with real
attacks, or with false warnings.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Drug companies have killed hundreds of thousands by manipulating medical research. One method they use is to publish only the studies that give favorable results, hiding other studies that don't. (Parapsychologists use the same technique to fabricate evidence for psychic powers.)
Drug companies also influence studies by funding them. University researchers are afraid to publish unfavorable results because they might not get corporate funding for another study. But even those who have the courage to publish the results whatever they may be still face an obstacle: the drug companies sometimes put censorship power into their contract with the university.
The European Parliament voted to go to court against the EU's surrender to US demands for lots of personal information about air travelers.
When Christ Patten says that Europeans would want their governments to do "everything possible" to stop terrorism, "everything possible" implicitly means complete abolition of restraints on police power and the rights of the accused, and total surveillance. (To stop short of that point is not doing "everything".) He wants Europeans to hand over their rights quietly to the Bush regime, as it tries to do "everything possible" to Europeans as well as Americans.
What the 9/11 commission hearings revealed about what the Bush administration knew before 9/11. And contradictions it did not investigate.
Over 50 former British diplomats have signed a letter to Tony Blair criticising his Middle East policy.
Bush is telling more lies,
this time about the USA PAT RIOT act.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Shulamit Aloni: "Like The Germans, We Don't Want To Know"
After reading this, I have to ask myself whether most Americans likewise don't want to know what the Bush forces are doing in Iraq.
Tampa police arrested Food not Bombs activists
for sharing food with homeless people.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-30 because the
old
link was broken.]
The cruelty and injustice of a law against distributing food to the homeless is evident. Many US cities try to make it impossible for homeless people to live, because they are considered ugly and may drive customers away from businesses. These businesses think the place for homeless people is in the cemetary.
Food aid to Gaza has been resumed after Israel gave way to
international pressure. However, new Israeli demands threaten to halt
it again.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The US government focus on foreign terrorists may be
helping right-wing US terrorists regroup.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The right-wing ideology of the Bush regime might also be contributing to it.
Diebold was aware early on that its voting machines had gross flaws. The state of California is now considering decertifying them for the coming election.
The Chinese government
criticizes
the US human rights record.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The US Commission on Ocean Policy
proposes
a trust fund filled from
oceanic oil and gas revenues, to protect the health of the oceans.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
What
is the terrible secret Vanunu could talk about?
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
250 French doctors have
accused
the right-wing governing party of
trying to destroy the national health system.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Bush forces
and the US government
use contract armies to evade legal restrictions. The result is
that other laws are thrown by the wayside.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Pro-government militias in Sudan killed over a hundred men from a minority group. The UN is proving to be weak in its criticism of this, and Human Rights Watch says the Sudanese government has blocked UN investigation.
The US-supported leaders in Haiti, many of whom are gangsters and
murderers, are arresting and
murdering supporters of President Aristide.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Dubya's
"ambassador" to Iraq
is not a real
embassador, but he has lots of experience with terrorism.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The electric power, and the security cameras,
were turned off in the World Trade Center for much of September 9, 2001. This had
never happened before.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
There were protests at the Coca Cola annual shareholders meeting.
The attacks on the union in Colombia continue; a recent note describes how relatives of a union leader were killed in their home a few weeks ago.
Life in Iraq today, where the war isn't flaring up: occasional
violence, alongside shopping--while the Bushmen live in the gated
communities where Baath party leaders used to live, and try never to
go outside.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Bush officials lied to Congress
about the consequences of a change in air quality rules .
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
9/11: Gross Negligence or Treason?
What triggered the Shia insurrection? It was the March 25 announcement of Bush plans to turn Iraq into a permanent colony.
The Bush forces, operating on Sharon's advice, are traveling the same road that Sharon's invasion of Lebanon traveled, turning the Shi'ite population into persistent enemies.
Right-wing Christian fanatics that support Bush demand a middle-east policy of encouraging Israeli aggression, because they hope this will bring about their prophecies of armageddon .
NORAD held drills based on the idea of airliners used to attack
buildings, in the
years and months before the 9/11 attacks.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Invading Iraq was a no-brainer after Bush's lobotomy.
Recent US "free trade" treaties have phony "protections" for labor rights and the environment, but they are too vague to do any good.
Other countries should cancel these treaties.
Kerry is now talking about giving the UN real control over Iraq, which is borrowing some of Kucinich's program. Maybe that will satisfy Iraqis that it isn't a plan to turn their country into a colony. If so, maybe it will mean peace there.
However, Kerry is still saying things like "We can't fail", which really means "We can't ever admit a mistake, we can't ever cut our losses". That attitude makes all mistakes bigger.
I agree with the people polled who say that Kerry says what he thinks people want to hear. However, it is a mistake to think that Bush says what he really believes. Bush says what he wants Americans to believe--paying no attention to them. Kerry at least pays some attention.
I think that a lot of Americans are hoping now that Kerry won't stick to his position about keeping troops in Iraq "for as long as necessary". I too hope he doesn't really mean it.
Bush Says
World Owes Israel's Sharon a 'Thank You'
[Reference updated on 2018-08-30 because the
old
link was broken.]
The planned elimination of Israeli settlements from Gaza will be a good thing, if Sharon ever really does it. But we can't thank Sharon for this while ignoring the rest of what he orders the Israeli forces to do to the Palestinians.
An Internet TV station in Belgium was shut down by the police, who accused it of supporting terrorism. It is associated with an opposition group in Turkey, whose government mistreats human rights workers. (Many governments do that nowadays.)
The Israeli border police beat up a Palestinian child then used him as a human shield. When witnesses complained about this, they too were arrested and used as human shields.
Sharon's
Banana Republics
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Is Bush really supporting
his troops?
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
I regret the use of the term "our troops" in that article; Americans, British, Italians, and citizens of the various countries whose troops Bush has made use of should resist the pressure to identify with Bush's war.
The propaganda used to justify the Bush invasion of Iraq
has been used many
times before...to justify crushing
uprisings against various colonial regimes.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Washington is proposing a
new
agency to spy on Americans, when there
are already too many intelligence agencies stumbling over each other.
This is a distraction from the questions the US government really
ought to focus on.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
A surgeon
heads for Falluja, where he will support the resistance by
operating on the wounded (mostly civilians). He reports on the
civilians that the Bush forces
have killed, and how they did it.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
An imprisoned Palestinian leader
proposes
peace in Gaza in exchange
for effective Palestinian sovereignty within Gaza.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Bush forces
have declared main
highways of Iraq off limits,
essentially cutting the country in pieces.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
This is the classic way for an occupying army to lose a guerrilla war: to stay in power, they must turn to increasingly oppressive security measures. These sometimes achieve their short-term goals, but they increase the occupied population's determination to win independence.
This
article gives the history of the recent fighting in Iraq (through
April 16), and the history that led up to it--forgotten or never
learned by Americans, but remembered by Iraqis.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-30 because the
old
link was broken.]
On the occasion of Mordechai Vanunu's non-release,
here is information on Israel's
weapons
of mass destruction.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Bush administration
backed
down from a demand to prohibit US
publishers from editing scholarly articles published in Iran, Cuba,
etc.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-30 because the
old
link was broken.]
However, as far as I can tell, the ban on subscribing to journals from those countries remains in effect.
A human rights activist in Thailand, who is married to a member of a
minority group, is about to be deported--
because he complained to the public and the UN about how the minority is treated in Thailand.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
See also www.akha.org.
Mordechai Vanunu is about to be "released" from one prison into another kind of prison.
He has been forbidden to speak about how he was abducted by Israeli agents. What kind of excuse can there be for that?
A Colombian whose family members had been killed by right-wing gangs
sought asylum in the UK,
but the UK sent him home; they did not believe he was in danger. Two
months later, he has been shot (fortunately not fatally).
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Colombian government supports these gangs, and the US government supports the Colombian government.
Why
Weinstein would be suspect as US National Archivist, and how his
appointment could be harmful.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Indian police have charged policemen and members of the Hindu
nationalist party in the
massacre
of thousands of muslims in Gujarat two years ago.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Iraqi insurgents are taking control of roads. The recent
Bush forces road curfews
may be a response to that--but it won't work, for reasons previously
explained.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Some Iraqi insurgents are capturing various foreigners who work in Iraq and holding them as hostages. They killed one Italian "security guard" who was working for a US company, and appears to have really been a mercenary quasi-soldier, guarding convoys of supplies.
For insurgents to have shot him while he was on duty would have been ordinary war. Killing him after capturing him is probably a war crime. However, wrong as that is, we should not let it distract us from the much larger war crimes being committed every day by the Bush forces.
Bush seeks to replace the Archivist of the US with a partisan supporter who will block the release of papers from the presidency of Bush I. (The office of Archivist was supposed to be non-political.)
What did not occur in Iraq really
happened
in Lebanon:
in 1982, the
Shi'ites of Lebanon welcomed invading Israeli forces as liberators.
But when liberation turned into occupation, they threw the occupiers
out. Bush, and everyone he asks for support, should pay attention.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Bush administration allowed a Guantanamo interrogator to
talk about an Australian prisoner, while trying to gag the prisoner's lawyer.
The statement might be the truth, or it might be a disinformation
campaign designed to influence a court hearing.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Bush forces told noncombatants to flee from Falluja
to Baghdad, then
attacked
them in the desert on the way,
say witnesses.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Scientists have projected that the Greenland ice cap will begin to melt before 2100, and this could flood many coastal cities.
The Bush forces in Falluja have orders to shoot at anyone who moves during the night, without trying to determine whether the person is a combatant. That is a recipe for a massacre, so it's no surprise that one is occurring.
Iraqis in Falluja are saying that the
Bush forces
make them
nostalgic for Saddam's secret police.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Setting
the Record Wrong on "News Hour".
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
US taxpayers:
1/4 of your taxes are going to pay for crushing Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Kerry supports the war in Iraq, and his economic program is that of
Clinton--which means, make life
harder
for everyone but the rich.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
It looks like Kerry will continue Dubya's policy of war crimes in Iraq, and destroying social programs for the sake of the rich in the US.
Whatever question you ask,
Bush has the same answer: "Iraq is a better
place now, and Saddam was bad."
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
General Kimmitt: if seeing children being killed by the Bush forces bothers you, change the channel. Pay no attention to the killers behind the curtain!
His statement has a kind of logic behind it, which this article
exposes
and then refutes.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Bush forces
are heating up the fighting across Iraq. They say
that about 80
of their numbers have been killed in April.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Those official casualty figures are
less than half the true amount.
According to Robert Fisk, at least 80 mercenaries were killed in the
past week, but the Bush forces don't count them.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Jo Wilding reports on being inside an ambulance in Falluja
with the Bush forces
shooting at her.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
She was helping to pick up wounded, because the Bush forces won't allow anyone Arab-looking to do it. People who try, just get shot in turn. Would you like your country to be "liberated" like this?
Bush and Cheney saw a whole stream of warnings about Al Qa'ida in 2001.
After the massacres of Muslims in Gujarat, the ruling Hindu Nationalist party (BJP) interfered with the trials of some of the killers. India's Supreme Court has ordered a retrial in a different state.
Japanese revisionists are trying to rewrite the history of WWII, presenting Japan as the good guy, and treating the emperor once again as a god. School textbooks are being rewritten, and teachers are punished if they do not endorse the lies.
I wish the US had put itself in a position to criticize Japan about this.
50+
U.S. CITIES HOLDING EMERGENCY IRAQ PROTESTS & new cities are announcing their plans by the hour!
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Many endangered species are not protected by any of the existing wildlife reserves.
Even if they were protected, after global warming the reserves might be in the wrong places for the job.
What the Bush forces did in Sadr City, Baghdad. (Shooting an ambulance driver is just the beginning.)
This may be a partial answer to
why no
fighters met the hijacked planes on 9/11: only 14 fighters were
kept on standby to do the job. And Rumsfeld was trying to reduce it
even more.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Keeping fighters on standby is expensive, but if you plan to launch an expensive war, you need to save money somewhere.
Even some members of Bush's puppet Iraqi Governing Council have condemned the Bush forces' violent attacks of recent days.
If Bush can't find anyone to "hand control of Iraq to" on June 30, that will be good, because the "handover" would mean no benefit to Iraqis, and would help validate whatever laws or give-aways he wants to impose on Iraq.
A
Russian academic was convicted of spying, after he collected
information published in newspapers and books and sent it to a UK
company. His trial was rigged. The case is part of a pattern of cases
apparently intended to punish Russians for talking to foreigners in
ways that the Russian government does not like.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
I wish the US were conducting itself in better fashion, but the Bush plans for "military tribunals", and the practice of imprisonment without trial, are worse.
Conditions in the Veteran's Administration hospitals are outrageous.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
One contributing factor is that the system is overloaded. With all the casualties Bush has caused, the system needs a lot more staff, or else they have to cut corners.
I was in Mass General Hospital last weekend; my arm was infected. A nurse there told me that Mass General, unlike most hospitals, did not overload their nursing staff. Still, there were times when nobody responded to my request for assistance for an hour. I'm sure they were busy with someone else who needed help more urgently, and the consequence for me was nothing serious. However, if this happens in a place with adequate staff like Mass General, I'm sure the staff in a VA hospital must be struggling to cope, struggling to do the most essential jobs. I would not blame them for trying to use the fastest possible method when a patient needs to move his bowels. They did not decide to hire too few nurses.
A friend who left nursing ten years ago told me she was required, as a condition of employment, to take legal responsibility for the actions of a number of nurse's aides who were doing things they were not licensed to do without supervision. It was her job to supervise them--but there were so many of them that she could not possibly do the job properly.
She had another field to go into, so she quit. Other nurses, who don't have any alternative except destitution, do sign, even though they must feel bad about it. They're doing something wrong, but they have been pressured into it and not everyone has the strength to resist such pressure. I would put the blame on the management, not on these nurses.
As a Bush forces
commander was telling Al Jazeera that the Bush forces
had declared a unilateral cease fire in Falluja, Al Jazeera was
broadcasting live video of F-16s
attacking residential areas of Falluja, and women and children killed by their missiles. The
commander later said Al Jazeera's coverage was a "series of lies".
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
No wonder the Bush forces forced Al Jazeera out of Falluja. Honest journalism might show the truth.
I suppose the people refer to Al Jazeera as "the CNN of the Arab world" are unaware of what CNN is like. They probably just mean it is much more popular than anything else.
The Bush forces
have been
faking their public
support in Iraq ever since the beginning, while using a series of
ever-changing lies to keep denying the truth. The lies continue now,
but more people see through them.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Just a couple of victims of America's War on Drugs.
When a war is on drugs, it forgets who the enemy was supposed to be and starts hurting whoever it can get its hands on.
Remote
Control Warriors
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
I wish that our army could fight without putting its soldiers in danger. I also wish I could identify which army is "ours".
The Bush forces
have
killed over 450 Iraqis in Falluja and wounded over 1000 in a week
of fighting, reports the head of the city's main hospital.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Al Jazeera news team is the only one in Falluja. The Bush forces are demanding that it leave, as a condition of estblishing a temporary cease-fire. We know that they have been studying Israeli tactics, and Israel has used various policies to prevent outside witnesses to what their forces do in Gaza. I think Bush wants to make sure there are no witnesses to report on the next thousand casualties, or the thousand after that.
Defying
Stereotypes About Death Row
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
This illustrates how it is easy to convict a person of some crime or other if the majority of the community starts out prejudiced against him. That lowers the threshold of evidence necessary for a conviction to the point where it's not hard to fabricate.
I think it is instructive to compare this with the recent case where several American Muslims were sentenced to 50 years in prison under guilt by association.
Coleen Rowley is an FBI agent who in May 2002 wrote to the director
accusing the FBI top brass of
hampering the investigation into Zacarias Moussaoui. This letter
was published.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
In a recent interview she reveals that the FBI is gagging her from telling the public any more about what the FBI did wrong.
Putin won the
Russian election by controlling the media, but the vote counting
was fishy too.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
NJ policemen have been sentenced to prison for
beating a handcuffed man to death.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
It's common for police to savage those who have been detained, and not too rare for this to be fatal. It feels good to see them, for once, punished under the same laws that they claim to enforce.
The Iraqi intelligence source who reported mobile bioweapons labs was
already
known as a habitual liar.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
It has been documented that Bush and Blair agreed to attack Iraq just days after the 9/11 attacks, and that they used various more or less dishonest means to come up with excuses for it. Treating false or unreliable information as valid is a pattern commonly repeated.
Ocean "dead zones" caused by excess fertilizer runoff
are growing.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
High demand for beef speeds destruction of Amazon forest.
Around 1/4 million seabirds were
killed by the oil spilled from the tanker Prestige, which sank
near Spain.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-30 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Bush administration
refuses to show the 9/11 investigation the speech that Rice was supposed to give on 9/11, but nonetheless claims it is cooperating with the
investigation.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Saying and doing opposite things is common for politicians; only a few, the truly honest ones, don't do it. But Bush seems to do this everywhere, every time.
Neither
Fallujah nor the Iraqi Shi'ites supported Saddam before the war.
The Bush forces
created the armed opposition that they face now. In
each case they started with violence against nonviolent opposition.
After the opposition took up violence too, the
Bush forces escalated
it.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
(The "contractors" working for Blackwater Security would be more accurately described as mercenary soldiers in the Bush forces.)
Al-Sadr claims that the Iraqi Ministry of Justice says it has no evidence to suspect him of involvement in the murder of another Shi'ite cleric in Apil 2003. Perhaps this is why the Bush forces were unable to cite any such evidence when asked by the press.
Bush has taught the Iraqis something about freedom and democracy, and justice as well. They now ridicule the idea that he supports those ideals. If only Americans would learn this.
Sibel Edmonds says that before 9/11
she saw specific warnings that terrorists might use airplanes
to attack skyscrapers in the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-30 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Bush administration wants Americans to say "Support our troops"
but its own idea of supporting the troops is more
like
cheating them and endangering them. Here's a compendium of different
ways.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
I don't agree 100% with all of the points made there. I disagree that the US should have a larger army--if it avoids unjust war, the current army is quite adequate.
I think that it is right to explain to reservists that they may someday be called up--people joining the reserves should understand that the reserves exist because they may be needed in war. What was wrong was to get people to join by encouraging them to imagine they'd never have to fight.
Today in America -
Conservative
Fascism and Environmental Decline . Key American Ideals Are in
Conflict with the Earth and Other Nations.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Walter Cronkite describes several instances
where Bush
has used secrecy to support lies. And sometimes used lies to
support the secrecy.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Copyright will prevent thousands of Canadian boaters from
updating their computerized navigational charts this year. The
result could be dangerous.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Canadian government should not allow any monopolies or limitations on the use of navigational charts, or other maps. Everyone should be free to redistribute them, and to publish changed versions too, as long as they label them as changed. The GNU GPL would be a good license to use.
China announced a
bizarrely twisted interpretation of Hong Kong's basic law,
intended to prevent direct elections in Hong Kong.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Another article, for which I can't find a good URL, said that Hong Kong's democracy campaigners are not giving up. They may try to pressure Hong Kong's nondemocratic government into adopting democracy even though Beijing does not like it.
How the closure of
Al-Sadr's newspaper led to widespread fighting in Iraq.
The fighting was not inevitable, at least not now. But the
Bush forces repeatedly
acted to make things worse: first closing the paper, then arresting
Al-Sadr's aide, then saying they would arrest Al-Sadr himself.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Bush forces
are
meeting heavier fighting in Fallujah now than anything they
encountered a year ago. Officers are comparing this with Vietnam.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The fighting in most Iraqi cities has shut down normal life around the
country.
People are afraid to go out on the street, afraid in particular to
get near a Bush forces convoy.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
A few Iraqis talk about how the blind killing of their relatives, and
the arrest of others, and a year of humiliation and fear, have brought
them to the point where all they want is to
kick the Bush forces (they say "America") out of their country.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
I don't know if they will ever see a distinction between America itself and the perversion of America that is George Bush.
Here's an article that argues that the Bush forces cannot transfer control of Iraq to a provisional government, because they don't have control of Iraq.
The article proceeds to say that the Bush forces should make sure someone or something is in control in Iraq before leaving. Some Democratic presidential candidates took similar positions. However, the article doesn't suggest how to do this, and neither did most of those presidential candidates.
I doubt that the Bush forces have the ability to put anyone "in control" in Iraq. Whoever they try to put in charge will be seen as an illegitimate foreign puppet. As they did in Vietnam, maybe large military forces could keep the puppet in power officially, at the cost of permanent war, but pull them out and he will fall.
Kucinich suggested the UN might be able to take control, if the US allowed the UN to make clear that it would not let Bush steal Iraqi oil or impose privatization schemes, etc. I am not sure that any international organization commands enough trust among Iraqis to be able to do this now.
If the common hatred for Bush can unite Shi'ites and Sunnis, maybe they can establish some sort of government together without the need for a bloodbath. I am not sure whether it will be better than Saddam's regime, but it would be better than the present permanent war of occupation. There would still be the problem of how they would deal with the Kurds, who mostly want to be independant. Perhaps if they peacefully recognize indepedence for the Kurds, at least in a quiet de-facto way, a civil war can be avoided.
Nonviolent protestors (Palestinian, Israeli, and foreigners together) blocked construction of the land-grab wall through the Palestinian village of Biddu. But they paid a high price, since the Israeli soldiers tried violence before they gave up and went away.
Nonviolent resistance is growing in Palestine, and it is even becoming a point of solidarity for some Israelis with Palestinians. It is like a dream starting to come true. But this dream could still be forcibly crushed. Sharon wants Palestinians to commit terrorist acts which could be an excuse for even more deadly Israeli terrorist acts. If nonviolent resistance starts to succeed, Palestinians might head in that direction instead and away from terror. Then what excuse will Sharon use?
I expect Sharon will respond to nonviolent resistance with constantly increasing violence.
A doctor testified in support of the law prohibiting the "dilation
and extraction" abortion technique, claiming that a
20-week fetus can
feel pain, and that it is conscious.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
He surely is exaggerating about the latter. A fetus at that stage of development cannot be conscious the way a dog or a cow is conscious, since its brain cells are mostly not wired up to each other. (That happens arond the 7th month, I think I recall.) It can't even have the consciousness of a lobster. The most it can be capable of is reflexes, and that does not confer rights. A fetus after 20 weeks of development qualifies as a kind of animal, but it is not a person.
We generally condemn causing animals unnecessary suffering, but most people do not condemn killing animals. Even most vegetarians will support the killing of animals for stronger reasons, such as when a particular animal is causing great trouble for people.
If fetuses can feel some kind of pain, perhaps we should anesthetize the fetus during an abortion, so it doesn't feel any pain. But that doesn't translate into an obligation to keep it alive until it turns into a person. It doesn't merit the right to life until it is a person.
Unlike most supporters of abortion rights, I do not oppose the recent law that makes it a crime to injure a fetus (abortion excluded). If you do something to a fetus so that *when* it becomes a person it is seriously injured or impaired, at that point a person has indeed been harmed.
I doubt there is any need for a law against this as regards individuals, since I doubt many people intentionally injure fetuses. When they do, it is probably a crime for some other reasons already.
Corporations, however, have sometimes willfully followed practices that they knew would subject fetuses to the danger of being deformed or impaired after they become persons--through toxic products, and toxic environmental pollution. And the biggest culprit is the US Army, with its uranium munitions. The uranium can cause birth defects.
If such a law is to be effective, it has to be aimed primarily at corporations and government agencies, rather than at individuals.
Many stores are cheating workers by
falsifying
their working hours.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
It is illegal to do this, and some workers are beginning to sue. However, with both management and workers terrified of losing their jobs, often nobody says "Stop!" What we see here is that the shortage of living-wage jobs in the US creates a situation where it is easy for businesses to cut everyone's pay. It is hard to hold back so much pressure.
It would be useful for some state officials to start investigating this and prosecuting the lying managers. They could send in undercover agents to take jobs and carefully record their hours, and check whether the store reduces them. That might scare the crooked managers enough that they stop.
Meanwhile, I think that the size of the chains that these stores are part of plays a role too. The chain can put pressure on managers to cheat or else be replaced, without officially ordering them to cheat; and thus they can deny responsibility for the consequences of their actions.
A publication by the human rights group Liberty
demolishes the case
for national ID cards in the UK.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Condoleezza Rice's testimony in the 9/11 investigation is part of a
deal that enables her to
get
away with lies, because the investigation
will be unable
to summon further testimony from anyone else who worked
with or for her.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Iraq is falling into chaos as the insurrection spreads to most major cities.
The Bush forces are treating nearly all Iraqis as enemies now, and learning from the Israeli Army how to do it. Can anyone still believe the fiction that they are trying to "liberate" these selfsame Iraqis? Rumsfeld said recently that this is a "contest of wills". The contest is now between the Bush administration and the people of Iraq.
The Bush forces say they want to arrest Al-Sadr for a murder committed months ago, but refuse to disclose any evidence connecting him to the crime. We have to suspect that there isn't any evidence, and that this accusation was fabricated as a response to the protests he launched about the closure of his movement's newspaper. This backfired, and Bush got what he deserved.
I don't think that the many (Americans, Iraqis, and others) who were killed or wounded in the process deserved what they got. This fighting is pointless and unnecessary. We have to ask, is it virtuous to be stubborn and never admit a mistake? Is there any reason for this contest of wills against Iraqis who want independence for their country?
The right thing to do in Iraq is to let the Iraqis win soon. They will win in the end, but the longer it takes, the more people will suffer or die along the way.
Blair is citing a thwarted bomb plot in the UK, as well as the actual bombings in Spain, as a new excuse for imposing compulsory ID cards.
These are completely irrational grounds. The UK government's success in thwarting this plot shows there is little need for compulsory ID cards. The success of the bombs in Spain, which already has compulsory ID cards (a hold-over from Franco's tyranny, I'd guess), shows they are not necessarily effective.
This article explains how terrorists will be able to get official ID cards using false identification. These ID cards won't be labeled "terrorist".
Whether or not they are useful for preventing terrorism, ID cards may
be useful for Blair's unadmitted goal, which is
to crush dissent. The UK's "anti-terrorism" laws have been
repeatedly applied to
nonviolent protestors, and ID cards will surely be no exception.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Former professor Al-Arian is to be
tried for financing terrorism. The US government has refused to
give the court the recordings of his phone taps.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
They say this is because "he already knows what's in them", which is completely absurd. The point is not what he knows, but what he can demonstrate in court. If this is evidence that would clear him, he has the right to get it and present it; to deny him evidence that is available to the government prosecuting him would make the trial manifestly unfair.
Republicans in Bush's Office of Strategic Communications in Iraq are
sending out press releases about the "progress" of the war
designed to
help re-elect Bush.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Only some of the soldiers in the
Bush forces in Iraq come from armies
of various countries.
Many are
"civilian" mercenaries. The four "civilians" recently killed in
Fallujah were mercenaries, not real civilians at all. This is a tactic
designed to underestimate the casualty figures.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The stupid war in Iraq is putting such strain on the Bush forces that they are sending injured soldiers back into combat against medical orders. Often the result is to exacerbate the injury that didn't have time to heal.
Ten years of mergers have made the US oil industry highly concentrated at all levels. The result is a lack of real competition. Public Citizen points out how the Bush energy bill would do nothing to help, and would actually make this worse.
I support all of Public Citizen's recommendations, but I think they don't go far enough. Today's 5 big oil companies should be split up into at least 15 companies. It is dangerous to let companies become too big, in any field, because that gives them power no company should have.
Meanwhile, we had better increase the gasoline tax so that people start to conserve, as they do in Europe.
The Republican Party is trying to shut down various Democratic political activist groups before the election.
When Jeb Bush blocked tens of thousands of eligible black voters from voting in Florida, thus stealing the election for Dubya, it took two years to reach a settlement that Florida wouldn't do this any more. That was long enough for Jeb Bush to get himself reelected before giving them back their voting rights. Dubya apparently believes that he deserves fast service while Democrats do not.
9 days after September 11, Bush got Blair to promise to support an attack on Iraq. When Blair subsequently claimed that he had made no final decision, he was lying.
Some soldiers returning from the
Bush forces
are suffering
from poisoning from the uranium used in munitions --and in tank
armor in US tanks, too.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
While it may be a good idea to test more soldiers for this problem, that is not much of a solution, since there is no treatment for uranium poisoing. The only constructive action we can take is to stop using uranium in supposedly non-nuclear weapons.
Iraqi insurgents mounted several large attacks on the Bush forces, causing substantial casualties.
The quotes from the Bush forces claim signs of success which really don't mean anything. Killing some of the insurgent fighters means nothing, and even capturing their leaders means little, since they can always recruit more. The strength of a guerrilla campaign is limited either by available arms or by public support. Arms being plentiful in Iraq, public support is the limiting factor. The Bush forces may "retake" Fallujah in some sense, but what they do to achieve this will increase public support for the insurgents. I saw some news about helicopters shooting at a mosque and killing people. That's not likely to win any hearts and minds.
One other point: the arrest warrant against Al-Sadr is based on the killing of a rival cleric by a mob. I wonder what evidence there is to connect the killing with Al-Sadr in particular. While I would surely be strongly against his religious views, I still have to wonder if he is being framed. I wish the US had the sort of leadership I could count on not to do such a thing.
I've also read claims that the arrest warrant for Al-Sadr was in response to predominantly peaceful protests about the closure of a newspaper (previously reported below). It sounds like the current increased violence was instigated by the Bush forces.
Bush may try to delay the 9/11 commission report until after the election.
The Taliban were
seriously
considering turning over Osama bin Laden to the US in early 2001.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
I hoped for liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban for other reasons (which is why I supported the US invasion there). Unfortunately things are not going very well, partly because the aid that would have been needed to get Afghanistan on its feet has been spent instead on war in Iraq.
A 15-year-old female, was accused of "child abuse" as well as "child pornography", for taking nude photos of herself and posting them on the Internet. They are taking the prudish term "self abuse" seriously to the point of cruelty.
I have not seen these photos, but 15 years is several years past the average age of puberty in the US. Calling her a "child" is an exaggeration almost as dishonest as accusing her of "abusing" herself.
The prohibition of "child pornography" is based on the premise that a child has been abused in producing it. In some cases, that may be true. But this case proves it is sometimes false. I wish I knew how to contact her, so I could tell her, "Don't ever admit that there was any wrong in what you did!"
Rice was preparing a speech for Sep 11 on national security, which focused on missile defense and paid no attention to terrorism as a threat.
To speak about missile defense is not itself a bad thing, since missile defense might be a good idea if it worked and were affordable. (The actual plans for missile defense plans are an absurd waste and would not work.) But this reinforces other evidence that the Bush administration was ignoring Al Qa'ida until Sep 11.
After Sep 11, Al Qa'ida became the favorite excuse to attack "enemies" such as Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and civil liberties and justice in the US, which had no real connection with Al Qa'ida.
A New Zealand advocate of the right to die has been convicted of murder because she granted the request of her terminally ill mother for a quick death.
There is no justice in forcing suffering people to live to the bitter end. The purpose of jury trials is so that juries can prevent governments from imprisoning people for reasons that their peers consider unjust. The jurors should have disregarded the judge and voted "not guilty".
Camilo Mejia, a soldier in the Bush forces, ran away rather than return to Iraq. His experiences convinced him that he was fighting on the side of injustice.
His commander accused Mejia of cowardice. I am sure it was frightening to be in Iraq; but is obeying orders and not thinking true courage?
The corporations that are helping to shift Americans' eating habits in
the direction of obesity are pushing a bill to
exempt
themselves from liability for the results.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Individuals have part of the responsibility for what they eat, but other actors in society share the responsibility. Individuals pay most of the price of their own obesity, and will continue to do so. It makes sense to ensure that the other actors that share the responsibility also pay part of the price; then they may change their actions.
A high school student in Arizona was arrested for wearing his cap turned sideways.
The authorities said this was a "symbol of defiance". There's some doubt about whether that's true, so let's imagine he had worn a completely explicit and indisputable symbol, like the anarchist shirt that Katie Sierra wore. Would that justify arresting someone, in the land of the free and the home of the brave?
If the people who run the school district think this conduct is even remotely close to legitimate, they deserve to be fired. They are running their school system to teach Americans to obey tyrants. Not just real defiance, but even its symbols, are forbidden. Three cheers for the students who protested this arrest!
Note also how the "crime" of failing to obey an arbitrary demand was disguised under other names. This is standard practice for stretching laws into injustice.
Iraqi resistance forces in Fallujah killed nine of the Bush forces, then burned and hung some of the corpses, as crowds cheered. (This article mentions four contractors, but five official soldiers were killed in a separate attack. The Bush forces use lots of contractors alongside official soldiers, as an excuse to understate casualty figures.)
Those who describe this attack as an "atrocity" and "barbaric" are exaggerating. There have been real atrocities in Iraq--for instance, killing unarmed religious pilgrims, and dropping tons of depleted uranium dirty bombs. The car bomb recently set off in a market is the kind of act that qualifies as an atrocity, though perhaps it was not big enough to deserve the term. But this attack, which was directed at members of the occupying forces and hit no one else, was simply war. We should not weaken the word "atrocity" by applying it to attacks against occupying armies.
Perhaps those who use these words are expressing horror at the mutilation of the corpses. Since they claim to be devout Christians, they should remember that according to their own religion a corpse is just an empty husk. Damaging a corpse is not hurting the person who died, who is beyond all harm; it merely expresses anger. The cheering crowds showed that the anger was general, not limited to the few who were actually holding the corpses.
How should we respond to this anger? We could, like the Bush administration, use it as an excuse to attack all the Iraqis in Fallujah. (This could mean committing a real atrocity.) But it would be more intelligent to reflect on what the Bush forces have done to arouse this anger, and whether it is justified.
The US Senate is considering a bill to censor university education in departments that teach foreign languages. The House already passed it.
The International Federation of Journalists criticized Belgium Bfor
laws that
inadequately protect the freedom of the press, and said this made
Brussels a bad place to locate EU institutions.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
This problem was illustrated by the arrest of investigative journalist Hans-Martin Tillack
The US vetoed a UN resolution
condemning
the Israeli murder of Sheikh Yassin and bystanders. The resolution condemned
"all attacks against civillians". The only state that opposed
it was the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Why does the US support attacks on civilians? The article explains that the US also engages in such assassinations. The US may at present to be limiting this policy to armed adversaries that it cannot arrest, much as Israel did until recent years, but they do kill bystanders.
As explained in that article, we cannot expect Democrats to criticize assassination any more than Bush does. There is more opposition to this assassination policy within Israel than in the US.
The president of Uzbekistan, with US support, has banned opposition parties. This illustrates how Bush supports democracy around the world.
Israeli forces attacked and
arrested
Israeli peace activists who
were nonviolently blocking the demolition of Arab homes.
They also attacked and arrested settlers who were blocking the
demolition of a new settlement attempt.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
If looked at superficially, those two attacks seem symmetrical, but the situation is not really balanced. The settlers are taking the Palestinians' land, and are only rarely impeded in doing so. The Palestinians are using their own land, and are subject to a barrage of demolitions.
The UNWRA, which provides food to much of the population of Gaza,
says that Israeli
checkpoint restrictions have forced it to stop.
It can no longer bring enough food in. The problem has continued
so long that its warehouses in Gaza have run empty.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
If Israel does not relent, this could mean mass starvation.
Bayer gave up on trying to grow genetically modified corn in the UK. Bayer said the conditions made it uneconomical.
One of the tough conditions that Bayer surely did not like was that if Bayer's modified genes polluted the crops of other farmers, Bayer would be liable for the damages. This illustrates that much of global business only appears to be "economically viable" because the corporations dump part of the costs on other people.
A fairly hawkish Israeli commentator says that the murder of
Sheikh Yassin shows that
Sharon
has no strategy for peace.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
As Bush continually asks for more government power "to fight terrorism", he doesn't fund the full use of the government's existing powers for this purpose.
This is more evidence that terrorism is just an excuse for an agenda based on ulterior motives.
A researcher who published information on flaws he discovered in an anti-virus program is being prosecuted in France for "counterfeiting".
Dennis Kucinich says he regards uranium munitions as illegal
under the existing treaties about war, and would order the
cessation
of their use.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Many US businesses impose drug tests on their employees.
The employees respond by
trying
to fool the tests.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-30 because the
old
link was broken.]
There might be a legitimate reason to test whether employees are incapacitated (due to drugs or other reasons) while on the job, but these tests detect drug use while off the job, and that is none of the employer's business. I think it is justified for employees to lie about such things.
This article analyzes the evidence about the September 11 attack on the Pentagon, in an attempt to determine what actually happened. It ends up with a peculiar conclusion, which in my view suggests that the evidence is simply hard to reconcile.
I still think it is unlikely that the US government organized the September 11 attacks (though Bush seems to have played a big role in failing to stop them). However, the fact that much of the important evidence has been withheld from the public is suspicious.
If the official investigations are to command respect, they need to investigate the evidence--all of it, including the Pentagon security tapes and the recorders of the airplanes--and establish for us, not just assume, that the buildings were hit by jetliners, that the jetliners were being flown by hijackers, and who the hijackers were.
Bremer closes hardline newspaper and Iraqis ask: Is this democracy US-style?
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Sharks around the world are in danger from fishers who cut off their fins for shark fin soup, and let the rest of the shark rot.
A friend who studies sharks in Tahiti says that the sharks she has studied for years have recently all been killed for their fins. (These sharks do not hurt people--they are too small for that.) If all the mature females are killed, the species cannot reproduce. It may soon be wiped out in the Tahiti area. And perhaps everywhere else too, since the finning is going on world-wide.
The Afghan government
postponed first elections, to gain time
to disarm warlords and register voters.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
This may be necessary; I am sure they wouldn't accept the humiliation of this delay if they did not have to. But will it be sufficient?
Uri Avnery explains how Hamas, including the recently murdered Sheikh Yassin, has been willing to accept peace in the past -- and how his killing is helping to unite Palestinian combat organizations even as it helps convert pragmatic supporters of Hamas into hard-core religious fanatics.
Comparisons with events in Israel's own liberation struggle add to the interest of the article.
Assassination was formerly an Israeli tactic applied, very rarely,
against fighters living in hostile foreign countries--in effect, a
tactic of war.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Assassinating people in territories where the Israeli army moves at will is a different matter. And that's not even to mention the regular killing of bystanders.
Condoleezza Rice is contradicting herself and other administration officials, as the tissue of lies falls apart.
The US has started
making threats against Jamaica over its
plans to host Haitian President Aristide.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Caribbean nations have
refused to recognize the Haitian government
that the US installed.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
How
global corporations move their profits and losses around artificially, so as to avoid taxes and bilk the public. And how the
US government encouraged dictators to stash their funds in dollars.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Prohibiting related businesses from operating in multiple countries might help with the problem of phony transfer pricing. If country X says that its businesses must deal with those of other countries through short-term contracts only, and makes sure they get negotiated in a competitive situation, that trick could not be played. (That solution might be appropriate for some fields and not others.)
A little known international organization is being allowed to
impose
biometric passports in many countries.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
More
information
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
In Europe, the recent medium-sized terrorist attack in Madrid is already being cited as an excuse to attack civil liberties, including increased surveillance of travel.
A US investigation found Bush acted inadequately against Al Qa'ida. While it's true that we can't demand of any government that it block all terrorist attacks, the Bush administration had enough information to block the 9/11 attacks--if only it had tried.
This
article lays out why the 9/11 attacks should have been stopped.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Several members of the Bush administration have been telling demonstrable lies about the 9/11 attacks and about the decision to invade Iraq.
Amnesty
International summarizes how the US is violating both treaties
and the international standards of human rights, imprisoning people
in Guantanamo with no trials or with sham trials.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Three
scandals at once about the Bush Medicare law.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Bush regime used the PAT RIOT act to
seize a lawyer's email from AOL, and turn off his account as well. This included privileged
communications with his clients. This punishment was imposed without
a trial--if he wants to challenge it, he has to sue the government,
which is impractical for a mere individual even when he is a lawyer.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Punishment without trial has been a feature of US law for 20 years. Using the procedure called "civil forfeiture", state or federal governments can seize your assets (including your car, your house, or your money) on suspicion it was used in connection with buying drugs. Then you have to sue to get it back, and if you ever do, it may be trashed completely.
Springmann could have prevented part of this disaster by not keeping any important information in his ISP's machine. Don't use the services that offer to keep your mail and your address book! Keep them on your own computer. The police can't seize your own computer without at least informing you, and you may get a chance to argue about it. If you keep backups, they won't be able to present much of an argument for seizing those. Meanwhile, use encrypted mail for anything sensitive.
Springmann's failure to do these things was a mistake in that it made him more vulnterable, but such mistakes do not excuse wrongdoing. If you walk into a dangerous part of town, that may be a mistake, but it doesn't excuse someone else for robbing or raping you there. The issue is the same here.
Three Americans have been sentenced to 50 years in prison
for
association with an organization that was subsequently declared terrorist.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
These men had neither committed nor planned any act that would normally be called a crime. In the tyranny of today's US, playing paintball with the wrong people is considered a crime.
The article raises the possibility that these people's religion was part of the motive for this abortion of justice. I think that doesn't change anything. Guilt by association is so unjust that nothing can make it worse.
The 9/11 investigation commission got testimony from Rumsfeld, but omitted to ask him several crucial questions about the lack of the standard military response to the hijackings.
An investigation cannot be adequate unless it gets to the bottom of why fighter planes were not immediately dispatched, as usual, to the hijacked jets. If there was some sort of hijacking training exercise on 9/11, the investigation needs to figure out how it happened that the real hijackings occurred on the same day.
FBI translator Sibel Edmonds says she was told, after 9/11,
to change her translations of some intercepted messages in order to support Bush priorities. Then she was both bribed and threatened
not to tell the public about these orders.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The European Union
had a prominent journalist arrested.
He was investigating corruption; perhaps he made some corrupt
officials feel uncomfortable.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
As the president of South Africa was celebrating Human Rights Day and
inaugurating the Constitutional Court, the police were
attacking and arresting peaceful protestors trying to march there.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Just ten years ago, South Africa held its first democratic elections. How quickly those who fight for liberty can become the oppressors.
The BBC is cracking down harshly on people who were involved in broadcasting the slightly flawed report based on Dr Kelly's information. Their colleagues are standing up for them.
Mordecai Vanunu is still wondering whether he will
be subject to some form of prison-after-prison when
his sentence for whistle-blowing ends.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
"Administrative detention" is what Bush has done with two supposed terrorist suspects. It's another word for "nobody has any rights".
How is the Gaza Strip different from a prison?
New Israeli restrictions keep most foreigners out of Gaza, so that they can't observe the atrocities committed there, or participate in non-violent resistance.
Exxon has delayed for 15 years the payment of compensation for the Exxon Valdez oil spill. This is ruining people's lives.
The atmospheric carbon dioxide level
increased
even more in 2003
than in recent years.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Israelis have joined their Palestinian neighbors in petitioning to reroute the separation wall to prevent the wall from cutting those neighbors off from their land.
Scientists have projected the
extinction of up to 50% of all species of life in the coming century, but this is a rough estimate. Perhaps
only 40% of species will be wiped out. This isn't reliable enough
to satisfy Bush, who has relaxed the requirements for protecting endangered
species in some US forests.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Protecting a species in small areas may work while the climate is stable and that can keep living where they live now. But we know the climate is going to change.
It is ironic that Israel is now assassinating HAMAS leaders (along with whoever is in the area at the time), because Israel secretly supported HAMAS in the 80s to weaken the position of Arafat. (The history parallels that of the US with Osama bin Laden, and also with Saddam Hussein.)
In recent years, HAMAS has given Israel an excuse to destroy the
Palestinian police force--on the grounds that it could not control
HAMAS terrorism. Now Israel can
forever demand that Arafat stop terrorism, confident he is in no position even to try.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
I have to ask: when civilians are killed by a bomb, does the fact that it was dropped by a pilot in total safety, rather than carried by a person expecting to die, mean this is not terrorism?
Israel's defense is that these killings are "targeted". Not all the victims are random, since one person has been singled out for attack. But does the fact that one of the victims was specifically intended mean that the inevitable killing of unknown others is not terrorism? For instance, if a suicide bomber were to detonate a bomb at a street corner where a specific government employee is thought to be passing by, would this mean that the deaths of others who were passing by at the time was not terrorism?
Civilized countries are supposed to arrest those who are accused of wrongdoing, or at least offer them the chance to surrender. Shooting without warning, even if it were done with weapons that usually did not kill bystanders, is barbarism. But its sneaky purpose is to make sure the cycle of revenge continues.
The Bush forces
imprisoned Al Jazeera reporters for 6 weeks, torturing them, based on false accusations while refusing to
check the facts. This is part of a systematic campaign to suppress
independent Arabic reporting from Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The campaign also includes European journalists.
Robert Fisk reports on the visit he received.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
I like the way he has identified the practice of insulting people, and tacking on "Sir" as an excuse to claim to have been polite. The resulting message is an insult disguised transparently as respectful treatment.
We also see, in these reports, examples of the standard practice of excusing outrageous acts with outrageous lies. This pattern is widely repeated. During the capture of Baghdad, when a Bush forces tank killed Al Jazeera staff in the hotel that all the foreign journalists used, they said "We were being fired at from that room". This was provably false.
To tell a blatant lie, one that everyone knows is a lie, conveys the message: "We won't hesitate to lie any time. The truth won't protect you, because we spit on the truth."
Which is more serious--broadcasting
"indecent" material, or killing an employee?
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
It is interesting to view the Israeli assassination
of Sheikh Yassin in the light of
this article by Lev Grinburg of Ben Gurion University.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Increasing carbon dioxide in the air is changing the ecology of the Amazon rainforest, helping some species and hurting others.
This is an additional threat to the survival of whatever species make it past habitat destruction and global warming. It may also contribute to global warming, because it favors trees that absorb less carbon dioxide.
The Vancouver police department
defended
its violent attacks on
activists--thus placing the moral onus for the act directly on the
department's leadership.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The "interim" Iraqi constitution is designed so that the Bush-appointed governing council can make decisions that elected Iraqis will be unable to undo.
This must be how Bush plans to steal the oil and force the doors open for Halliburton and Bechtel to privatize the government.
The assassination
of the leader of HAMAS
illustrates how Sharon ensures the continuation
of sufficient terrorism to serve as an excuse
for his policies.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Israeli soldiers
shot
at nonviolent protestors,
both Israeli and Palestinian, who were jointly opposing the construction of the
land-grab wall.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
They used rubber bullets, but used them in a way forbidden by Army regulations because it is too likely to kill or seriously injure people. And--isn't this amazing--they were building the wall in violation of a court order to stop.
It's not news that the Israeli forces act like an occupying army. What's noteworthy is that they act that way towards Israelis and their civil institutions, as well as towards Palestinians and theirs.
Bush proposes a constitutional amendment to "protect democracy".
Richard Clarke, who was Bush's chief counterterrorism
advisor, says he was
pressured
to blame the 9/11 attacks on Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
He also says that Bush paid very little attention to terrorism as a threat prior to 9/11.
Rep. Waxman has made a
report
analyzing the pattern of statements made about Iraq by Bush and his main lieutenants.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
A
million protestors opposed the occupation of Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
In Kosovo, Albanian gangs are
rampaging
against the few remaining Serbs, driving them out. Although the official leaders of the
Albanians say they disapprove, they can't or won't stop this.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
I'm not surprised by this; in fact, I was surprised to learn that so many Serbs were still in Kosovo. I supported the NATO intervention in Kosovo, but I did not think it had any chance of leading to ethnic tolerance. NATO prevented Serbia from permanently oppressing, or driving out, or killing, large numbers of Albanians; shortly thereafter, the KLA (which was effectively a gang) drove most of the Serb minority out of Kosovo. The expulsion of the remaining Serbs is evil, but at least it's a smaller evil.
Kerry supported Bush in asking the newly elected leader of Spain to continue supporting the Bush forces in Iraq. Fortunately he seems to be courageous enough to stand up to both of them.
Kerry is only a little better than Bush. Kerry voted for the USA PAT RIOT Act. Kerry voted to invade Iraq. Kerry supports the Reagan/Clinton policies of globalizing the power of corporations. I'm not sure if I will vote for him, but I can't possibly endorse him.
Haitian President Aristide is now
visiting
Jamaica at the request of a group of caribean nations. The US ambassador said
that allowing Aristide to come so near Haiti is "promoting violence".
The Jamaican government took that as a threat.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Standing up to a bully may increase the probability that he will be violent. In that sense only, this visit may be "promoting violence". However, the moral responsibility falls on the bully, which in this case is the US government.
The UK's principal judge rebuked Blair's proposals to eliminate appeals for refusal of asylum, saying that moves in the direction of arbitrary rule.
Blair's policy on all fronts has been to abolish rights and move in the direction of arbitrary rule.
Jay Garner, the first man chosen by Bush to run Iraq, now says that Bush fired him because he wanted early elections in Iraq and opposed forced privatization.
The Bush campaign is
selling
clothing made in Burma.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
In Spain, and in Israel, a leader whose unjust policies sparked terrorist
retaliation used
the terrorism as an excuse to continue.
In Spain, the voters threw him out. When will Israel learn?
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Rich countries have failed to take action against the companies whose greed for gold and other minerals fueled the civil war in the Congo. Many African civil wars are likewise driven by the profit of exporting what can be dug from the ground.
Guantanamo prisoners describe how they were tortured by the US officials who justified imprisoning them by false claims.
To imprison people based on the mere word of Bush, or a "tribunal" of army officers that work for Bush, is a systematic recipe for injustice.
A poll conducted in Iraq reports that many Iraqis now approve of the invasion (though many do not), but none support the people Bush wants to put in power there.
A year ago I wrote that invading a country to remove a dictator is right when (1) the people of the country want to be liberated in this way, and (2) we can be confident that the new regime installed by the invaders will really be better. It's possible that Iraqis are coming around to fulfill condition 1--if we can believe this poll--but Bush will fight like the devil to steal Iraq's oil and privatize its government, so he will never establish a regime that represents the interests of the Iraqi public.
PBS
newshour was embarrassed when guest Jim Parenti cited the failure
to reconstruct water and electricity and the corruption of Halliburton
as causes for instability in Iraq. So embarrassed, in fact, that it
made an apology that this report was not "balanced".
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
In the deceptive terminology of the mainstream media, "balanced" is the way to say "not too far from the official line".
The Vancouver police found eight political activists walking home on the street from a party, not doing anything political or criminal at the time, and attacked them.
This illustrates the reason why even those who have "not done anything wrong" have a reason to be concerned with whether the police are allowed to track everyone and find out everything.
While Bush was planning to invade Iraq and using false claims about
nuclear weapons and ties to Al-Qa'ida as excuses, he was cozying up to
Pakistan, whose government was the
center
of nuclear weapons proliferation as well as truly connected with the Taliban and Al-Qa'ida. What was going on here?
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The president of Poland said that someone had
misled
Poland about the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He didn't say that the
someone was Bush, but that's who it must have been.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Unfortunately, he could not bring himself to question the policy of keeping Polish troops there. Perhaps the Polish voters will help him see more alternatives.
The recently released Guantanamo prisoners describe the
physical and
mental torture that they were subject to. One of them is maimed.
Before they're released they were pressured to sign false confessions.
[Reference updated on 2018-08-30 because the
old
link was broken.]
The US government denies these accusations, but since the US government is responsible for blocking independent observation of the prison conditions, we must presume they are true until the US starts permitting people to check them.
Aznar's party lost the election in Spain after it tried to use the terrorist bombing for its political ends, says this commentator, who explains the situation and its implications with care.
Iraqi insurgents operate
false
police checkpoints apparently staffed by the Bush-organized Iraqi
police. They could be real members of the
Bush police force, operating at night against Bush.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Bush
gagged a US official who wanted to tell Congress and the public
what the administration really expected the Medicare bill to cost.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
This just goes to show that you should never rely on what the Bush regime says it is doing.
One of those convicted of planting the terrorist bombs in Bali is appealing his conviction on the grounds that he was convicted under an ex-post-facto law.
Given those facts, I support this decision. I would hope that the perpetrators of the bombing will be imprisoned, but ex-post-facto laws are more dangerous than terrorism. The court acted courageously in refusing to allow a sensational crime to excuse such an attack on all citizens' freedom.
I wonder why the prosecutors used the new law instead of prosecuting the bombers for murder. I have a suspicion that the new law either eliminates some safeguards against false convictions, or permits the death penalty. If someone can check whether either of these is true, and inform me, I would appreciate it.
The US government published phoney interviews of Bush, with actors posing as journalists, and phoney applause for phoney Bush speeches.
This seems to follow a pattern. I read that someone is touring the US presenting the "burning Bush", whose pants are on fire.
Coca Cola's plants in Colombia have forcibly locked workers inside the plant, and threatened to fire them, to pressure them to give up their contract. This conduct continues despite a court ruling against it.
This illustrates how corporations trample people's rights, when governments become too friendly or close to the corporations and cease to support the people against them. It is dangerous for government officials to have a friendly attitude toward corporations.
A UN
report says that ETA suspects are frequently tortured in Spain,
due to laws that make it easy for the police to cover up their actions.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Spanish government tried to blame ETA for the recent bombings in Madrid, but then it became clear ETA was not involved.
Microsoft supplied software to China which has been used for identifying and imprisoning dissidents.
Microsoft software also tramples the freedom of its users. The license says you can't share it, and you don't get the source code, so you can't change it. Stay away from it, and use Free Software instead.
An
Israeli youth who left Israel to refuse to participate
in the occupation wonders whether he ought to return to
Israel and spend years in prison.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Refusing to participate in oppression is not wrong, so he does not deserve punishment for escaping. Just to leave home at age 18 like this takes plenty of courage. So I do not believe he is obligated to refuse only in the most heroic imaginable way, which is by staying and being imprisoned.
However, if he is filled with the courage to go back and say "imprison me" in order to achieve more for his cause, I will admire him even more.
Prisoners released from Guantanamo
describe
torture and humiliation,
of which many prisoners bear permanent scars.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Alongside the major acts of cruelty are small cruelties with disproportionate consequences. Denying prisoners toothpaste, if continued for more than a short period, can cause mouth disease and permanent loss of teeth.
A recently retired Air Force colonel reports how she saw
the Bush men distort
the facts to justify attacking Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Israeli women report on how a fun holiday for children
casts a reflection
of capricious cruelty in Palestine.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
MoveOn is calling on Congress to
censure of Bush for
embarking on a war based on lies that are now documented.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Gorillas
in Congo are facing extinction due to mining of tantalum
to make capacitors for cell phones and computers.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The former Finnish prime minister is on trial for publishing information about the Finnish president's dealings with Bush. (He was talking with Bush about sending troops to Iraq.)
Rulers frequently use secrecy laws to shield their dirty dealings, and often seek to punish those who expose them. Katharine Gun is a recent example. But it is amazing to see that a whistle-blower in such a high office is being put on trial for leaking information.
The implications of
Dr.
Khan's sale of nuclear secrets.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
How the US destabilized the government of Haitian president Aristide.
We speak loosely of "armies" in connection with organized crime, but
in Israel the
bank robbers can be the army.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
20,000 Nicaraguan banana farm workers and relatives sued US agribusiness companies for poisoning them with pesticides already banned in the US. They won. But the companies ignored the decision and sued the workers.
No court system can provide justice if rich businesses can make a monkey of it.
A mother's show of nude photographs of her daughter was shut down by the police in the UK.
This illustrates the level of paranoia now found in many western countries about anything that connects children and sex. This, and terrorism are the primary excuse for attacking civil liberties.
China may soon have
difficulty
feeding its population.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
China is likely to buy grain from the US, driving up the price of food for Americans who already have to pay a larger fraction of their income than ever before for housing.
Due to the feebleness of antitrust enforcement in the US since 1980,
many areas are dominated by a few companies. Often they take advantage
of this to mistreat the small businesses they deal with. Cattle ranchers
just
won a victory in court against the big 4 meat packing companies.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
However, this victory results from a law that applies only to cattle. So it won't translate into other areas of business unless we get congressional representatives that are not on the side of big business.
People are calling for a boycott of Nike for an ad which depicts the aftermath of a suicide bombing. I agree that it's not a good thing to use murder as background for an ad--but aren't the sweatshops enough reason not to buy from Nike?
Reportedly the ad is a fake. Nonetheless, I hope you would not be attracted to wearing clothing that advertises Nike.
The US and Pakistani governments are rushing to close the
case on Pakistan's
contribution to nuclear proliferation.
Isn't that strange for a regime that is willing to use
fears of nuclear prolifieration as the basis for a war?
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
12% of bird species are
threatened
with extinction due to habitat destruction.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Many species are protected in small refuges. Global warming may make those refuges uninhabitable; some may be under water.
Insurance
companies are preparing for claims due to natural disasters to
increase exponentially as a result of global warming and increased
population.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Australia's attacks on civil liberties have gone on for a long time. Albert Langer was imprisoned in 1997 for urging Australians to vote refusing to express any preference between the two major parties. (This way, one's ballot could not be counted towards either of them.)
This
article praises the Australian political system as highly
democratic, but the truth is that the two major parties both kowtow to
the US and both are ready to abolish civil liberties. Democracy in
Australia is as sick as it is elsewhere in the world. The only
cure I can imagine is to eliminate the power of the corporations.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Bliar government
ordered
the UK's chief scientist to keep silent about global warming, to prevent embarrasment for Bush.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Blair gives higher priority to the danger of an unhappy Bush than to the danger of global warning. What does that say about Bush?
There is International condemnation of the kidnaping of Aristide by Bush and his men.
Companies in the UK are using a law intended to prevent stalking to keep protestors miles away.
The injunctions prohibit not only protests, but reporting about them.
New information about the death of Dr. Kelly.
Hans Blix speaks at length about how the US impeded and distorted the facts about Iraqi weapons.
A conviction for planning the 9/11 attacks has been overturned, because the court ruled he had not received a fair trial. The US government blocked a prisoner (himself held without trial) from testifying as a witness.
A soldier has been
punished
for telling the press how bad the medical care is for soldiers injured while fighting in the
Bush forces in Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The UK government plans a database listing all children in England and their addresses, as well as other information. In the name of protecting children, of course. This is one of several parallel plans to impose a mandatory national ID card on everyone in the UK.
UK citizens should not accept any excuse to move in that direction.
Ashcroft's last (failed) election campaign raised funds illegally and was fined. Now his campaign is using illegal methods to raise money to pay the fine.
The Bush privatization arrangements in Iraq violate international law, and the next Iraqi government could repudiate them. Only a sovereign Iraqi government could give away Iraq's assets and make it "legal".
This is why Bush is hurrying to establish a nondemocratic provisional puppet government in Iraq: so he can claim that an "Iraqi" government agreed to give away the store.
How different is Kerry from Bush? Not very different in regard to launching wars, it seems.
The author appears not to know about Congressman Kucinich and his opposition to the invasion of Iraq, but that doesn't make the conclusions inaccurate about Kerry.
It is natural that people should try see in Kerry the hope to escape from the harmful Bush policies. But it is wishful thinking.
Hans Blix says that the invasion of Iraq
violated
international law.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Conservatives won the Iranian election, in which
reformists were not
allowed to run. However, many voters boycotted the election.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Words fail to express what the Israeli occupation is doing to
Palestine--but killing
over a thousand Palestinians in half a year
is just the beginning of it.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Three Palestinians were shot at a nonviolent protest against the land division wall. One man tried to evacuate his dying brother in a car. The car was shot with many bullets.
We don't know who set the bombs to kill Shi'ite worshipers in
Iraq, but Bush shares
the responsibility for their deaths.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Bush forces, having invaded Iraq, are morally responsible for the violence that the invasion has produced, as well as legally responsible for the safety of its citizens. It is fortunate that Sunnis and Shi'ites have refused to be led into a civil war, and instead joined in blaming Bush.
The US government has
attacked
freedom of the press, by threatening to
imprison publishers that edit and publish anything written in Iran,
Cuba, etc.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Australia faces the
abolition
of freedom of assembly,
as the Labor party gave its support to a law that would allow
the government to ban any organization by fiat.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
This law could be used to abolish activist organizations, labor unions, and even political parties. I've read elsewhere that the law would also allow imprisonment of anyone who was a member of the banned organization, or even raises money for its legal defense against this law. Thus, freedom of the press and due process of law are being attacked as well.
Blair announced plans to push people with disability pensions to return to work.
What does this mean when there are not enough jobs already, and most of them don't pay enough? It sounds like simply part of the persistent world-wide campaign to concentrate wealth--to make life harder and poorer for most people.
The Bliar regime threatened prosecution against former cabinet
minister Clare Short, after
she
informed the public of secrets embarrassing to Tony Bliar.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Transportation Security Administration is
tyrannizing airline
passengers in the name of security.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
If the TSA focused on security and respect for passengers, instead of suppressing criticism, it might do a better job.
I've seen air security personnel manifest the spirit of a tyrant. When confronted with disapproval of their actions, or even with a practical demand such as "I can't hear you, would you please speak louder?", they have a tendency to respond with a false accusation that says, by implication, "I'll lie and call you a troublemaker, so you won't be able to fly."
Such experiences tend to teach people to be subservient to petty tyrants. I don't want to learn this, so I intentionally practice expressing disapproval of foolish or unnecessarily annoying security practices.
For future trips, I think I will print copies of that article so I can hand them out while waiting in the line at the checkpoint.
Guy Philippe, perhaps the main leader of the Haitian rebels that
conquered Haiti with Bush's help,
is
an admirer of former dictator Pinochet of Chile.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
It is natural that Philippe would feel a kinship with Pinochet, who also took power in a US-sponsored coup. Pinochet's men murdered large numbers of people who opposed them politically. There is already some indication that Mr Philippe wants to do likewise. If so, their deaths will be on Bush's head.
The evidence that Dr. Kelly was killed is
being
mostly ignored, but there's one last chance to talk
about it in court.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
After Aristide was kidnaped by US troops, he phoned Randall Robinson
with a phone that someone provided to him on the sly. Here is Randall
Robinson's report
of what Aristide said to him.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
FBI misconduct in the Oklahoma City bombing case led to
ignoring some
of the bomb plot participants.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The ANC, a businessman, and Saddam Hussein's regime have been accused
of participating
together in a corrupt oil deal.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The deal is not proved, but merely letting an oil magnate pay for a fancy dinner is already going too far.
Who
would want to bomb Shi'ite civilians in Iraq, and why?
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
A Colombian opposes US demands for a
US-Colombia
free trade agreement.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
US marines captured Haitian President Aristide and
forced him onto a
plane; then Bush said Aristide had resigned his office voluntarily.
But Aristide manage to expose the lie. Meanwhile, former mass
murderers have taken control of Haiti, while Bush has sent forces to
help them take power.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Here is clarification of some of the false US media accusations against Aristide.
There is one accusation I would like to get more info about. What happened with the elections that were supposed to happen in Haiti this year?
The US-supported opposition continues against Chavez, but he continues
to have strong
popular support.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The US government has a pattern of engaging in economic warfare against a country, and then accusing its leaders of "causing" economic ruin. In a sense, they did--just as Winston Churchill "caused" the aereal bombardment of London by not surrendering to the Nazis.
The culpability for the harm done by acts of aggression falls on the aggressor, not on those who resist.
When Dubya's
Secretary of Education called the National Education
Association "terrorist", he illustrated how loose and unjust official
US government definition of "terrorist" is now. All sorts of
opposition to government policy are defined as "terrorism", and Bush
is starting to threaten to prosecute traditional forms of democratic opposition. Follow
this
link, so you too can be a "terrorist".
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Rumsfeld and Bush claim powers formerly reserved only for kings:
arbitrary
imprisonment at their will.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The purpose of a trial is to protect the accused person from being imprisoned without proof of charges. If the defendant is found innocent, he will go free. The military tribunals that some Guantanamo prisoners will get, instead of real trials, don't do this.
So the problem with these tribunals is not only that their rules are unjust (which I've written about before). It's also that being found innocent in a tribunal is meaningless. Even if some accused prisoner is not convicted, that doesn't mean he will be released from prison. If someone is convicted and sentenced, and serves out his "sentence", that doesn't mean he will be released. The tribunal is a sham, and the sentence is also a sham.
These tribunals are really show trials, intended (like Stalin's show trials) to disguise imprisonment-at-will as something else. They may be less numerous than the show trials of Stalinist Russia, but they are no less tyranny.
The Israeli High Court
agreed to consider a petition to block the
construction of the separation wall around the village of Bidu after
Israelis joined Palestinians to protest it. The fence would
effectively turn the village into a prison, as it has already
done to other Palestinian villages.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
A poor, aged woman in the UK has become a tax protestor because the
recent tax increases are more than she can afford on her fixed
pension. A cabinet minister lectured her about how everyone has a
duty to "obey the law".
[Reference updated on 2018-08-30 because the
old
link was broken.]
However, there is no automatic ethical duty to obey laws, however harmful or unjust they might be. Moral authority for a law, or for the government that establishes the law, is not automatic; both must earn it. The Blair government, by making a habit of twisting laws, has squandered its moral authority, and is no longer in a position to lecture anyone about moral duty.
I am not sure precisely how council taxes are computed, but it is clear that one way or another this tax increase goes back to Blair policies that favor concentration of wealth.
The Colombian government has
arrested a human rights organization's leader.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Haiti Action Committee says that Haiti's president Aristide is the
victim of a
protracted US-orchestrated campaign, like that aimed
against Venezuela.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Another article says that
both the US and France are targeting
President Aristide for removal.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
The main accusation I have heard levied against Aristide is that he held an unfair election for the legislature. I'm interested in hearing the facts about what happened in that election.
Former UK cabinet minister Clare Short says that charges against Katharine Gun were dropped because she was going to make people in the Blair administration come into court and testify about how they decided to launch the war.
She also reveals that the UK spied on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Now the UK government proposes to change the Official Secrets Act, probably to make it harder for heroes like Katharine Gun to escape punishment in the future.
Canada has
proposed a law to imprison people for watching foreign
TV stations. That's the sort of law you'd expect in China or Iran.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
(I have ethical misgivings about the existing legal system that applies to these encrypted satellite channels.)
Transcript of the interview in which Michael Shrimpton, a lawyer with close relations with the UK and US governments and intelligence agencies, says he believes Dr Kelly was murdered--and why.
If Clinton was required to testify under oath about whether he had sex, why should Bush not be required to testify under oath about 9/11?
Bush is now starting to talk about reducing social security benefits.
In the long run, we will need to either reduce benefits or else put additional funds into the system. I might prefer the latter option. In any case, it is dishonest for politicians to get themselves elected by promising to maintain these benefits if they are not going to keep the promise.
Bush plans to classify
fast-food jobs as "manufacturing jobs"
to misrepresent the results of his economic policy.
[Reference updated on 2018-09-02 because the
old
link was broken.]
This seems to be a Republican tradition. Remember when Reagan decided that ketchup is a vegetable? That was so he could pretend that school lunches included enough vegetables.
Jewish Voices for Peace found
no
antisemitism at the World Social Forum, and says that accusations of this are smears.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
40,000 French lawyers, and some judges, went on strike earlier this
month to protest
a law that increases police powers.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Chomsky comments on the
wall
that divides Palestine.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Although the Total Information Awareness program was canceled,
much
of its research work is still going on.
[Reference updated on 2018-09-02 because the
old
link was broken.]
The World Health Organization
suppressed
a report on the danger of depleted uranium ammunition, says the scientist who wrote the
report.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Halliburton, which continues to pay Vice President Cheney a regular
extra income, now
faces a criminal investigation for defrauding the US government. In a previous case, the company paid a fine instead of
admitting guilt. The company also admits paying large bribes in other
countries.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Five
Questions About Haiti and the Coup Attempt
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
New evidence that David Kelly was murdered.
The Palestinian town of Budrus faces being turned into a prison by the Israeli wall, which has been sited so as to destroy their lives rather than for security. They are opposing the construction with nonviolent resistance.
Israeli forces have crushed nonviolent resistance before, as described
in this
article by Huwaida Arraf, co-founder of the ISM.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Shortly after writing that article, Huwaida Arraf was beaten and arrested in a nonviolent protest against wall construction at Beit Surik.
There are indications that Israel will try to keep nuclear weapons
whistle blower Mordechai Vanunu
under
some sort of permanent arrest
after the end of his prison sentence.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Vanunu was imprisoned for telling the press about Israel's nuclear weapons program.
A group of doctors have said that the medical report on Dr. Kelly's
death looks like
murder,
not suicide.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Here is further discussion between them and a government pathologist.
The Haitian uprising is being used by former military gangsters to restore old-style Haitian dictatorship.
5 Britons held prisoner in Guantanamo are being released. After more than two years, Bush finally recognized that there was no reason to imprison them. However, 4 others will remain in prison.
Many in the UK are not satisfied with ending only part of the injustice.
I was amazed to note that many of these people were arrested in Pakistan and handed over to the US for imprisonment without trial. Pakistan should have refused to extradite them to any other country unless it was assured they would get a fair trial there.
An American soldier has sought asylum in Canada
because he refuses
to fight with the Bush forces in Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Bush administration is adopting part of Kucinich's platform, by turning to the UN as a path out of the Iraqi quagmire.
Unlike Kucinich, Bush is unlikely to be willing to approach this honestly. That would require taking his hands off Iraqi oil and Iraqi domestic policies. So he will not create the conditions where the UN would have even a chance of success.
While Bush and his oil-company friends pretend there is no global
warming, the Pentagon is
making
plans to deal with the political and military consequences.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
How governments engineer investigations that will whitewash their actions--and why independent investigations are essential.
Also, how David Kay has helped Bush make the CIA a scapegoat.
Why have former
death-squad leaders joined the uprising against Aristide? One explanation is that this is a US destabilization
campaign, meant to force Haiti into the US-promoted system of
corporate domination.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
At the same time, this article reports that many
progressive
organizations in Haiti are calling for Aristide to step down.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
One of the opposition organizations, the Group of 184,
makes a point
about "stimulating investments" in its platform. That is the same
platform that is used in many countries to justify surrender to
corporate domination, so I get a bad feeling about it.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Although Sharon spoke of withdrawing from settlements in Gaza, it
looks like this
was just a trial balloon, since he won't discuss the
details of how to actually do it.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
The UK police acted
illegally when they forcibly drove protestors back to London, said a court, which rebuked the police for labeling harmless
items as weapons.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
However, the decision was only a partial victory for democratic freedoms, since the court ruled that the police were allowed to block people from going to the demonstrations. The right to protest is meaningless if people do not have the right to travel to the protest.
The UK goverment, following its standard policy of corporaions uber
alles, is trying to
prevent
US lawsuits against UK companies that supported murder and racism around the world.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Israel says it may
change
the route of the separation wall
to cut off less of the occupied territories.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
This is a step in the right direction, but it does not mean everything is OK. So let's keep the pressure up. This wall should run along the border between Israel and Palestine.
The South Dakota legislature passed a law
making
abortion a crime.
Their statements reveal the dogmatic insistance on treating an embryo
with no brain just like a person.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
UK residents are mounting a direct action
campaign
against genetically modified crops.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
There is nothing wrong on principle about genetic engineering of crops. Farmers have reshaped many food plants drastically over a period of ten millenia, and if genetic engineering done that way is acceptable, some other method cannot be inherently wrong. But genetic engineering under corporate control, without sufficient testing of its effects on human eaters, wildlife, and on other farms, is not acceptable.
The Governor of Rhode Island proposed a
bill
to make the teaching of anarchism a crime. Involvement in an anarchist organization would
also be a crime. In other words, expressing certain political views
would be illegal.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
One would hope that this law would be overturned due to the First Amendment, but it is hard to be confident of that.
Bush forces casualties are increasing, but nowadays many of them are Iraqis, not Americans. Bush uses this to pretend that the strength of the resistance is decreasing.
There are specific reports that Bush, as governor of Texas, had
state
officials remove information from the records about what Bush did while "serving" in the Texas National Guard.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
President Chavez of Venezuela says that
US
is funding the opposition.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Should it be legal for a foreign government to meddle in politics by supporting such organizations? The US does not allow foreigners to contribute to election campaigns.
The National Farmers Union of Canada has taken a position
strongly
criticizing the way genetically modified crops are handled legally.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Increasing the threat
to freedom of publication on the Internet,
a court in Canada has tried to apply its laws to web sites
outside Canada.
[Reference updated on 2018-09-02 because the
old
link was broken.]
A statement against
the overthrow of President Aristide of Haiti.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Union of Concerned Scientists accused Bush of
distorting science
to support his political agenda.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Iraqi resistance fighters who attacked the Bush puppet police were Iraqi, not foreign as was originally claimed.
Conservatives want to put opponents of the war, including perhaps candidate Kucinich, on trial for treason. They do not believe in the right to publicly oppose government policy.
The resemblance to Orwell's 1984 constantly increases. We have a state of "war" that is guaranteed to never end, used as the excuse to abolish human rights, and -- if they get their way -- opposition will be a crime.
UK police have apologized for arresting protestors with no legal grounds.
This seems to be the text of the apology.
Blair's approach to solving the problem of unjustified arrests is to give the police increased power--that way, no arrest will ever be unjustified.
9/11 victims' families have a list of questions that they want Bush to answer under oath.
Bush has a record of assaults on the US reputation, people, and freedom, which no other president can match.
Bush's own evidence, far from exonerating him,
proves
he was AWOL.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
I would not blame a person for deserting from the US armed forces during the Vietnam War, as long as he did it honestly and agreed that the war was morally unjustified. But Bush hypocritically pretended to serve in the armed forces while not criticizing the war.
In the event of a real or apparent crisis, FEMA has contingency plans
to suspend
the Constitution and imprison millions of Americans.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
A British covert operation wrecked UN negotiations to avert the attack on Iraq.
The National Lawyers Guild, which provides legal advice and help to
protestors, was
attacked by the Bush administration with subpoenas,
issued by the FBI's terrorism task force.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Israeli troops carry out
frequent
killings in the Gaza strip; they
even have free-fire zones. And they knock down houses by the dozens.
They can get away with this because there are few foreign witnesses.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
The "intelligence failures" about Iraqi weapons
were a matter of
ceding
to pressure from political leaders.
How does this work?
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Israeli soldier who shot British activist Tom Hearndall
has been
accused of manslaughter and false testimony.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Manslaughter isn't enough for intentionally shooting someone, but at least it is a serious charge. There is no plan to prosecute the soldier who killed another activist later in the year.
The FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force
subpoenaed students in an anti-war protest, based on no grounds.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
The corporation is legally treated like a person,
but it is actually a machine whose design assures
it will behave like a
psychopathic person.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Kerry is getting money from Sony and the MPAA. If he is elected, we can expect further attacks on our freedom to use computers.
Israel refused to attend the world court hearings on the separation fence. However, there is talk of changing the route of the fence, so as to reduce the amount of Palestinian territory that would be effectively annexed.
This pull-back from annexation is a sign that pressure is working. That means we must keep it up! If the fence is built along the Green Line then it will protect Israel without directly oppressing Palestinians. That won't necessarily end to other forms of oppression, but it would facilitate the possibility of peace and an end to the occupation.
A yoga company in the US claims to have copyrighted a way of practicing Yoga and is trying to force smaller yoga schools out of business.
Based on my understanding of copyright law, I think they have not got a leg to stand on. Copyright law explicitly excludes any idea, principle, method of operation, or system. Thus, a book on yoga can be copyrighted, but that copyright only covers the text of the book, not actual practice of the yoga positions described in the book.
However, the managers of small yoga schools do not understand copyright very well; they may not realize that this case is so absurd. And they may not be able to afford to resist.
The article makes the mistake of using the propaganda term "intellectual property". Using that term instead of the more specific "copyright" promotes a vague view of the situation, and that vague thinking hampers the ability to distinguish legally valid accusations from invalid ones. So it contributes to the vulnerability to campaigns of distortion.
An Uzbek woman has been
sentenced to prison
for telling the public how
the police tortured and killed her son.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Pentagon has backed off from an electronic absentee voting system for soldiers, recognizing concerns that it is vulnerable to fraud.
The bloody price of occupation.
It is nothing unusual that people who collaborate with the occupying forces are treated as traitors, both during and after an occupation.
How the Bush "intelligence failures" investigation is designed to be a whitewash.
Senator Schumer says that the White House is blocking the probe
into who leaked the information about Valerie Plame.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Bush regime claimed, in court, that there is
no such thing
as doctor-patient confidentiality.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Bush is intervening to prevent the FDA from following its medical
advice, which was to make emergency contraception available without
restriction. This is part of the religious extremists' agenda.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Toronto police arrested
and brutalized Jama Jama after he obeyed their
instructions, and then tried to frame him.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Jama Jama may defeat the accussations against him with the help of a
video that proves the police are lying. That doesn't mean everything
is ok, because police who are willing to lie to punish people will
probably lie more than once. Their next victim may not have a video
to prove that the police lied; the
Canadian
and Ontario governments
must be replaced with ones that will make civil liberties and justice
a priority.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
In the northern province of Santiago de Estero, Argentina, the
local government has
banned
all types of public meetings that don't have prior consent. Anyone not complying is subject to
imprisonment between 1- 30 days or a fine of between 10-20 days
pay.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
The new law comes in response to demonstrations (all of which have been peaceful) and a memorial service to mark the first anniversary of the brutal torturing and murder of two young girls by an ex-policeman. Witnesses in the case have received death threats from the governor of the province.
Kevin Cooper, convicted of murder and sentenced to death, has had to struggle to get state officials to perform DNA testing on evidence that he says will clear him. It appears that police are tampering with the evidence.
This is something to keep in mind when Bush asks you to accept inadequate standards for trials: even with high standards, justice must struggle to overcome lying police.
180 million years ago the Earth had a bout of global warming, due to release of trapped methane from the sea bed. Earth recovered in 140,000 years by natural process that have been identified.
This result should hardly be comforting. 140,000 is a long time by human standards.
Rebels against Haiti's president Aristide are advancing.
Aristide came to power as the people's leader against corrupt dictators. Since he has been tested by years of adversity, I am surprised that he has turned into a corrupt ruler and effectively spiked the election. Can anyone explain to me what's behind this news?
Still persecuted by upper-caste Hindus, indian untouchables are converting to Buddhism by the thousands. But Hindu nationalist politicians amazingly tried to prevent the ceremony, and kept 50,000 participants away.
Canada's anti-terrorism laws amount to the
abolition
of legal rights whenever the government wishes. It can imprison you without trial for
repeated 72-hour periods that can be extended without limit; it can
order you not to engage in protests and punish you if you later do;
evidence used against you can be kept secret from you, meaning that if
you do get a trial it may be a show trial. Soldiers can disperse
protests by giving secret orders that people are required to obey but
are forbidden to discuss with others. Even boycotts fall within
the definition of terrorism.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Canadian government can now use a wide range of Gestapo tactics against political opposition, and it will be entirely "legal". But when it becomes legal to trample human rights, this does not make it legitimate. Rather, this makes the law and the regime that exercises it illegitimate.
But is the Canadian government already doing so? Due to the secrecy required in many of these provisions, it may be hard to tell. Canadians must assume their government is behaving tyrannically until it provides them with enough transparency to be sure it is not.
The proposed Bush budget
doesn't
include money for the costs of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Does this mean he is planning to pull the
troops out?
[Reference updated on 2018-09-02 because the
old
link was broken.]
David Kay says there is no point continuing to search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in "every possible place" because there is already conclusive evidence there were none.
UK officials are systematically
refusing
justified requests for asylum, by stubbornly closing their eyes to the danger that refugees
face.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Judge Silberman,
nominated
by Bush for the new whitewash Iraq intelligence inquiry, participated in letting Oliver North off the
hook for lying to Congress, and may have helped Reagan negotiate
for Iranian support in defeating Carter's bid for re-election.
[Reference updated on 2018-09-02 because the
old
link was broken.]
But let's not forget that the biggest problem with this investigation is that it is only supposed to put the blame on the intelligence agencies, and is by definition not allowed to consider whether Bush is to blame. Whatever the details, we should reject the committee as a whitewash by design.
Canadian anti-terrorist legislation
violates
Canada's constitution,
because the need for this attack on citizens' freedom was never
justified.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Oxfam reports on how globalization of the power of business
is leading to cruel
working conditions all around the world.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
A committee of UK MPs reported that Palestinians face extreme starvation, and recommended trade sanctions against Israel.
Here is the report
itself. Points 38 and 39 refer to malnutrition.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
In a Democratic Party debate, I heard Howard Dean say that the capture of Saddam Hussein would not make the US any safer. I heard another candidate (I don't remember who--perhaps it was Lieberman) attack him for saying this, using arguments that completely missed the point (he argued that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy). Yes, Saddam was a bad guy, but he no longer held power in Iraq, so capturing him made no difference to the situation in Iraq. We have since seen that the resistance to Bush occupation continues there.
NPR replayed that exchange frequently without ever commenting on how illogical the response was. The Independent recently cited it to criticize Dean, taking the attitude that it makes no difference whether he was right but only what political effect it had. Both organizations were wrong to do this.
(I support Kucinich, not Dean.)
Kerry seems to be the sort of candidate who carefully calibrates his position so as to win. Maybe he will win. If he does, it may blunt Bush's religious extremist plans. But I don't see that it is likely to have much effect on the economic policies of business-dominated globalization that are relentlessly impoverishing working people all around the world, or on the War on Freedom embodied by the USA PAT RIOT act.
I will vote for Kucinich in the Massachusetts primary. If Kerry wins the nomination, I am not sure whether I will vote for him.
The Australian Labor Party's new leader, Mark Latham, obtained the leadership position in his party by criticizing Bush policies. But then he met with the US ambassador and turned into a loyal pet.
Now Australia is looking at signing a "free trade" treaty with the US. These treaties make it easy for companies to move production from one country to another, so they can force various countries to compete for who can offer the worst working conditions and the least environmental protections. Any new free trade treaty is a step in the wrong direction.
Following its usual practice, the US government is pandering to Microsoft and Hollywood by trying to impose software patents and the DMCA on Australia. This would mean imposing restrictions on all computer users there.
Since the Bush regime doesn't give clear figures for deaths or other casualties among the Bush forces, a private effort is being made to sum up the best available information.
The US DEA attempted to ban all foods made from hemp
on the grounds that they contain trace amounts of THC.
However, an appeals
court rejected this.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Tony Blair has bowed to the facts--an absence of real weapons of mass destruction in Iraq--and will launch an inquiry into "intelligence failures".
In other words, this inquiry, like the one Bush wants in the US, is designed to distract public attention from the real scandal: the way Bliar and Dubya distorted and misused the intelligence that was available to justify a war they had already decided on.
A new internet-based political party in Australia has positions I would support if I were Australian.
As India produces a surplus of food,
millions
in India can't have any of it to eat.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Afghan President Karzai warns
Afghanistan
is "becoming a narco-state".
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Do you want to make the deal of a lifetime?
Go to Gaza!
[Reference updated on 2018-05-05 because the
old
link was broken.]
Activists protesting Bush at the World Trade Center site
were arrested
for carrying signs.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Bush's budget
is bogus--meant to distract the public,
not meant to be passed.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
The Bush forces
like the Ba'ath party so much that they are
forcibly
keeping Ba'athists in power in Iraqi oilfields even though the workers
want them out. They are also against unionization of Iraqi workers.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Colonel Rokke, who was in charge of depleted uranium cleanup after the
1991 gulf war, describes
depleted
uranium use as a war crime.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
The mad cow found in the US
was
not a "down cow".
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Remember the anthrax letters of 2001? A timeline of related events
suggests they may have been used to
clear
away objections to passage of the USA PAT RIOT act.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
What secret is Cheney's energy task force keeping? This article suggests it's a big one.
Fraudulent
terror alerts, such as we saw in December, could be
preparing the US for martial law. High officials are already talking
about the possibility.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
I've decided to spend next October outside the US.
When people recognize that they are part of an oppressive system, they often argue against refusing to participate, saying that "By staying on the inside, I will be able to make it better."
This is not totally absurd. On occasion it really is possible to do this. However, the idea that you are protecting the victims this way can easily be a pleasant self-delusion rather than the truth. To retain your position, you must participate in the harm. So you can excuse active wrongdoing on the grounds that "It's the only way to stay in a position to make a difference." It is easy to overestimate the harm you think you have prevented, while overlooking the harm that you are doing.
Here
are some good examples.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Comparing
Iraq with Vietnam, and the lessons we can draw from what
Robert McNamara learned and what he did not learn.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
I disagree with one point in this article, however: while the South Vietnamese government that the US supported was a corrupt dictatorship, that doesn't mean its North Vietnamese enemies were good. That was a dictatorship too, systematic rather than corrupt in its cruelty. Many South Vietnamese fought to kick out the Americans because they wanted independence for their country, not realizing that victory would mean tyranny.
The record companies are starting a
series
of raids in Australia.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
These record companies that pay just 4% of their gross sales to musicians--and nearly all of that goes to a few superstars who don't need it. Then, in the name of the same musicians that they exploit, they put people in prison for sharing.
The Kazaa program is unethical because it is non-free software, but sharing music is not wrong, and the laws against it should be repealed. In the mean time, they have no moral validity. The record company goons are the ones who ought to go to prison.
There's nothing wrong with selling records, in and of itself, but these record companies do not deserve to continue to exist.
Are you on the secret US list of
people
not allowed to fly?
[Reference updated on 2018-09-02 because the
old
link was broken.]
A Texas high school student was
arrested
for lending his asthma inhaler to his girlfriend, who had left hers at home that day.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
His mother says the school expelled him. The school's principal, Dr Poole, says that never happened--but I don't believe him, because he makes arguments that are obviously absurd. I don't think he would say them if he were honest.
For instance, Poole says the inhaler "is a dangerous drug" and asks "What if she had used it and died?" She had been prescribed the very same drug and was already using it. It is bogus to raise this objection when she gets the drug from her boyfriend's inhaler, but not raise it when she gets it from her own inhaler. And Dr Poole says, "If we get rid of this mindlessly rigid policy, what could we possibly replace it with?" He is claiming that it is hard to imagine any alternative to cruel rigidity.
Maybe the school should replace Dr Poole with someone whose imagination is less limited.
The 9-11 investigation has treated the Bush administration with kid
gloves, and as a result it
can't
tell us the answers to the questions
that must be answered.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Recently at MIT there was a talk about the development of software to identify individuals by their appearance and motion patterns. The use of such software on images collected from public spaces should be prohibited without specific court orders, or else it leads to dangers of totalitarian surveillance.
Sharon says he will
remove
all Jewish settlements from Gaza. This is
the right thing to do in Gaza, but this should not distract us from
Sharon's apparent intention to annex large Arab-inhabited areas of the
West Bank.
[Reference updated on 2018-09-02 because the
old
link was broken.]
After all the Palestinian olive trees that Israelis have cut down, giving the Israeli agricultural facilities of Gaza to some of the Palestinians who were thus victimized would be appropriate compensation.
The world's expert on smallpox says it would be a mistake to vaccinate millions of Americans, because that would mean dozens of people would get serious side effects, including death. He proposes a more thoughtful plan for dealing with smallpox outbreaks.
This article also explains why smallpox would not be an effective
weapon. Despite this, the US government is forcing soldiers
to undergo vaccinations which are occasionally dangerous,
and have
killed at least one soldier.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
I was vaccinated for smallpox when I was young. When smallpox was common, the dangers of vaccination were much less than the danger from smallpox itself, a danger that everyone faced. However, if the modern public health system can easily find and isolate anyone who may get smallpox, so that it can't spread, that could be better than vaccination.
Intelligence analysts in UK fear Blair will
use
them as scapegoats to distract attention from his lies.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Whatever the intelligence agencies may have known or believed, the claim that hypothetical Iraqi weapons were the reason for the war is absurd. One year ago the UN weapons inspectors were getting full cooperation in their investigation, and finding nothing dangerous. If weapons had been Bush's real reason for proposing a war, he could have let the inspectors solve the problem, without spending 100 billion dollars or killing thousands. But (as we know) Bush was looking for an excuse to start this war since 2001 if not before. He did not want the UN inspectors to peacefully eliminate his excuse.
The Bush forces
are disguising
combat deaths, as well as numbers
of wounded.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
Blunkett has been condemned strongly for his proposal to establish Guantanamo-style kangaroo courts for terrorist suspects in the UK.
Blair is launching an inquiry into the "intelligence failure" about Iraq, but the inquiry does not cover how Blair distorted the intelligence, so it is designed as a whitewash.
Note that the Hutton committee did do what some in the US are claiming; it did not vindicate Blair from charges of distorting the intelligence reports. Its report did not cover that question.
Australian ruler John Howard is
in
trouble now over Iraq,
and seems headed to lose the election to the Labor Party,
whose new leader has condemned Bush.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
However, the Australian Labor Party has in general not been very firm in defending civil liberties.
When Clinton "weaseled" about whether he had sex, Republicans
impeached him. Now Bush is weaseling in the same way about whether
there was a
reason to invade Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
However, the writer should be more careful about suggesting new wars. Bush appears to be in the market for one, sometime around October.
The 10
worst corporations of 2003 (counting only the US)
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
At year's end, signs
of movement towards tyranny abound in Washington.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
A film shows what Pol Pot's murderous government was like, but
says
nothing about the murders that paved the way for it.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
There is pressure to censor pornography that includes violence, because it might inspire people to commit violence.
By this reasoning, all writing about crime--whether fact or fiction--should be prohibited. Any of it could inspire someone's imagination. And commercials for sumptuous luxury goods really need to be prohibited, because they could excite the avarice of management in companies like Enron and Nike.
We do not know whether violent porn makes violent acts more likely or less likely. There is no way to determine who might have been violent in an alternate universe where he did not have access to this material. What we do know is that violence against women was not rare in the past, even when porn whether violent or not was strongly suppressed.
Critical mass bike riders support supermarket strike in LA.
Katharine Gun, who worked for UKs electronic snooping agency, told the public about a
campaign
of spying on UN delegations from various countries--not because
those countries were planning to attack the UK, but in order to pressure
them into giving UN backing to the invasion of Iraq. Ms Gun has been
threatened with prison for informing the public of Blair's dirty trick.
[Reference updated on 2018-05-03 because the
old
link was broken.]
A UK court just ruled that she is not allowed to tell her lawyers anything about her work. That would make the trial evidently absurd.
The Bush forces refuse to give clear figures about casualties in Iraq, and have misclassified injuries in order to reduce casualty figures.
US Vice President Cheney faces indictment in a bribery scandal involving Halliburton.
Other Halliburton employees are in trouble for taking bribes in connection with its business in Iraq.
An anti-Nazi protestor was sentenced to prison in Pennsylvania.
Were the September 11 attacks aided by the US government?
These arguments are strong enough to convince me that there's something fishy that must be thoroughly investigated. However, I can't reach a firm conclusion that the US government was involved, because I know that arguments such as these can have flaws that I would not recognize, even when they seem correct. So even if I don't see a specific flaw, I know that there might be one. I can find such arguments convincing enough to indict the government, but not convincing enough to convict it. That would require an investigation to determine for certain what happened.
A full investigation of 9/11 must address the questions that these arguments raise.
Kerry Leads in Lobby Money.
Bush, looking for an excuse for war, carefully selected from intelligence reports those aspects that would serve his purpose, disregarding the doubts. Now his plan is to distract attention from his own role with a Warren-style investigation under his own control. Its real purpose will be to put the blame on someone else.
Enron, along with GE and Bechtel, set up a sleazy deal in India as well as in the US. They went as far as attacking protestors. Indian governments are trying to cancel the deal, but the US government is trying to force them to continue.
The US demands for personal information about air travelers violate the EU's privacy law, but European countries quietly caved in.
Citizens of Louisville, Kentucky, are protesting a series of shootings by police.
The UK government announced a plan to try terrorist suspects in secret, without a jury, and use lower standards for conviction. Their lawyers would require special security clearance.
In effect, Blair is proposing to institute Guantanamo-style military tribunals in the UK.
Another article reveals that the defendants would not be allowed to see the evidence against them.
This means the government could pay a stool pigeon to testify to whatever is demanded (the pay would be getting out of prison early), and the defendant could not even deny this testimony, which he would not have heard. In effect, it means the government could imprison anyone at any time.
A government that tries to do this is the enemy of human rights.
Peru under Fujimori held such phony trials for suspected participants in the Shining Path. After Fujimori was ousted, Peru gave them new trials, and many were acquitted.
The UK should oust Tony Blair and his crew of would-be Stalins before they can finish imposing their flavor of dictatorship on the UK.
If Polar Bears Were Sousaphones
I think the figure of 50% extinction refers to 25% due to habitat destruction and 25% due to the effects of global warming. I have not read specifically about reasons to expect extinction of songbirds or butterflies.
Justice Scalia is being accused of favoritism towards Cheney, in a case about disclosing the identity of Cheney's energy task force.
It is amazing that Cheney won't even admit to the public who it was he made plans with. If the list is made up of owners of oil companies, it could be embarrassing, but no more--it would not prove any specific serious wrongdoing. The proof of wrongdoing is already available: we just have to look at the administration policy decisions.
Mainstream journalists don't like to cover Bush's hypocritical evasion of the Vietnam War, but Michael Moore dares to talk about it.
I wouldn't criticize anyone for trying to escape from being sent to Vietnam to fight for one dictator against another, if he condemned the war. However, there can be no excuse for supporting the war but making someone else do the fighting.
Bush administration officials are starting to criticize the lack of real democracy in Russia, where President Putin's control of the mass media has made serious opposition impossible.
The situation in the US is heading in the same direction, but has not yet become total.
The US government has a history of breaking treaties with indigenous peoples. Leonard Peltier warns Americans that the US government is now doing the same thing to the citizens of the US.
The City of Tacoma is trying to prevent a march in support of Leonard Peltier, by imposing unusual and impossible conditions on the participants.
To make freedom of assembly infeasible to exercise is equivalent to abolishing it.
The history of past scientific wisdom about human sexuality helps spotlight skepticism on overblown claims of sociobiology.
It is surely possible to study how human biology constrains human societies. But the conclusions must not be oversimplified if they are to be scientifically valid. The book Vaulting Ambition, published by MIT Press, shows precisely where the oversimplifications are made in certain cases, and how far away pop sociobiology is from scientific validity.
The EPA has been sued for letting pesticide companies determine the regulation of pesticides.
Meanwhile, peticide and biotech companies have repeatedly tried to attack the careers and stifle the research of scientists who publish results that cast doubt on the safety of those products.
72 union organizers were murdered in Colombia in 2003, and the assassination continues.
Airline surveillance policies compared to laws restricting slaves from travelling.
Anti-war activist Kathy Kelly has been sentenced to three months in prison for a peaceful protest.
Will Bush's next war (perhaps scheduled for October) be against Cuba? Or perhaps Venezuela?
Three of the "enemy combatants" held in Guantanamo, who had been imprisoned for hardly any reason in the first place, have been released after almost two years. They were under 16 years old.
(I think it is an exaggeration to call 15-year-olds "children", but it makes no sense to keep them in a prisoner-of-war camp.)
Bush claims about Iraqi weapons are now being criticized by some politicians in the US.
The government of France offered a "strategic alliance" to the Chinese government--including support for its demands to extend its dictatorship over democratic Taiwan.
I can well understand the desire to put a check on the power of the US, but the Chinese government is trying hard to do the same sort of bad things as the US government, only more so. The only way China is less harmful than the US is that its power is smaller, so it cannot bully other nations globally, only its neighbors. But as China gets more powerful, this will change.
The way Chirac says that he "raised the issue of China's human rights record" reminds me of the way US officials used to do so--before they stopped pretending to care. I can imagine Chirac saying, "I have to mention the issue of China's human rights record, so I can tell people I did so." And the response? "Ok, you mentioned it."
Daniel Ellsberg calls on civil servants to release the papers that will show how Bush and Blair's lies were calculated.
Chomsky explained how the news media "engineer consent", but define the range of possible disagreement that most people get to look at. Now the New York Times is going one further--by trying to specify which presidential candidates ought to be heard in debates.
The US deportation of Maher Arer, Canadian citizen, to Syria, where he was tortured, violated US law. But what is most frightening is the possibility that he was sent to Syria to be tortured on behalf of the US.
What life is like for the people who make parts for our computers.
The WTO has led countries to race to eliminate or undermine the laws that used to prevent such exploitation.
BBC reporter Gilligan has resigned, as have the BBC's directors. The danger is now that Blair will impose controls on the BBC's independence.
The National Union of Journalists says Gilligan was unfairly criticized by Hutton's report.
Hutton has a history of previous whitewashes.
I've seen other articles saying that the public have mostly dismissed the report as a whitewash. However, Blair has learned to evade public opinion by simply preteding it isn't there.
There is much to be said for the UK's tradition that anyone in charge of a major mistake should resign. But this tradition used to apply to government ministers as Blair has made nonsense of it by adopting a policy of never admitting a mistake.
Here is the Human Rights Watch report that demolishes the case that the invasion of Iraq is justified on humanitarian grounds.
The Afghan asylum seekers in Nauru ended their hunger strike when the Australian government promised to allow them an independent medical assessment. But no sooner did they accept this promise than the Australian government began trying to cheat on the deal and block the independent visit.
Search for "With the hunger strike suspended" to find this particular part of the article.
A former US intelligence analyst tries to explain how the US intelligence agencies overestimated Iraqi weapons capability, and how Bush selectively picked parts of these estimates to present a false picture of them.
On certain points the author is too forgiving to Bush. We know that Bush had been planning this war since 2001, and that all the reasons he offered were just excuses. And Human Rights Watch has demolished the claim that the war was justified for the sake of Iraqis. Iraq under Saddam was a source of instability, yes, but there is no reason to think Iraq today is less so.
Utah has refused to cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security's "MATRIX" surveillance system. So have many other states.
An interview with Dennis Kucinich
The Groping Governor broke campaign finance laws, and may have to pay a fine. He also broke his campaign pledge to make the system more honest. [Reference updated on 2022-08-06 because the old link was broken.]
I think this punishment is too weak to discourage similar crimes in the future. He will not worry about a few million.
The 9/11 investigation wants more time, till July, to issue its report. Bush opposes this. That's natural, because one reason the investigation wants more time is that Bush has been refusing to hand over the documents it wants.
We can only speculate about what Bush is hiding, but we have reason enough to conclude it is bad.
The Hutton Report whitewashed Blair and blamed the BBC, and Blair is trying to use this to impose control over BBC news reporting. But the whitewash is so obvious that people will not believe the report.
Bush calls for Preemptive Attack on Mars & Moon; Cites Evidence of WMD
Seriously, I support manned exploration and then settlement of whichever locations off the Earth are most feasible. This may be the only way humanity and many other species can survive. But I won't excuse Dubya's crimes merely because of this.
Global warming may paradoxically throw Britain and Scandinavia into frozen conditions, making them nearly uninhabitable. This may happen within decades, because the effects have already been observed.
Ami Isserof writes that the Palestinian territories have fallen into a chaotic gang warfare that nobody can straightforwardly end. When the Palestinian Authority lost the possibility of offering Palestinians anything meaningful through peace with Israel, it also lost the ability to enforce decisions or order.
Reading carefully, it sounds like these gangs are not as narrowly greedy as gangs in most places. They have goals beyond self-enrichment, such as resistance to the occupation.
Los Angeles has taken a stand against the PAT RIOT act.
Greeks are protesting the security powers and restrictions that are being set up for the Olympic Games in Athens. They fear these powers may continue long after the games are over.
Bush seems to be trying to deny his claims about Iraqi weapons--the claims that provided the main excuse for the war.
Starting a war based on lies--isn't that enough reason to impeach both Bush and Cheney?
Bush is now trying to justify the war as a plan to liberate the Iraqi people from a dictator. That can be a legitimate reason for a war, in some cases, but not in this case. Human Rights Watch has carefully studied this question and its report shows conclusively why that justification is not available to Bush now.
It was always absurd to think that Bush would support democracy or human rights in Iraq after trampling them in his own country.
There are also some who are saying this was "an honest mistake." But we know it was no mistake, because we know Bush has been planning this war since 2000.
The boycott of Coca Cola is spreading in the US and Canada.
A western journalist in Iraq was arrested for "looking like an Israeli", which meant having a beard. When they found out he was not an Israeli, they decided to hold him anyway, saying "We'll figure out some charges later."
In other words, Bush government shows the same disregard for the rights of the accused in Iraq as in the US.
Agent Orange, used as a defoliant in Vietnam, has been shown to cause cancer in US soldiers who were in Vietnam at the time.
It might be much more dangerous for Vietnamese.
100,000 Iraqis protest in Baghdad, demanding elections and denouncing the occupation.
I'd like to see such a strong demand for democracy in the US.
The Knife- stupid airport security tricks.
A Briton who exposed crimes of Guatemalan adoption rings faces the threat of imprisonment in Guatemala for doing so.
It seems that lawsuits for defamation are a standard tool for bullying there. If the government of Guatemala wants to change its image while respecting the independence of the judiciary, it should pass a law affirming that freedom of speech is not limited to journalists, making defamation a matter of civil rather than criminal law, and making proof of the truth of the statement a defense in such cases.
For more information, click here.
In Iraq, Bush and his troops are called "Ali Babas"--which means, thieves. But Dubya's career of thievery began in the US, and he has stolen more than just our money.
Perhaps we too should call him "Ali Baba".
The revolution in Georgia was not entirely spontaneous--George Soros funded organizations that were central in the activity.
While some people are criticizing this, I do not necessarily agree. Shevardnadze's election really was crooked, and funding people to expose and reject such crookedness is not a bad thing. If only Soros had helped the US reject its crooked 2000 presidential election.
But there are also charges that the US government was involved in Georgia--and that the motive, as usual for Dubya, was the interests of his oil buddies.
The Bush forces supposedly compensate Iraqis that they injure, but in practice the procedures make it impossible to get compensation.
A formerly secret 1962 US government document contains proposals to create false pretexts for a US attack on Cuba. Proposals include destroying a US ship and blaming it on Cuba, a fake terror campaign in Miami, and the fake destruction of a US airliner. These details start on page 10 in the file.
This was not far away in time from the "Gulf of Tonkin" incident, in which a false report of a Vietnamese attack on a US vessel provided the excuse for expanding US forces in Vietnam.
A recent Israeli terrorist attack in Nablus killed 19 Palestinians and wounded 200.
Should we believe the conspiracy theory explanation of the 9/11 attacks, which says that they were carried out by hijackers working for Al Qa'ida? Is there really evidence to substantiate this theory?
CIA officers in Iraq are warning that it is on the verge of exploding in a civil war.
As some have pointed out, the fact that they are saying this to the press suggests that the president is not listening to them.
In Sweden, when Nazis throw bombs, the police don't care. But they attack anti-fascist protests.
US military bases around the world support the rule of the capricious and corrupt.
Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben explains why he canceled his visit to the US: "bio-political tattooing" of visitors.
An Israeli pilot who refused to carry out attacks that would kill civilian bystanders identifies the organization whose principles inspired his courageous stand.
David Kay, who recently resigned as head of Bush's search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, says he believes Iraq did not have them.
Here's a review of statements made about Iraqi weapons by various US and UK officials.
A Texas woman faces the threat of prison sentence for selling sex toys to guests in her home.
A WTC manager says on TV that he and the fire department decided to deliberately demolish WTC building 7, then burning, as a measure to prevent spread of the fire.
Such a decision may have been a wise one. But why did previous reports say that the building collapsed on its own?
Congressional Republicans were spying on Congressional Democrats' computers.
The real state of the union (to compare with Dubya's fantasy land).
Dubya's state of the union address describes a completely fantastic world--a collection of lies justifying other lies.
Thousands of people in India have been put in prison without trial or charges, using a Bush-style "anti-terrorism" law.
The Canadian Supreme Court will consider the case of Percy Schmeiser, who was sued by Monsanto for patent infringement after his corn field was polluted by patented genes in pollen blowing in from another field.
After a murder in 1997 by Northern Ireland loyalists, the police investigation was so incompetent that it must have been an intentional whitewash.
The FBI kept a man prisoner for over two years after concluding that he had no connection with terrorism. He is still in prison. He has asked for political asylum in the US.
Perhaps he thinks the US is still the land of liberty.
Just before September 11, US officials and legislators met with Mahmoud Ahmad who two weeks later was accused of sending funds to the hijackers. This, together with CIA ties to Osama bin Laden, raises the question: was it a coincidence?
I hope the 9/11 investigation covers this area thoroughly.
Coca Cola in India has been selling soda with dangerous levels of toxic chemicals.
This is in addition to its practice of using thugs to kill union organizers and attack protestors, which is the reason for the world-wide boycott of Coca Cola company.
Israeli soldiers bulldozed 30 houses in Rafah, disregarding the inhabitants who were frantically trying to save their belongings.
They are not dead, merely homeless and destitute, but the callous cruelty of this is no different from that of a suicide bomber.
Senator Kerry, who won in the Iowa caucuses for the democratic candidacy, voted for the PAT RIOT act and still defends it. Our freedom, in his hands, would be little or no safer than in the hands of Bush. In the debate which I heard, he evaded the issues.
20,000 shiites protest in Iraq, demanding elections and the exit of the Bush forces.
Bush ignored hundreds of thousands who protested in the US, so I expect he will ignore these protestors too. The result may be deadly.
Wal-mart locks employees in the store overnight. Unless there is a fire, they are threatened with being fired if they leave through the emergency door.
Israeli police tried to unofficially deport activist Radhika Sainath to prevent her from testifying in court.
CBS agreed to run an ad from the White House, but rejected an opposition ad as "advocacy". It is not the first time.
Human Rights Watch has accused the Bush forces of violating the Geneva Convention by using collective punishment: specifically, by arresting the families of people who were suspected of participating in the resistance, and demolishing their houses.
Amnesty International accuses German police of repeated brutality to foreign prisoners. 20 detained foreigners were badly hurt in the past 2 years. One died from the beating he got.
A Bangladeshi journalist was killed by bomb attack; other journalists protest.
There is a lot of danger for journalists and writers in Bangladesh. Another Bangladeshi journalist who was promoting friendship between Jews and Muslims is in prison in Bangladesh, accused of spying for Israel.
In the 90s, writer Taslima Nasrin was driven into exile for her book "Shame" that describes persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh. She is now facing threats in Calcutta, India, as she continues to publish books that criticize the conduct of some Muslims. (Her last book was banned there.)
Freedom of the press means there is no idea so sacred that one is not allowed to criticize it.
Letter bombs have been sent to various EU officials, and an "anarchist group" took responsibility. It seems the bombs were designed not to cause much damage, and nobody has ever heard of this supposed anarchist group before. Is this a fake, intended to discredit real anarchists?
Dubya's own top advisors have built the case that he started a war based on lies.
Now we have to be prepared for him to do it again in October.
The Italian supreme court invalidated the law that Berlusconi passed to shield himself from bribery charges.
Maybe Il Ducino will end up in prison for this.
In Wormwood Scrubs prison, in the UK, the guards have attacked prisoners repeatedly and even threatened to kill them.
A conference on new diseases predicted 30 new diseases will emerge in the next 30 years, just as in the past 30 years. The main expected cause is human overpopulation, which leads humans to invade wild habitats and come in close contact with different animals. This gives pathogens a chance to jump from those animals to humans.
An article suggests that the World Social Forum faces challenges as corporocratic governments ignore opposition.
I see the point, but at the same time I wonder if having a series of World Social Forums in Brazil helped Lula get elected there.
More about the incursion into Tulkarem.
Thousands of Boston city employees protested the mayor's principal annual speech, because the mayor has refused to negotiate contracts with them.
In Tulkarem, unarmed Palestinian women were arrested and kept prisoner outside in the rain all day. 200 men were taken away blindfolded.
Is Bush planning to launch another war in October? Reported Pentagon plans involve sending large numbers of reservists to Iraq and bringing the active duty units home in time to get them ready in October.
Perhaps they will be sent back to Iraq to replace the reservists, who may need replacement then. But that would not help Bush's campaign. Another war would, or so he might think.
A leaked UK medical report says that gulf war syndrome was a response to compulsory vaccines administered to the troops.
All vaccines causes adverse reactions in some people. The idea is that these should be rare, and amount to a much smaller problem than the disease which the vaccine prevents. The vaccines are supposed to be safety-tested to assure that their adverse reactions are rare enough that this is true. I wonder if the military have failed to test their vaccines according to the usual medical standards.
Other people have suspected that gulf war syndrome is due to depleted uranium, but this report provides evidence it isn't. However, it's clear that depleted uranium is killing Iraqis, and may do so for thousands of years to come.
US officials like to warn Americans about the danger of a "dirty bomb". The depleted uranium used by the Bush forces in Iraq is, in effect, like thousands of dirty bombs.
There is a general strike against Haitian President Aristide. The US government accused some Haitian police of attacking protestors.
The last I heard, Aristide was tremendously popular among the poor and was kicked out by the military, then the US helped him get back in power. Can anyone tell me how the opposition to him developed? Did he go bad, or has the opposition been stirred up by the US?
How corporations allow executives to escape and shift responsibility, even for crimes such as fraud.
There is a new scandal that a number of UK officials falsely claimed that they had provided the necessary equipment for the troops sent to Iraq.
I enjoy having new reasons to criticize Blair and his co-poodles, but we should keep in mind that the really bad thing was not that they sent troops to war with inadequate equipment, but that they launched an unnecessary and unjustified war based on lies.
Israel is now restricting all visitors to the Palestinian territories.
It looks like a plan to prevent people from witnessing or protesting the many acts of brutality and cruelty.
Another former Bush official confirms O'Neill's charges that Bush was planning to attack Iraq before 9/11.
However, O'Neill is trying to retract the charges he made in the book, claiming the statements don't mean what they say.
I wonder if he is reacting to the threat to prosecute him for revealing secrets if he doesn't retract his words.
Tom Hurndall, shot in the head by Israeli troops while opposing house demolitions in Rafah last year, is now officially dead. I'd say he was dead ever since the shooting, since it destroyed his brain. The soldier who shot him will be prosecuted.
This prosecution could send a message to Israeli soldiers not to kill protestors. However, the decision not to prosecute another soldier, who more recently shot someone protesting against the separation wall, will erase that message.
More than half of life in the ocean depends on nutrients brought up from the depths by a peculiar water circulation phenomenon.
Scientists now fear that global warming could change it and cut ocean life by 75%. When you consider that humans are overfishing the ocean already, this is not safe. It could cause a mass extincion in the sea, along with the one on the land.
A specific Bush lie: while secretly planning war against Iraq, he was telling the public that he was planning "smart sanctions".
Over 4 million CCTV cameras in the UK--one for every 14 inhabitants--make the UK the world leader in surveillance.
It is supposedly justified for prevention of crime, but it is doubtful that it really works.
The UK increases police "emergency" power, not quite as much as was first proposed.
Since it has been established that the UK police use "antiterrorist" laws against legitimate protestors, police power ought to be reduced, not increased.
Iran's religious leader advises allowing the reformist candidates to run for parliament. However, the sit-in by MPs continues.
US unemployment figures dropped in December--not because the unemployed found work, but because they gave up looking.
An Israeli court sentenced several young men who refused to serve in the occupation to a year in prison in addition to 14 months they have already been in prison.
The judge said that their refusal was a more severe crime because it was based on principles.
What are these principles? One is not to shoot protestors. The Israeli army recently ordered troops to shoot protestors who attack the separation wall.
Those who shoot protestors are not punished.
Those who refuse to do such things are punished.
Bush has officially pulled out the team that was supposed to find Saddam's supposed weapons. Of course, they say "We will keep looking".
Meanwhile, Blair finally admits he no longer counts on finding any of these fictitious weapons.
A recent book reports that Winston Churchill proposed using anthrax against Germany, and was also a champion of massive bombing raids against cities. Interestingly, some US generals opposed them on principle. He is also quoted saying things that are extremely racist.
I reject the racist views that are quoted, but I don't condemn Churchill for them the way I would condemn someone who expressed such views today. He was a man of his time, and at that time civilization had not yet learned that racism was wrong. We today have the benefit of having learned that.
Hundreds demonstrate in Israel to support the refuseniks, near the prison where they are being held.
A research team that modeled the effect of global warming on the survival of species reports that it could wipe out 1/4 of all species, if the temperature increase reaches the higher estimates.
This would be on top of the extinction due to habitat destruction.
Journalist John Buchanan, who exposed the wartime Nazi business dealings of Prescott Bush (grandfather of Dubya), is running against Bush in the New Hampshire primary as a way of focusing attention and opposition on Dubya's assault on US freedom and security.
The Bush administration is trying to punish former treasury secretary O'Neill for leaking secrets.
Since the secrets just show us how Bush has been lying, this is only an attempt to distract attention from real threats to national security.
In Iran, the mullahs have rejected over 2000 candidates for parliamentary elections, because they are reformist (like most of the voters). This includes many current members of parliament. Some of them are holding a sit-in strike in parliament, and the officials in charge of running the election are threatening to resign.
The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of Yaser Hamdi, who has been imprisoned without charges for 2 years by Bush.
US investigators have foiled a terrorist bombing plot by right-wing fanatics. You'd expect the government to boast of this success, so why doesn't Bush mention it?
One possible reason is that he wants Americans' fear to be directed at foreigners, not at people whose political views are just a little more extreme than those professed by Bush and his men.
The CIA produced the film versions of both Animal Farm and 1984, and distorted both of them for propaganda purposes. For instance, the book Animal Farm ended saying that the oppressive communist pigs were just like the oppressive capitalist farmers--but the movie's ending criticized only the communists.
The UK chief scientific advisor warns that global warming is more dangerous than terrorism.
Bush has abandoned the cleanup of polluted ground sites in the US and abandoned the idea of making polluters pay to clean them up.
The Pentagon's auditors doctored papers to cover up irregularities in accounting.
Former Bush cabinet member confirms that the planning for an invasion of Iraq began before 11 September 2001.
This provides clear proof for what we already had plenty of reason to suspect: that both weapons of mass destruction and claims that Saddam as connected with Al Qa'ida were just excuses.
Colin Powell recently admitted that there was no real evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qa'ida.
This is no surprise. Saddam was a secular Arab leader, installed originally with US help. Al Qa'ida considered him part of the enemy.
The IMF says that Bush economic policies are "endangering the world's economy."
The colleagues and family of camerman Jose Couso, killed in Baghdad by a Bush forces tank that fired at a hotel full of foreign journalists, refuse to accept the pretense that the attack was accidental--they call it a deliberate war crime.
Although the Aznar government in Spain stubbornly insists on believing the Bush "accident" story, a Spanish court recently agreed to investigate the case.
Afghanistan's assembly has accepted a Constitution. However, the contrast between the strong presidential powers in the constitution, and the actual lack of power of the central government in most of Afghanistan, mean there is such a gulf between the constitution and reality that it may not become more than empty words.
Human Rights Watch says that the constitution includes provisions for civil liberties, but is weak in terms of institutions to uphold them.
The Russian government is prosecuting a museum director and artists for art that criticized Christianity. It is part of a general trend towards giving the orthodox church special power.
This might give us a picture of what Bush would like to do in the US. I wonder if I would be prosecuted for wearing my "impeach god" button.
Bush proposed a system for "guest workers" in the US. Under the proposal, a worker would lose his visa if he were fired; thus, workers would be afraid to complain about bad working conditions and could be exploited even in illegal ways.
It would be great for business, but not for immigrants or other workers in the US who have to compete with them.
The Republican National Committee has launched a dishonest campaign against MoveOn, accusing it of sponsoring ads comparing Bush with Hitler.
It turns out that the ads were submissions from the public as part of a contest. MoveOn members considered them and voted on which ones to use. They mostly voted against these ads. However, I've seen a few articles that argue it is legitimate to compare Bush to Hitler, pointing at similarities in their careers and methods.
Is it legitimate to compare Bush with Hitler? The complication is that Hitler did several things we generally condemn:
Bush has done something like #1, using the September 11 attacks as an excuse to curtail civil liberties in America. However, there is an important difference. Hitler arranged the Reichstag fire, which he then blamed on the opposition. In the case of Bush, there is plenty of evidence that he was at least negligent in preventing the September 11 attacks, but I am skeptical of the accusations that he helped plot them.
The Bush administration has done #2, by claiming the power to imprison people for years on his mere say-so, by exposing anti-terrorist CIA agent Valerie Plame to punish her husband, by blatantly killing journalists in Baghdad, by putting activists on "no fly" lists, and much more.
Bush has done #3 to some extent. Internet dissent is still permitted, but does not appear in the mainstream media.
But this is not enough to make Bush as bad as Hitler. Bush has not really done #4; I don't think that the attack on Iraq is comparable to Hitler's attempt to conquer all of Europe.
Worst of all Hitler's deeds was #5, his persistent campaign to exterminate Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, and others he hated. This has no equivalent in Bush. Though Bush pursues policies that make life precarious for poor people, and promotes global warming that will endanger both civilization and nature after a few more decades, he has never shown any sign of wanting or trying specifically to exterminate large numbers of people. So I conclude that comparing Bush with Hitler is an unjustified exaggeration.
There is room in the scale of evil to be quite a monster without being as bad as Hitler. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to compare Bush with Mussolini.
The current "economic recovery" in the US reaches a historic low in terms of the percentage of increased business income that goes to wages.
John Pilger: What They Don't Want You To Know.
A satirist in Morocco, who had been imprisoned for criticizing the government, has been pardoned.
But freedom of speech as a principle has not been adopted there.
Bush is offering reinlistment bonuses--even while he tries to cut the pay for the troops.
A Nigerian man has been sentenced to death by stoning for illicit sex, and the woman has been sentenced to 100 lashes.
It is not clear whether the sex was voluntary or not.
If it was voluntary, punishing it at all is an outrage.
If it was rape, then punishing the victim is an outrage.
In either case, the death sentence is an outrage.
Nigeria has to confront the savagery of Islamic law, and put a definitive end to the practice.
George Will devoted a column to presenting the views of newspaper mogul Conrad Black...who was paying Will lots of money a couple of years ago.
A consumer group, representing music listeners, is suing the record companies in Europe for making fake CDs that don't follow the CD standards and cannot be read into a computer as a WAV file.
Some European countries have already ruled that these Corrupt Disks cannot carry the "CD" logo.
I think it is legitimate to restrict the commercial use of music recordings to those who pay the artists. But any attempt to stop individuals from sharing the music is an outrage, and the companies that do it deserve to go out of business.
Ambassador Wilson is determined to pursue the Bush administration for having sabotaged his wife's CIA work against terrorism.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has accused the Bush administration of deliberately misleading the public about Iraq's weapons capabilities.
We already know Bush was lying; it is good to see more recognition of this. Perhaps eventually a Democratic candidate will dare to make the accusation out loud.
The Bush forces have discharged some soldiers for cruelly attacking helpless prisoners.
Soldiers in any war tend to express their anger at the enemy by brutalizing people associated with the enemy. So it is incumbent on the army's leaders to show clearly that this is not to be tolerated. These punishments show that the Bush forces' leaders are doing this part of their job, at least to some extent. But is dismissal from the army a strong enough punishment to deter this crime?
The increased demand for herbal remedies is threatening the survival of many of the herbs that are used.
Ultimately this problem, like so many others, is the consequence of human overpopulation. It may be possible with care and effort to prevent this problem, and many of the others, but overpopulation makes such care and effort necessary in more and more areas of life.
British writer faces deportation from Zambia for satirizing leaders.
Groping Arnold's fiscal plan for California resembles Bush's plan for the US: cut taxes and borrow lots of money.
Refugees in Nauru have suspended their hunger strike temporarily after the Australian governmnt agreed to reconsider their requests for asylum, which had previously been rejected out of hand.
Kofi Annan warns that violence in Afghanistan will interfere with the elections planned for next June.
The religious fanatic rulers of Iran have censored a web site that advocates reform.
Bush was served a lawsuit last Friday by Ellen Mariani, who accuses Bush of negligently failing to carry out normal security procedures and thus allowing the 9/11 attacks that killed her husband.
Many other victim families see the government's 9/11 compensation fund as an attempt to buy their cooperation with the coverup.
Just what is being covered up, I will not try to say. We know that a cover-up is occurring because important evidence that ought to be available has been concealed. The cover-up has been sufficiently successful, thus far, that we cannot tell what's being hidden.
The US "economy" is "recovering", but only in terms that measure the fortunes of the wealthiest. For most Americans, there is no improvement, because the jobs they lost are permanently gone.
These lost jobs, and the consequent surplus of labor, are holding down wages, so that Americans who are still employed are also gaining nothing.
These "structural changes" are not a natural phenomenon. They result from government policies designed to give corporations more power, which they use to make countries compete for allowing bad treatment for workers and low pay.
Thomas Kean, head of the 9/11 investigation committee, says the committee will consider some of the skeptics' theories about what happened.
Blair continues to say Saddam had biological and chemical weapons while even Paul Bremer admits there were none.
A war is a dire undertaking, and can only be justified by the strongest of reasons. A politician who leads a country into war, even honestly, for a reason that proves to be false has committed the most grave error imaginable. In the British system, that politician should resign from office.
Evidence suggests that Bush may be smuggling Iraqi oil via Kuwait.
Shipping oil is not necessarily smuggling. This could be some legitimate kind of oil export. But it is up to Bush to account for the pipeline and for the export.
Israeli police shut down Indymedia Israel on the basis of a cartoon, posted by some unknown member of the public, relating Prime Minister Sharon with Nazism.
See the article here; it is now redirected to another site, which has an article about this, first in Hebrew then in English.
The "Visit USA" system is described officially as a plan to collect photos and fingerprints from foreign criminals. Today Asa Hutchinson, a US official, revealed in an interview that the real aim is to collect a fingerprint data base of most US citizens.
When the US government wants to do something unpalatable to Americans, it often does this indirectly: first bullying other countries into doing it, then reimporting it as an international requirement. That's what's happening here. By demanding that other countries encode fingerprints in passports, the US government hopes to create an excuse to do likewise, thus treating US citizens who travel like criminals.
Bush's negligence (if it wasn't worse) in preventing the 9/11 attacks is becoming an unmentionable in the presidential campaign.
The Israeli blockade of refugee camps near Nablus is causing starvation.
Israeli journalism has ceased using the words "our forces" in describing actions of the Israeli army, as a way of dissociating itself from what the army is doing in Palestine. This article argues that this change helps Israelis evade responsibility for those actions.
I decided when Bush invaded Iraq to refer to the army that did the invading as the "Bush forces", rather than the "US army", specifically to avoid contributing to an attempt to manipulate us through our patriotism. In effect, I decided to do exactly what this article criticizes. Nonetheless, I think the article has a valid point, for Israel, because I see a difference between the situations in the US and Israel. In Israel, the atrocities of the army are well reported; people could take responsibility for them. In the US, they are so thoroughly hidden or disguised in the mainstream media that calling the Bush forces "ours" would only help Bush manipulate us.
Why Bush Must Be Captured And Tried With Saddam.
I don't agree 100% with that viewpoint, because I don't think that laws (national or international) entirely define right and wrong.
The UK frequently applies "anti-terrorist" powers to nonviolent protestors.
I am sure Blair said "trust me, I wouldn't do that" when asked, before passage of the law, whether this would happen.
Bush used the arrest of Saddam as a distraction from a law that implements part of the planned "son of pat-riot" act, greatly expanding FBI search powers without search warrants.
According to a former presidential science advisor, the threat to democracy is at "code red" level.
9/11: What don't we know, and why don't we know it?
The US government was given the right to censor evidence given in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic.
Seattle protestors won a victory against the police, as a judge rules their arrest was illegal.
But a class-action suit against the police may still lose.
What the US could do to promote democracy in Iraq and the Middle East, if Bush really wanted to do that.
The FBI labels possession of an almanac as grounds to suspect someone of terrorism.
This suggests to me that they don't generally know what they're doing.
Comcast Cable has refused to show paid ads for medical marijuana.
The Israeli government shut down the Indymedia Israel web site, because of a cartoon posted by some unknown member of the public.
I have to correct a statement I made a few weeks ago: whoever set off a bomb next to a restaurant in Baghdad on New Years Eve does qualify as a terrorist. If the Iraqi insurgents fall into a practice that is likely to make Iraqis hate them, it could hand Bush a victory he could never win on his own.
We don't actually know that the bomb was set by insurgents. It could also have been set by someone working to discredit them. I would not dismiss either possibility as absurd; I would not put such an act past either side.
Return to Richard Stallman's home page.
Please send comments on these web pages to rms@gnu.org.
Copyright (C) 2004 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.