Environmentalists Against War: What You Need To Know

Essential Information

A compendium of articles, reports, essays and investigations into the effects of militarism on the environment and human society. Send additional documents to editor@envirosagainstwar.org.

FEATURED REPORTS

The Non-Reporting of Fallujah's Cancer Catastrophe (Media Lens)
Noam Chomsky has called the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health study, 'Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009.' "vastly more significant" than the Wikileaks Afghan 'War Diary' leaks, yet the Western Media has failed to address the story. The study showed a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer and a 38-fold increase in leukaemia -- worse than experienced after the bombing of Hiroshima.

Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005â€“2009 (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health)
In 2004, there was heavy fighting between US-led occupation troops and Iraqi elements in Fallujah. Little is known about the types of weapons deployed, but reports began to emerge after 2005 of a sudden increase in cancer and leukaemia rates. (Depleted uranium weapons were reportedly used.) A new study reveals a legacy of cancers in children and adults.

ACTION ALERT: EAW's Letter to Michelle Obama and the White House Response (Gar Smith / Environmentalists Against War)
On August 1, EAW published text and videos detailing an unprecedented increase in cancers and deformed babies following the US attack on Fallujah. We sent copies of these postings, with a letter requesting action, to First Lady Michelle Obama, Senators Feinstein and Boxer, and Congressmembers Pelosi and Lee. Today, we received a letter from the White House. Please copy and send the video to your representatives.

The Pentagon Triumphant on the Media Battlefield (Tom Engelhardt / Tom Dispatch.com)
These days "foreign policy" and "global policy" are increasingly a single fused, militarized entity, where what's at stake is "military presence." Despite two disastrous wars with a "multigenerational" timetable, trillions of lost dollars, and staggering numbers of deaths, everything is "on the table" except de-escalation -- The Pentagon and White House agree: the US military must not slack off.

Urban Warrior: How the Pentagon Trains for Martial Law in America (Gar Smith / Environmentalists Against War & Columbia University)
Time and again over the past two decades, the Pentagon has staged "war games" inside US cities -- Kingsville, Texas; Oakland, California; Pittsburgh; Chicago and elsewhere. These so-called "humanitarian exercises" are actually a pretext for honing techniques to seize control of the "Urban Battlescape" inside the US. This report focuses on the 1999 "Urban Warrior" exercise in San Francisco.

They Caused the Iraq War and Remain without Shame (James Zogby / The National)
As President Barack Obama announced the withdrawal of US combat forces from Iraq, there was considerable commentary focusing on the lies utilized to build public support for the war including the argument that Saddam had developed weapons of mass destruction and the assertion by the then-vice president Dick Cheney that there were "proven links" connecting Iraq to the terror attacks on 9/11.

Another False Ending: Contracting out the Iraq Occupation (Bill Quigley and Laura Raymond / CommonDreams.org)
Another false ending to the Iraq war is being declared. While thousands of US troops are marching out, thousands of additional private military contractors (PMCs) are marching in. The number of armed security contractors in Iraq will more than double in the coming months.

A Trillion-dollar Catastrophe. Yes, Iraq Was a Headline War (Simon Jenkins / The Guardian/UK)
As US troops return home, Iraqis are marginally freer than in 2003, and considerably less secure. Two million remain abroad as refugees, with another 2 million internally displaced. Ironically, almost all Iraqi Christians have had to flee. Under western rule, production of oil -- Iraq's staple product -- is still below its pre-invasion level and homes enjoy fewer hours of electricity. This is dreadful.

EAW's Letter to Michelle Obama and the White House Response (Gar Smith / Environmentalists Against War)
On August 1, EAW published text and video postings detailing the unprecedented increase in childhood cancers and deformed babies following the US attack on Fallujah, Iraq's "City of Mosques." We sent copies of these postings, with a letter requesting action, to First Lady Michelle Obama, Senators Feinstein and Boxer, and Congressmembers Pelosi and Lee. Today, we received a letter from the White House.

US Troops Still Engaged in Iraq Combat (Barbara Surk / Associated Press)
Days after the US officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.

NATO 'Precision Air Strike' Kills 10 Afghan Election Workers (BBC News)
Ten Afghan election workers were killed in an air strike by NATO-led forces. NATO initially claimed a "precision air strike" killed a "Taliban commander... after careful planning to ensure no civilians were present." The Afghan war has triggered a 31% rise in civilian casualties with,women and children bearing the brunt, with a 155% rise in the numbers of young people dying in insurgent bomb blasts.

Criminal Organization Conspires to Win Pentagon Contracts; CIA Shrugs (Press TV & The New York Times)
US security company Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, , which gained notoriety for killing unarmed civilians in Iraq, now uses shell affiliates to seize government businesses. Blackwater has created an array of 30 bogus subsidiaries to win millions of dollars in government deals. At least three of these fake subsidiaries have won deals with the US Army and the CIA.

Pentagon Declined to Investigate Hundreds of Purchases of Child Pornography (John Cook / The Upshot)
A Defense Department investigation discovered that more than 250 civilian and military employees of the Defense Department -- including some with the highest available security clearance -- had used credit cards or PayPal to purchase images of children in sexual situations. But a Freedom of Information request reveals the Pentagon has investigated only a handful of these cases.

US Dodges Obligation to Help Iraqi Women Trafficked into Sexual Slavery (Sebastian Swett and Cameron Webster / The Nation)
Two months ago, the State Department released its "2010 Trafficking in Persons Report," laying out a picture of human trafficking across the globe. In it, the US reaffirmed its commitment to ending this scourge. Our duties, however, do not end at our borders. Currently, more than 50,000 Iraqi women. forced to flee to Jordan and Syria, are trapped in sexual servitude and have no possibility of escape. The burgeoning sex industries in Syria and Jordan are thriving because of instability produced by the Iraq War -- laying responsibility directly at the feet of the United States.

Carnage in Quetta: 50 Civilians Killed by 'Friendly Fire' (Kamal Hyder / Al Jazeera Blogs )
A suicide bomber blew himself up, killing between 6-8 people. What happened after that was something people will not forget. The procession, according to witnesses, had guards brandishing guns, who then started to fire indiscriminately, apparently killing people at random. When it was all over, 50 people lay dead in the bazaar and over 100 were badly wounded.

War Crimes Charges Dog Tony Blair at Dublin Book-signing (Henry McDonald / The Guardian)
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was attacked by anti-war protesters hurling eggs and shoes during an appearance in Dublin to promote his memoirs. One woman was arrested when she attempted to perform a "citizen's arrest" on the former UK official who knowingly relied on "dodgy intelligence" as a pretext to wage an unjustified act of military aggression against a sovereign nation.

Economic Powerhouse China Focuses on its Military Might (John Pomfret / Washington Post )
China is quickly modernizing its military and has set its sights on extending its influence deep into the Pacific and Indian oceans. China is deploying a new class of nuclear-powered submarines equipped with intercontinental ballistic missiles. It is pouring money into space warfare systems and cyberwarfare capabilities. It is developing a "carrier killer" anti-ship ballistic missile.

Floating Chernobyls (Karl Grossman / OpEd News)
Russia has embarked on a scheme to build floating nuclear power plants to be moored off its coasts and sold to nations around the world but critics warn the plants would pose unprecedented hazards in the event of failure while promoting the risks of nuclear proliferation and providing irresistible targets for terrorism.

Now Showing: Countdown to Zero (Hugh Gusterson / The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists)
It is unclear whether nuclear weapons will be abolished, but it is clear that the nuclear abolitionist movement is now being mainstreamed. Exhibit A in this process is the new general release film, Countdown to Zero, made by the same team that brought us An Inconvenient Truth. The movie's slogan: "More than a movie. It's a movement."

Cutting through the Media's Bogus Bomb-Iran Debate (Tony Karon / Al Jazeera)
America's march to a disastrous war in Iraq began in the media, where an unprovoked US invasion of an Arab country was introduced as a legitimate policy option, then debated as a prudent and necessary one. Now, a similarly flawed media conversation on Iran is gaining momentum. The debate's ultimate purpose is to plant in the public mind the idea that a march to war with Iran.

Afghanistan's Dirty Little Secret (Joel Brinkley / San Francisco Chronicle)
Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."

Colin Powell Confesses: War Based on Lies (Kazuhiko Kusano /Mainichi News)
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell has told the Mainichi he believes the Iraq War -- which began while he was in office in 2003 -- could have been averted. Powell also stated during an Aug. 24 telephone interview that he regretted the false intelligence that led the United States to claim the Saddam Hussein regime possessed weapons of mass destruction.

US Policy on Somalia Sowed Seeds for Chaos (Gwynne Dyer / The Japan Times)
The US decision in 2006 to send Ethiopian troops into Somalia was one of the stupidest moves in a very stupid decade. Last week, some of the chickens spawned by that decision came home to roost.

Afghan Security Contractors Undermine the US Counterinsurgency Strategy (Kevin Sites / Global Post & The Associated Press)
Civilian deaths threaten support for the US-led war both in Afghanistan and in the United States -- and they are on the rise. A UN report released Tuesday said civilian casualties had increased by 31 percent in the last six months. And a major offensive in the southern province of Kandahar that is just beginning is almost certain to lead to more civilian casualties.

ACTION ALERT: Protest Government's Mass Killings in Sri Lanka (Muthamizh Vendhan / Change.org)
People from across the globe are condemning the Human rights violations of Srilankan government. And civilized society is fighting hard to establish the justice to the Tamils. Killing of nearly 140,000 innocents, war crimes, ongoing slaughter on the journalists, moderates, reformists, artists and having opposition leader behind the bars make the Srilanka as a criminal and a failed state.

What Obama Might Have Told the Nation (Ray McGovern / opednews.com)
Commentary from a 27-year veteran of the CIA: "President Barack Obama's aides say his speech marking the end of 'combat operations' in Iraq will avoid the vainglorious aspects of President George W. Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech in 2003. We'll see. On the chance Obama might be open to... addressing honestly the worsening quagmire in Afghanistan. I have offered him the following text."

Another False Ending: Contracting Out the Iraq Occupation (Bill Quigley and Laura Raymond / TruthOut)
Another false ending to the Iraq war is being declared. Nearly seven years after George Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech, President Obama has given a major address to mark the withdrawal of all but 50,000 combat troops from Iraq. But while thousands of troops are marching out, thousands of private military contractors are marching in. The number of armed contractors in Iraq will more than double.

KBR to Execute Two Refinery Contracts for Iraq's Oil Ministry (Marketwire via Comtex)
"Halliburton has made a sizeable investment in Iraq," says Halliburton Chair Dave Lesar. Halliburton has been active in the Middle East since 1946. Currently, Halliburton has more than 4,000 employees in the Middle East, and construction on phase I of Halliburton's 400-man base in Burjisia, Iraq is complete.

US Contractors Kill Afghan Children; US Planes Kill Afghan Kids: Coalition Forces Kill US Contractors; Coalition Forces Kill Civilians; US Fires on 2000 Afghan Protesters (PressTV & CNN News Wire & Morning Star)
Riots in Ghazni after two civilians are killed by foreign contractors. US-led warplanes are blamed for killing six Afghan children. Two private security contractors are killed by coalition forces who mistook them for insurgents. US troops fire on thousands of civilians protesting outside the US base at Bagram. Foreign troops kill eight civilians and injure 12 in a 2am raid on a private home.

Greenpeace 'Shuts Down' Arctic Oil Rig (Severin Carrell and Bibi van der Zee / The Guardian)
Demonstrating considerably more strategic wisdom and humanitarian sense than the Israeli Defense Force that attacked a Gaza aide flotilla (and killing several passengers), Greenpeace claims to have shut down an offshore drilling rig in a daring pre-dawn raid. Greenpeace opposes the British company's plan to drill for oil in the Arctic. Four climbers have begun a nonviolent occupation of the rig.

N Disarmament Conference Closes with Call for Nuclear-Free Middle East (Kohei Okada / Chugoku Shimbun & Hiroshima Peace Media)
Of gravest concern are the nuclear issues vexing Northeast Asia and the Middle East. In the closing session of the final day, government officials from the United States and Iran were at loggerheads over Israel. The former is a staunch supporter of Israel, while the latter is disapproving of its neighbor.

Ex-USSR Awash in Radioactive 'Dirty Bomb' Substances (Agence France-Presse)
The entire territory of the former Soviet Union is awash in radioactive material that was used in Soviet times for some 30 various ministries and services, in medicine or agriculture. Hundreds of thousands of tons of uranium lie in storage at industrial sites -- "one can take bagfuls of them."

The Cost of Weapons: Defense Spending in a Time of Austerity (The Economist)
At this summer's Farnborough air show, outside London, America's most advanced fighter, the F-22 Raptor, announced its power with a thunderous roar. But the fighter is an endangered species. The weapon that US field commanders clamor for these days is the Predator, an unmanned drone able to stay aloft for a day.

Rights Groups File Challenge To Targeted Killing By US (Center for Constitutional Rights)
Will the US government get away with the power to target and kill individuals, including US citizens, far from any armed conflict and without charge, trial, or judicial process? This is the central question in Al-Aulaqi v. Obama, a lawsuit CCR and the ACLU filed today in federal court.

War Veterans/Military Family Members Successfully Blockade Fort Hood Combat Deployment to Iraq (Fort Hood Disobeys)
On August 23 five peace activists successfully blockaded six buses carrying Fort Hood Soldiers deploying to Iraq. Among those blockading were three veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and one military wife. This latest deployment comes less than two weeks after President Obama announced the second end to combat operations in Iraq. The 3rd ACR is a combat regiment.

Iraq's Troubled Young Hearts (Victoria Fine / Al Jazeera)
After 7 years of US occupation and "nation-building," Iraq's decimated healthcare system cannot meet the need for pediatric heart surgery. In all, the waiting list is above 20,000.

Pentagon Plots Attack on Internet in the Name of â€œDefenseâ€ (Ellen Nakashimaâ€¨ / Washington Post )
The Pentagon is contemplating an aggressive approach to defending its computer systems that includes preemptive actions such as knocking out parts of an adversary's computer network overseas -- but it is still wrestling with how to pursue the strategy legally.

Review: The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's (Andrew Feldman / Foreign Policy in Focus)
This is the paradox of post-September 11 America: While the US government spends hundreds of billions of dollars on war, spying, and covert operations, people in the United States still imagine that they are "the greatest victims on the planet" -- even as US drone aircraft evaporate weddings and funerals across the Middle East.

Torture. Corruption. Civil War. America Has Certainly Left its Markâ€¨â€¨ in Iraq (Robert Fiskâ€¨â€¨/ The Independent)
We should not be taken in by the tomfoolery on the Kuwaiti border -- the departure of the last "combat" troops from Iraq. Nor by the infantile cries of "We won" from teenage soldiers. They are leaving behind 50,000 men and women -- a third of the entire US occupation force -- who will be attacked and who will still have to fight against the insurgency.

Scared Women Are Packing Pistols in Iraq (Nizar Latif, Foreign Correspondent / The National)
Each night before she goes to sleep, Umm Shekar checks to make sure her pistol is loaded and tucks it beneath her mattress. Increasingly worried about being robbed by criminal gangs or insurgents, the mother of six bought the weapon so she could defend herself and her family.

Is the US Pulling the Plug on Iraqi Workers? (David Bacon / TruthOut Report)
The Iraqi government, while it seems paralyzed on many fronts, has unleashed a wave of actions against the country's unions that are intended to take Iraq back to the era when Saddam Hussein prohibited them for most workers, and arrested activists who protested. Arrest warrants have been issued for oil union leaders. At the US Embassy in Baghdad, the largest in the world, an official says mildly, "We're looking into it."

ACTION ALERT: 97 Congressional Candidates Oppose War Spending (Coalition Against War Spending)
Ninety-seven congressional candidates and 34 national organizations are opposing any more funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The 97 candidates are from 29 states and Washington, D.C., and include 32 Greens, 24 Libertarians, 22 Democrats, 7 Independent Greens, 5 Independents, 4 Peace and Freedom, 1 Republican, 1 Socialist, and 1 West Virginia Green. Eighty-four are candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, and 13 for the Senate.

Pakistan: A Question of Water (Gwynne Dyer / Common Dreams)
This may not be the most tactful time to bring it up, with much of Pakistan underwater and many millions homeless, but Pakistan's real problem is not too much water. It is too little water -- and one day it could cause a war.

Israeli Soldiers Sell Gaza Flotilla Passengersâ€™ Computers and Steal Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars in Cash (Ann Wright / CommonDreams)
Despite appeals from 750 passengers on the Gaza flotilla to the Israeli government to protect and return their personal belongings -- taken by Israeli commandos on when they forcefully boarded the six ships of the flotilla -- the Israeli government has left millions of dollars of computers, cameras and cell phones and hundreds of thousands of cash unsecured and uninventoried.

War and the American Identity (David Swanson / David Swanson.org)
"Prior to World War II, Americans by and large viewed military power and institutions with skepticism, if not outright hostility. In the wake of World War II, that changed. An affinity for military might emerged as central to the American identity. The methods devised by Allen Dulles and... Curtis LeMay ... [have] allowed presidents to assert and exercise quasi-imperial prerogatives."

Torture. Corruption. Civil War. America Has Certainly Left its Markâ€¨â€¨ in Iraq (Robert Fiskâ€¨â€¨/ The Independent)

Yemen 'Abandons' Human Rights (Andrew Wander / Al Jazeera)
Under pressure from the Pentagon, Yemen has engaged in police and military actions that have lead to massive violations of human rights. Amnesty International says that over the past year, the Yemeni government has carried out vicious military campaigns, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killings under the banner of the US "War on Terror" against Al-Qaeda.

US Wars: People vs Generals (Marwan Bishara / Al Jazeera Blog)
Commentary: "While the Obama administration continues to affirm its intention to withdraw US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, the US' military presence in the Muslim world is actually expanding and this is exacerbating tensions and inflaming animosities."

The Pat Tillman Story, a Documentary Movie (Mark Biskeborn / OpEd News)
Review: "Once he enlisted with his brother Kevin in 2002, Pat Tillman was worth more to the Army dead than alive. By 2004, the military was having serious problems to recruit more men to fight the war, much less to gain public support for the invasion of Iraq. By 2004, Pat Tillman was promoted as a unit leader and was the only one killed by someone in his own unit."

An Exciting New Muslim Country to Drone Attack (Glenn Greenwald / Salon)
After the US attacked suspected Al-Qaida targets in Yemen with three Cruise missile strikes the Pentagon claimed it needed to increase use of drone aircraft because "Yemen poses a threat to the US." But a US Cruise missile attack on June 7, 2010, killed 41 local residents, including 14 women and 21 children. It appears that it is the US that is a threat to Yemen.

Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents (Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti and Robert F. North / The New York Times)
The Obama administration's shadow war against Al Qaeda and its allies has been quietly expanded to a dozen countries. From the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics, the US has increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the enemy using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives to chase terrorists.

False Flag Operations: When Governments Secretly Attack Themselves To Foment War (WantToKnow.info)
"False flag terrorism" occurs when elements within a government stage a secret operation whereby government forces pretend to be a targeted enemy while attacking their own forces or people. The attack is then falsely blamed on the enemy in order to justify going to war against that enemy.

Facing Prison for Filming US police (Chris Arsenault / Al Jazeera)
When police arrested Anthony Graber for speeding on his motorbike, the 25-year-old probably did not see himself as an advocate for police accountability in the age of new media. But Graber, a sergeant with the Maryland Air National Guard, is now facing 16 years in prison, not for dangerous driving, but for a YouTube video he posted after receiving a speeding ticket.

Another US-Inflicted "Ground Zero" in Pakistan (William N. Grigg / Libertarian Standard)
If opinion polls are reliable at all, most Americans are too enthralled by the manufactured outrage over the so-called Ground Zero Mosque to notice that the government claiming to represent them just massacred, via remote-controlled drone, at least twenty innocent people in Pakistan.

Stryker Soldiers Allegedly Plotted to Kill Afghan Civilians (Hal Bernton / Seattle Times)
Last December, Army Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs began joking with other soldiers about how easy it would be to "toss a grenade" at Afghan civilians and kill them, according to statements made by fellow platoon members to military investigators. Gibbs eventually turned the talk into action, forming what one called a "kill team" to carry out random executions of Afghans.

Wikileaks Releases CIA 'Exporter of Terrorism' Report (BBC News and WikiLeaks)
This CIA "Red Cell" report looks at what will happen if it is internationally understood that the US is an exporter of terrorism. "Contrary to common belief, the American export of terrorism or terrorists is not a recent phenomenon.... The report looks at a number cases of US exported terrorism, including attacks by US-based or nanced Jewish, Muslim and Irish-nationalism terrorists."

'Gas Poisoning' Hits Afghan Girls (Al Jazeera)
Dozens of students and teachers at a girls' school in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, have been sickened by an unknown gas that spread through classrooms. Wednesday's incident raised fears that the Taliban and other allied groups who oppose female education are using a new method to scare them away from classes.

Danish Warship Blocks Greenpeace Arctic Oil Protest (Severin Carrell and Kirsty Scott / The Guardian)
In a standoff chillingly reminiscent of Israelâ€™s confrontation with a relief convoy heading to Gaza, the Danish navy is bearing down on the Greenpeace ship, the Esperanza, warning that it will be boarded by armed personnel if it breaches the exclusion zone to protest deep-sea drilling in the Arctic.

Space Warfare: Preparing the "Battlespace" for a New Imperial Adventure (Tom Burghardt / Global Research)
General Lance W. Lord, then-commander of the Air Force Space Command told an Air Force conference that "space superiority ... is our destiny... Space superiority is our day-to-day mission. Space supremacy is our vision for the future." And with no public debate whatsoever, new weapons programs spawned in the bowels of the Pentagon's black budget parallel universe are on coming on-line.

What You Will Not Hear About Iraq (Prof. Adil E. Shamoo / Foreign Policy In Focus & Global Research)
Iraq has between 25 and 50 percent unemployment, a dysfunctional parliament, rampant disease, an epidemic of mental illness, and sprawling slums. The killing of innocent people has become part of daily life. What a havoc the United States has wreaked in Iraq.

Civilians to Take US Lead After Military Leaves Iraq (Micahel R. Gordon / The New York Times)
As the United States military prepares to leave Iraq by the end of 2011, the Obama administration is planning a remarkable civilian effort, buttressed by a small army of contractors, to fill the void. The State Department is planning to more than double its private security guards -- up to as many as 7,000 -- to defend the sprawling Green Zone and five fortified compounds across the country.

ACTION ALERT: Use Pakistan's Military Funding to Flood Recovery (The Campaign for Peace and Democracy & Labour Party Pakistan)
The recent floods represent the worst disaster in Pakistan's history. The country has been devastated. The State, stripped of its capacity to meet peoples' needs by neoliberalism and militarism alike, has been found wanting. In addition to donating funds, people are invited to sign a petition calling for priorities that value people's over the demands of Pakistan's military.

Israelis Risk Jail to Smuggle Palestinians (Jonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent / The National)
Nearly 600 Israelis have signed up for a campaign of civil disobedience, vowing to risk jail to smuggle Palestinian women and children into Israel for a brief taste of life outside the occupied West Bank. The protest was inspired by Ilana Hammerman, a writer threatened with prosecution after she admitted breaking the law to bring three Palestinian teenagers into Israel for a day out.

Soldiers Expose Deployment of Unprepared Troops (Civilian-Soldier & Iraq Veterans Against War)
Army Reserve members facing imminent deployment to Afghanistan are publicly charging that their company is not properly trained or mentally fit for battle. Several members of the Indiana-based 656th Transportation Company, which is due to activate August 22nd, are requesting a Congressional inquiry into the unit's lack of readiness.

JihadiLeaks: How the Mujahideen See the Afghan War (The Unjust Media)
Each day, Afghanistan's Mujahideen fighters file email reports on the latest clashes with US and NATO "terrorists." The report for August 23 claims that -- in the course of a single day -- Afghan fighters managed to kill more than 45 US soldiers, blew up 14 US tanks, and destroyed 55 vehicles. Even if only one-tenth of these reports were, it would mean the Pentagon's Afghan offensive is in big trouble.

Why the Wars Can't Be Won (Prof. John Kozy / Global Research)
Analysis: "What did the Civil War really accomplish? It united a nation without uniting its people. The USA became one nation indivisible made up of two disunited peoples; it became a nation divided, and the division has spread. Therein lies a lesson. By the force of arms, you can compel outward conformity to political institutions and their laws, but you cannot change the antagonistic attitudes of people, that can remain unchanged for decades and longer."

ACTION ALERT: The Iraq Legacy: Tell It Like It Is (Medea Benjamin / OpEd News)
With the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq, the administration, the military and the media are trying to put a positive spin on this grim chapter of US history. But the bitter truth is that the US intervention has been an utter disaster for both Iraq and the United States. ACTION: Sign the "Iraq Debacle Petition!" to support the victims of this war -- at home and abroad.

Back to the Heart of Darkness in America's Unended War in Iraq (Chris Floyd / Chris Floyd.com)
"Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent Into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death," details how a team of US soldiers carried out the premeditated rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and her family. Just one crime of many in a war that killed a million innocent civilians. So did the war accomplish anything. Yes. This just in: "Halliburton gets letter of intent for Iraq oil."

(Juan Gonzales & Amy Goodman / Democracy Now!)
Is this the end of the Iraq war or just a rebranding of the US occupation? More than 50,000 troops remain in Iraq as well as 4,500 special operations forces and tens of thousands of private contractors. The US embassy in Baghdad is the largest in the world -- the size of eighty football fields. Two Iraqi activists give a harrowing, personal account of life in the ruins of "post-combat" Iraq.

United Nations Report Criticizes Gaza Restrictions (Ethan Bronner / The New York Times)
A UN report says 12 percent of the population of Gaza -- 178,000 people out of 1.5 million -- have lost livelihoods or have otherwise been severely affected by Israeli security policies. The report estimates that the restricted land comprises 17 percent of Gaza's total land and 35 percent of its agricultural land. Israel also restricts Gazan fishing to three nautical miles offshore.

Between the Fence and a Hard Place: The Impact of Israel-Imposed Restrictions in Gaza (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs )
Over the past ten years, the Israeli military has expanded restrictions on access to farmland on the Gaza side of the 1949 "Green Line." An estimated 178,000 people -- 12 percent of the Palestinians population -- is being prevented from enjoying full access to ancestral lands located 1,000-1,500 meters from the Green Line. Access restrictions are enforced by opening live fire on people trying to enter the areas.

New York Times Spins UN Report on Gaza Suffering (Jeremy R. Hammond / Foreign Policy Journal)
The Times article gives weight to the Israeli claim that its activities in the Gaza Strip are matters of self-defense against Palestinian aggression and terrorism. The UN report, however, notes that much of the "aggression" is in response to Israel's incursions and destruction of Palestinian land and property. The loss of potential agricultural income in Gaza is estimated at over $50 million annually.

Court: Israel Responsible for Arab Girl's Death (Diaa Hadid / Associated Press)
A Jerusalem court has ruled that the Israeli state was responsible for the death of Abir Aramin, a 10-year-old Palestinian girl killed by gunfire more than three years ago as she stood some distance from a demonstration. The case gained wide attention because the girl's father, Basam Aramin, was a Palestinian militant turned advocate for Israeli-Palestinian coexistence.

We're Really Leaving! (Dave Ross / CBS Radio Network)
Commentary: The last of the combat troops have left Iraq. Some by air, some on the ground. The 4th Stryker Brigade actually drove out, and rolled into Kuwait without a single casualty on the way. Itâ€™s an amazing thing because it was motivated by a date -- by a mark on the calendar. The deadline had arrived.... We just agreed to a date and stuck to it... we don't feel defeated. And we don't feel any less safe, either.

Soldiers Expose Deployment of Unprepared Troops (Clare Bayard / CounterPunch & Civilian Soldier.or)
Army Reserve members facing imminent deployment to Afghanistan are publicly charging that their company is not properly trained or mentally fit for battle. Several members of the Indiana-based 656th Transportation Company, which is due to activate August 22nd, are requesting a Congressional inquiry into the unit's lack of readiness.

Naked Imperialism: The US Pursuit of Global Dominance (John Bellamy Foster / Monthly Review Press)
During the Cold War, mainstream commentators were quick to dismiss the idea that the US was an imperialist power. Even when US interventions led to the overthrow of popular governments -- as in Iran, Guatemala, or the Congo -- or wholesale war, as in Vietnam, this fiction remained intact. During the 1990s and especially since 9-11, however, it has crumbled. Today, the need for American empire is openly proclaimed.

Civilians to Take US Lead After Military Leaves Iraq (Michael R. Gordon / The New York Times)
As the United States military prepares to leave Iraq by the end of 2011, the Obama administration is planning a remarkable civilian effort, buttressed by a small army of contractors, to fill the void. The State Department is planning to more than double its private security guards, up to as many as 7,000. Meanwhile, another 2,400 US civilians would continue to work at the Baghdad embassy and other diplomatic sites.

Assassination in Afghanistan and Task Force 373 (Pratap Chatterjee / Corp Watch & Tom Dispatch)
"Find, fix, finish, and follow-up" is the way the Pentagon describes the mission of secret military teams that have been given a mandate to pursue and murder alleged Taliban or al-Qaeda members. Some call these "man-hunting" operations. The details of dozens of their specific operations have been revealed for the first time in the mass of secret intelligence documents published by the website Wikileaks.

America's Biggest Jobs Program: The US Military (Robert Reich / Christian Science Monitor)
Over 1,400,000 Americans are now on active duty; another 833,000 are in the reserves, many full time. If we didn't have the military to employ millions of Americans, the US unemployment rate would be over 11.5 percent today instead of 9.5 percent. Is having a massive military jobs program the best way to employ Americans?

ACTION ALERT: August 21-22 -- Protest 3rd Battalion's Deployment to Iraq (The World Can't Wait)
While the Pentagon and the Media celebrate the return of troops from Iraq, 5,000 soldiers with the 3rd Battalion based in Fort Hood, Texas, have been told they are to be sent to Iraq next week. Iraq Veterans Against War is holding a protest demonstration to draw attention to the fact that -- beyond the hype -- the war will continue to put the lives of young Americans -- and Iraqi civilians -- at risk.

The Iraq War Isn't Ending & War Is a Racket (Kevin Zeese / Voters for Peace & Cindy Sheehan / Common Dreams)
President Obama is claiming an end to the war in Iraq. His end will mean 50,000 troops remaining and at least that many private troops, mercenaries. While the troops are no longer engaged in "combat" they will be "fighting terrorism." The end of the war seems to mean the continuation of it. As Marine Gen. Smedley Butler put it 75 years ago: "War is a racket."

Pentagon's 'Toxic Legacy' in Iraq: Fallujah's Poisoned Children (Rawya Rageh / Al Jazeera & AlterNet)
The US military has been accused of leaving behind a legacy of toxic waste, left at abandoned bases as troops prepare to withdraw from Iraq. Meanwhile the children of Fallujah (site of a major US assualt) suffer from birth defects and strange mutations -- including a baby born with three heads. Alarmed officials in Fallujah have warned women that they should not have children.

Questions Arise over Iraqi War Funds While Troops Are Declared 'Not Ready' (Tom Ackerman / Al Jazeera )
The US, which has withdrawn its last combat brigade from Iraq, has spent at least $700 billion on the Iraq war since its start more than seven years ago. Now, there are also concerns that funds for Iraq's reconstruction are being misspent. Meanwhile, Iraq's most senior military officer has said that his security forces will not be able to secure the country until 2020

Members of Congress Call for Bipartisan Review US Policy in Afghanistan
Eleven Congressmembers have written to President Obama, noting that: "As America heads inexorably towards its tenth year of war in Afghanistan, it is clear that the end of this, America's longest war, is nowhere in sight" and calling for "the establishment of a bipartisan Afghanistan-Pakistan Study Group to conduct a comprehensive review of US policy in these countries.

An Open Letter of Reconciliation and Responsibility to the Iraqi People (Josh Stieber and Ethan McCord / Civilian-Soldier Alliance)
Two former soldiers from the Army unit responsible for the Wikileaks "Collateral Murder" incident have written an open letter of "Reconciliation and Responsibility" to those injured in the July 2007 attack, in which US forces wounded two children and killed over a dozen people, including the father of those children and two Reuters employees.

CIA Interrogation Tapes Found Under Desk (Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo / Associated Press)
In court documents, defense lawyers have been asking for medical records to see whether Mr. Binalshibh's years in CIA custody made him mentally unstable. He is being treated for schizophrenia with a potent cocktail of anti-psychotic medications.

The Guns of August: Lowering the Flag on the American Century (Chalmers Johnson / TomDispatch.com)
Where are we this August of 2010, with guns blazing in one war even as we try to extricate ourselves from another? Where are we, as we impose sanctions on Iran and North Korea while sending our pilotless drones armed with bombs and missiles -- into Pakistan's borderlands, Yemen, and who knows where else -- tasked with endless "targeted killings" which, in blunter times, used to be called assassinations?

US Presses Investigation of Alleged Afghanistan Overbilling by US Contractor (Brett J. Blackledge and Richard Lardner / Associated Press & CorpWatch Investigative Report)
A US contractor managing more than $1 billion in reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan faces federal criminal and civil investigations of claims that it overcharged the government for work. The Louis Berger Group is accused of submitting inflated invoices to the US Agency for International Development, which oversees many of the government's international development projects.

Renewable Energy at Work in War Zones (Bill Scanlon / National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
It's tough to erect wind turbines or solar panels when the enemy keeps blowing things up. Still, Lt. Col. Brian Stevens of the Texas Army National Guard is determined to try. Stevens leads a group of 66 soldiers who want to help bring sustainable agriculture and renewable energy to rural Afghanistan.

Can Womanpower Break the Siege? (Linda S. Heard / Online Journal)
Two ships bearing medical equipment and medicines for Palestinians in Gaza -- "the world's largest open-air prison" -- have set sail from the Lebanese port of Tripoli. What makes this flotilla different from others that have attempted to break the siege is that the ships are crewed solely by an all-female crew that includes doctors, lawyers, journalists and the Lebanese singer/actress May Hariri.

Leaking Sarin Rocket Discovered at US Military Depot (Global Security Newswire / Nuclear Threat Initiative)
The US claimed Iraq had stockpiles of WMD rockets armed with Sarin nerve-gas. The claim turned out to be false. Now the Army reports that a leaking Sarin nerve agent-filled rocket had been discovered -- inside the US, during inspections of chemical weapons storage structures at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky.

US Weapons Sale to Saudi Arabia Said to Reach $60 Billion (Tony Capaccio / Bloomberg.com)
A proposed US weapons sale to Saudi Arabia of Boeing Co. F-15 fighter jets also includes as many as 132 Boeing Apache attack helicopters and United Technologies Corp. UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters that bring the total value of the package to around $60 billion, according to a government official familiar with the plan.

Secret US Airstrike in Yemen Mistakenly Kills Deputy Governor (Scott Shane, Mark Mazzetti and Robert F. Worth / The New York Times)
In roughly a dozen countries -- from the deserts of North Africa, to the mountains of Pakistan, to former Soviet republics crippled by ethnic and religious strife -- the United States has significantly increased military and intelligence operations, pursuing the enemy using robotic drones and commando teams, paying contractors to spy and training local operatives to chase terrorists.

Obama's War "Scalpel" Wielded by the Wise Guy Who Armed the Afghan Mujahadeen (FireDogLake.com)
The stealth war that began in the Bush administration has expanded under President Obama. Virtually none of the newly aggressive steps undertaken by the US have been publicly acknowledged. The US military campaign in Yemen began without notice in December and has never been officially confirmed. Leading the Shadow War is Michael Vickers, a CIA operative who helped arm the Afghan mujahadeen in the 1980s.

"Permanent War": Defense Policies, Then and Now (Book Review by Claude R. Marx / The Washington Times)
In his new book, Andrew J. Bacevich, a retired US Army colonel whose son was killed in the Iraq War, challenges the approach to military policy that administrations of both parties have pursued since World War II. He argues that these rules have benefited the political, military and business establishments but haven't done much for the country's security or domestic prosperity.

The Unaffordability of Endless War (Steve Chapman / Reason Magazine)
It's a shame to let accountants spoil the charming romance of war, but sometimes they insist. Recently the Congressional Research Service reported that our military undertakings in Iraq and Afghanistan have marked an important milestone. Together, they have cost more than a trillion dollars.

Anthropology and Militarism: The US Military's Quest to Weaponize Culture (Hugh Gusterson / Annual Review of Anthropology & The Bulletin of Atomic and Maximilian Forte / Zero Anthropology)
Commentary: "The Pentagon seems to have decided that anthropology is to the war on terror what physics was to the Cold War. As an anthropologist, this makes me very nervous.When research that could be funded by neutral civilian agencies is instead funded by the military, knowledge is subtly militarized and bent in the way a tree is bent by a prevailing wind."

Army Enlists Anthropology in War Zones & Anthropologists' Statement on HTS (David Rohde / The New York Times & Network of Concerned Anthropologists )
In September 2007, Defense Secretary Gates authorized a $40 million expansion of a program that assigns teams of anthropologists and social scientists to each of the 26 American combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan. But criticism is rising in academia. The "Anthropologists' Statement on the Human Terrain System Program" is one example of the growing opposition to "mercenary anthropology."

Documents Reveal US Dealings with Uruguayan Death Squads (The New York Times & Associated Press)
Secret diplomatic cables show that President Richard M. Nixon wanted the Uruguayan government to threaten to kill leftist prisoners in an attempt to save the life of a kidnapped American agent 40 years ago.

Gen Petraeus' New War Strategy 'Mass Murder' (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (The Taliban))
The Taliban assesses the significance of General David Petraus' appointment to lead the US war in Afghanistan. Transcript of communiquÃ© obtained and provided by investigators with the NEFA.

New Afghan Protests as US Accused of Killing More Civilians (Al Jazeera)
Hundreds of villagers shouted "Death to the United States" after NATO forces killed three people in a raid. â€¨The UN said this week that the number of civilian casualties was up one-third in the first half of 2010 -- 386 civilians were killed by NATO or Afghan government forces, including 41 during search-and-seizure operations such as this latest night raid.

Prosecute Bush Administration Officials for War Crimes (Iraq Veterans Against the War)
At its seventh annual national convention, IVAW called for the prosecution of Bush administration officials for conspiring to manipulate intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. A growing body of evidence indicates that Bush officials could be charged with criminal offenses against the US and violations of international law for making false claims to attack Iraq and occupy the country.

Why WikiLeaks Won't Stop the War (Noam Chomsky / Z-Net & The New York Times Syndicate )
The War Logs -- an archive of classified military documents released on the Internet by WikiLeaks -- documents a grim struggle becoming grimmer, from the US perspective. And for the Afghans, a mounting horror. The War Logs, however valuable, may contribute to the unfortunate and prevailing doctrine that wars are wrong only if they aren't successful -- rather like the Nazis felt after Stalingrad.

Fires and Floods: Climate Change Proves More Damaging than War (Juan Cole / Information ClearingHouse & Charles J. Hanley / Associated Press)
Floods, fires, melting ice, and feverish heat -- from smoke-choked Moscow to water-soaked Iowa and the High Arctic, the planet seems to be having a midsummer breakdown. The World Meteorological Organization pointed out that this summer's events fit the international scientists' projections of "more frequent and more intense extreme weather events due to global warming."

Behind The Colombia/Venezuela Tension (Conn Hallinan / Dispatches from the Edge)
The Colombian high command, claims a mass grave outside the La Macarena army base contains the bodies of thousands of guerilla fighters killed between 2002 and 2009. But the army is accused of committing "false positive" murders of civilians who are then dressed them up in insurgent uniforms in order to show the success of the army's counterinsurgency strategy, thus winning more military aid from the US.

A War on Drugs? No, This Is a War on the Mexican People (Luis Hernandez Navarro / La Jornada & The Guardian)
Mexican President CalderÃ³n followed much the same script used by George Bush after 9/11. But, instead of sending troops to Iraq or Afghanistan, the Mexican president ordered them into the streets of their own country. 29,000 dead, human rights leaders murdered, the constitution violated -- This is the price of President CalderÃ³n's popularity bid.

"America's Vital Interests": Code Words Meaning Other Nations' Critical Resources (Michael Payne / OpEd News)
"Protecting America's vital interests," a very patriotic thought, are code words for gaining control of another nation's or a region's critical resources, primarily, petroleum. Using these code words is a clever way of getting the American people to support our military actions in foreign lands without really explaining what those vital interests are.

ACTION ALERT: International Petition for Full Freedom for Mordechai Vanunu (Eileen Fleming / Arabisto.com)
All whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu has wanted since he emerged from 18 years in a tomb-sized windowless cell on April 21, 2004, has been the right to leave Israel and fade into the world, to have a job, a home and family. Sign the petition demanding that the Israeli government cease its persecution of Vanuna and recognize his human right to travel freely in the world.

Canada to Buy 'Useless' F-35 Jets from Lockheed-Martin (Linda McQuaig / The Toronto Star)
Of all the things Canadians want from their government, my guess is that new military fighter jets would probably rank close to last. But new fighter jets are what we're getting. Despite the enduring popularity of peacekeeping among Canadians, the Harper government continues to ramp up war-oriented military spending, most recently with its plan to buy 65 F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin.

UN Secretary-General's Remarks at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony (Ban Ki-moon / United Nations News Center)
"We are here, on hallowed ground, to see, to feel, to absorb and reflect. I am honored to be the first UN Secretary-General to take part in this Peace Memorial Ceremony on the 65th anniversary of this tragic day. And I am deeply moved. When the atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I was one year old. Only later in life, could I begin to understand the full dimension of all that happened here."

The Nuclear Danger 65 Years After Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Daryl G. Kimball / Arms Control Association & Stanley Kutler / Truthdig)
Commentary: "The first nuclear bomb detonation in July 1945 and the surprise attacks on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of that year ignited a global debate about the role, the morality, and the control of nuclear weapons that continues to this day."

The Peace Vision & A Youth Disarmament Camp (Peter G Cohen / OpEdNews & Think Outside the Bomb)
Commentary: "We are losing the war. Not just the War in Afghanistan, but the war against war itself -- The Peace War. The very idea of "Global Dominance" is obscene. Pentagon spending has run up a debt that will burden our grandchildren. I imagine a peace movement that works in every community to reshape the Congress to better serve the American people and their needs, not corporate greed."

Alarms Sound over Trash Fires in War Zones of Afghanistan, Iraq (Maria Glod / Washington Post)
Hundreds of military service members and contractor employees have fallen ill with cancer or severe breathing problems after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. They say they were poisoned by thick, black smoke produced by the burning of tons of trash generated on US bases. Some 241 people from 42 states are suing Houston-based Kellogg Brown & Root, which operated the so-called "burn pits."

Going Organic in Gaza (Jon Elmer / Al Jazeera)
A key official has stated the goal of Israel's embargo of Gaza: "We need to make the Palestinians lose weight, but not to starve to death." A government white paper details the minimum caloric intake required, based on age and sex, to keep Gazans hovering just above malnutrition levels. In response, the citizens of Gaza are turning to organic agriculture to raise healthy food in their own backyards.

Government Has Run Amok Since 9/11â€¨â€¨ (Sheldon Richmanâ€¨â€¨/ The Future of Freedom Foundation and CounterPunch)
Those who understand the exploitative nature of big government suspected that the US response to the 9/11 attacks had little to do with the security and much to do with power and money. Still, the magnitude of the scam is astonishing. The truth is out: the postâ€“9/11 activity has been an obscene feeding frenzy at the public trough. Any success at keeping America safe have been strictly coincidental.

Exclusive: Caught in America's Legal Black Hole (Robert Verkaik / The Independent)
Despite the President's pledges, the prison at Guantanamo Bay is still in business. It is here that hundreds of detainees, including 20 British citizens and residents, have been flown thousands of miles around the world to be shackled in cages beyond the protections of international law. Now, a Canadian named Omar Khadr becomes the first child to be tried for war crimes since the Nuremburg prosecutions.

Nagasaki Remembers Atomic Victims: No US Representative Attends (Wayne Hay / Al Jazeera & Hurriet Daily News & Economic Review & Agence France-Press)
Thousands of people gathered in Nagasaki on Monday to mark 65 years since the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city during the Second World War. While representatives from Britain and France attended for the first time, the absence of a US representative at the ceremony irritated some Nagasaki A-bomb survivors. Last week, Washington had sent an envoy for the first time to attend the commemoration of Washington's nuclear attack on Hiroshima.

Video Evidence of Mass Killing by US/NATO (Derrick Crowe, Robert Greenwald / The Brave New Foundation)
US and allied forces in Afghanistan have denied they killed several dozen civilians in Sangin District of Helmand Province on July 23. But our new video exposes the truth about one of the worst civilian casualty incidents of the war. Watch our exclusive interviews with survivors and demand that your elected officials act to prevent future catastrophes like this.

Pentagon Bars Staff from Visiting WikiLeaks Site (Rowan Scarborough / The Washington Times)
Although the information has been widely disseminated to the public and the press around the world, the US military has issued orders banning personnel from visiting the WikiLeaks website, which recently released more than 70,000 classified diplomatic and military messages on the long war in Afghanistan.

The War on Terror: Beyond the Military (Lt. Col. Barry Wingard / Truthout Op-Ed)
The US government routinely uses the term "War on Terror" to describe its military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But how do we really define this War on Terror? After all, terrorism dates back to at least the 14th century and individuals, groups and even nations have employed it ever since.

Militarization and the Authoritarian Right (Barry Eisler / Truthout Op-Ed)
An infatuation with the notion of using the military in nonmilitary operations, particularly domestic ones, is a key aspect of the modern American right and of the right-wing authoritarian personality.

Dear Hillary Clinton: It's Time for an Investigation of Israel's Gaza Flotilla Attack (Ann Wright / Common Dreams)
I am a retired US Army Reserve Colonel with 29 years in the US Army and a former US diplomat. I was one of 14 Americans on the Gaza flotilla. On June 14, 2010 I requested an investigation of the Israeli attack on the flotilla in which one unarmed American citizen was killed and 14 other Americans were kidnapped from international waters and taken to Israel against their will and imprisoned.

Brazilian World War II 'Rubber Soldiers' Fight for Recognition (Louise Sherwood / BBC)
In the Brazilian Amazon, long-forgotten workers drafted in to help the Allies in World War II are dreaming of a home they left when they were still in their teens. Now in their mid-80s, they are awaiting the outcome of legal moves that may finally bring them the recognition and compensation they were promised 67 years ago.

Violence Flares as Israel Exchanges Fire in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon (Al Jazeera & Stephen Lendman / The Palestinian Telegraph)
A journalist, two Lebanese soldiers and an Israeli soldier were killed after the Israeli army fired shells on the village of Adaisseh. Israeli security sources said the Israeli troops came under fire from Lebanese soldiers. Israeli soldiers were reportedly in the area to remove trees. This was only one of several recent violent Israeli actions that struck Gaza, the West Bank, and Israeli/Lebanon border.

Parents Distressed over White House Policy: No Recognition for Soldier Suicides (Amy Goodman / Democracy Now! & Adam Levine / CNN)
The suicide rate for Army soldiers has risen above the civilian rate for the first time since Vietnam. At the same time, following long-established practice, parents of young men and women driven to suicide by their wartime experiences receive no condolence from the White House. In November 2009, a spokesperson says the White House was reviewing this "inherited" policy. That was nearly a year ago.

Whose Hands? Whose Blood? Killing Civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq (Tom Engelhardt / Tom Dispatch)
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has suggested that the whistleblowers who leaked classified war document "might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family." A strange accusation given that the one of the revelations of the leaked documents was how much blood from innocent Afghan civilians was already on American hands.

ACTION ALERT: Rally for Bradley Manning August 8: Plus Video of WikiLeaks Confernce (The World Can't Wait)
The unified message of the Defense Department -- that leaking evidence of US war crimes is criminal, while committing them is not -- is being delivered to the media by Robert Gates and Michael Mullen. They both use the phrase, "Wikileaks might already have blood on their hands," which is a surety in the case of Gates and Mullen, two top military leaders who both served under the Bush regime.

WikiLeaks in Baghdad: Soldiers Reveal the Training behind the Barbarity (Sarah Lazare and Ryan Harvey / The Nation)
Former soldiers who served as members of Bravo Company 2-16 (2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment), the ground unit involved in the infamous "Collateral Murder" video, have started to come forward to tell their side of the story. And to explain how callous military training lead to this and other tragic instances of US military terror targeted at Iraqi civilians.

Hiroshima Updates: US Ambassador's Attendance at A-bomb Service an Historic First (Arn Specter / The Nuclear Review)
For the first time, a representative of the United States has attended the peace memorial ceremony held each year in Hiroshima to commemorate the atomic bomb attack on the city, which occurred 65 years ago Friday. Survivors of the US atomic bombing welcomed the historic presence at the ceremony of US Ambassador to Japan John Roos, who offered a silent prayer for the victims of the bombing.

Lawsuit Over Obama's Claims US Has Right to Kill US Citizens
The Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union have filed a lawsuit against to challenge the US Governmentâ€™s attempt to deny a joint a lawsuit challenging the governmentâ€™s claim that it has the legal right to use lethal force against US citizens located far from any battlefield without charge, trial, or judicial process of any kind.

Isolating Iran Is Part of the 'Great Energy Game' (Kourosh Ziabari / Rebel News)
Analysis: "Iran, as the Persian Gulf region's only non-Arab nation, Israel, as the world's sole Jewish state, and a host of fragile Arab countries, who are being immersed in the waves of the West's economic turmoil, find their destiny intertwined, with each party trying to surmount the other. All this makes for a worrying, rivalry in the Middle East."

Israeli Settlers Attack Peace Activists: Rabbi Calls for Killing of Non-Jews (PressTV & Jonathan Cook / Counterpunch)
Masked Israeli settlers have violently attacked international peace activists near al-Khalil. Two pascifists were hospitalized after being beaten with metal poles. Meanwhile, a rabbi from a settlement in the West Bank was questioned on suspicion of incitement as Israeli police stepped up their investigation into a book in which he sanctions the killing of non-Jews -- including children and babies.

ACTION ALERT!: Obama Warned Israel May Bomb Iran this Month (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity)
Six top former US intelligence and defense officials write the White House to warn "the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month. Israel's leaders would calculate that once the battle is joined, it will be politically untenable for [the US] to give anything less than unstinting support to Israel. This can be stopped only if you move quickly to preempt an Israeli attack by condemning such a move before it happens."

Hiroshima Day Bombing Remembered. US Delegation Attends for First Time in 65 Years (Associated Press & CBS & Al Jazeera & Sherwood Ross)
This day marks the 65th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Events to commemorate the day will take place all over the world. The US and its allies have avoided ceremonies commemorating the terror-bombing of two large populated cities. However, this year Britain, France, the US and UN secretary-general Ban-Ki moon will be attending the ceremony in Hiroshima for the first time.

ACTION ALERT: Hiroshima Day Poem -- US and World Events (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons)
Join us to honor the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on this 65th remembrance of the use of atomic weapons and to work toward nuclear disarmament.

Chinese Missile Could Shift Pacific Power Balance (Eric Talmadge / Associated Press )
The USS George Washington supercarrier recently deployed off North Korea in a high-profile show of US sea power but China has developed a "game-changing" weapon -- a powerful carrier-killing missile called the Dong Feng 21D that could be launched from land with enough accuracy to penetrate the defenses of even the most advanced moving aircraft carrier at a distance of more than 900 miles.

US Drones Kill 12 Children Playing Outside (Nida Khan / Huffington Post)
First Person Account: "Following the recent release of the now infamous 92,000 classified US army documents via Wikileaks, the most blaring headline here at home quickly read something like this: 'Pakistan's spy agency meets with insurgents and in some cases plans attacks against Americans.'"

US and Colombia Plan to Attack Venezuela (Eva Golinger / Global Research)
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced this Saturday US plans to attack his country and overthrow his government. During a ceremony celebrating the 227th birthday of Independence hero Simon Bolivar, Chavez read from a secret memo he had been sent from an unnamed source inside the United States. Colombia denies ChÃ¡vez's accusations that it plans to invade its 'brother country.'

Pakistan's Zardari Says War with Taliban Being Lost (John Irish and Daniel Flynn / Reuters)
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari said on Tuesday the international community was losing the war against the Afghan Taliban and rebuked Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron for questioning Islamabad's resolve.

Korean Ship Sinking: A Rush to Judgment? (Conn Hallinan / Dispatches from the Edge)
The narrative around the March 26 sinking of the South Korean Navy Corvette Cheonan, and the death of 46 sailors, seems pretty straightforward: the ship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo. But two researchers from the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins University are suggesting there may have been a rush to judgment, and that the evidence presented by the panel is deeply flawed.

ACTION ALERT: Oppose US Military Bases & Neoliberal Economics in Latin America (Campaign for Peace and Democracy & Coalition Partners)
The goal of the continental campaign is to make Latin America a region of peace. We believe that Latin America should be a region of peace. Militarism and violence are obstacles to the development of a just society. We oppose the Colombia-US bases agreement.

Bombers, Missiles Could End Iran Nukes Pentagon Has Plan for Attack (Rowan Scarborough / The Washington Times)
A Pentagon strike against Iran would rely heavily on the B-2 bomber and cruise missiles to try to destroy the regime's ability to make nuclear weapons, analysts say, after the top US military officer said a war plan is in place.

Iran Officials Slam US Admiral's Attack Plan Remarks (Agence France-Presse)
Iranian officials lashed out on Tuesday at remarks by the top US military chief that Washington had a plan to attack Tehran, saying the US would suffer a defeat worse than in Iraq and Afghanistan.

How to Dismantle the American Empire Before This Country Goes Under (Andrew J. Bacevich, Metropolitan Books / AlterNet.org)
Among the costs of US militarism: untold billions added annually to the national debt; a mounting toll of dead and wounded troops; families shattered by loss; veterans bearing physical and psychological scars; bureaucracies subsisting in a climate of secrecy and outright deception; a military-industrial complex that consumes scarce resources; and environmental devastation produced as a by-product of war.

Has President Obama Kept His Promise on Iraq Withdrawal? (Julie Pace and Jennifer Loven / Huffington Post & )
Analysis: President Barack Obama on Monday hailed this month's planned withdrawal of all US combat troops -- "as promised and on schedule" but there could still be more fighting involving US forces. Meanwhile, in Iraq, a fresh round of violence erupted Monday, where the country's fragile ruling coalition still hasn't nominated a new premier -- five months after the national elections.

Dutch Mission Ends in Afghanistan (Al Jazeera)
The Dutch troop withdrawal from Afghanistan has officially begun, making the Netherlands the first country in NATO's mission to leave. The four-year deployment cost the lives of 24 Dutch soldiers and $1.8 billion. The deployment also led to the collapse of the Dutch government in February after members of the country's ruling coalition refused to extend it's participation in NATO operations inside Afghanistan.

Iran Suggests Obama-Ahmadinijad TV Debate: US Plans for Military Attack (Robin Pomeroy / Reuters & Anne Gearan / Associated Press)
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on US President Barack Obama on Monday to face him in a televised one-on-one debate to see who has the best solutions for the world's problems. In Washington, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, admitted that the US military has a plan to attack Iran. HOwever, Mullen added, he personally thinks a military strike is probably a bad idea.

Making Gaza a 'European Ghetto' (Lamis Andoni / Al Jazeera)
Analysis: Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's right-wing foreign minister, is advocating that Israel abandon the Gaza Strip to international monitoring and economic rehabilitation. The proposal does not amount to freeing Gaza, however. If implemented, it would permanently sever the Gaza Strip from the West Bank, ensuring Israeli security and reigning in the Palestinian population.

Global Cluster Bomb Ban Enters into Force -- Without US (Voice of America & Fire Dog Lake)
A landmark treaty banning cluster bombs became binding international law Sunday. The treaty now has been signed by 107 nations, and 37 of those have ratified the document, including Britain, France, Germany and Japan. However, major cluster bomb-producing nations, including China, the United States, Israel and Russia do not support the accord, arguing the munitions have legitimate military uses.

WikiLeaks Founder Accuses US Army of Failing to Protect Afghan Informers (Carole Cadwalladr and Paul Harris / The Observer)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has hit out at the US military, saying that it bears the ultimate responsibility for any deaths of Afghan informers in the wake of the publication by his organisation of 75,000 leaked files of American army secrets.

WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious 'Insurance' File (Kim Zetter / Wired Magazine)
WikiLeaks, the secret-spilling site, has posted a mysterious 1.4 GB encrypted file labeled "insurance" on the Afghan War page at the its site. The file has also been posted on a torrent download site. Speculation has it that the new file may have been posted as insurance in case something happens to the WikiLeaks website or to the organization's founder, Julian Assange.

No Dominion: The Lonely, Dangerous Fight Against Christian Supremacists Inside the Armed Forces (Matthew Harwood / Truthout Report)
Over the past year, Mikey Weinstein and his organization -- the New Mexico-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation -- have recorded a tremendous string of victories in the fight against Christian supremacists inside the armed forces. It was the MRFF that broke the story on the Pentagon's "Jesus Rifles" where rifle scopes used in Afghanistan and Iraq were embossed with New Testament verses.

Report Suggests 'Correlation' between US Aid and Army Killings (Helda MartÃnez / Inter Press Service)
A new report, "Military Assistance and Human Rights: Colombia, US Accountability, and Global Implications," has concluded there are "alarming links between increased reports of extrajudicial executions of civilians by the Colombian army and units that receive US military financing."

Secret CIA Paramilitaries' Role in Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan (David Leigh / The Guardian)
The "war logs" released by WikiLeaks are littered with accounts of civilian tragedies. The 144 entries in the logs recording some of these so-called "blue on white" events, cover a wide spectrum of day-by-day assaults on Afghans, with hundreds of casualties. They range from the shootings of individual innocents to the often massive loss of life from air strikes.

Fallen Soldiers' Families Denied Cash as Insurers Profit ( David Evans / Bloomberg)
Millions of bereaved Americans -- including the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan -- have unwittingly been victimized by their insurance companies. Powerful companies like Prudential and MetLife have been found culpable of issuing what "checkbooks" to survivors, instead of paying them lump sums. The companies hold the funds, enabling them to earn significant interest earnings on the accounts.

A History of Folly, from the Trojan Horse to Afghanistan (Simon Jenkins / The Guardian)
Is it the death of war? In Vietnam the horror of fighting was brought to TV screens in real time. Such was the reaction that American citizens withdrew their consent. Today, there is no such thing as a secure computer. By recording failure in meticulous detail, the leaked war logs bear devastating witness to our incompetence.

US Casualties in Afghanistan Soar to Record Highs (Robert H. Reid / Associated Press )
In a summer of suffering, America's military death toll in Afghanistan is rising, with back-to-back record months for US losses in the grinding conflict. All signs point to more bloodshed in the months ahead, straining the already shaky international support for the war.

Soldier Suicides at Record High (avid Gura, All Things Considered / NPR)
In a recent report, the Pentagon admits it has not paid enough attention to mental health issues, which can lead to violence, drug abuse and suicide. In an interview with NPR's Robert Siegel, Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, said that, while multiple deployments certainly contribute to those issues, there are many other causes.

Task Force Report Says Suicides Linked to Lack of Leadership, Discipline (Megan McCloskey / Stars and Stripes & Seth Robson / Stars and Stripes)
"Atrophied" leadership has led to more high-risk behavior among soldiers and ultimately more soldiers committing suicide, according to a blunt Pentagon report. In response, this summer, researchers plan to survey up to 400,000 soldiers as part of the largest study to date of suicide and mental health among military personnel.

Suicides, Drugs, Crime Claiming More Soldiers Than Combat (Martha Raddatz & Kirit Radia / ABC News)
After nine years of war, the US Army is showing signs of stress because of repeated deployments and inadequate support for soldiers when they return. The number of soldiers committing suicide has increased since 2004. Use of prescription drugs has tripled in the past five years. Crime is rising every year with soldiers expected to commit around 55,000 crimes in 2010. Domestic abuse is up 177 percent.

Document Reveals Military Was Concerned About Gulf War Vets' Exposure to Depleted Uranium ( Mike Ludwig / Truthout)
For years, the government has denied that depleted uranium, a radioactive waste added to munitions used in the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars, poisoned Iraqi civilians and veterans. But a little-known 1993 Pentagon document written by then-Brigadier Gen. Eric Shinseki, shows that the Pentagon was so concerned about DU contamination that it ordered testing for all personnel exposed to the toxic substance.

ACTION ALERT: The Human Impact of Conflict in Pakistan (Christoph Koettl / Amnesty International USA)
Northwest Pakistan, including the Swat valley -- once known as the "Switzerland of Pakistan" for its scenic and natural beauty -- is now the center of a deadly triangle between the Taliban, Pakistani army forces and US drone attacks. Fighting has left millions homeless. The innocent men, women and children trapped in this violence are not acceptable casualties of war. We must draw a line now.

House Passes Emergency Spending Bill to Continue Funding Afghanistan Occupation (Jason Leopold / Truthout)
A treasure trove of classified documents released by Wikileaks, which sheds new light on the catastrophic failure of the nine-year war in Afghanistan, did not derail congressional efforts to pass a $33 billion emergency bill to continue funding the occupation. The cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars has surpassed $1 trillion and have claimed the lives of 5,620 US soldiers and hundreds of thousands of civilians.

The United States, Israel, and the Failure of the Western Way of War (Andrew Bacevich / TomDispatch )
For the military-industrial complex, there are contracts to win and buckets of money to be made. For those who dwell in the bowels of the national security state, there are prerogatives to protect. For elected officials, there are campaign contributors to satisfy. For appointed officials, civilian and military, there are ambitions to be pursued.

More than 40 House Members Supporting Bill to Allow Israel to Attack Iran (Philip Giraldi /American Conservative & Thomas Register)
House of Representatives resolution 1553, introduced by Congressional Republicans,and currently working its way through the system, will endorse an Israeli attack on Iran, which would be going to war by proxy as the US would almost immediately be drawn into the conflict when Tehran retaliates.

Leaked Documents Expose Imperialist War in Afghanistan (Alex Lantier / Center for Research on Globalization)
The US military documents posted on WikiLeaks make clear that the occupation of Afghanistan is a filthy imperialist war. Popular resistance and protest demonstrations are drowned in blood, US death squads operate at will under a media blackout, and Washington and NATO collaborate with a narrow elite of corrupt warlords and Afghan officers.

A Record of War Crimes (Bill Van Auken / World Socialists Web Site)
The documents posted by WikiLeaks have provided a searing indictment of a criminal colonial war that the Obama administration has made its own. At least 2,000 individuals were sentenced to death by the Pentagon and the CIA without being charged, much less tried, for any offense. In the course of kicking down doors and calling in air strikes, the US managed to kill numerous innocent men, women and children.

US Unable to Account for Billions of Iraq Oil Money (Patrick Cockburn / The Independent)
The Pentagon is unable to account for almost $9 billion taken from Iraqi oil revenues for use in reconstruction, according to an official audit. Iraqis continually complain that they see little sign of their infrastructure being rebuilt after 30 years of war and sanctions. Electricity, clean water and sewage disposal remain wholly inadequate and seven years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

How US Marines Sanitized Record of Bloodbath (Declan Walsh / The Guardian)
Leaked war logs posted on Wikileaks reveal how US marines gave cleaned up accounts of incident in which they massacred 19 innocent civilians on March 4, 2007.

Helmand Residents Accuse NATO of Deliberate Attack on Civilians (Jon Boone and Ali Safi / The Guardian)
Survivors of an alleged NATO rocket attack on a small town in Helmand, which the Afghan government says killed 52 civilians, spoke today of their anger at what they claim was a deliberate air strike, despite coalition denials.

The Blackest Hearts: War Crimes in Iraq (Jim Frederick / The Guardian )
In March 2006, four US soldiers, strung out after months in the deadly battleground south of Baghdad, hatched a plan: to carry out one of the worst war crimes ever committed in Iraq.

Hans Blix: Blair Government became 'Prisoner' of US Before War in Iraq (Richard Norton-Taylor / The Guardian)
Testifying before Britain's Chilcot inquiry into the roots of the US invasion of Iraq, Hans Blix, a former UN arms inspector, said it was clear that the intelligence was poor and that the invasion was illegal.

ACTION ALERT: Vote Against Afghan War Funding (Joanne Landy and Thomas Harrison / Campaign for Peace and Democracy)
US intervention in Afghanistan is facing increasing challenge, and this week's dramatic Wikileaks revelations -- the biggest US war expose since Dan Ellsberg's Pentagon papers -- make it all the more difficult for Congress to keep funding this horrific war.

ACTION ALERT: Two Important House Votes. Troops out of Pakistan; No More Funds for War (Hon. Dennis Kucinich / US House of Representatives)
This week Congress will consider two very important votes for the future of this country and the future of the world. The first deals with Pakistan -- House Concurrent Resolution 301 and a second that deals with $33 billion in supplemental funding to keep the War in Afghanistan going. Also, an honor roll of 88 politicians who are committed to voting against any further increase in war funding.

Daniel Ellsberg: Wikileaks Founder 'Would Do Well To Keep His Whereabouts Unknown' (Dylan Ratigan / MSNBC & Huffington Post)
In light of Obama's apparent crusade against those who reveal government corruption and wrongdoing, Ellsberg told Dylan Ratigan on MSNBC, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange ought to keep his head down. But the press and the other two branches of government, Ellsberg said, need to challenge Obama on this policy.

ACTION ALERT: Tuesday Vote Expected on War Escalation Funding (War Is A Crime & Brave New Films)
On July 1st, 162 congress members voted to require a withdrawal plan and end date for the occupation of Afghanistan, and 100 voted to fund only withdrawal, no continuation of war, while 25 voted to simply stop dumping any money into this war. Now all of them must vote yes or no, probably on Tuesday, on whether to fund a $33 billion escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

Wikileaks Reveals Hidden US Killing oc Afghan Civilians as New US Attack Kills 45 More Civilians (BBC News & Press TV)
More than 90,000 leaked US military records have been published on the website Wikileaks, reportedly revealing hidden details of the Afghanistan war. Three major news publications which have been shown the documents say they include unreported killings of Afghan civilians. Meanwhile, on July 23, as many as 45 civilians were reportedly killed during a US-led helicopter strike in Helmand province.

Pakistan Aids Insurgency in Afghanistan, Reports Assert (Mark Mazzetti, Jane Perlez, Eric Schmitt and Andrew W. Lehren / The New York Times)
Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistanâ€™s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports.

Massive Leak of Secret Files Exposes Truth of Occupation (Nick Davies and David Leigh / The Guardian)

Explosive Leaks Provide Image of War from Those Fighting It (Matthias Gebauer, John Goetz, Hans Hoyng, Susanne Koelbl, Marcel Rosenbach and Gregor Peter Schmitz / Der Spiegel)
A total of 91,731 reports from United States military databanks relating to the war in Afghanistan are to be made publicly available on the Internet. Never before has it been possible to compare the reality on the battlefield in such a detailed manner with what the US Army propaganda machinery is propagating.

Vietnam's Forgotten War Victims (Chris Arsenault / Al Jazeera)
The Vietnam War ended 35 years ago, but children are still being born with birth defects from chemical poisoning allegedly caused by defoliants sprayed by the US military. Like their American counterparts, Vietnamese victims have tried to gain justice in US courts, but after a series of cases, the US Supreme Court refused to hear their case in 2009.

Drones in US Skies â€“ To Keep Eye on Us? (Nat Hentoff / World Net Daily)
In May of last year, David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, co-authored a strategic analysis that noted how the "public outrage" among Pakistan's civilians caused by our drone attacks "is hardly limited to the region in which they take place." Now the military's robot drones are heading for our skies inside the US.

Drones Over America: Tyranny at Home (John W. Whitehead / NJ Today & PrisonPlanet)
The US government has a history of commandeering military technology for use against Americans. We saw this happen with tear gas, tasers and sound cannons, all of which were first used on the battlefield before being deployed against civilians at home. Now the drones -- pilotless, remote controlled aircraft that have been used in Iraq and Afghanistan -- are coming home to roost.

Kucinich Says White House Abused Its Power, Wants Forces Out of Pakistan (Deb Weinstein / Truthout Report)
According to a statement by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), the White House's controversial decision to increase aid to Pakistan by $500 million constitutes an unConstitutional abuse of power since the aid was approved unilaterally, without Congressional oversight or approval.

Iraqi City Has Higher Cancer Rates than Hiroshima (SBS TV News & BBC World News)
Young women in Fallujah in Iraq are terrified of having children because of the increasing number of babies born grotesquely deformed, with no heads, two heads, a single eye in their foreheads, scaly bodies or missing limbs. In addition, young children in Fallujah are now experiencing hideous cancers and leukemias

Huge Rise in Birth Defects in Falluja (Martin Chulov / The Guardian)
Doctors in Iraq's war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants, compared to a year ago, and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting. A report from November 2009.

US to Provoke North Korea: North Korea Threatens 'Nuclear Deterrence' over Drills (Jim Gomez / Associated Press)
North Korea threatened Saturday to mount a powerful nuclear response to upcoming joint US-South Korean military drills, calling the exercises an "unpardonable" provocation on top of wrongly blaming Pyongyang for the sinking of a South Korean warship.

Mapping US Drone and Islamic Militant Attacks in Pakistan (BBC World News)
Since January 2009, nearly 2,500 people have been killed in Pakistan as a result of US drones and Islamic militant attacks. Islamic militant strongholds close to Afghanistan have been targeted by US drones while, at the same time, Islamic militants have carried out attacks across Pakistan. Missile attacks by US drones in Pakistan have more than trebled under the Obama administration.

British Leaders Calls Iraq Invasion "Illegal" (Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent / The Guardian)
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was forced to clarify his position on the Iraq war after he stood up at the dispatch box of the House of Commons and pronounced the invasion illegal. Clegg insisted he was speaking in a personal capacity, as a leading international lawyer warned that such a statement could increase the chances of war crime charges against Britain in international courts.

ACTION ALERT: Pentagon Waste: Cut Spending by Eliminating Waste (Friends Committee on National Legislation)
The Pentagon wastes more money than some other cabinet agencies spend in a year. Yet when Congress and the president talk about cutting government spending, they start by saying "of course we should exempt the Pentagon from cuts." What?! The Pentagon is the first place to find savings at the level of billions of dollars. Why protect waste?

"Our American Heroes": Why It's Wrong to Equate Military Service With Heroism (William J. Astore / TomDispatch.com & TruthOut)
Commentary: Certainly, military service (especially the life-and-death struggles of combat) provides an occasion for the exercise of heroism, but even then I instinctively knew that it didn't constitute heroism. "Hero," sadly, is now used far too cavalierly. Sportscasters, for example, routinely refer to highly paid jocks who hit walk-off home runs or score game-winning touchdowns as heroes.

The Other Tragedy (Fidel Castro Ruz / CounterCurrents & Cuba.cu)
Fidel Castro recommends watching "Home," an "excellent documentary film by the French director Yann Arthus-Bertrand, which includes statements by the most farsighted and well informed international personalities about another terrible danger threatening the human species that is cropping up right before our eyes: the destruction of the environment." Unfortunately, the world faces another approaching calamity -- an attack on Iran over the country's insistence on developing nuclear power technology.

Pentagon Numbers Hide Toll of American War Wounded (Tom Hayden / The Peace and Justice Resource Center)
The Pentagon deliberately excludes hundreds of thousands of wounded American soldiers, or 95 percent of the total, from its official US casualty rates. The reason for the cover up of numbers of wounded soldiers appears to be to keep the lid on public reaction.

Financial Reform Bill Targets 'Blood Diamonds' (Mary Beth Sheridan / Washington Post)
The financial regulation bill that President Obama will sign into law on Wednesday is supposed to clean up Wall Street. But an obscure passage buried deep in the 2,300-page legislation aims to transform a very different place -- eastern Congo, labeled the "rape capital of the world."

Srebrenica 15 Years After: The Politicization of "Genocide" (Edward S. Herman / Monthly Review)
Analysis: It has become an annual ritual each July to commemorate the 'Srebrenica massacre' of 1995. The now institutionalized characterization is that '8,000 [Bosnian Muslim] men and boys' were executed by the Serbs in 'the worst mass killing in Europe' since WWII. There is no such annual memorial in the West for the several thousand Palestinians killed in Sabra-Shatila in September 1982.

How US-made Weapons Fuel Mexico's Drug War (Nick Miroff and William Booth / Washington Post)
Grenades made in the United States and sent to Central America during the Cold War have resurfaced as terrifying new weapons in almost weekly attacks by Mexican drug cartels. US grenades are being diverted from dusty old armories and sold to criminal mafias, who are using them to destabilize the Mexican government and terrorize civilians, according to US and Mexican law enforcement officials.

Apocalypse in Central Africa: Ongoing Repression, War Crimes, and US Involvement (keith harmon snow / Z Magazine)
US tax dollars are supporting brutal regimes committing the atrocities. The media don't report the massacres, decapitations, dismemberments, and routine disappearances in Congo. If they do, the violence is attributed to African savagery, rather than terrorism as military counter-insurgency and psychological operations -- as taught at the School of the Americas at Fort Bragg and Fort Leavenworth.

ACTION ALERT: The Human Cost of Moving Fuel in a War Zone (Brigadier General Steven M. Anderson, US Army (Retired) / VoteVets.org)
Moving fuel in a warzone. It's probably the most dangerous job in the world, costing over 1000 American lives. I should know. I was the Chief Logistics Officer under General David Petraeus in Iraq. The Senate is considering a clean energy climate plan, that will cut our dependence on foreign oil in half. Renewable technologies will help us here at home and save American lives abroad. Please sign our petition.

America's Secret Army: How the 'War on Terror' Created a New Industry (Ed Pilkington / The Guardian)
In the cloak and dagger world of intelligence, top-secret security clearance is restricted to an elite few. Not so in today's America. A new survey of the intelligence network created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks estimates that some 854,000 people have been given high-level clearance, making James Bond look decidedly everyday.

America: Hooked on War and Getting Poorer (Clancy Sigal / The Guardian)
With record foreclosures and child poverty at a shameful level, can we really afford to stay in Afghanistan and Iraq for 10 years?

Top Secret America: A Hidden World, Growing beyond Control (Dana Priest and William M. Arkin / The Washington Post)
The top-secret world the government created in response to the 9/11 attacks has become so large and secretive that no one knows how much it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist or how many agencies do the same work. A two-year investigation reveals some 1,271 federal organizations and 1,931 private companies currently work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the US.

Big Oil Makes War on the Earth (Ellen Cantarow / Tom Dispatch)
If you live on the Gulf Coast, welcome to the real world of oil -- and just know that you're not alone. In the Niger Delta and the Ecuadorian Amazon, among other places, your emerging hell has been the living hell of local populations for decades.

American War Versus Real War (Tom Englehardt & Nick Turse / TomDispatch)
In Sebastian Junger's new film "Restrepo," the Afghan War is now generally being recorded in real time, largely without images of Afghan suffering. Not surprisingly, Americans now pay remarkably little attention to the civilians whose lives have been destroyed in our invasions and prolonged occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Netanyahu Admits on Video He Deceived US to Destroy Oslo Accord (Jonathan Cook / The National)
There is one video Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, must be praying never gets posted on YouTube with English subtitles. To date, the 10-minute segment has been broadcast only in Hebrew on Israel's Channel 10. Its contents, however, threaten to gravely embarrass not only Mr Netanyahu but also the US administration of Barack Obama.

Iraq War Veterans Join Environmentalists in the Oiled Gulf of Mexico (Bryan Walsh / TIME Magazine)
A handful of Iraq veterans -- and even some and retired generals -- are in Louisiana as part of Operation Free, a young advocacy group that has begun pushing a green message not so much on environmental grounds, but on national security ones. They point out that the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency have published reports highlighting the danger that a warming world will post to America's security.

Managed News: Inside The US/NATO Military Industrial Media Empire (Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff / t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed)
Americans face a powerful military industrial media empire that keeps the public uninformed. The London Times reported that, under the Obama Administration, US troops are now operating in 75 countries. If so, this increase is far in excess of special forces operations under the Bush administration. Somehow this information didn't make it into the US media.

Risk of Drone Wars Intensifies in Middle East (Press TV & Agence France-Presse & New York Times & Wired)
A top Iranian Air Force commander says the Army plans to equip all border bases with domestic unmanned areal vehicles (UAVs) within the next few months. Iran claims it has "suicide drones" that can hit US naval vessels in the Persian Gulf. Israel says it has built remote-controlled drones capable of attacking Iran. The US has already shot-down an Iranian drone in the air over Iraq.

Jury Acquits Activists Who Caused Â£180,000 Damage at UK Arms Plant (Bibi van der Zee and Rob Evans / The Guardian & Project Sheffield )
Five activists who did Â£180,000 damage to a British arms factory that supplies Israel, were found not guilty after arguing they were seeking to prevent war crimes in Gaza. According to defendant Chris Osmond: "We brought the suffering of ordinary Palestinians into a British courtroom and confronted with the evidence they took the brave decision to find that our actions were justified."

Record Number of Army Suicides (Luis Martinez / ABC News)
June was the worst month ever for Army suicides, according to figures that include suicides among active duty soldiers as well as inactive Guardsmen and Reservists. There were 21 active duty Army suicides in June and 11 on the inactive Guard and Reserve side, totaling 32 for the month. The 21 active duty suicides ties the monthly record set in January of 2009.

Israel to Make Palestinians Take Pledge of Allegiance (Omar Karmi / The National (Abu Dhabi))
The Israeli cabinet is expected to approve today several new regulations pertaining to immigration and citizenship, including a measure that would make it compulsory for applicants to swear loyalty to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state." According to Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery: "What it all ultimately leads to, even if no one dares say it, is ethnic cleansing."

Iran Blames West over Mosque Attack: One Month after Execution of 'CIA-backed' Militant (Al Jazeera & Kurt Nimmo / InfoWars)
Nearly one month after Iran executed Abdolmalek Rigi, a Sunni militant who claimed he and his brother had been recruited by the CIA to carry our terrorist acts inside Iran, officials in Tehran have blamed the West and Israel for the twin suicide bombings on a mosque two days ago that killed at least 27 people and left scores wounded.

Former US Army Contracting Official Sentenced to 42 Months in Prison for Bribery (US Department of Justice)
A former US Army contracting official was sentenced to 42 months in prison in connection with schemes to solicit more than $30,000 in bribes and other payments. The official was employed by the Army Area Support Group-Kuwait, the organization responsible for maintaining Camp Arifjan, a US military installation that provides support for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

US Plans to Increase Nuclear Spending (Paul Richter / Los Angeles Times)
Even as it touts US efforts to sharply reduce its number of nuclear warheads, the Obama administration plans to increase spending on the aging nuclear weapons infrastructure to levels reminiscent of the Cold War, a new budget document shows.

A Treaty to Limit Nukes (Editorial / San Francisco Chronicle)
This summer, possibly as soon as this month, the US Senate can show whether it's ruled by political gridlock or far-reaching vision when it takes up a nuclear treaty with Russia. The chamber has the historic duty of passing on the weapons reduction plan signed by President Obama and Russian president Dimitri Medvedev this spring.

Understanding the Root Causes of Terrorism (Stefan Simanowitz / Toward Freedom)
For most Britons July 7, 2005 will be remembered as the day that al Qaeda terrorists attacked London. But five years on, no link has been established between the 7/7 bombers and al Qaeda. A recent report from the Centre for Social Cohesion analyzing Islamist terrorist offences in Britain over the last decade finds that only 14.5 percent of terrorism offenders had links with al-Qaeda.

46 US Warships Plus 7,000 US Marines On Route To Costa Rica? (Scott Oliver / We Love Costa Rica.com)
Commentary: "On the 2nd July 2010, the Costa Rica Congress authorized the entry of 46 US warships capable of carrying 200 helicopters and warplanes, plus 7,000 US Marines for the purposes of conducting 'anti-narcotics operations and humanitarian missions.' To my knowledge at the present time, Costa Rica is not suffering from any 'humanitarian' crisis."

Afghan Soldier Who Killed UK Troops Explains Motives (Dawood Azami / BBC Pashto Service)
A man who says he is the renegade Afghan soldier who killed three British troops in Helmand province in Afghanistan has contacted the BBC. The man said he had been angry at the conduct of British troops and that he had acted alone. He said he joined the Taliban after the attack.

The 65th Anniversary of the Nuclear Age (David Krieger / New Age Peace Foundation)
July 16, 1945 marked the beginning of the Nuclear Age. On that day, the United States conducted the first explosive test of an atomic device. The test was code-named Trinity and took place at the Alamogordo Test Range in New Mexico's Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death") Desert. The bomb itself was code-named "The Gadget."

Israeli Military Report on Its Gaza Flotilla Actions Underscores Need for an Independent Investigation (Ann Wright / CommonDreams)
As a 29-year military veteran and a survivor of the Gaza Flotilla, I strongly believe that the Israeli military report on its conduct in boarding the six ships of the Gaza Flotilla underscores the need for an independent investigation. As we have found from investigations done by our own military on its actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, militaries seldom are critical of their own conduct.

Pentagon Unveils Phantom Eye: A Hydrogen-powered Spy Plane (Victoria Gill Science Reporter / BBC )
Boeing has unveiled its unmanned hydrogen-powered spy plane, which can fly non-stop for up to four days. The high-altitude plane, called Phantom Eye, will remain aloft at 65,000 feet. Boeing says the aircraft could eventually carry out "persistent intelligence and surveillance." It is a product of the company's secretive Phantom Works research and development arm.

Documents Reveal Obamaâ€™s Shocking Retreat on Nuke Reductions (Tri-Valley CARES)
The Fiscal Year 2011 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan (colloquially known as the "Green Book"), obtained recently by Tri-Valley CAREs, reveals that the US Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration's internal plans are significantly at variance with the agency's public pronouncements and US disarmament goals. "What the plan reveals about the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is shocking."

ACTION ALERT: Save War Crimes Whistleblower Patrick Manning (World Can't Wait & The New York Times)
A US soldier arrested on charges of leaking a video of a deadly American helicopter attack in 2007 has also been charged with downloading more than 150,000 highly classified diplomatic cables. Pct. Bradley Manning (who had the courage to leak Army videos of a war crime) faces court martial while the soldiers in the video -- and the commanders who ordered the massacre -- are under no arrest, no scrutiny, not even investigation.

The Strange and Consequential Case of Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo and WikiLeaks (Glenn Greenwald / Salon)
Analysis: "In an attempt to obtain greater clarity about what really happened here, I've spent the last week reviewing everything I could related to this case and speaking with several of the key participants. A definitive understanding of what really happened is virtually impossible to acquire, largely because almost everything that is known comes from a single, extremely untrustworthy source.

A Bush Insider Reveals the Duplicity Behind US Invasion (Scott Horton Interviews Lawrence Wilkerson / AntiWar.com)
Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, discusses why Bush and Cheney must have known most Guantanamo prisoners were innocent, how Colin Powell and others were kept out of the loop about intelligence based on tortured confessions, and why Douglas Feith and Richard Perle are essentially representatives of Israelâ€™s Likud party.

Court Rules Peaceful Support of Terrorists Illegal (Bob Egelko / San Francisco Chronicle)
The US Supreme Court has ruled that the government can prosecute private citizens for giving advice to a foreign organization -- on how to negotiate peace or take its case to the United Nations, for example -- if the group is on the US terrorist list.

Afghan and Iranian Officials Criticize Pentagon and CIA (Fars News Agency)
A prominent Afghan analyst has blasted the US' new plan for forming village militias in his war-torn country, warning that the policy would further deteriorate security conditions in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, a senior Iranian lawmaker has complained that the abduction of an Iranian scholar by the CIA agents in Saudi Arabia last year violated all the international norms and regulations.

State Terror From Nixon to Obama (Chris Floyd / Chris Floyd.com)
Commentary: Many of the high and horrendous crimes that the world's governments commit never really surface but evidence of one such crime -- the murder of Chilean army commander-in-chief, Rene Schneider -- recently appeared on a sliver of tape released from that endless, ever-gushing fountain of state crime and folly: the Nixon tapes.

Five US Soldiers Die in Afghanistan (Al Jazeera & BBC News)
Five more US soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, sending NATO's death toll to 12 in 24 hours. Four soldiers belonging to the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) were killed by a bomb in southern Afghanistan, NATO said. Another US soldier died in a separate attack also in the south of the country.

Representatives Barney Frank and Ron Paul Join Forces to Target Military Spending (National Public Radio & the Huffington Post)
Governments around the country are feeling the strain of budget pressures, and in Washington, that strain is producing some strange alliances. Take Congressmen Ron Paul and Barney Frank: The libertarian Republican and the liberal Democrat have joined forces to take aim at a longtime budgetary sacred cow -- US military spending.

A History of the Anti-Militarist Tradition in America ( Arthur A. Ekirch, Jr. / The Independent Institute)
To anyone who believes the false notion that Americans always love conscription, war, blood, and "guts and glory," distinguished historian Arthur A. Ekirch, Jr.'s classic book presents an entirely different perspective -- one of an anti-militarist public that, in the spirit of the Founding Fathers, opposed militarism, standing armies and foreign military expeditions.

More Evidence: Britain 'Did Not Believe Iraq's Weapons Programme Was A Real Threat' (The Telegraph)
A British inquiry into the roots of the US/UK invasion of Iraq has revealed more evidence that the same British and US officials who stoked public about Iraq's weapons programs clearly knew at the time that Iraq posed no "substantial threat" and used intentionally employed these false charges to launch the 2003 invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein.

Afghanistan Is a Catastrophe (Simon Jenkins / The Guardian)
Our leaders would rather avoid embarrassment than be honest about the horrific futility of the wars we are fighting

Why Afghanistan Is a Lost Cause (Joel Brinkley / Tribune Media Services Inc.)
As Gen. David Petraeus assumed his new command in Afghanistan earlier this month, he took up a strategy that has already failed -- though not for the reasons most people assume. As most everyone knows, the battle plan appears hopeless. But a larger problem afflicts the effort in Afghanistan, one that coalition forces are virtually powerless to address.

Seven Reasons Why We Canâ€™t Stop Making War: The Common Mind-set behind Endless War and the BP Oil Spill (Tom Englehardt & Lt. Col. William J. Astore (USAF, Ret.) / TomDispatch)
Analysis: "We wage war because we've already devoted so many of our resources to it. It's what weâ€™re most prepared to do. More than half of discretionary federal spending goes to fund our military and its war making or war preparations. The military-industrial complex is a well-oiled, extremely profitable machine."

Five US Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan Attacks (BBC World News)
Five US soldiers have been killed in separate incidents of violence in Afghanistan, NATO has said. Three died in east Afghanistan and two were killed in separate roadside bombings in the south. A sixth American died in an accidental explosion. More than 350 NATO soldiers have been killed this year.

Israeli Navy on Alert as Libyan Aid Ship Heads for Gaza (Harriet Sherwood / The Guardian)
A Libyan ship carrying aid and activists is heading for Gaza in a mission that Israel has described as an "unnecessary provocation." The ship, Amalthea, is sailing from Greece carrying up to 15 activists and 2,000 tons of food and medicine. The new attempt to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza comes six weeks after a lethal interception of a flotilla, in which nine Turkish activists were killed.

Gaza Aid Ship to Dock in Egypt after Israel Pressure (BBC World News)
A ship with supplies for Gaza will dock at el-Arish in Egypt, officials say, after Israeli pressure to stop the vessel breaking its Gaza blockade. The Moldovan-flagged ship left a Greek port on Saturday. An Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound ship in May killed nine Turkish activists. Israel insisted its troops were defending themselves but the raid sparked international condemnation.

Family Fears Organ Theft after Murder of Son in Russian Army (Neave Barker / Al Jazeera)
The Russian army is fighting accusations of bullying and murder after the mysterious death of a young conscript. Just a few days after beginning his military service, Roman Suslov, 19, was found dead. His family and human rights groups believe he was murdered and his internal organs were sold.

A 200 Percent Chance the Taliban Won't Return? (Imran Khan / Al Jazeerah)
The Pakistani army have brought me to Khurram agency in the remote tribal belt in the North West of the country. The army says it has successfully beaten back the Pakistani Taliban and secured Khurram. They certainly present a good argument, and a good show. But Azmat Ali Khan is not so sure. He is a journalist with decades of experience living and working in Khurram.

Biggest Threat to America -- It's our Immoral Military -- With A Leader Who Thinks It's "Fun" to Kill Afghans (Rob Kall / OpEd News Commentary)
Beneath the mantle of defender of the realm, the US military has mutated into a massive parasitic, immoral tumor that is leeching the lifeblood from the US economy and destroying the good will the US earned over past decades. â€¨â€¨Meanwhile, the immoral words of James Mattis (the intended replacement for General Petraeus, as head of US Central Command) are circulating throughout the world, that it's "fun to kill."

Sending People to War Because We Canâ€™t Give Them Jobs Here (Laura Flanders / AlterNet)
Commentary: Who fights and why? As Michael Massing pointed out in an essay in the New York Review of Books: "With its guarantees of housing, employment, health insurance, and educational assistance, the US military today seems the last outpost of the welfare state in America."

Path to Mideast Peace May Lie in Boycott of Israel's Banks (Terry Crawford-Browne / The Electronic Intifada)
Global banking sanctions against apartheid South Africa in the 1980s is recognized as an effective nonviolent strategy that helped end the country's apartheid system. If civil society is serious about ending Israel's violations of Palestinian rights, the suspension of transactions to and from Israeli banks offers an instrument to help bring about a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

Gen. Petraeus Runs into Resistance from Karzai over Village Defense Forces (Joshua Partlow and Karen DeYoung / Washington Post Foreign Service )
As he takes charge of the Afghanistan war effort, Gen. David Petraeus has met sharp resistance from President Hamid Karzai to US plans to assist villagers in fighting the Taliban. Petraeus' predesessor, Gen. McChrystal, formed a close working relationship with Karzai. The question of whether Petraeus can replicate that bond remains a significant uncertainty hanging over the war effort.

It's Fun to Kill in Afghanistan, Says Top US Commander (Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent / The Independent)
General James Mattis has been named as successor to General David Petreaus as head of US Central Command. But a video of General Mattis declaring that it was "fun" to kill people in Afghanistan has been spreading through the Muslim world at a fraught time in Afghanistan for the US and it's Western allies.

You and Whose Army? The US Army Compared to Other Nations (Newsweek)
How do you take on a military that spent nearly $700 billion in one year? Well, you don't. The United States' defense budget is almost 12 times bigger than China's, 47 times more than Israel's, and nearly 73 times Iran's. Here's how the US military compares with other countries, both in budget and boots on the ground.

US "Invasion" of Costa Rica Stirs Local Anger, Regional Concern (Military.com & Knight Ridder & Press TV & ResistNet.org)
Costa Rica has granted the US military a six-month window to bring 7,000 Marines, five planes and 46 warships into its territory to help stem the flow of drugs northward. Costa Rican opposition parties denounced the decision of the Legislative Assembly, describing it as "illegalâ€ and â€œin violation of national sovereignty."

Former Top CIA Spy: How US Intelligence Became Big Business (Jeremy Scahill / The Nation)
Few who have seen the dramatic privatization of US intelligence operations ever speak about the role private contractors play in covert operations. In late June, however, the CIA's former top counterterrorism official participated in a rare discussion on the extent to which the US now relies on contractors to fill sensitive national security positions including "direct action" (lethal) operations.

Did You Get The Memo? America Is Now A TWO "War Party" System (The Pen)
When Michael Steele accidentally spoke the truth (while hypocritically trying to condemn President Obama for any possible reason) that "the one thing you don't do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan," he was condemned by BOTH the Republican and Democratic leadership. Apparently he did not get the memo that BOTH major parties are now for endless, ruinous and vain foreign wars and occupations.

A Lesson for another Path to Ending the 'War on Terror'?: At Guantanamo, Prisoners Freer, Assaulting Less (Ben Fox / Associated Press )
More prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are sharing meals and recreation time with fellow inmates -- an easing of conditions that has led to fewer assaults against guards. Apparently, treating people with respect and dignity -- rather than harrassing and oppressing them -- results in a decrease of hatred and an improvement in behavior.

NATO Planes Mistakenly Kill 5 Afghan Troops (CBS/Associated Press & Washington Post)
NATO mistakenly killed five of its Afghan army allies in an airstrike Wednesday while they were attacking insurgents in the country's east. An Afghan defense official condemned the latest "friendly fire" deaths, which came at a time when international troops are trying to improve coordination with Afghan security forces in hopes of handing over more responsibility to them nearly nine years into the war.

What Are Just "Rules of Engagement"? (David E. DeCosse / Commentary â€“ San Francisco Chroncile)
Who should bear the greater risk of death or injury in the Afghan war: American frontline soldiers in the heat of combat or Afghan civilians caught up in the conflict? Gen. David Petraeus and Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain have encouraged a rule change that would allow soldiers more easily to call on air or artillery support -- even if such support may increase the risk borne by civilians.

Papers Reveal Nixon Plan for North Korea Nuclear Strike (Chris McGreal / The Guardian)
Richard Nixon is believed to have ordered nuclear bombers to be put on standby for an immediate strike on North Korea. According to newly revealed government documents, Nixon is even believed to have ordered nuclear bombers to be put on standby for an immediate strike after North Korean jets downed the American plane as it flew over international waters collecting electronic and radio intelligence.

New Report Finds Israeli Settlers Have Seized 42 Percent of the Occupied West Bank (Catrina Stewart and David Usborne / The Independent)
As President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Washington, a report reveals 42 percent of Palestinian territory is now controlled by Israeli settlers. Jewish settlers, who claim a divine right to the whole of Israel, now control more than 42 percent of the occupied West Bank, representing a powerful obstacle to the creation of a Palestinian state.

Iran Announces Plans for Conservation of Energy, Water (The Tehran Times Economic Desk)
Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, has called for reforming consumption patterns, especially for conservation of energy and water. Khamenei's ruling also proposed that "efforts must be made to avoid the consumption of foreign luxury goods, with a focus on collective training based on national tastes and the campaign against extravagant and luxurious lifestyles."

7/7, the Day that Changed UK Muslims' Lives (David Sapsted, Foreign Correspondent / The National)
Mainstream Muslims are marking today's fifth anniversary of the suicide bombings that killed 52 people on Londonâ€™s transport system with a renewed effort to build bridges with the UK's Christians and Jews.

UK Troops in Afghanistan 'To Move out of Sangin' (BBC World News)
British troops in Afghanistan are to hand over responsibility for the Sangin area of Helmand province to US forces, the BBC understands. Defence Secretary Liam Fox is expected to tell MPs on Wednesday the move could happen by the end of the year. Almost a third of the 312 UK deaths in the war have happened in Sangin, a volatile northern district at the heart of the opium-growing industry.

Israel to Indict Soldier over Gaza Murders (Al Jazeera)
An Israeli soldier who fought in the country's war on Gaza last year is to be prosecuted for the manslaughter of two Palestinian women, the military has said. The move, which is the first prosecution of an Israeli soldier over the deaths of civilians during the 22-day war, was one of several disciplinary steps announced by the army following an internal investigation.

Stage-Managing the War on Terror (Stephan Salisbury / TomDispatch)
Informers have become our first line of defense in our battles with evildoers in the never-ending domestic war on terror. The Liberty City Seven, the Fort Dix Six, the Detroit Ummah Conspiracy, the Newburgh Four -- none of these plots ever came close to happening. How could they? All were bogus from the get-go: money, cell phones, plans, cars and facilities paid for and provided by US federal agents.

Islamic Terrorists: Creating a Frankenstein monster (Jane Stillwater / Stillwater Blogspot)
Commentary: "Back in approximately 1528, when the very first black man was snatched from a village in Africa and shoved onto a slave ship, somehow a ball got rolling that has consequences even down to this day. That single act of brutality began a long, slow process that eventually resulted in the proliferation of violence and crime in America's inner cities four centuries later."

Terrorism: Why They Want to Kill Us (Doug Bandow, Senior Fellow / The Cato Institute)
Analysis: "The horrid attacks of 9/11 led to the cry: Why do they hate us? Most Americans seemed to believe that it was because we are such nice people. But the Times Square bomber reminds us that terrorism is mostly a response to US government policies."

EAW Summer Schedule Alert (Environmentalists Against War Web Editor)
EAW postings will be on a reduced level for the next two weeks as the Website editor will be traveling in Euruope. We hope to be meeting with colleagues in several Eastern European countries and bringing back reports on regional and local impacts of war and militarism on the environment and society. Regular postings will resume after July 5.

US Fails to Complete, or Cuts Back, Iraqi Projects (Timothy Williams / The New York Times)
After two devastating battles between American forces and Sunni insurgents in 2004, Fallujah needed almost everything -- new roads, clean water, electricity, health care. Now, with an approaching draw-down of US troops, US construction firms are rushing to finish up costly infrastructure projects by resorting to shortcuts, shoddy work or leaving projects only partly finished, infuriating residents.

Why West Lost Afghan War (Michael Scheuer / The Diplomat)
Recent events surrounding Afghanistan shouldn't confuse anyone, as the reality of the situation still lies in one simple statement: The US-NATO coalition has lost a war its political leaders never meant, or knew how, to win. The former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit says the US-led coalition has already lost the war in Afghanistan. A shake-up in military leadership won't change that.

Petraeus Urged to Change Rules of Engagement for US Troops in Afghanistan (Fox News)
Sen. Joe Lieberman has urged Gen. David Petraeus to change the rules of engagement for US troops in Afghanistan "as soon as possible," saying the policy rules put in place by outgoing Gen. Stanley McChrystal have "hurt morale" among US troops. Those rules aim to limit civilian casualties by prohibiting troops from firing unless they're shot at or from bombing attacks when civilians are near.

Petraeus May Alter Battle Rules (Laura King / The Los Angeles Times)
Across Afghanistan, the Pentagon's "rules of engagement" serve as the marching orders that govern Western troops' daily encounters with Taliban fighters -- and color dealings with Afghan civilians. Gen. Petraeus has told his troops that while civilian safety is a critical consideration, "as you and our Afghan partners on the ground get into tough situations, we must employ all assets to ensure your safety."

Managed News: Inside The US/NATO Military Industrial Media Empire ( Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff / Project Censored)
We face what appears to be a military industrial media empire so powerful that truth is mostly absent. A case in point: The London Times reported on June 5, 2010, that American troops are now operating in 75 countries. Has President Obama secretly sanctioned a huge increase in search-and-destroy missions? If so, this information has yet to make it into the US media.

Pakistanis Blame US after Shrine Attack Kills 42 (Nahal Toosi / The Associated Press )
A twin suicide attack that killed 42 at Pakistan's most popular Sufi shrine has angered and frustrated Pakistanis, with some saying Friday that the solution to the country's terror threat is a US exit from Afghanistan. Most of some two dozen Pakistanis interviewed said that even if Islamist extremists were behind the slaughter, the root cause of the violence was America's war in Afghanistan.

Argentine ex-dictator Faces Human Rights Charges (Debora Rey / Associated Press)
Former Argentine dictator Jorge Rafael Videla went on trial Friday, facing the first of a wave of human rights charges that have accumulated against him since the Supreme Court struck down his presidential pardon in 2007.

Sweden Scraps Military Conscription (Louise Nordstrom / Associated Press)
Sweden on Thursday abolished a 100-year tradition of compulsory military service for men during peacetime, replacing it with a voluntary system with rigorous requirements to join. The new policy means that required military service will be applied only if the neutral Nordic nation of 9 million feels threatened.

Blasts of $3 Grenades Rock Burundi's Fragile Peace (Max Delany / Associated Press)
Grenades cost as little as $3 each in this tiny East African country, and they have become the preferred method of settling political scores. Burundi has seen more than 60 grenade attacks over the last month, sparking fears the violence could plunge the country back into civil war.

Police Accused of Displaying Fake G20 Weapons (The Canadian Press)
Toronto's top police officer misled the public by displaying fake weapons used in a medieval-themed role-playing game to help justify their actions during G20 protests.

Lawmakers Ask for Afghanistan Exit Strategy (Andrew Aylward / San Francisco Chronicle )
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, joined other House members in calling for President Obama to provide Congress with "a clear commitment and plan to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan" before a vote expected later this week that would provide $58 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Report faults U.S. assessment on Afghanistan (Anne Flaherty / Associated Press)
he US has often overestimated the ability of Afghan military and police units to fight on their own, according to an independent report released Monday that calls into question the strategy to win the war and bring troops home

Masked Men Attack Gaza Kids' Summer Camp (MSNBC)
with rival day camps by the United Nations and Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers competing for the hearts of 700,000 children inside the occupied Gaza Strip, masked men have trashed a UN summer camp Monday, tying up guards and slashing tents and an inflatable pool in the second such attack blamed on suspected extremists in just over a month -- a sign of how, in Gaza, youth camp is not just about crafts and volleyball.

Gen. Petraeus's Review of Tactics Must Focus on Night Raids and Civilian Protection (Erica Gaston / Huffington Post)
With General Stanley McChrystal's ouster, his successor General David Petraeus has suggested that he will review specific tactical restraints, even though the overall strategy and direction of the Afghanistan war will remain the same.

Smoking Drones: Bush's Pilotless Dream (Tom Englehardt / Middle East News)
Admittedly, before George W. Bush had his fever dream, the US had already put its first unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drone surveillance planes in the skies over Kosovo in the late 1990s. By November 2001, it had armed them with missiles and was flying them over Afghanistan. In November 2002, a Predator drone would loose a Hellfire missile on a car in Yemen, a country with which we werenâ€™t at war. Six suspected al-Qaeda members, including a suspect in the bombing of the destroyer the USS Cole would be turned into twisted metal and ash -- the first â€œtargeted killingsâ€ of the American robotic era.

UN Blasts Israel's Plan to Destroy Homes (Al Jazeerah)
A UN human rights expert says that Israel's plan to destroy several Palestinian homes in East al-Quds (Jerusalem) would violate the international law. "International law does not allow Israel to bulldoze Palestinians homes to make space for the Mayor's project to build a garden, or anything else," UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territories Richard Falk said in a statement.

Gen Petraeus Tells Senators Afghan Fighting May Worsen (BBC World News)
The man chosen to take charge of the US military in Afghanistan, Gen David Petraeus, has warned of an escalation of violence in the coming months. "The going inevitably gets tougher before it gets easier," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Korean War's 60th Anniversary Marked by Tension (Kelly Olsen / Associated Press)
Tens of thousands of North Koreans rallied in their capital Friday to condemn the US and South Korea on the 60th anniversary of the start of the Korean War. One large poster at the rally in Pyongyang depicted a man kicking an American soldier and the slogan "US Army, Get Out."

Israel's Defense Minister Criticises Plan to Demolish Palestinian Homes (Aron Heller / Associated Press)
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak criticized a plan to raze 22 Palestinian homes to make room for an Israeli tourist center in disputed east Jerusalem as "the kind of action that undermines trust and potentially incites emotions and adds to the risk of violence." Barak added that Jerusalem officials were "not displaying common sense or good timing, and not for the first time."

Netanyahu Aide: Palestinian Talks Weakening Isreal (Janine Zacharia / Washington Post Foreign Service)
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's national security adviser said Tuesday that the push for Palestinian statehood has weakened Israel's standing in the world, and he suggested that the outlook is bleak for US-mediated negotiations in the region

Test of Counterinsurgency Strategy in Afghanistan (Laura King / Los Angeles Times)
With General McChrystal's ouster, General Petraeus is taking over the war at a time when progress is 'slower and harder' than military officials anticipated. Exhibit A: the flagging operation in Helmand province.

Mass Grave in Mexico: Another Legacy of US Backed "War on Drugs" (William Booth / Washington Post)
For months, maybe for years, feuding drug mafias have unloaded their bound-and-gagged victims from pickup trucks and car trunks and thrown them down a deep, dark hole. It is one of the most macabre spectacles in a drug war that each week brings news of greater barbarities.

Obama Sacks Afghanistan General McChrystal, Appoints Petraeus (Brad Norington / The Australian)
Barack Obama has sacked his top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, over an interview that mocked his administration. The US President today announced that General David Petraeus, currently head of central command for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was his pick to replace General McChrystal.

Afghans Express Weariness over Lengthy Conflict (Laura King / Los Angeles Times)
Long before he'd ever heard of Rolling Stone magazine, Abdul Baqi already harbored deep doubts about the US-led war effort in Afghanistan. "The Americans are here for their own reasons, for their own benefit," said the clean-shaven 23-year-old university student, shaking his head. "If they really wanted to bring peace to Afghanistan, they could have done so already,whoever was in charge."

From Bullets to Playboy DVDs, US Forces Sell Iraq Equipment (Matt Robinson and Khalid al-Ansary / Reuters)
The detritus of occupation comes in all shapes and sizes. In Iraq, it's M-16 ammunition clips, rifle bipods and body armour at Baghdad's Haraj market. Or Playboy DVDs, Irish Spring soap and military-issue MREs (Meal, Ready-to-Eat) at a store in Karrada district, scavenged from the trash or more often skimmed off supplies at US bases by industrious local contractors.

Peaceful Support of Terrorists IIlegal (Bob Egelko / San Francisco Chronicle )
In a further chilling erosion of our American First Amendment rights, the Supreme Court has ruled that the government can prosecute private citizens for giving advice to a foreign organization -- on how to negotiate peace or take its case to the United Nations, for example -- if the group is on the US terrorist list.

5 Americans Get 10-Year Sentences in Pakistan Terror Plot (Mohammad Islam and Nick Schigrin / ABC News)
The US has joined the list of countries engaged in the "export of terrorism." In Pakistan, a special anti-terrorism court closed to observers and presided over by a single judge convicted five young American men today of planning to launch attacks in Pakistan.

June becomes Deadliest Month of Afghan War for US/NATO (The Associated Press & Rethink Afghanistan)
Based on announcements by the alliance and national commands shows 76 international service members have died this month. The total includes 46 Americans. Roadside bombs have almost doubled so far this year compared to last year, and that targeted killings have shot up by almost 50 percent. At the same time, the Pentagon continue to insist the US is making "progress" in Afghanistan.

The World's 12 Most Peaceful Countries (Institute for Economics and Peace & National Geographic News Blog & The Prague Post)
The world became less peaceful for the second consecutive year, according to the fourth annual Global Peace Index. "The increase in violence is depriving the global economy of assets when they are needed most. A 25 percent reduction in global violence would free up US $1.8 trillion annually -- enough to pay off Greece's debt... and meet the EU's 20-20-20 climate and energy targets."

The Time Has Come for Some Realism ( The London Independent)
Yesterday saw the 300th British fatality of the long Afghan war. It is, of course, an artificial milestone. As David Cameron pointed out, there is no reason why the 300th death of a British soldier in that conflict should be any more significant than the 299th or the 301st. But, rightly or wrongly, round numbers tend to capture the public's attention. This is a milestone, artificial or not.

Chimpanzees and War: Are Humans Murderous by Nature? ( Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor / The Independent)
Scientists studying the behavior of primates in Uganda have found that gangs of chimpanzees kill individuals from neighbouring groups in order to expand their territory and seize new food resources. A ten-year study provides troubling details of the animals' notoriously aggressive behaviour in the wild.

Anti-war Activists to Stage Budget Demos (Alan Jones / Press Association)
The British Government will face a series of Budget day demonstrations by groups opposed to public spending cuts and the war in Afghanistan. Central London will be the scene of protests, with anti-war activists stepping up campaigns to have troops brought home from Afghanistan following news of the 300th British casualty. The Stop The War Coalition and CND will protest in Parliament Square to highlight the escalating death rate and cost of the war.

Murders at Guantanamo: The Cover-Up Continues (Andy Worthington / Cage Prisoners)
ometimes the truth is so sickening that no one in a position of authority -- senior government officials, lawmakers, the mainstream media -- wants to go anywhere near it. This appears to be the case with the deaths of three men at GuantÃ¡namo on June 9, 2006.

'Grim Milestone' for UK in Afghanistan: 300 Soldiers Dead (Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent / The Independent)
The somber milestone of the 300th fatality among British forces in Afghanistan has been reached with the death of a Royal Marine from injuries received in Helmand. At the same time, the UK's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, has gone on "extended leave" after expressing scepticism over Western military strategy and calling for speeding up talks with the Taliban.

Mortal Tide Calls Entire US Strategy into Question (Kim Sengupta / The Independent)
Gen McChrystal is determined not to alienate "hearts and minds", a key plank in his strategy since being sent by Barack Obama to turn the tide of a war which was looking increasingly un-winnable. The logic of Gen. McChrystal's approach appeared unarguable. Commanders say he rejuvenated a campaign which had lost its way. Now, however, questions are being asked as to whether McChrystal's "surge" of troops will work.

NYC Car Bomb Suspect Pleads Guilty, Calls it 'War' (Larry Neumeister & Tom Hays / Associated Press )
Calling himself a Muslim soldier, a defiant Pakistan-born US citizen pleaded guilty Monday to carrying out the failed Times Square car bombing. Explaining his motivation, Faisal Shahzad warned that the attacks would continue as long as the US "did not get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, halt drone attacks and stop meddling in Muslim lands."

Flotilla Flap at the UN (Kristen Saloomey / Al Jazeera )
Israel has engaged in a war of words with the United Nations Correspondents Association which hosted an event during which a passenger on board the Mavi Marmara was allowed to show a video that was shot as Israeli commandoes raided the aid ship. But the UNCA has fired back, pointing out that it was Israel that refused to share the stage with the filmmaker and refused to participate in a Q & A session.

The Gaza Siege Is Illegal: Israel and International Law (Curtis F.J.Doebbler / Brussells Tribunal)
International law is important to states because it reflects agreed upon rules. In fact, the rules of international law are some of the only things that have been widely agreed upon among states. The siege on Gaza is a violation of norms of international humanitarian law. No state can justify the use of force to perpetuate an illegal situation, writes Curtis Doebbler.

Drone Warfare / The Mythologies of Militarism (Steve Martinot / The Berkeley Daily Planet)
Drone warfare is a form of mechanized killing, in which a technician in Colorado or Iowa, or on shipboard in the Indian Ocean, flies a pilotless plane remotely, targets people from the air and unleashes lethal force against them. It has been used in Afghanistan, Gaza, and Pakistan. Its use by the US has increased dramatically. Its ratio of civilians to actual "combatant targets" is around 50 â€“ 1.

Guam: Self-Determination, or More US Troops? (OpEdNews: Robert Naiman / Just Foreign Policy)
Usually, when someone refers to a place as a "US colony," they are making an analogy. We rarely discuss the fact that there are places in the world that are actual US colonies. Still less do we consider whether we are complying with our international obligations to respect the right of self-determination for colonized peoples.

Afghanistan: The Longest Lost War (James Petras / Global Research)
Analysis: "Despite almost a decade of warfare, including an invasion and occupation, the US military and its allies and client state armed forces are losing the war in Afghanistan. Outside of the central districts of a few cities and the military fortresses, the Afghan national resistance forces, in all of their complex local, regional and national alliances, are in control."

US Senator Calls for "Strangulation" of Gaza's Civilian Population (Mark LeVine / Al Jazeera)
Commentary: The remarks were not made in anger or haste, as were the now infamous, flippant and ill-conceived comments that cost White House reporter Helen Thomas her job. Instead, they were made quite deliberately, with an air of thoughtfulness, while leaning over a lectern. Thomas was forced into retirement for declaring that Jews "should get the hell out of Palestine," but Senator Chuck Schumer has avoided any criticism or even major press coverage for saying, only days later, that he supported the "economic strangulation" of Gaza.

Waiting in Gaza (Safa Joudeh / Al Jazeera)
Gaza under siege is a forgotten place where time and change are irrelevant aside from degradation, both of physical surroundings and the quality inside us that makes human beings yearn for life. What keeps it afloat is outside humanitarian aid, but what infuses it with that faint semblance to normalcy are the tunnels running between Gaza and Egypt. Tunnel trade increased as the blockade continued.

Nicaragua's Landmine Success (Al Jazeera & Elizabeth Beery Adams / Mine Action Information Center)
Nicaraguaâ€™s civil war of the 1980s left the country ridden with landmines. Since 1989, a number of organizations have been working in Nicaragua to overcome obstacles and improve the countryâ€™s landmine situation.

UN Says Afghan Security Worsening (Al Jazeera & Associated Press)
There has been a surge in roadside bombings and assassinations in Afghanistan during the first four months of this year, a new UN report has revealed. Roadside bombings have skyrocketed 94 percent over the same period of 2009 while assassinations of Afghan officials have jumped 45 percent.

Mexican Leader Defends War on Drugs; Blames US for Violence Problem (William Booth / Washington Post )
An explosion of drug violence in Mexico has claimed hundreds of lives in the past five days and prompted the country's president to issue a 5,000-word manifesto. More than 23,000 people have died in drug-related violence since December 2006, when Calderon first sent the military into the streets.

Indonesia's US-Trained Anti-terror Campaign under Fire (Irwan Firdau/ Associated Press )
US-trained forces at the core of Indoneis's anti-terror fight have a startling kill-to-capture ratio: One suspect killed for every four arrested. The deaths not only raise human rights concerns, but risk fueling Islamist propaganda and tarnishing a campaign that has seen hundreds of suspects arrested and convicted.

US Troops Charged in Afghan Deaths (Al Jazeera)
Five US soldiers have been charged with premeditated murder over the killings of three Afghan civilians in the province of Kandahar earlier this year, the US army has said. The incidents happened near a military base in Kandahar, and the army said all three victims were shot, with two also hit by grenades. If convicted, the soldiers face a maximum sentence of life in prison or the death penalty.

Wikileaks Soldier Reveals Orders for "360 Rotational Fire" Against Civilians in Iraq (Ralph Lopez / OpEdNews & Military Times)
Ethan McCord, one of the soldiers seen in the now-famous Wikileaks video in which two American Apache helicopters fire upon a relaxed, unhurried gaggle of men in Baghdad, has stepped forward with open opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and written a letter of apology for his part in the incident to the mother of the children, who has accepted his apology.

WikiLeaks to Release Another Video of Deadly US Afghan Attack (Chris McGreal / The Guardian)
The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks says it plans to release a secret military video of one of the deadliest US air strikes in Afghanistan -- the bombing of the Afghan village of Garani in May 2009 in which scores of children are believed to have been killed. US authorities are searching for the site's founder, following the arrest of a US soldier accused of leaking the Afghanistan video.

Kick Ass or Buy Gas? How Taxpayers Are Subsidizing BP's Disaster Through the Pentagon (Nick Turse / Tom Dispatch)
Even as the tar balls hit Gulf beaches, their tax dollars are subsidizing BP and so far, President Obama has not shown the slightest indication that he plans to stop their flow into BP coffers. The Department of Defense, which has a longstanding, multi-billion dollar business relationship with BP, has no plans to sever current business ties or curtail future contracts with the oil giant.

Gaza Blockade Ruled Illegal (International Committee of the Red Cross & Al-Jazeera)
The International Committee of the Red Cross has described Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip as a violation of the Geneva Conventions and called on the Israeli government to lift it. The ICRC called the four-year-old blockade "collective punishment," a crime under international law, that has left the territory plagued by frequent power cuts, a ruined economy, and a collapsed health care system.

Israel Stations Nuclear Missile Subs off Iran (Kevin M. Martin / Peace Action & Uzi Mahnaimi/ The Sunday Times)
News of three Israeli submarines, armed with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and positioned off the coast of Iran in the Persian Gulf, is most disturbing. Three German-built Israeli submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles are to be deployed in the Gulf near the Iranian coastline.

ICC Adds Aggression to List of Crimes Despite US Opposition (Jenna Greene / Legal Times Blog)
In a move that international lawyers describe as "a giant leap," members of the International Criminal Court agreed to add aggression to the court's short list of prosecutable crimes. The United States opposed the resolution, but as a non-member of the eight-year old court, had no ability to block the adoption.

The US Wins the Right to Abduct Innocent People with Impunity (Glenn Greenwal / Salon)
The Supreme Court has denied a petition of review from Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen who was abducted by the US Government at a stopover at JFK Airport when returning to Canada in 2002, held incommunicado for two weeks, and then rendered to Syria, where he spent the next 10 months being tortured, even though -- as everyone acknowledges -- he was guilty of absolutely nothing.

ICC Makes Waging War a Crime (Sam Sasan Shoamanesh / Al Jazeerah)
History was made in the early morning hours of Saturday, June 12, 2010 in Kampala, Uganda, the site of the Review Conference of the International Criminal Court. For the first time in the war stricken story of mankind, waging aggressive wars has become a prosecutable crime in international law and given precise meaning and teeth before the ICC.

The Officers' Mess: Military Chiefs Blamed for Blundering into Helmand with "Eyes Shut and Fingers Crossed" (Deborah Haynes, Anthony Loyd, Sam Kiley, Tom Coghlan / The Times)
Military chiefs and civil servants ignored warnings that Britain was ill prepared to send troops to Helmand and signed off a deeply flawed plan, a succession of senior figures have told The Times. Even those in charge of the deployment admit that the decision to go to southern Afghanistan, which has cost the lives of nearly 300 soldiers, was a gamble and that mistakes were made because of poor intelligence.

ACTION ALERT: Challenge War Funding (Coalition against War Spending & Kevin Zeese / Voters for Peace & David Rogers / Politico)
It was reported that Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, David Obey was blocking war funding over the failure to pass the economic relief bill which would extend funding to aid states and cities, extend unemployment benefits as well as provide tax breaks for individuals and business. This is an opportunity to thank Obey and urge him to continue to block funding of the wars.

Impact of the War on the Environment (Svetlana Turyalay and Elchin Hajiyev / Azerbaijan International)
Whenever people think of war, they usually reflect on the tragic loss of human life, they rarely consider the loss and damage done to nature. We've had considerable losses of human life during these six long years of war with Armenians. An estimated 20,000 Azeris have died -- many of them civilians.

Who Is Afraid of a Real Inquiry? (Uri Avnery / Ma'an News Agency)
Commentary: A former three-term member of Israel's Knesset responds to the Israeli government's offer to investigate itself for the deadly assault on a humanitarian convoy peace activists: "If a real commission of inquiry had been set up (instead of the pathetic excuse for a commission), here are some of the questions it should have addressed."

Kyrgyzstan Faces Humanitarian Crisis as Uzbeks Flee Slaughter (Luke Harding /Guardian & Associated Press)
Hundreds of minority Uzbeks are feared killed as up to 100,000 escape to border with Uzbekistan. Much of the city of Osh is burning as Kyrgyz mobs continue to riot. The official toll was put at 124 killed and more than 1,600 injured. But according to Associated Press at least 200 Uzbeks had already been buried.

Former UK Defence Secretary Tells Baha Mousa Inquiry Interrogation Tactics Were 'Reprehensible' (Kim Sengupta / The Independent)
Geoff Hoon, the former British defence secretary, insisted yesterday that he did not know until the death of Baha Mousa that British troops hooded prisoners in Iraq as standard operating procedure. An inquiry revealed that Mr. Mousa's 2003 death came after the 26-year-old hotel receptionist had been kept hooded for nearly 24 hours of the 36 in UK custody. He died from 92 separate injuries.

Hoax: Video Showing Heavy Weapons Discovered on Mavi Marmara is a Fraud (Jonathan Turley.org)
A video has been racing around the Internet -- purportedly showing heavy weapons discovered behind bags of flour on the Mavi Marmara. The find would serve to justify the lethal raid on the flotilla to Gaza. Some posters have asked "Why no uproar?" The answer is because the video is a fraud.

Israeli Report Finds Abuse of Palestinians 'Widespread'; Children Starving (B'Tselem & Al Jazeera)
The death toll in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories was "much lower" in 2009 than previous years, but human rights abuses against Palestinians remain widespread, according to a new report from the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. UN aid workers inside Gaza report that about 14 percent of children suffer from stunted growth due to malnutrition.

Smuggled Video of Israelli Attack on Flotilla Released to World Press at UN (IndyMedia & Cultures of Resistance)
A woman's voice can be heard repeatedly pleading: "We are civilians, we have no guns ... please don't attack." Filmmaker Iara Lee, a passenger on the Mavi Marmara, managed to smuggle an hour of footage taken during Isreal's May 31 attack on a humanitarian flotilla bound for Gaza. Lee released her footage to the press at the UN so the public can evaluate the images for themselves.

'Saudis to Allow Airspace for Iran War' (Press TV & The Times of London)
Saudi Arabia has reportedly launched a series of military maneuvers aimed at allowing Israeli jets to use the kingdom's airspace for an aerial attack on Iranian nuclear sites. Israel has been given overflight clearance by Saudi Arabia and is permitted to use northern Saudi airspace in the event of military confrontation with Iran.

US Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan (James Risen / New York Times)
The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself. Huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium -- are so big that Afghanistan could become one of the most important mining centers.

Survivor of Commando Raid Counters Israel's Account (Mel Frykberg / Asia Times)
In an exclusive interview with Inter Press Service, Huwaida Arraf, the chairwoman of the Free Gaza (FG) movement that tried to break Israel's blockade on Gaza, explains what happened on the night of May 31 when Israeli commandos raided the FG humanitarian flotilla, shooting nine people dead and injuring dozens more.

Former US Marine Savagely Beaten: Describes Disarming Israeli Commandos (Press TV)
Ken O'Keefe, an Irish-American activist, who was among hundreds of abducted aid activists on the Freedom Flotilla seeking to break the siege of the Gaza Strip, was brutally beaten by Israeli security forces. He explains how some passengers resisted the Israeli attack after commandos had opened fire from helicopters, killing unarmed passengers on the deck of the Mavi Marmara.

Palestinian Knesset Member Faces Death Threats: Israeli Official Calls for Killing Turkish Prime MInister (Rachel Shabi / The Guardian & Kurt Nimmo / Inforwars Ireland)
A female Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset, who survived the commando attack on the Mavi Mamara, has received death threats since disembarking on Monday. Meanwhile, Uzi Dayan, Isreal's former deputy Chief of General Staff, has warned that "if the Turkish prime minister joins [a Gaza relief] flotilla..., we would not try to take over the ship he was on, but would sink it."

US Congress Gives Obama Okay to Fund Israel Rocket Defense (Natasha Mozgovaya / Haaretz & Turkish Weekly)
By a 410-4 margin, Congress voted to give Israel $205 million to build the Iron Dome short-range rocket defense system. This is in addition to the $3 billion in military aid the US provides Israel each year. When Isreal's State Controller criticized the project, Isreal's military defended Iron Dome, saying that the shortcomings listed in the report stemmed from the "bold ambition" of developers.

ACTION ALERT: How to Cut the Deficit by $960 Billion (Friends Committee on National Legislation)
On June 11, 2010, Rep. Barney Frank presented a detailed plan to cut $960 billion from the Pentagon budget over the next ten years -- cuts that would reduce military spending by almost 20 percent while strengthen security. Urge your representative to sign a bipartisan letter to the President's deficit reduction commission.

Debt, Deficits, & Defense: A Way Forward (The Cato Institute, Taxpayers for Common Sense, Peace Action, et al.)
No serious approach to cutting the deficit can afford to exempt the largest portion of the discretionary budget. Defense analysts and political figures alike agree that, in a time of great financial challenge, budget discipline and cuts would be not only appropriate for the Pentagon, but also beneficial to the larger goal of maintaining our national security.

A Plan to Cut Pentagon Waste by Nearly $1 Trillion (Peace Action)
A new report from the Sustainable Defense Task Force, formed by House Financial Services Committee Chair Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) identifies reductions in Pentagon spending while maintaining strong defense capabilities as the best response to the nationâ€™s mounting fiscal restraints.

5 Reasons to Stop US Military Aid to Israel (Sami Abuhamdeh / ZSpace )
"Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign assistance since World War II. From 1976-2004, Israel was the largest annual recipient of US foreign assistance, having been supplanted by Iraq. Since 1985, the United States has provided nearly $3 billion in grants annually to Israel." -- US Congressional Research Service.

US Congress Gives Obama Okay to Fund Israel Rocket Defense
By a 410-4 margin, Congress voted to give Israel $205 million to build the Iron Dome short-range rocket defense system. This is in addition to the $3 billion in military aid the US provides Israel each year. When Isreal's State Controller criticized the project, Isreal's military defended Iron Dome, saying that the shortcomings listed in the report stemmed from the "bold ambition" of developers.

Gaza Freedom Flotilla Smuggled Photos. Videos Reveal Truth
Kevin Neish, passenger who survived Israel's attack on the Mavi Marmara, has released smuggled photos of the attack. He says 16 people died in the attack but official reports put the death toll at nine. Meanwhile, new video evidence has been presented dispelling what little credibility Tel Aviv had left.

The Yemen Hidden Agenda: Behind the Al-Qaeda Scenarios, A Strategic Oil Transit Chokepoint (F. William Engdahl / Global Research)
For some months the world has seen a steady escalation of US military involvement in Yemen. The evidence suggests that the Pentagon and US intelligence are moving to militarize a strategic chokepoint for the worldâ€™s oil flows, Bab el-Mandab, and using the Somalia piracy incident, together with claims of a new Al Qaeda threat arising from Yemen.

Pentagon Manhunt for Whistleblower (Philip Shenon / The Daily Beast)
Anxious that Wikileaks may be on the verge of publishing a batch of secret State Department cables, investigators are desperately searching for founder Julian Assange. Officials acknowledge that even if they found the website founder, Julian Assange, it is not clear what they could do to block publication of the cables on Wikileaks, which is nominally based on a server in Sweden.

Britain's "Bloody Sunday" Killings of Civilians to be Ruled Unlawful (Henry McDonald and Richard Norton-Taylor / The Guardian)
Thirty-eight years ago, British soldiers killed more than a dozen men in Belfast. After a 12-year investigation, a report to be published next week will call for the prosecution of British troops responsible for the murder of 14 armed civilians gunned down during a civil rights march in Belfast in 1972.

US Urges Israel to Lift Gaza Siege (Patty Culhane / Al Jazeera)
Barack Obama, the US president, has called on Israel to lift the "siege" on Palestinians, after a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. Meanwhile, autopsies of the civilians killed by Israeli commandos onboard the Mavi Marmara revealed some had been shot as many as 4 times, with more than half the bullets entering their backs or heads at close range..

Stephen R. Shalom: But What Could Israel Do? (Stephen R. Shalom / Israeli Occupation.org)
The New York Times front-paged a story on the conflicting video images of the assault on the Gaza flotilla, concluding that neither sides case was proven because the videos lacked the necessary context. What came just before or just after? Those trying to break the blockade, had their cellphones and cameras confiscated, one of their websites hacked, and were held in detention which limited coverage of the events.

Noam Chomsky Interview: Speaking of Truth and Power ( David Tresilian / Al-Ahram Weekly )
One of the worldâ€™s major intellectual voices and a leading critic of Israel, Noam Chomsky has sided with the powerless throughout his career, while at the same time reminding the powerful of the inconvenient truths they would rather forget. He spoke to David Tresilian in Paris.

Daniel Ellsberg: 'Obama Deceives the Public' (Der Spiegel Interview)
Daniel Ellsberg, legendary leaker of the "Pentagon Papers," still has a bone to pick with the White House. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, the 79-year-old peace activist accuses President Obama of betraying his election promises -- in Iraq, in Afghanistan and on civil liberties.

Echoes of the Past in Israeli Ship Raid (Andrew Wander / Al Jazeera)
The raid on the Mavi Mamara has parallels with another chapter of history in the region. It was a military raid on a civilian ship bound for Palestine, carried out in the international waters of the Mediterranean to prevent the boat from reaching its blockaded destination.

Exodus 2010 (Uri Avnery / Ma'riv & AntiWar.com)
On the high seas, outside territorial waters, the ship was stopped by the navy. The commandos stormed it. Hundreds of people on the deck resisted; the soldiers used force. Some of the passengers were killed, scores injured. The ship was brought into harbor; the passengers were taken off by force. The ship was called Exodus 1947. It was loaded with Holocaust survivors hoping to break the British blockade.

Of Drone Wars & Buffalo Urine (Conn Hallinan / Dispatches from the Edge)
Has the drone war in Pakistan's rugged frontier finally come home? Was Faisal Shahzad, the bumbling Times Square bomb maker a blowback from the Obama Administration's increased use of killer robots? David Sanger of the New York Times asks the question, and the New York Post says an "anonymous law enforcement" source claims Shahzad was driven to his act after witnessing drone attacks in Pakistan.

Did an American Mine Sink South Korean Ship? (Yoichi Shimatsu / New America Media)
South Korean Prime Minister Lee Myung-bak has claimed "overwhelming evidence" that a North Korean torpedo sank a on March 26, killing 46 sailors. But evidence presented by military investigators to an official inquiry board have been scanty and inconsistent. Meanwhile, there's yet another possibility: that a US "rising mine" sank the Cheonan in a friendly-fire accident.

US Soldier Arrested over Iraq Video (Al Jazeera)
For anyone who has seen the footage of US soldiers laughing as they gun down injured men and open fire on a civilian van filled with children, the headline "US Soldier Arrested over Iraq Video" might suggest that someone responsible for the deaths was being called to account. Instead, the military has not arrested the killers but the solider who acted as a whistleblower to bring these crimes to light.

Atomic Energy Agency Turns its Attention to Israel (Alan Fisher / Al Jazeera)
For the first time in 19 years, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the world's "nuclear watchdog" will discuss "Israel's nuclear capability." The item has been forced onto the agenda by the 18 nation Arab block, elevating Israel to the same status as Iran and Syria.

Israeli Navy Officers Condemn Government Handling of Commando Raid (Anshel Pfeffer / Haaretz.com)
A group of top Israel Navy reserves officers have called on Israel to allow an external probe into its commando raid of a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla that left nine dead. In a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, the officers denounced the raid as having "ended in tragedy both at the military and diplomatic levels."

CYA for the CIA: The CIA's Torture Research Program (Stephen Soldz / OpEd News)
A new report of which I am a coauthor, Experiments in Torture: Evidence of Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the "Enhanced" Interrogation Program, just released by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) confirms previous suspicions and provides the first strong evidence that the CIA was indeed engaged in illegal and unethical research on detainees in its custody.

US 'Secret War' Expands Globally as Special Operations Forces Take Larger Role (Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe / Washington Post)
Beneath its commitment to soft-spoken diplomacy beyond the combat zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama administration has significantly expanded a largely secret US war against radical groups. Special Operations forces are deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of 2009. Teams are operating in Latin America, Yemen, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.

US Missile, Clusterbombs Killed Yemen Civilians (Agence France-Presse & Amnesty International & Associated Press)
A US cruise missile carrying cluster bombs was behind a December attack in Yemen that killed 55 people, most of them civilians. Amnesty International released photographs that show the remains of a US-made Tomahawk missile and unexploded cluster bombs. Amnesty Int. stated it was "gravely concerned by evidence that cluster munitions appear to have been used in Yemen," which would violate international law.

Burma's Nuclear Weapons Intent 'Clear and Disturbing' (Richard Norton-Taylor / The Guardian)
Fresh claims that Burma is trying to acquire the know-how and material to build a nuclear weapon, based on information provided by a former army officer, are published today, renewing concern about the extent of the junta's military ambitions.

Turkish Survivors of Gaza Aid Attack Recount Horror (Anita McNaught / Al Jazeera & Lamis Andoni / Al Jazeera)
Nine Turkish activists killed in an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship were shot a total of 30 times and five died of bullet wounds to the head. Interviews with some of the injured activists, who are recovering in an Ankara hospital. And a Commentary by Lamis Andoni on "The Myth of Israeli Morality."

UN Official Calls on US to Halt Illegal Killings by Drone Aircraft (The Voice of America)
The special investigator on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions criticizes, what he calls illegal targeted killings and calls on the US to halt CIA drone killings because drones increasingly are being used in circums that violate international law. While more than 40 states already have drone technology, Alston cites the United States as the dominant user of drones to kill.

The World's Military Expenditure ( Stockholm International Peace Research Institute / SIPRI Yearbook 2010)
The financial crisis and economic recession that have affected most of the globe appeared to have little effect on levels of military expenditure, arms production or arms transfers. In the face of growing global unemployment, the continuing rise of world military expenditure -- up 5.9% in real terms in 2009 -- may appear to be something of a paradox -- some might say an outrage.

Israel's Bogus Excuses for Piracy (Sadaka / The Ireland Palestine Alliance)
Commentary: "Israel claims it had compelling reasons for hijacking the Free Gaza ships in international waters and kidnapping their passengers. All of them are bogus."

Israel to Deport Rachel Corrie Gaza Activists (BBC News)
A group of 11 campaigners and eight crew detained for trying to sail an aid ship to Gaza in defiance of Israel's blockade will be deported. The action came days after Israeli forces killed nine activists who were also attempting to break the blockade.

Flotilla Detainee's Harrowing Experience (Justin Berton / San Francisco Chronicle )
Gene St. Onge, an Oakland structural engineer who boarded a ship for Gaza in hopes of delivering aid but was intercepted by Israeli forces instead, expects to return home today. He'll bring home a nasty chest cold that he caught while imprisoned, a cut on his forehead from a scrap with Israeli soldiers, and the memory of fellow Bay Area activist Paul Larudee leaping overboard as a form of protest.

Gaza Flotilla Activists Were Shot in Head at Close Range (Robert Booth / The Guardian)
Israel is under pressure to allow an independent inquiry into its assault on the Gaza aid flotilla after autopsy results on the bodies of those killed, obtained by the Guardian, revealed they were peppered with 9mm bullets, many fired at close range. Nine Turkish men on board the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times and five were killed by gunshot wounds to the head.

Meet the 19-Year-Old American Killed in the Flotilla Attack ( Paul Woodward / War in Context.org)
Nineteen-year-old Furka Dogan is alleged to have been shot with five bullets, four in the head. Does the Obama administration intend to investigate the circumstances in which one of its citizens was killed? After all, protecting the lives of Americans is after all the most fundamental responsibility of our government.

The Israeli Flotilla Attack: Victimhood, Aggression and Tribalism (Glenn Greenwald / Salon)
Commentary: "Will the fact that one of the dead was an American teenager with four bullet wounds to his head alter the Obama administration's full-scale defense of Israel? Yesterday, newly elected British Prime Minister David Cameron became the latest world leader to unequivocally condemn Israel. But last night on Charlie Rose's show, Joe Biden defended Israel with as much vigor as any Netanyahu aide.

Israelis Subdued Captain by Pointing Gun at a Child (Layelle Saad, GCC & Middle East Editor and Ramadan Al Sherbini, Correspondent / Gulf News)
Many reports have emerged from among the 124 activists who crossed over into Amman, Jordan, yesterday. According to a report in The Guardian, an Algerian activist, who gave her name as Sabrina, revealed that Israeli troops pointed their gun at a one-year-old Turkish child in front of his parents to force the captain.

Turkey Honors Slain Activists, including US Teenager (Selcan Hacaoglu & David Rising / Associated Press)
Thousands of mourners hailed activists killed in an Israeli commando mission as martyrs. The father of the youngest of the nine activists killed -- 19-year-old high school student Furkan Dogan, who had dual US-Turkish citizenship -- praised his son for dying in a just cause.

Turkey Delivers Ultimatum: Israel Rejects International Calls for Probe (Donald Macintyre / The Independent & Jason Ditz / AntiWar.com)
Israel bowed to heavy diplomatic pressure to deport hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists yesterday, after what Turkey said was an ultimatum that threatened Jerusalem with severe political consequences if it kept its citizens in custody. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has rejected a UN Security Council resolution calling for an international investigation of their attack on a civilian aid ship.

Journalist Relieves Attack; Malaysia Pleas with Israel Not to Attack New Relief Ship (Jamal Elshayyal / Al Jazeera )
Released from an Israeli jail, a TV journalist give an eyewitness account of the attack that killed 9 humanitarian activists. Meanwhile, Malaysia's government has urged Israel not to take any action that could harm people aboard a Malaysian-funded Irish aid ship, the MV Rachel Corrie, now heading to Gaza carrying 11 activists, including Mairead Corrigan, a Nobel Peace laureate.

US to Join South Korean Military Exercise Off North Korea Coast (Luis Martinez / ABC News)
The US aircraft carrier USS George Washington will participate in a joint naval exercise with South Korea next week in the Yellow Sea, the same waters west of the Korean peninsula where North Korea is accused of sinking a South Korean warship last March.

Bush Admits the Unspeakable: (The Huffington Post)
President George W. Bush argued in 2004 that the best way to grow the US economy was by waging war, according to former Argentine Prime Minister NÃ©stor Kirchner. "The best way to revitalize the economy is -- the United States has grown based on wars," Bush proclaimed. "All the economic growth that the US had had, had been based on the different wars it had waged."

Life Aboard an International Activist Ship (Col. Ann Wright (US Army, ret.))
One day before the deadly attack by Israeli commandos, former US diplomat and Army Colonel Ann Wright, sent friends a letter about life aboard a ship in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla: "There is nothing easy about planning or conducting an international action, especially with moving parts called ships!

Behind the Freedom Flotilla: The 4-Year-Long Siege of Gaza (Ismail Patel / Al Jazeera & Janine Zacharia / Washington Post)
"Being part of the 700-strong civilian 'crew' was an easy decision to make. Individuals such as myself have been forced to take bold steps to challenge Israel. In order to bring about justice, we are forced to face this danger. Even as we make our plans, the Israeli navy, headed by none other than Ehud Barak, the defence minister, plans to block our efforts."

Doctors without Borders: Bringing Care to Regions of Conflict (Film Review: Gar Smith / The Berkeley Daily Planet)
Filmed over the course of two years in Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Niger, Kenya, Canada, the US and the MSF headquarters in Paris, the film was intended, in the director's words, to "explore the limits of idealism" by "immersing people in the Doctors Without Borders experience."

World Leaders Condemn Israel for Deadly Assault on Humanitarian Mission
Israel was engulfed by a wave of global condemnation tonight after a botched assault on a flotilla carrying aid and supplies to the Gaza Strip ended in carnage and a diplomatic crisis involving the UN security council.

Israel's 'Gunboat Diplomacy' Provokes Global Outrage (Donald Macintyre / The Independent)
Israel was struggling to contain a rapidly mounting diplomatic crisis after naval commandos killed at least nine pro-Palestinian activists in international waters. Amid international calls for a full investigation, Ankara's accusations of "state terrorism" and angry protests at embassies worldwide, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled out of a planned meeting with US President Barack Obama

Same Empire, Different Emperor (Laurence M. Vance / Lew Rockwell.com )
Just as Hadrian succeeded Trajan, Domitian succeeded Titus, Nero succeeded Claudius, and Caligula succeeded Tiberius, so Kennedy replaced Eisenhower, Nixon replaced Johnson, Reagan replaced Carter, and Obama replaced Bush. Same empire, different emperor.

BP, Pollution and War: While BP Pollutes, Eco-activists Face 7 Years in Prison (Mark Karlin / OpEd News & Mark Karlin / BuzzFlash)
For over a century, whenever American and British GIs have died for oil, whenever pollution and toxicity have been let loose to ravage our shores, whenever residents have died of cancer caused by the oil refining process and spills, whenever Congress and White Houses have loosened regulations to allow reckless and massively damaging behavior, BP was there.

At Least 10 Are Killed as Israel Halts Flotilla With Gaza Aid (Alex Rozkovsky/Reuters )
Israeli naval commandos raided a flotilla carrying thousands of tons of supplies for Gaza in international waters on Monday morning, killing at least 10 people, according to the Israeli military and activists traveling with the flotilla. Some Israeli news reports put the death toll higher.

A Statement from the Israeli Peace Movement (Gush Shalom & Jeff Halper)
This night a crime was perpetrated in the middle of the sea, by order of the government of Israel and the IDF Command. A warlike attack against aid ships and deadly shooting at peace and humanitarian aid activists. It is a crazy thing that only a government that crossed all red lines can do.

Israel: Mass Murder Followed by Censorship and a Cover-up (Bradley Burston / Ha'aretz & Jonathan Cook / CounterPunch)
Commentary: "A war tells a people terrible truths about itself. That is why it is so difficult to listen. We were determined to avoid an honest look at the first Gaza war. Now, in international waters and having opened fire on an international group of humanitarian aid workers." "Israel has been able to create over the past 12 hours a news blackout, just as it did with its attack on Gaza 18 months ago."

ACTION ALERT: Protest Israeli Attack on Gaza Freedome Flotilla (United for Peace and Justice & The Palestinian Center for Rapprochement)
Last night, the Israeli navy attacked humanitarian ships in international waters in the middle of the night. Reports indicate that 10-16 humanitarian activists were killed and 50-60 were injured. On board were 750 people from 40 different countries, including 35 international politicians. Please take action to demand that Israel accept responsibility and reveal the names of the dead and injured.

On Memorial Day: Questions of Sacrifice (Gar Smith / Commenetary)
Commentary: On May 28, the Pentagon announced the death of Mullah Fazullah -- a Taliban religious leader from Pakistan's Swat Valley who headed a powerful militia and even hosted his own FM radio show. The news media frequently carries reports about the latest death of "Al Qaeda commanders" amd "Taliban leaders." When was the last time a US general or religious leader died heroically in combat?

Israeli Forces Attacks Gaza-Bound Aid Ships, 10 Killed (Voice of America & The Telegraph & Al Jazeera)
Israel's military says navy forces have intercepted an aid convoy carrying pro-Palestinian activists to the Gaza Strip, killing more than 10 of the activists. Israeli forces intercepted the flotilla of six ships early Monday, opening fire on at least one of the vessels. Some reports put the death toll as high as 16. Activists say at least 30 people were wounded.

Report from onboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla (Paul McGeouge / Sydney Morning Herald)
The protest business requires patience -- especially with a plan as audacious as crashing a fleet of ships through Israel's naval blockade of Gaza. Inevitably, the slowest boat sets the pace for all. Days at sea can be lost to mechanical failure or efforts to pressure governments into making it difficult for celebrity activists and supporters to get on board.

Civilians Under Attack by Israel (The Free Gaza Movement & Al Jazeera)
The Free Gaza Movement, European Campaign to End the Siege of Gaza, Insani Yardim Vakfi, the Perdana Global Peace Organisation, Ship to Gaza Greece, Ship to Gaza Sweden, and the International Committee to Lift the Siege on Gaza appeal to the international community to demand that Israel stop their brutal attack on civilians delivering vitally needed aid to the imprisoned Palestinians of Gaza.

Flotilla Set for Final Leg of Gaza Blockade-busting Bid (Agence France-Presse /Free Gaza Movement & George Psyllides / Cyprus Mail)
An aid flotilla that had been due to sail for Gaza on Friday in defiance of an Israeli embargo was delayed by a day because of technical snags and fears Israel might seize one of the ships. Meanwhile, Cypriot authorities have prevented pro-Palestinian activists, including 30 MPs from nine European countries, from joining the flotilla.

US Accused of Using WMDs in Terror Attacks on Civilians (Associated Press)
In a scathing report, US military investigators found that "inaccurate and unprofessional" reporting by US operators of a Predator drone was responsible for a missile strike that killed 23 Afghan civilians in February. Twelve other civilians including a woman and three children were wounded in the missile strike, the report said.

Hackable Drones, Crumbling Empire (Tom Burghardt / Global Research)
The Wall Street Journal has reported that "Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from US Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor US military operations." Another surveillance drone deployed both in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ScanEagle manufactured by Boeing subsidiary Insitu, is plagued by similar problems.

Obama Starts Massive US Air-Sea-Marine Build-up Opposite Iran (DEBKAfile Exclusive Report)
Military sources report a decision by the Obama administration to boost US military strength in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf regions in the short term with an extra air and naval strike forces and 6,000 Marine and sea combatants. The number of US aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea has now been increased from one to three.

UN Official to Ask US to End UN Drone Strikes (Charlie Savage / The New York Times )
A senior United Nations official is expected to call on the United States next week to stop Central Intelligence Agency drone strikes against people suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda, complicating the Obama administrationâ€™s growing reliance on that tactic in Pakistan.

Itâ€™s Called 'War Porn' (Tanya Cariina Hsu / Global Research)
War has always been a turn-on, its thrill as old as mankind itself. And many who cannot participate want to watch. In Iraq and Afghanistan, US soldiers routinely swap their footage of enemy kills with sexual pornography sites, in exchange for X-rated videos. Military personnel regularly submit thousands of these "snuff videos" enhanced with heavy metal rock music. It's called "war porn."

UN Nuclear Summit Teeters on Brink (Michael Adler / Agence France-Presse & Robert Grenier / Agence France-Presse)
A month-long UN nuclear conference took up a new draft final document in its final 24 hours in a last-ditch bid to resolve a stalemate that has blocked moves on the Non-Proliferation Treaty for a decade. The drama over the nuclear deal signed by Brazil, Turkey and Iran demonstrates one thing above all: The bankruptcy of the current non-proliferation regime dominated by the nuclear weapons states.

And All We Got Was this Lousy Paragraph (Colum Lynch / Turtle Bay: "Reporting from inside the UN)
United States President Barack Obama presented his 52-page long National Security Strategy expressing the need to reassert US leadership in shaping a new "international order." So where does the United Nations fit in this new world order? There's no mention of it in the president's preface.

ACTION: Memorial Day and Permanent War: Soldiers Die So Corporations Can Grow Rich (Bill Quigley / Huffington Post)
US law officially proclaims Memorial Day "as a day of prayer for permanent peace." However, the US is much closer to permanent war than permanent peace. Corporations are profiting from wars and lobbying politicians for more. The US, and the rest of the world, cannot afford the rising personal and financial costs of permanent war.

ACTION ALERT: H.R. 5353 -- A Bill to Freeze the Wars, Cut the Deficit, and Reduce Taxes (John Nichols / The Nation & Hon Alan Grayson)
"What George Orwell wrote about in 1984 has come true. What Eisenhower warned us about concerning the 'military-industrial complex' has come trues. War is a permanent feature of our societal landscape, so much so that no one notices it anymore. "The purpose of the 'War Is Making You Poor Act' is to connect the dots, and to show people in a real and concrete way the cost of these endless wars."

Jamaican Army Accused of Murdering Civilians in Tivoli Gardens (Chris McGreal / The Guardian)
Residents of flashpoint neighbourhood speak out against fact that official death toll is 73, but only four weapons seized. Residents of the blighted Kingston neighborhood at the heart of this week's intense fighting between the man who is allegedly Jamaica's top drug lord and the army have accused the military of summarily executing unarmed men and indiscriminate attacks on the civilian population.

US Plans Naval Exercises with South Korea (Lim Chang-Won / Agence France-Presse)
The US military has said it will carry out anti-submarine and other naval exercises with South Korea in the "near future" after a North Korean sub sank a South Korean warship. The announcement came after an international investigation last week concluded that a North Korean submarine fired a heavy torpedo at the Cheonan on March 26, sinking the South Korean vessel and killing 46 sailors.

General Petraeus's Secret Ops (Robert Dreyfuss / The Nation)
A secret military directive signed last September 30 by General David Petraeus, the Centcom commander, authorizes a vast expansion of secret US military special ops from the Horn of Africa to the Middle East to Central Asia and "appears to authorize specific operations in Iran." If President Obama authorized this, he has crossed a red line,

Britain Reveals Nuclear Arsenal: 225 Warheads (The Associated Press & Richard Norton-Taylor / The Guardian)
Britain disclosed Wednesday that it has a stockpile of 225 nuclear warheads, its first public accounting of its total nuclear arsenal. The announcement, made without fanfare in the House of Commons, followed the Obama administration's recent disclosure that the United States has 5,113 nuclear warheads in its arsenal and "several thousand" more retired warheads.

$1 Trillion Spent Destorying Lives and Other Countries (Mary Zerkel / Huffington Post & American Progress)
This May 30, at 10:06 a.m., we will reach another dubious milestone in our almost nine years of war. At that precise moment, we will have spent $1 trillion in operational costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, tracked by the National Priorities Project's cost of war counter.

US to Send Secret Military Teams to Iran (Mark Mazzetti / New York Times)
The top American commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries. A secret directive, signed by Gen. David H. Petraeus authorizes sending Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.

Eyewitness to the Police Crackdown in Thailand (Pipob Udomittipong / Special to EAW)
The following is an unedited eyewitness account of the demonstrations in downtown Bangkok. In the wake of lost lives and massive damage done to infrastructure and buildings in the area, the government has claimed success in "taking back the area" from the Red Shirts demonstrators. Much attention has been diverted to the property damage, often overshadowing the human cost of the clearing operation.

Weapons-maker Buys Media Ads Asking Public to Lobby for Pentagon Contract (Gar Smith / Environmentalists Against War)
As California approaches the June primary elections, there is a disturbing new campaign ad being broadcast over the airways. It strikes a familiar chord of populist anger and demands that citizens call Washington to fight corruption and incompetence. But the ad isn't the work of a political action committee -- it's paid for by a major US weapons manufacturer.

Aiding the Insurgency (Luke Mogelson / The Nation)
How a celebrated US program designed to employ Iraqis wound up really being a "sham" operation that looked good on paper but actually fed millions of US dollars to members of the Iraqi insurgency.

US Commander OKs Secret Military Missions against Militants in Mideast, Africa (Kimberly Dozier & Pauline Jelinek / Associated Press )
The top US military commander in the Middle East signed a secret order last fall that set the stage for increased clandestine and covert operations against militants and other threats in the Mideast, Central Asia, and across the the Horn of Africa.

Nuclear Non-proliferation Regime 'Bankrupt' (Robert Grenier / Agence France-Presse & Al Jazeera)
The drama over the nuclear deal signed by Brazil, Turkey and Iran demonstrates one thing above all: The bankruptcy of the current non-proliferation regime dominated by the nuclear weapons states. Rather than seeking to thwart the efforts of the Brazils and Turkeys of the world, the US and the P-5 should seek to reassure them of their rights under the NPT to engage in international negotiating efforts.

UN Chief Urges Action on Child Soldiers (Edith M.Lederer / Associated Press)
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday urged the UN Security Council to consider tough measures against countries and insurgent groups that persist in recruiting child soldiers, naming the worst offenders -- Somalia's transitional government, Congo's armed forces, Myanmar's army, and rebel groups in Congo, Myanmar, the Philippines, Colombia, Sudan and Uganda.

White House Renews Multimillion-dollar Kyrgyz Fuel Contract Despite Corruption Charges (Walter Pincus / Washington Post )
The Obama administration is planning to temporarily extend a multimillion-dollar jet fuel contract with a company that supplies a US facility key to the war effort in Afghanistan, despite ongoing investigations into its operations. The contract will be re-bid this summer, the officials said, adding that until then, Mina Corp. will continue to supply Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan.

ACTION ALERT: Shell Drilling Threatens Arctic and Eskimo Communities (Greenpeace & Amnesty International & Defenders of Wildlife)
Just like BP dismissed the risk of a blowout with its Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf, Shell is saying the same thing about their proposed Alaskan Arctic rig. The truth is that Shell's plans in Alaska are even riskier than BP's. A spill in the Chukchi Sea could spell disaster for the people, polar bears, whales and other wildlife that rely on the Chukchi to survive.

Evidence: Israel Offered Nuclear Weapons to South Africa's Apartheid Regime (Chris McGreal / The Guardian)
The London Guardian has published the first hard evidence of Israel's secret nuclear weapons program. Secret South African documents from 1975 reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads "in three sizes" to the apartheid regime -- thus providing the first official documentary evidence of Israel's nuclear weapons industry and it's role in attempting to profit from nuclear proliferation.

Future of US Bases Bolstered in Japan (Jacob M. Schlesinger & Peter Spiegel / Wall Street Journal )
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama gave up on a bedrock campaign pledge and accepted a US proposal to position American troops in Japan, backing down from a battle with Washington. Under US pressure, Mr. Hatoyama agreed to keep a large Marine presence in Okinawa, despite deep opposition to the US bases that has brought tens of thousands of protesters into the streets.

Army's Secret Cold War Germ Lab Is For Sale (Frank Eltman / The Associated Press)
It has been the subject of novels, a reference in movies and the topic of speculation ever since it became an animal disease lab in the infancy of the Cold War. Now, the public is being asked for its input on what should become of the mysterious island off Long Island's north fork. The government is moving its research operations to a new lab in Kansas and putting up a "For Sale" sign at Plum Island.

Gaza Children's Camp Destroyed; Cameras Capture Teenagers' Hope (Nicole Johston / Al Jazeera)
Dozens of masked men have broken into a UN-run Gaza summer camp for children and set it on fire, after beating up the guard and destroying the plastic tents. In other news, a new film called "Shooting Hope" follows a project that uses photography to bring Palestinian and Lebanese teenagers together.

Taliban Attacks US Base in Kandahar (Agence France-Presse & Al Jazeera)
Militants fired rockets and launched a ground attack on NATOâ€™s main base in southern Afghanistan, just days after a similar assault on a major military installation near Kabul.

US Can Detain Terror Suspects in Afghanistan (David G. Savage & Christi Parsons / Chicago Tribune)
The Obama administration has won the legal right to hold its terrorism suspects (even if they happen to be US citizens) indefinitely and without oversight by judges -- not at Guantanamo or Thomson, Ill., but at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan.

North Korea Threatens South with War over 'Fabricated' Report (Patrick Cockburn / The Independent & Donald Kirk / Christian Science Monitor)
The row over who was to blame for torpedoing of a South Korean warship escalates as investigation into incident is released. And a look back at the resolution of another international incident involving US and Russian naval vessels.

US Data Show Surprisingly High Numbers of Soldiers Have Died (Peter Tremblay / Libertyforlife.com )
Commentary: According to little-publicized government records, many tens of thousands of US soldiers who served in Iraq have apparently been killed as a result of being exposed to radiation poisoning from the indiscriminate use of depleted uranium Weapons of Mass Destruction that were "Made in America."

Supplanting the US Constitution: War, National Emergency and "Continuity of Government" (Peter Dale Scott / Global Research)
In 1988, Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order 12656 that expanded the reasons for voiding the US Constitution and declaring martial law. Previously this could only be done following a nuclear attack. Now martial law can be declared in the event of a "natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens ...national security."

Itching to Fight Another Muslim Enemy (Robert Parry / Consortium News)
The US foreign policy Establishment is again spoiling for a fight, this time in Iran. Just as Iraq's Saddam Hussein was the designated target of American hate in 2002 and 2003, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is playing that role now. Back then, any event in Iraq was cast in the harshest possible light; today, the same is done with Iran.

North Korea Warns of War if Punished for Ship Sinking (Jean H. Lee & Hyung-Jin Kim / Associated Press)
Tensions deepened Thursday on the Korean peninsula as South Korea accused North Korea of firing a torpedo that sank a naval warship, killing 46 sailors in the country's worst military disaster since the Korean War.

US Court Rejects Afghan Prison Suit (Al Jazeera)
A US appeals court has refused to give prisoners at US military base in Afghanistan the same legal right to challenge their imprisonment as detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. The panel sided with the Obama administration, ruling that US courts do not have jurisdiction over petitions by the prisoners at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and ordered that their cases be dismissed.

Projectile Dysfunction: Iron Dome, Israel, Trident and the Media (Media Lens -- Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media)
Last week, the BBC reported Barack Obama's request for $200 million in aid to assist Israel's construction of a short-range rocket defense system. The funding will be in addition to the $3 billion in military aid the US annually sends to Israel. Obama did not recognise the threat to Palestinians posed by Israeli forces and expressed no "unshakeable commitment" to Palestinian security.

Will Bad Times and a Bad Economy Finally Discipline the Pentagon? (Tom Engelhardt & Christopher Hellman / Tom Dispatch)
When it comes to the Pentagon and the US military, wherever you look, thereâ€™s money being handed out. Wildly and in staggering amounts. But, after a decade and a half of unparalleled budget growth, top Defense Department officials are finally talking about the possible end of their spending spree.

War Crimes Charges Raised in Sri Lanka (Andrew Wander & M.R. Narayan Swamy / Al Jazeera)
A year after the guns fell silent in northern Sri Lanka, human rights groups have issued their strongest call yet for a full and independent inquiry into alleged war crimes committed by both sides during the final months of the conflict.

US Approval of Killing of Cleric Causes Unease (Scott Shane / The New York Times)
The Obama administration's decision to authorize the killing by the Central Intelligence Agency of a terrorism suspect who is an American citizen has set off a debate over the legal and political limits of drone missile strikes, a mainstay of the campaign against terrorism.

On the Illegality of Targeted Killings (American Civil Liberties Union)
The President has, in effect, claimed the unchecked authority to put the names of American citizens and others on "kill lists" on the basis of a secret determination, based on secret evidence, that a person meets a secret definition of the enemy.

Bill for Afghan War Could Run into the Trillions (Eli Clifton / InterPress Service)
The US Senate is moving forward with a 59-billion-dollar spending bill, of which 33.5 billion dollars would be allocated for the war in Afghanistan. However, some experts here in Washington are raising concerns that the war may be unwinnable and that the money being spent on military operations in Afghanistan could be better spent.

CIA Domestic Ops Go Far beyond Shahzad Probe (Jeff Stein / Washington Post Blog)
People upset about the CIA's involvement in domestic interrogations might be surprised to learn that the spy agencyâ€™s most explosive growth in recent years has been right here in the USA -- not in the back alleys of Karachi or in the mountains of Afghanistan.

US Navy Conscripts Dolphins to Hunt for Terrorists (John CotÃ© / San Francisco Chronicle)
Dolphins that can detect mines buried on the seafloor. Sea lions trained to cuff the leg of a waterborne saboteur. It sounds like the stuff of a James Bond film, or at least Austin Powers. It's actually the culmination of more than 40 years of US Navy research that was showcased in San Francisco Bay as part of a statewide exercise simulating suspected terrorist attacks on ports.

War Crimes Are Crimes No Matter Who Does Them (War Criminals Watch.org)
The brutality with which the US government exercises its war of terror is condemned by the court of public opinion and by the principles of international law. Wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan and the torture of detainees are clearly defined as war crimes by the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions, and other treaties to which the United States is a signatory.

Afghan Official Issues Arrest Warrant for US Commander Wanted for Murder (Stephen Grey / The Guardian )
An Afghan prosecutor has issued an arrest warrant for an American special forces commander over allegations that a police chief was murdered by a US-trained militia. The chief military prosecutor in Kabul, has accused the US of creating an outlaw militia which allegedly shot dead Matiullah Qateh, the chief of police in the city of Kandahar. Hamid Karzai's brother denies link to accused group.

ACTION ALERT: End the Occupation of Iraq; Help the Iraqi Victims of DU Poisoning (Peace Action)
In the seven years since George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, one million Iraqis have been killed and another five million displaced. President Obama has promised to end this occupation. Meanwhile, millions of Iraqis are being harmed by exposure to depleted uranium (DU) used by the US military in ammunition. The US continues to insist the high cancer rates have nothing to do with exposure to DU.

17,000 Japanese Circle US Base in Peaceful Protest ( Jay Alabaster / Associated Press)
Thousands of Japanese linked hands and encircled a Marine Corps base in Okinawa on Sunday to protest its presence on the island, putting more pressure on Tokyo to resolve an impasse over the base's future.

Violence Reduces Central Bangkok to a 21st-century Sarajevo (Richard Lloyd Parry / The Times)
Towering barricades of rubber tires topped with forests of bamboo staves block either end of the street. The hotel receptionist warns us to keep the curtains tightly drawn all night for fear of snipers lurking on the roofs of surrounding buildings. But it is only after dawn that the full extent of Bangkokâ€™s transformation becomes clear.

US Drone Wars Fuel War Crimes (Tom Burghardt / Pacific Free Press)
With Predators clocking more than 30,000 hours of flight time per month, and more than 40 UAVs aloft "every second of every day" -- and with the Air Force and the CIA seeking the capability to fly anywhere from 50-75 daily "missions" above Afghanistan, Pakistan and who knows where else -- American taxpayers will continue to underwrite a new kind of killing -- remote-controlled murder-at-a-distance.

US Troops Suffer More Stress Than Britons, Study Says (Benedict Carey / The New York Times)
British troops who have fought in Iraq or Afghanistan suffer far lower rates of post-traumatic stress than Americans do. While estimated rates of the condition in troops returning to the United States range from 10 to 15 percent, the new study found a rate of just 4 percent among Britons -- even though they and the Americans have seen equal amounts of combat in recent years.

The End of War: How Waging Peace Can Save Humanity, Our Planet, and Our Future (David Swanson / OpEd News)
Captain Paul K. Chappell (US Army, ret.)is author of "Will War Ever End: A Soldier's Vision of Peace for the 21st Century" and is now the Peace Leadership Director for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Chappell's new book. "The End of War: How Waging Peace Can Save Humanity, Our Planet, and Our Future," explores the critical question of what motivates war and what could overcome it.

Better Turkey, Greece ties â€˜could yield arms reductionsâ€™ (Agence France-Press & Tehran Times)
Improving relations between Greece and Turkey could lead to arms reduction in both countries, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an interview published Saturday as he wrapped up an Athens visit.

New Target of Rights Erosions: US Citizens (Glenn Greenwald / Salon)
A primary reason Bush and Cheney succeeded in their radical erosion of core liberties is because they focused their assault on non-citizens with foreign-sounding names. While there were several exceptions to that tactic, the vast bulk of the abuses were aimed at non-citizens. That is now clearly changing.

War and the Environment (Peace Pledge Union)
Images of Devastated battlefields are all too familiar. The ploughs in Flanders fields still turn up human bones every year. But twentieth century technology, busily applied to the practice of war, has ensured a more lethal harvest. For example, landmines.

Urban Warfare in Bangkok: Clashes Continue in Thai Capital (Al Jazeera & BBC News)
Soldiers remain locked in a tense confrontation with anti-government protesters in the capital of Thailand. At least 24 people have been killed and almost 200 others wounded in two days of violent unrest in Bangkok.

Palestinians Mark Nakba / A Baby Dies in Gaza (Nour Odeh / Al Jazeera)
Palestinians across the world are marking on Saturday the 62nd anniversary of Nakba, which means catastrophe. In 1948, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced and many became refugees due to the formation of the state of Israel. Meanwhile, a baby named Firas Mazloom, has become the latest victim of the Occupation. The boy, who needed emergency surgery to correct a life-threatening heart condition, died after repeated attempts to enter Israel for specialized surgery.

Osama bin Laden and Environmental Jihad (Micah M. White / Adbusters Magazine)
In January 2010, as the war against terrorism dragged into its ninth year, Osama bin Laden, the ideological leader of the mujahideen issued a statement that could have been drafted by any Western environmentalist: "Talk of climate change isn't extravagant speculation: It is a tangible fact that is not diminished by its being muddled by some greedy heads of major corporations."

Osama bin Laden on "The Way to Save the Earth" (As-Sahab Media Foundation & Nefa Foundation)
Commentary: "This is a message to the whole world about those who cause climate change and its dangers -- intentionally or unintentionally -- and what we must do. Talk of climate change isn't extravagant speculation: it is a tangible fact which is not diminished by its being muddled by some greedy heads of major corporations. The effects of global warming have spread to all continents of the world."

Armed Forces Day 2010: 60 Years of Celebrating Militarism (US Department of Defence (nee Department of War))
Sixty years ago, Armed Forces Day was conceived as a type of "educational program for civilians," one in which there would be an increased awareness of the Armed Forces. It was designed to expand public understanding of what type of job is performed and the role of the military in civilian life. It was a day for the military to show "state-of-the-art" equipment to the civilian population.

Obama Expands Modernization of Nuclear Arsenal (Peter Baker / The New York Times)
President Obama promised Thursday to spend $80 billion over 10 years to maintain and modernize the nation's nuclear arsenal, a commitment that could help win Republican support for his new arms control treaty with Russia.

You Call That a Disarmament Budget? (MaryAnne Coyle with Jim Haber / Nevada Desert Experience)
President Obamaâ€™s proposed 2011 budget for the DOE requests a 14 percent increase over 2010 for National Nuclear Safety Administration's Weapons Activities -- the largest amount ever submitted in the Nuclear Age.

War is Peace - Obama Expands Nuclear Power & Weapons for ... Disarmament? (Dee / Slingshot Magazine)
Commentary: Obama made his way into office at the hands of corporate financiers who are heavy hitters in the nuclear power industry. David Axelrod, Obama's chief political strategist, had a previous position with nuclear energy firm Exelon. Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, was instrumental creating Exelon, which went on to become the nation's most valuable nuclear utility based on market value.

Obama Urges Funds for Israel Missile Shield (Al Jazeera)
President Barack Obama has asked Congress for $205 million to help Israel construct a new short-range anti-missile defence system. The so-called "Iron Dome" project is designed to intercept rockets and artillery shells from the Gaza Strip and neighbouring Lebanon. The money would come in addition to annual US assistance to Israel. Obama has described the US commitment to Israel's security as 'unshakable.'

US 'Will Not Destroy Kandahar' (BBC News)
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said an assault against Taliban rebels in southern Afghanistan would not destroy the city of Kandahar. Speaking with Afghan President Hamid Karzai during his visit to Washington, she said the operation would not be a "huge, massive assault." Mrs Clinton had said counter-insurgency lessons had been learned from Iraq.

NATO Attack Kills Afghan Civilians, Protesters Burn US Flag (Bakht Buland Jan / IndiaVision News & Amir Shah / Ledger-Enquirer)
Several 100 people came on the streets in the Surkh Rod district of Nangahar province to protest the raid by international forces that they claim killed at least eleven civilians. A father and his four sons and four members of another family were killed in the NATO operation.

UN: Loss of Wildlife Threatens Food Supplies, War (Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent / The Telegraph)
The 'collective failure' of the world to stop environmental degradation could cut off water supplies, push up food prices and even cause wars, the UN warns. In the last 35 years, there has been a 30 percent decline in the number of mammals, birds and other vertebrates on the planet, while the human population has doubled. Scientists fear millions of species could have been lost before they are even discovered.

Just Don't Call It "Defense" (John Lamperti / Truthout Op-Ed)
The Pentagon "base budget" request for fiscal year 2011 calls for about $549 billion, an increase of $18 billion over the current fiscal year. That's nowhere near the whole story. The administration is also requesting about $160 billion for "Overseas Contingency Operations" (for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) and $25 billion or more in spending outside the DoD, much of that for nuclear weapons.

A Massacre of Arabs Masked by a State of National Amnesia (Catrina Stewart / The Independent)
Sixty years on, the true story of the slaughter of Palestinians at Deir Yassin may finally come out. Deir Yassin was an Arab village that was cleared out in 1948 by Jewish forces in a brutal battle just weeks before Israel was formed. Deir Yassin has come to symbolize -- perhaps more than anywhere else -- the Palestinian sense of dispossession.

First World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (Bollivian President Evo Morales)
I have come here to share the conclusions of the First World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, held last April 20th to 22nd in Cochabamba, Bolivia. I convened this Conference because in Copenhagen the voice of the peoples of the world was not listened to or attended to, nor were established procedures respected by all States.

Evidence Reveals US Drone Attacks behind Attempted Times Square Bombing (Al Jazeera)
US drone attacks have angered Pakistan as they often result in civilian casualties. Last year, 90 percent of the 708 people killed by US drones were civilians. Times Square bomber Faisal Shazad confessed he was motivated by anger over the deaths resulting from US drone attacks. Following Shazad's arrest, the US responded by threatening Pakistan and launching a massive drone strike that killed 14 people.

War This Summer? (Galal Nassar / Al-Ahram Weekly)
In Gaza, the situation seems to be getting worse. After the recent war, a period of relative calm ensued, with the Israelis staying out and the Palestinians refraining from firing rockets inside Israel. Now the Israelis are back to making incursions into Gaza and the Palestinians are firing rockets once more. Tensions are growing steadily, and there doesn't seem to be a likely solution in the horizon.

Is the War Coming Home? (Patrick J. Buchanan / Creators Syndicate)
Faisal Shahzad sought to massacre scores of fellow Americans in Times Square. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a US airliner over Detroit. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shot dead 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood and wounded 29. Why did these men attempt the mass murder of Americans who did no harm to them?

The Global Economic Crisis, The Great Depression of the XXI Century (Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin Marshall / Global Research Publishers)
In all major regions of the world, the economic recession is deep-seated, resulting in mass unemployment, the collapse of state social programs and the impoverishment of millions. The crisis is accompanied by a worldwide process of militarization, a "war without borders" led by the US and its NATO allies. The Pentagon's "long war" is intimately related to the restructuring of the global economy.

New US War Strategy: "Prompt Global Strike" (David Sanger and Thom Shanker / New York Times & Robert Burns / Associated Press)
In coming years, President Obama will decide whether to deploy a new class of weapons capable of reaching any corner of the earth from the United States in under an hour and with such accuracy and force that they would greatly diminish Americaâ€™s reliance on its nuclear arsenal. At the same time, the US is resisting calls to remove its current nuclear weapons from bases in Europe.

The New US Nuclear Posture (David Krieger / Nuclear Age Peace Foundation)
In April 2009, President Obama went to Prague and told the world that the United States seeks "the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." A year later, his administration is moving forward toward this goal. In both tone and substance the new Nuclear Posture Review is far more positive and hopeful than that of the George W. Bush administration.

Dramatic Arab Appeal for a Nuclear-Free World (Fareed Mahdy / IDN & Yaakov Katz / Jerusalem Post)
The leaders of 22 Arab countries have launched an unprecedented massive and pressing call to free the world from nuclear weapons. Although it received scant coverage in the Western media, the rulers of some 350 million people living in the wealthiest and most-conflicted region on Earth have issued a call -- at the end of a March 22nd summit in Libya -- for a nuclear free world.

The Poetry of Death: Patterns of State Terror ( Chris Floyd / Chris Floyd.com)
Commentary: "The found poetry of state terror continues its strange mutilations of the English language. The bizarre verbal heavings of Donald Rumsfeld, for example, are rightly celebrated as choice examples of the genre.... In this regard, as in almost every aspect of the Terror War, 'continuity' has been the hallmark of the Obama Administration."

One Case Against BP, Wall Street, and War (Tom Hayden / Z Net & The Nation)
The need for greater linkages between the environmental, peace and Wall Street reform movements grow by the day in the face of the epic oil spill caused by British Petroleum, a multinational firm tied to Goldman Sachs and Halliburton in oil wars from the Gulf of Mexico to the Persian Gulf.

Arms Experts Welcome Congressional Support for Land Mine Ban (Arms Control Association)
On November 30, 2009, for the first time since the Mine Ban Treaty entered into force, the US officially met with more than 120 other treaty countries. Arm control experts welcomed the pending delivery of letters signed by 68 Senators and Congressmemebers asking President Obama to support review of US landmines policy and eventually join the majority of the world community in abiding by the Mine Ban Treaty.

Castro on Spill: Corporations Unstoppable (Associated Press)
Cuban's Fidel Castro says the spreading oil slick fouling the Gulf of Mexico is proof that the world's most powerful governments cannot control large corporations that now dictate the public's destiny.

New Colonialism: Pentagon Carves Africa Into Military Zones (Rick Rozoff / Global Research)
Last year the commander of US Africa Command (AFRICOM), General William Ward, said the Pentagon had military partnerships with 35 of the continent's 53 nations, "representing US relationships that span the continent." This is in keeping with America's pursuit of its self-appointed 20th century manifest destiny to reign as history's first worldwide military superpower.â€¨â€¨

New US Strategy: "Prompt Global Strike" (David Sanger and Thom Shanker / New York Times & Robert Burns / Associated Press)
In coming years, President Obama will decide whether to deploy a new class of weapons capable of reaching any corner of the earth from the United States in under an hour and with such accuracy and force that they would greatly diminish Americaâ€™s reliance on its nuclear arsenal. At the same time, the US is resisting calls to remove its current nuclear weapons from bases in Europe.

General 'Tried to Cover Up Truth about Death of Rachel Corrie' (Ben Lynfield / The Independent)
According to a hand-written affidavit revealed by The Independent, Israeli war hero Major-General Doron Almog may be implicated in a war crime that claimed the life of a young American. Doron Almog is accused of suppressing testimony that could reveal what really happened to young activist who was killed while trying to defend the home of a family in Gaza.

KBR to Get No-Bid Army Work as US Alleges Kickbacks (Tony Capaccio / Bloomberg)
Only hours after the Justice Department announced a lawsuit accusing former VP Dick Cheneyâ€™s former employer of accepting kick-backs, the White House announced that KBR Inc., a spin-off of Halliburton, had been awarded a $568 million Army contract to supply â€œmilitary support services in Iraqâ€ through 2011.

Pentagon Asks Congress to Cut Increases in Soldiers' Pay (Craig Whitlock / Washington Post)
Through nine years of war, service members have seen a healthy rise in pay and benefits, with most of them now better compensated than workers in the private sector with similar experience and education levels. But now the Pentagon fears that the government's generosity is "unsustainable." Besides, if the Pentagon is going to pay KBR $568 million, it needs to cut some money from somewhere, right?

War Epics on Screen Skip Mass Slaughter of Civilians (Charles Burress / Special to The Japan Times)
Does the history diet fed to Americans by Hollywood promote an unhealthy national memory? The widely reported premier of "The Pacific" came but four days after the little noticed anniversary of one of the darkest events in American war history -- the March 10, 1945, firebombing of Tokyo. This savage US bombing killed an estimated 100,000 civiliants in an act of "deliberate, indiscriminate mass murder."

CIA 'Could Face Court' over Pakistan Drone Raids (Agence France-Press)
The US government's refusal to offer a legal rationale for using unmanned drones to kill suspected militants in Pakistan could result in CIA officers facing prosecution for war crimes in foreign courts.

The US Militaryâ€™s Role in Spreading Cancer (US Department of Health and Human Services & National Institutes of Health & National Cancer Institute)
The military is a major source of toxic occupational and environmental exposures that can increase cancer risk. Nearly 900 Superfund sites are abandoned military facilities or facilities that produced materials and products for or otherwise supported military needs.

A War on Drugs Or a War on JuÃ¡rez? (Judith Torrea / The Washington Spectator)
Like most wars, Mexico's "War on Drugs" has been a failure. While drug us has continued to grow, homicides have soared. In 2007 there were 317 reported killings. Since Mexican President CalderÃ³n announced the "War on Drugs" in and deployed the army in January of 2008, the body count in JuÃ¡rez has soared. In 2008, 1,623 were killed in the violence. In 2009, the number reached 2,754.

War with China? The Dangers of a Global Conflagration (Prof James Petras / Global Research)
Will the intensified conflicts between the US and China inevitably lead to a global conflagration? If recent past history is any indication the answer is a resounding yes. The most destructive wars of the 20th century were the result of confrontations between established (EIP) and rising (RIP) imperial powers.

ACTION ALERT: Why Is It Legal for Terrorists to Buy Guns in US? (Mayors Against Illegal Guns & The Washington Post)
Under current federal law, the FBI can stop suspects on the terrorist watch list from boarding an airplane, but they cannot stop them from buying guns or explosives. Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg described this "a serious and dangerous breach of national security." America's mayors are circulating a petition to restrict weapons sales to terror suspects.

CIA Vet Warns Americans Are Being (Ray McGovern / Consortiumnews.com)
Commentary: "I have been looking on in disbelief as some of the same Democrats (and media personalities) who helped grease the skids for the unnecessary, unprovoked attack on Iraq, are doing a reprise -- changing the script from Iraq to Iran. What concerns me greatly, however, is that the American people are being played again by those both in government and the media who wish to zap Iran."

Can You Pass The Iran Quiz (Jeffrey Rudolph / CounterCurrents)
What can justify the US diplomatic (and mainstream media) assault on Iran? It cannot be argued that Iran is an aggressive state that is dangerous to its neighbors, as facts do not support this claim. Saudi Arabia is more fundamentalist, far less democratic and more oppressive of women, yet the Saudi Kingdom is a US ally. The answer is: Iran must be punished for having broken free from the orbit of US control.

Why Manuel Noriega became America's Most Wanted (Simon Tisdall / The Guardia & Ed Pilkington and Lizzy Davies / The Guardian)
Manuel Noriega's extradition to France has refocused attention on why the US went to such lengths to silence him. Noriega claimed to have proof of senior US politicians' connivance in drug trafficking for political purposes. But none was allowed in evidence.

ACTION ALERT: Iraq: Bloody Policies and Criminal Authorities: Arrests, Assassinations, Deportation of Millions, Torture (The BRussells Tribuna)
Repression in Iraq takes multiple forms: deprivation of resources and services, arrests, assassinations, deportation of millions, torture of every kind, death squads, hanging and other death penalties, confiscating property and houses, blowing up residences, markets and groupings, killing at checkpoints and in the streets for no reason. Sign petition opposing execution of 900 Iraqi prisoners.

ACTION ALERT: Stop the Killing in Iraq and Afghanistan (A Just Foreign Policy.org)
The number of Iraqis slain since the US invasion of March 2003 is shocking and sobering. It is at least 10 times greater than most estimates cited in the US media, yet it is based on a scientific study of violent Iraqi deaths caused by the US-led invasion and occupation. ACTION ALERT: Sign the petition demanding a timetable for withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

Army To Be Sued for War Crimes over its Role in Fallujah Attacks (Robert Verkaik, Law Editor / The London Independent )
Allegations that Britain was complicit in the use of chemical weapons linked to an upsurge in deformed Iraqi children, are being investigated. The case raises serious questions about the UK's role in the American-led offensive against the city of Fallujah in 2004 where it is alleged that a range of illegal weaponry was used resulting in large numbers of children being born with severe birth defects.

Enhancing Terror: The US Role in the Middle East (Evan Solomon Interviews Noam Chomsky / Information Clearinghouse)
Analysis: "For 35 years, there has been a harsh, brutal, military operation. There has not been a political settlement. The reason that there has not been a political settlement is because the United States, unilaterally, has blocked it for 25 years."

Why Men Love War (Evan Thomas | NEWSWEEK )
In his new book, "The War Lovers," Evan Thomas| tells a story about Teddy Roosevelt and of how the US became involved in the Spanish-American War "as a way of understanding the ancient pull of the battlefield. I was, in part, trying to understand my own attitude on the Iraq War."

Combat High: The Challenge Is Surviving Peacetime (Sebastian Junger | NEWSWEEK)
Few other parts of Afghanistan have rivaled the remote Korengal Valley in terms of the cost in American lives per square mile. US forces finally pulled out this April, after five bloody years and more than 40 American deaths.

US Pressured over Role in Israel's Arsenal (Walter Pincus /Washington Post)
Point 31 of he Nuclear nonproliferation Treaty explicitly bans countries from providing nuclear technology to Israel but France and the United States have been identified as key suppliers to Israel's secret nuclear weapons development program in the 1950s and 1960s. Thanks, in part, to US covert support, Israel has as many as 200 nuclear weapons. It has land-based missiles, bombs and submarines capable of firing nuclear-armed cruise missiles.

'Obama Won't Press Israel to Reveal Nuclear Arsenal' (Haaretz Service )
US President Barack Obama will not pressure Israel to disclose its nuclear arsenal to international inspection, as reported on Friday. A 40-year-old secret understanding with US allows Israel to keep nuclear plant without international inspection. The secret treaty was signed in September 1969 in a summit between former President Richard Nixon and the then Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. To date, the secret agreement has never been acknowledged by any US or Israeli government.

Iran Calls US a Nuclear Threat (Al Jazeerah & American Pendulum & National Public Radio)
Addressing the opening session of a UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meeting in New York, the Iranian president criticized the US for threatening to use nuclear weapons and dismissed claims that his country is trying to develop them. "Regrettably, the [US] has not only used nuclear weapons but also continues to threaten to use such weapons against other countries, including Iran," Ahmadinejad said.

Once Again, the US Fails at Nuclear Disarmament (Arn Specter / The Nuclear Review & Nicole Gaouette / Bloomberg)
The US has decided not to join European leaders who wish to have the US nuclear tactical bombs -- over 200 -- removed from their countries as a demonstration of nuclear disarmament. Instead, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ministers at the meeting that tactical nuclear weapons should stay in Europe.

Japan PM Scraps US Base Move Plan (BBC News)
Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has said it will not be feasible to entirely remove a controversial US base from the island of Okinawa. The US Marines' Futenma base is deeply unpopular with many residents and removing it had been a key election pledge of the prime minister.

Kent State: Remembering US Campus Killings (Nick Spicer / Al Jazeera)
Video: Forty years ago National Guard troops in the US state of Ohio fired on students who were protesting against the Vietnam war at Kent State university. Four students were killed that day, piercing the conscience of people across the country. It became a defining moment for the US anti-war movement.

The Kent State Massacre: 40 Years Ago (Kent State Truth Tribunal & Paul Krassner & Ponderosa Pine)
On May 4, 1970 the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students protesting America's bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War. In a day that changed America, four students were killed and nine were wounded as they protested against the war.

ACTION ALERT: Capital Teach-In-- Vote No on Funding Escalation (Defend War & After Downing Street)
Funding an escalation of war in Afghanistan with $33 billion is: illegal, immoral, against the public will, economically catastrophic, counterproductive on its own terms, and a cynically motivated intentional failure. Call Congress at (202) 224-3121 and tell your representatives that you will vote against them if they vote to fund an escalation in Afghanistan.

The Real Matrix: How the Pentagon Invades Your Life (Nick Turse / Tom Dispatch)
Today's geared-up, high-tech Military-Industrial Complex is nothing like the olive-drab outfit of Eisenhower's day: It reaches deeper into American lives and the American psyche than Eisenhower could ever have imagined. The truth is that, at every turn, in countless, not-so-visible ways our lives are wrapped up with the military â€” in the food we eat, the games we play, the food we buy and the media we consume.

The Military Occupation of Our Minds (Tom Hayden / The Huffington Post)
As Congress weighs Afghanistan funding, the military is escalating the "war of perceptions" at home and abroad. The question is whether the American media and Congress will collaborate in the Pentagon's press strategy. It is no accident that the US is soft-pedaling any public criticism of its crooked crony in Kabul, Hamid Karzhai, as thousands of American soldiers face bullets in his defense.

Samoa Ratifies Cluster Bomb Ban Treaty (Stop Cluster Munitions.org)
Samoa became the 31st country to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 28 April 2010, just 95 days before the treaty takes effect and becomes legally binding international law on 1 August.

Nuclear Weapons And Interceptor Missiles: Twin Pillars Of US-NATO Military Strategy In Europe (Rick Rozoff / OpEd News)
The two-day NATO foreign ministers meeting in Estonia on April 22-23 focused on the completion of the military alliance's first 21st century Strategic Concept and on the war in Afghanistan but the most important deliberations involved the question of US nuclear weapons stored on air bases in five NATO member states and the expansion of the Pentagon's interceptor missile program to all of Europe west of Russia.

How Hollywood Hides the Horrors of War (Slavoj Zizek / In These Times)
"The Hurt Locker" presents the US Army in a way that is attuned to its own public image as an agent of humanitarian interventions. The film largely ignores the debate about the US military interventions. By contrast, critics have noted that Samuel Maoz's film "Lebanon" "is not a movie that makes you think 'I've just been to a movie.' This is a movie that makes you feel like you've been to war."

Samuel Maoz: My Life at War and My Hopes for Peace (Rachel Cooke / The Observer)
Samuel Maozâ€™s 2009 film 'Lebanon' won the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival. The former Israeli tank gunner turned award-winning director spoke about his controversial film and why he's still in the line of fire. "You couldn't leave the tank," he says. "But this is the thing: you didn't want to. You hate the tank, but you love it, too. To be inside it is hell. But it will save you."

Vietnam Celebrates 35th Anniversary of the War's End, Trumpets its Economic Progress (Ben Stocking / Associated Press)
Vietnam marked the 35th anniversary of the Communist victory in the Vietnam War with a grand military parade Friday through the former Saigon, with the government basking more in its economic achievements than its historic military defeat of the United States.

Vietnam: War and the Environment (John Tully / Green Left Weekly)
Vietnam's suffering did not end with the liberation of Saigon in 1975. Perhaps no country since Haiti has come to independence under such adverse conditions -- conditions which included environmental damage on a scale hitherto unseen in warfare. The damage was part of an attrition strategy aimed at driving the peasants into the cities to deprive the National Liberation Front of a population and food base.

Healing the Wounds of War in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam (Nordic News Network & Vice President Nguyen Thi Binh & Prof. Nguyen Trong Nhan )
In 2002. a summit of international experts met in Sweden to call for major efforts to alleviate long-term environmental and human health consequences of the US war against Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. "We cannot ignore the United States' responsibility to help resolve the war of aggression's long-term effects on the people and the environment."

Book Examines Vietnam War from Viet Cong's Point of View (Public Broadcasting System)
On the 35th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, Ray Suarez talks to retired Marine Corps LT. COL. JAMES ZUMWALT about his new book on the Vietnam War, as seen through the eyes of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong veterans.

BAE's 'Green Filling Fields' (Jon Ungoed / London Sunday Times )
UK arms manufacturer BAE Systems is bringing us â€˜Green Killingâ€™ with a new generation of what it laughingly calls â€˜environmentally-friendly weaponsâ€™. Apparently, it wants to reduce the dangerous compounds emitted by its jets, fighting vehicles and weapons, like depleted uranium (DU) dust, which it warns â€œcan harm the environment and pose a risk to people.â€

Japanese Military Joins US And NATO In Horn Of Africa (Rick Rozof / OpEd News)
The Japanese Constitution expressly prohibits the deployment of military forces outside of Japan, stating that it is "not permissible constitutionally to dispatch armed troops to foreign territorial land, sea and airspace for the purpose of using military power." Yet, at the behest of Washington, Japan is preparing to open its first overseas military base -- in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.

University Cancels Antiwar Forum Over 'Security Concerns' (Eric Garris / AntiWar.com)
An Antiwar Forum was canceled at the last minute by the University of Wisconsin over unspecified "security concerns." The event was expected to draw a large audience to hear Cindy Sheehan, Antiwar.com's Angela Keaton, Ben Manski of the Liberty Tree Foundation, Christina Tobin of the Free and Equal Elections Foundation, and local activist and elected official Sean Scallon.

PTSD, Infertility and other Consequences of War (Bob Nichols / OpEdNews)
Iraq and virtually all the rest of the Middle East and Central Asia have been continually dosed for almost 20 years with thousands of tons of weaponized ceramic uranium oxide gas, also known as "depleted uranium." The poison uranium oxide gas aerosols last for billions of years and never stop indiscriminately maiming and killing, which is a war crime in itself.

US Legacy in Iraq: Violence, Devastation, Corruption, Desperation (Stephen Lendman / OpEdNews)
The Gulf War was an environmental disaster. It destroyed power and chemical plants; factories; dams; water purification facilities; sewage treatment systems; oil wells, pipelines and refineries. Twenty years of war, sanctions, and occupation left vast parts of the country's land, water and air poisoned by pollutants, including depleted uranium, chemicals, toxic metals, oil, bacteria, and other contaminants.

Memo to America: Stop Murdering My People (Malalai Joya / The Daily Beast)
Almost every day, the NATO occupation of our country continues to kill innocent people. Each time, it seems, military officials try to claim that only insurgents are killed, or they completely deny and cover up their crimes. The work of a few courageous journalists is the only thing that brings some of these atrocities to light.

ACTION ALERT: Lawsuit Settled in DC Mass Arrest: $18,000 for Each Arrestee. Must file by May 17 (International Action Center)
Ten years ago this month, the IAC initiated a demonstration against the Prison Industrial Complex in front of the Department of Justice in Washington, DC. After the rally ended, police closed the streets and arrested 700 protesters, along with members of the media and passersby. The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of those arrested and has just won a $14 million settlement.

Iran a Threat? I Mean, Really? (Ray McGovern / OpEdNews)
Commentary -- A 17-year veteran of the CIA says: "With all the current hype about the "threat" from Iran, it is time to review the record -- and especially the significant bits and pieces that find neither ink nor air in our Israel-friendly, Fawning Corporate Media." Israel has between 200 and 300 nuclear weapons in its arsenal yet, the US President's response is: "As Israel goes, I'm not going to comment on their program."

Military Spending Sets New Eecord (Jorn Madslien. Business Reporter / BBC News)
Global military spending rose 4% in 2008 to a record $1,464 billion (Â£914 billion) -- up 45% since 1999, according to the Stockholm-based peace institute Sipri. "The global financial crisis has yet to have an impact on major arms companies' revenues, profits and order backlogs," Sipri said. The US remains the biggest spender, accounting for 58% of the total global spending increase during the decade.

"The War Lovers" -- Satisfying A National Appetite For War (Evan Thomas & National Public Radio)
Before writing his new book, "The War Lovers," Evan Thomas, the assistant managing editor of Newsweek magazine, spent three years researching an event a century removed from his day job: the 1898 Spanish-American War. But he did so, he says, because of similarities he perceived between the way America entered that conflict and the way it approached the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Obama, Nuclear Weapons and the Future of the Planet ( Helen Caldicott / The Huffington Post)
In the 1980's 80% of Americans wanted to see an end to the nuclear arms race. The US establishment treated this grassroots movement almost as an aberration. Isn't it strange, that it was only last year, when the former nuclear champions Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, Bill Perry and Sam Nunn called for the abolition of nuclear weapons that the establishment "woke up" and started to take this notion seriously?

Denis Hayes: Earth Day and New Nuclear Reactors Don't Mix (Denis Hayes / Earth Day 2010 International )
Nuclear power has never lived up to the promises of its backers. Their latest claim -- that nuclear energy represents an easy answer to global warming -- has as much validity as that old industry chestnut of producing energy "too cheap to meter." Let's not be duped again.

Is the CIA behind Mexico's Bloody Drug War? (Mike Whitney / Global Research)
Experts disagree about the origins of the violence in Juarez, but no one disputes that 23,000 people have been killed since 2006 in a largely futile military operation initiated by Mexican President Felipe Calderon. The militarization of the war on drugs has been a colossal disaster. Mexico is becoming a failed state and Washington's $1.4 billion in military aid to Mexico is largely to blame.

Waste Management: Congress Pushes Surge in Ongoing War Against Iran (Chris Floyd / Chris Floyd.com & Corey Boles / Dow Jones Newswires)
There was a striking story in the papers on Friday: "Congress OKs Surge in Undeclared War against Iran!" The House wants to "cripple" the Iranian economy by starving the human beings who live there of gasoline and other vital goods. And why are they doing this? Because Iran is pursuing the development of a nuclear energy program in accordance with international treaties and under international supervision.

ACTION ALERT: US Funding Colombia Repression? (Andrew Hudson / Human Rights First)
Exposing links between local politicians and paramilitary death-squads: does this sound like grounds for arrest to you? In Colombia it can be. Colombian activist Carmelo Agamez has been in prison for over a year on bogus charges -- targeted with trumped-up charges designed to stigmatize and silence human rights defenders.

They Fled from Our War (Alisa Roth, Hugh Eakin / New York Review of Books)
As late as 2006, a year in which the country approached civil war and thousands poured across the border each day, the US admitted only 202 Iraqis for resettlement. Britain took in hardly any. By the end of that year, the UNHCR had registered only 17,000 Iraqis in Jordan -- "fraction" of the hundreds of thousands who had fled there from "persecution, war, and generalized violence in Iraq."

Disposable Soldiers: How the VA Abandons Our Vets (Joshua Kors / The Nation)
The Pentagon is saving billions by diagnosing wounded soldiers with â€œpersonality disorder.â€ Because PD is listed as a pre-existing condition, wounded vets are denied traditional lifetime disability benefits. Soldiers with PD discharges must return part of their re-enlistment bonus-- which can amount to several thousand dollars -- more than the cost of their final paychecks.

ACTION ALERT: Don't Let US Get Away With Murder (Rethink Afghanistan)
On February 12, US and allied special forces attacked a baby shower in Gardez, Afghanistan, killing two local officials and two pregnant women. Instead of getting immediate medical treatment, reports indicate that the special forces focused on destroying evidence of their crime, going so far as to dig the bullets out of the bodies. Sign the petition demanding an independent UN investigation of this atrocity.

US to Run Seven Military Bases in Colombia (Diane Lefer and Hector AristizÃ¡bal / School of the Americas Watch )
US and Colombian officials have signed an agreement granting the US military access to seven Colombian bases for ten years. The US has thereby increased its ties to the military known for the worst human rights abuses in the Western Hemisphere. SOAW takes a look at the history of each of these bases as well as conditions in the surrounding communities and the nation as a whole.

Tony Blair Forced to Hide to Avoid War Crime Charges (The Perdana Global Peace Organisation)
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the keynote speaker at the National Achievers Conference in Kuala Lumpur, was forced to hide in fear at the threat that members of the Malaysian anti-war NGOs would throw slippers at him and that members of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission would serve an indictment for war crimes.

The Peopleâ€™s Life Fund Awards: A Night to Feel Good about Taxes (Gar Smith / The Berkeley Daily Planet)
On Tax Day, April 15, the Northern California War Tax Resistance (NCWTR) and People's Life Fund (PLF) handed out nearly $20,000 in grants to local nonprofit organizations. What made this especially newsworthy is that the prize money came from tax resisters who had chosen to give the taxes claimed by the US Treasury to the PLF instead.

Environmentalistsâ€™ New UN Proposal â€“ Put â€˜Ecocideâ€™ and â€˜Deniersâ€™ on Par With â€˜Genocideâ€™ and â€˜Crimes Against Humanityâ€™ (Anthony Kang / NewsBusters.org )
Britain's left-of-center daily -- "The Guardian" -- has reported that former international environmental lawyer Polly Higgins has launched a new campaign urging the United Nations and the International Criminal Court to deem environmental damage on par with genocide and crimes against humanity in international courts

Environmental Warfare in 10 years (Diane Francis, Editor at Large / the National Post )
Oil company CEOs and Canadian, US and British government officials attending the Global Business Forum in Banff last September heard a chilling forecast of military clashes if there is an environmental meltdown due to climate change.

Environmental Warfare: How to Wreck the Environment (Gordon J. F. MacDonald / Reprinted from the book, "Unless Peace Comes" (1968) )
To consider the consequences of environmental modification in struggles among nations, we need to consider the present state of the subject and how postulated developments in the field could lead, ten to fifty years from now, to weapons systems that would use nature in new and perhaps unexpected ways.

US Veterans Write Apology Letter to Iraqi Civilians Murdered by US Copter Crew (BBC World Service & Josh Stieber and Ethan McCord /truthout)
Josh Stieber and Ethan McCord, two former US soldiers who were caught up in what has become one of the most notorious incidents involving the US killing of civilians in Iraq, have written an open letter to the Iraqi people asking for forgiveness.

Get Ready to Ruble: Air Force Mystery Spaceship Launched (Tariq Malik / Space.com & Leonard David / Space.com & Tom Chao / Space.com)
The United States Air Force's novel robotic X-37B space plane is tucked inside the bulbous nose cone of an unmanned rocket and poised for an evening blastoff from Florida tonight on a mission shrouded in secrecy. And Space.com reviews the Air Force's Top Ten Space Weapons.

ACTION ALERT: Ban "Conflict Minerals" (Amnesty USA)
Minerals found in our cell phones and other electronics are fueling a vicious cycle of rape, war and other human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Help us bring down the multimillion-dollar conflict minerals empire!

ACTION ALERT: Ban the "Gun-Show Loophole" (Bob Fertik / Mayors Against Illegal Guns)
Eleven years ago this week, twelve students and one teacher were killed at Columbine High School. Two of the weapons used in that shooting were bought as a result of the Gun Show Loophole that enables firearms to be purchased without a background check. A coalition of more than 500 mayors dedicated to keeping criminals from illegally obtaining firearms -- is campaigning to demand that Washington block the Loophole.

ACTION ALERT: Afghanistan: A Chance to Stop the Killing (Friends Committee on National Legislation)
The House plans to approve $33 billion more for the US war in Afghanistan. Yet, here on Capitol Hill, FCNL's lobbyists are finding support for proposals to end that US war responsibly. Changing the war mentality of Congress will not be easy. Thousands have signed FCNL's petition for a new US policy in Afghanistan, including a responsible withdrawal. We're delivering those petitions to members of Congress right now.

Former Military Bomb Site Has Become a Peaceful Haven (Carolyn Jones / San Francisco Chronicle )
For 150 years, the Navy used the southwest corner of the sprawling North Bay island to make bombs, grenades, shells, mines, torpedoes, cannonballs and other implements of destruction. Today, thanks to the obsessive efforts of a small cadre of volunteers, visitors are more likely to find poppies, buttercups and wild roses.

Wounded Soldier Jailed for Rap Song Discharged without Benefits (Stars and Stripes & All Hip Hop & KDKA/CBS)
Spc. Marc A. Hall, a wounded soldier charged with making anti-military threats in a rap song has been discharged from the military. Hall wrote the song to protest the Pentagon's stop-loss program (which would have kept him in uniform far after his term of enlistment and sent him back to Iraq for a third deployment) In the song, Hall denounced stop-loss and rapped about opening fire with his M-4 rifle.

Chagos Island Restoration Campaign Overlooks Islanders Expelled by Pentagon (RickB / Ten Percent & The Independent)
The indigenous residents of the Chagos islands were forcibly removed to turn the islands into a US military base used to bomb the Middle East. A marine conservation proposal by the Chagos Environment Network has been accused of "greenwashing" ethnic cleansing because it argues that resettling of the island's indigenous human population would be "counter-productive" to the aim of environmental protection.

War Is the Major Destroyer of Mother Earth: Report from the Peoples' Summit in Bolivia (Ron Ridenour / Member Casa Latino Americana, Denmark / Special to Environmentalists Against War)
We, united in Bolivia at the World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earthâ€™s Rights, declare that wars, especially those instigated and perpetuated by the USA, the self-styled policeman of the world, is the single major cause of pollution, the major cause of destroying Mother Earth. Anti-war activities must take number one priority for all of us who wish to preserve human life and the planet.

At Peoples Climate Summit, Bolivian President Blames Capitalism for Global Warming (Environmental News Service & IPS & Eduardo Galeano / HCV Analysis)
At the Peoples Climate Summit, attended by delegates from more than 150 countries, Bolivia's President Evo Morales proclimed capitalism to blame for global warming and the accelerated deterioration of the planetary ecosystem in a speech today opening an international conference on climate change and the "rights of Mother Earth."

US Military Programs Strive for Renewable Energy Goals (PowerGen Worldwide)
The Defense Department has begun a programs to reach a new renewable energy standard, according to "Reenergizing America's Defense," a report released by the Pew Project on National Security, Energy and Climate. The DOD, which uses nearly 80 percent of the government's energy consumption, hopes to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and cut pollution by adopting energy efficiency and clean energy technologies.

ACTION ALERT: Protest Militarism on Earth Day with Brown Bag Vigils (Progressive Democrats of America & Las Vegas Sun)
April 22nd marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. 40 years later, here in the United States, we find our leadership continuing to ignore the voice of reason and peace while lending an ear to the destructive council of the fanatical and uninformed. Instead of looking for innovative ways to conserve energy and promote health we continue to support the worst polluter in the world, the US Department of Defense.

War Is the Major Destroyer of Mother Earth: Report from the Peoples' Summit in Bolivia (Ron Ridenour / Member Casa Latino Americana, Denmark )
Reporter Ron Ridenour cited EAW's finding in his presentation to the International Peoples' Climate Summit in Bolivia. He called for the summit to recognized the overlooked role that militarism plays in contributing to climate destablization.

Chilling Afghan Claims Hit Canada (The Sun)
Did Canadian troops use Afghanistan's notorious security services as "subcontractors for abuse and torture?" That's what the Commons committee on Afghanistan heard this week from Ahmadshah Malgarai, an Afghan-Canadian who worked as an interpreter in Kandahar.

'Too Fat' for Empire? The Generals vs General Mills (Mary Clare Jalonick / Associated Press)
School lunches have been called many things, but a group of retired military officers is giving them a new label: national security threat. School lunches have helped make the nation's young people so fat that fewer of them can meet the military's physical fitness standards, and recruitment is in jeopardy.

The End of Pax Americana (Christopher Layne / The American Conservative)
The United States emerged from World War II in a position of global dominance. From this unparalleled military and economic power came a Pax Americana that has endured for more than six decades. It seemed the sun would never set on the US empire. Today, faced with wars it cannot win or quit and an economy begging rescue, the United States no longer fits the part.

Noam Chomsky Has 'Never Seen Anything Like This' (Chris Hedges / Truth Dig)
As our nation's most prescient critic of unregulated capitalism, globalization and the poison of empire, Noam Chomsky enters his 81st year warning us that we have little time left to save our anemic democracy. "It is very similar to late Weimar Germany," Chomsky warns. "The parallels are striking" where traditional political parties became so hated that it created a vacuum that allowed Hitler to take power.

Taliban Moves onto Abandoned US Base (Elizabeth A. Kennedy / The Army Times & Associated Press)
Taliban fighters swarmed over a mountaintop base abandoned last week by the US military following some of the toughest fighting of the Afghan war, according to footage aired Monday by a major satellite television station.

Taliban Capture US Army Base (Shia Chat & Al Jazeera & Daily Mail)
Footage of Taliban fighters swarming a former US military mountain-top base in Afghanistan has been aired on a major satellite TV station. Just days after American forces withdrew from the Korengal Valley -- which has seen some of the toughest fighting in the Afghan war -- armed insurgents can be seen over-running the area.

Volcanic Ash Disrupts Military Operations from Europe to Afghanistan (Stars & Stripes & New York Times & CNN & BBC News )
Military supplies for operations in Afghanistan have been disrupted by the eruption of the Icelandic volcano. US medical evacuation flights from Iraq and Afghanistan to Germany have been suspended. Injured soldiers are now flown directly to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

Iceland's Volcano Grounds "The War Machine" (Agence France-Presse & BBC News & This Is Lincolnshire )
Finnish fighter jets which flew through the volcanic dust covering much of Europe suffered damage and the air force warned Friday the cloud could have a significant impact on planes. British Harrier jets have also been forced from the skies. All UK training missions were grounded by the volcanic dust.

"Nuclear Energy For All, Nuclear Weapons For None": Tehran Summit (Tehran Times Political Desk)
The Nuclear Summit in Washington, DC, drew 47 world leaders. Meanwhile an international summit on nuclear dangers held in Iran drew representatives from 60 nations who issued a statement that called for "redoubling efforts to overcome the current deadlock to achieve nuclear disarmament."

"Disarmament Conference Demonstrated Iran's Commitment to NPT" (Amin Mokarrami, Maryam Bahmani, & Amir Mirzaattari / The Tehran Times)
Alexander Pikayev, director of Russia's CNS Non-Proliferation Project, says Iran showed its strong commitment to nuclear disarmament and to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by hosting the Tehran Disarmament Conference. Pikayev also said the US Nuclear Posture Review fell far short of the global community's expectations since it made no commitment that the US would not be the first to use nuclear weapons.

Gaza Censorship Scandal in Israel -- Army Ordered Destruction of Newspaper; Reporter in Hiding (Jonathan Cook / The National & The Palestine Chronicle & The Middle East Monitor)
An Arab member of the Israeli parliament is demanding that a newspaper be allowed to publish an investigative report that was suppressed days before Israel attacked Gaza in winter 2008. The investigation concerned Israeli preparations for the impending assault on Gaza, known as Operation Cast Lead. Haaretz reporter Uri Blau has fled Israel as demands grow that the newspaper finally publish the reporter's censored story.

Iran Leader Khamenei Brands US 'Nuclear Criminal' (BBC News)
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called the US an "atomic criminal" at a conference on nuclear disarmament in Tehran. He also said that the use of nuclear weapons was "haram" -- prohibited by Islam. "Only the US government has committed an atomic crime," Khamenei stated, noting that "the world's only atomic criminal... has not taken any serious measures" to reduce fundamental risks of a-weapons.

Is It American Policy to Shoot the Wounded and Commit War Crimes? (Thomas R. Eddlem / The New American)
Commentary: Defense Secretary Robert Gates defended the actions of US soldiers who are shown in a video shooting civilians. Gates criticized the video as 'looking at the war through a soda straw.' Gates called the release pf the video 'unfortunate' and 'clearly not helpful.'While he conceded that killing unarmed civilians was 'unfortunate,' Gates saod je did not think 'it should not have any lasting consequences.'

The Kyrgyz Great Game (Robert Dreyfuss / The Nation)
The Great Game for influence in Central Asia, pitting the United States against Russia (with China as a more-than-just-interested observer) has taken a sharp turn in Russia's favor, in the wake of the Russian-induced regime change in Kyrgyzstan.

ACTION ALERT: One Drop in a Sea of Blood (Michael Prysner / ANSWER Coalition)
The harrowing Apache footage released by WikiLeaks gives us a stomach-turning glimpse of war. Seventeen minutes of cold-blooded massacre in a war of more than seven years. A brief clip of one Apache video; a quick look at one part of one mission. Hundreds of those missions take place every day.

'Israel Must Denuclearize' Says Turkish Leader (Press-TV)
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will demand that Israel sign the NPT at a nuclear summit in Washington. The Turkish premier says the international community should take action to disarm Israel as part of the efforts to make the Middle East a nuclear weapons-free zone.

The Secret War -- and the Hidden Lair of the Taliban (Patrick Cockburn / The Independent)
The Pakistani army has fought successfully to control mountainous frontier areas once ruled by the Pakistani Taliban, but it remains reluctant to attack the cross-border safe havens of the Afghan Taliban despite American pressure.

US Troops Withdraw from Korengal Valley (Christopher Bodeen /The Associated Press & Christopher Bodeen / The Associated Press)
US troops are pulling out of Afghanistan's perilous Korengal Valley, ending a mission that saw some of the most intense fighting of the nearly nine-year American presence in the country. In 2008, US and Afghan troops abandoned another remote outpost elsewhere in Nuristan after militants killed nine American soldiers in an assault.

America's Dictators: from Ngo Dinh Diem to Hamid Karzai (Alfred W. McCoy / Tom Dispatch)
The faltering relationship between Washington and Afghan's embattled president, Hamid Karzai is an eerie restaging of the souring relations between the Kennedy administration and President Ngo Dinh Diem, the US-installed puppet leader of South Vietnam nearly half a century earlier. The US has a long history of installling US-friendly dictators in other countries around the world.

More Cause and Effect in the War against Terrorists (Glenn Greenwald / Salon.com)
The extreme paradox of our actions in the Muslim world is now well-documented: namely, the very policies justified in the name of fighting Terrorism (invasions, occupations, bombings, lawless detentions, etc.) are the precise ones that most inflame and exacerbate that threat.

Was Obama Nuke Summit Necessary or Just â€œNuclear Alarmismâ€? And What About Israelâ€™s Arsenal? (Amy Goodman and Sharif Abdel Kouddous / A href="http://www.democracynow.org">Democracy Now!)
President Obama concluded an international summit on nuclear security in Washington, DC Tuesday after securing pledges from dozens of nations to eliminate or safeguard all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years. An interview with John Mueller, author of Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda, and John Steinbach, who has studied Israelâ€™s nuclear weapons program.

Despite Non-Proliferation Pledge, Obama Budget Request Seeks Additional $7B for Nuclear Arsenal (Amy Goodman / Democracy Now!)
The Obama administration wants Congress to increase spending on the US nuclear arsenal by more than $7 billion over the next five years. Obama is seeking the money despite a pledge to cut the US arsenal and seek a nuclear weapons-free world. The proposal includes large increases for a new plutonium production facility. An interview with Jay Coghlan, Executive Director of Nuclear Watch of New Mexico.

Britain's BAE Systems World's Top Supplier or Weapons of War (Karl West / The Daily Mail)
A British company has become the largest arms dealer in the world, with Â£21billion in weapons sales. The defence group BAE Systems is the first company outside the US to reach the position, thanks to a deal with the Pentagon for mine-resistant vehicles to be used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

US Violates UN Law by Threatening Iran (Press TV)
Iran's envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog says the US nuclear policy which allows the use of nuclear arms against Tehran is a clear violation of the UN Charter. Ali-Asghar Soltanieh has called on the UN Security Council to deal with the US violations.

Your Taxes and War ( Jo Comerford / Tom Dispatch)
If youâ€™re an average American taxpayer, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have, since 2001, cost you personally $7,334, according to the â€œcost of warâ€ counter created by the National Priorities Project (NPP). These two illegal, failed and costly foreign invasions and subsequent occupations have cost all Americans collectively more than $980,000,000,000.

ACTION ALERT: $33 Billion to Escalate a Quagmire (War Resisters League & DefundWar.org & David Swanson/After Downing Street)
In the coming weeks, Congress will vote on spending $33 billion of your money to send another 30,000 troops, plus many more contractors, to Afghanistan. Tell congress to vote No on endless war-spending. But refusing to fund an escalation does not compel a war to end. We need to demand an end to all war spending and redirect this squandered wealth to helping to heal broken lives back in the US.

ACTION ALERT: War Is a Racket & the US Corporations That Pay No Taxes (Progressive Democrats of America & Greg Griffin /The Denver Post)
We cannot win in Afghanistan and we are trapped in Iraq. A large percentage of military spending should fund humanitarian aid and diplomatic efforts in both countries and domestic needs at home. Tell Congress to vote "no" on military spending. Meanwhile, some companies owe no taxes, get government to pay them. Take Action to stop this injustice.

ACTION ALERT: What Are You Doing on Tax Day? (War Resisters League)
Over $1 trillion has been spent on the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan since October 2001. Nearly half of each tax dollar goes to the Pentagon and military contractors while cities and states are closing schools, cutting services, and furloughing staff. Thousands of civilians and soldiers have died with no evidence that the world is safer. Protest on tax day to demand and end to increasing military budgets.

'As I Watch the Footage, Anger Calcifies in My Heart' (Haifa Zangana / The London Guardian)
Commentary: A novelist and former prisoner of Saddam Hussein's regime gives her reaction to the Wikileaks Iraq video: "I know the area where this massacre was committed. It is near where my two aunts and their extended families lived, where I played as a child with my cousins Ali, Khalid, Ferial and Mohammed. As I watch, I feel the anger calcify in my heart alongside the rage I still feel over other Anglo-American massacres."

Witnesses Describe US Killings of Iraqi Civilian (Juan Gonzalez, Amy Goodman, Rick Rowley / Democracy Now!)
As the US Central Command says it has no plans to reopen an investigation into the July 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, Democracy Now played never-before-seen eyewitness interviews filmed by reporter Rick Rowley, the day after the attack.

Brazilian Rancher Jailed for Murder of US Eco-Activist Nun (BBC News)
A Brazilian rancher has been convicted of murdering US nun Dorothy Stang. Vitalmiro Bastos Moura was sentenced to 38 years in jail in 2007, but was acquitted on retrial the following year. In November 2009, a witness in the new trial was shot several times and left in critical condition just hours after being summoned to testify in a fraud case against one of the ranchers accused of ordering the nun's murder.

Dirty Bomb: How Real is the Risk? (Olivia McGill / Al Jazeera)
Leaders and representatives of 47 nations met in Washington for a nuclear summit designed to rid the world of nuclear weapons, and prevent weapons-grade material from falling into the hands of terrorists, which President Obama says would present the greatest threat to the world. Al Jazeera spoke to experts to determine how real the threat might be.

Civilians Killed as US Troops Fire on Afghan Bus (Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Taimoor Shah / The New York Times)
American troops raked a large passenger bus with gunfire near Kandahar on Monday morning, killing and wounding civilians, and igniting angry anti-American demonstrations in a city where winning over Afghan support is pivotal to the war effort.

'Civilians Die' in Pakistan Raid (BBC News)
At least 73 civilians were killed when an army jet bombed a remote village in Pakistan's tribal region of Khyber. Many people have died in air strikes in the area over the past 18 months. The military insists most of them are militants, but independent sources say many civilians have also been killed. Villagers say another strike -- by a US drone missile -- killed 13 people on Monday.

Iraq Outrage over US Killing Video (Al Jazeera)
Families of Iraqi civilians, seen being shot and killed by US forces in a leaked video, are seeking justice for their deaths. The shooting left 12 people dead, including two employees of the Reuters news agency. International legal observers have suggested that the killings constitute "war crimes" and should be investigated.

Hapchon Journal: Korean A-bomb Victims Seek Hiroshima Compensation (Al Jazeera & The New York Times & Yomiuri Shimbun/Daily Yomiuri)
During the Japanese occupation of Korea in WW II, tens of thousands of Koreans were sent to Japanese cities to work in munitions factories. For the unlucky people of Hapcheon, the destination was the city of Hiroshima â€“ one of two Japanese cities struck by US atomic bombs in August 1945. Today the Korean survivors from the bombing struggle with the trauma of that day, and they are now demanding compensation.

ALERT: Solidarity Against Nuclear Threat: A Letter to 47 World Leaders (Project for Nuclear Awareness)
EMERGENCY PRESS CONFERENCE TO BE HELD 9 am Monday morning, April 12th at Peace House, 1233 12th St. NW, Washington, DC (3 blocks west of the Washington Convention Center where the 47-Nations' Nuclear Security Summit is happening April 12-13. Background: Transcript of press conference by Presidential Secretary Robert Gibbs on APril 6, 2010.

Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty Signed, but Russia and US Have Nothing to Cut (Vedomosti / Global Research)
The recent nuclear arms agreement signed by the US and Russia allows that both sides have to make practically no cuts. The real number of Russian delivery vehicles is already below 700. Therefore, if Russia plans to maintain parity with the United States under this treaty it will, on the contrary, have to increase production of ballistic missiles several-fold.

Binyamin Netanyahu Pulls Out of Washington Nuclear Weapons Summit (Ewen MacAskill / The Guardian)
Israeli leader Netanyahu reportedly reversed his decision to attend a nuclear summit in the US because of fears Turkey, Egypt and other Muslim nations intended to raise questions about Israel's nuclear weapons. If talks between Israel and the Palestinians fail, Washington is prepared to look at a Plan B -- including President Obama setting out his own Middle East proposal for a comprehensive peace deal.

PTSD, Infertility and Other Consequences of War (Bob Nichols / Information Clearing House)
Iraq and virtually all the rest of the Middle East and Central Asia have been continually dosed for almost 20 years with thousands of tons of weaponized ceramic uranium oxide gas, also known as â€œdepleted uranium.â€ The poison uranium oxide gas aerosols last for billions of years and never stop indiscriminately maiming and killing, which is a war crime in itself.

Iran's Calls For N-free Mideast Should Be Backed (Linda Heard / Arab News)
From April 17-18, Iran intends to host a nuclear disarmament summit just four days after Washington concludes a nuclear security summit to which Tehran was not invited. Under the banner â€œNuclear energy for everyone, nuclear arms for no oneâ€, Iran calls for a nuclear-free Middle East and an end to nuclear proliferation globally.

Confirmed: Obama Authorizes Assassination of US Citizen (Glenn Greenwald / The World Canâ€™t Wait)
As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama said the President lacks the power to detain US citizens without charges. Now, as President, he claims the president has the power to assassinate US citizens without charges. Not even Bush attorney John Yoo claimed that the President possessed the power Obama is claiming here.

Blowback in Kyrgyzstan ( Joseph Huff-Hannon / The Guardian)
The turmoil in Kyrgyzstan speaks volumes about US 'democratisation' efforts in the region. The timing of this week's revolt in Kyrgyzstan is telling: on Thursday the son and heir apparent of ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev was scheduled to speak at an economic forum in Washington. The meeting has been postponed indefinitely, and something tells me it may not be re-scheduled any time soon.

Kyrgyzstan's Head Reveals Overthrown President Left only $80 Million in the Budget ( Luke Harding / The Guardian of London)
Interim leaders of the Kyrgyzstan government report that ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiyev had plundered the economy, installing his sons in key government positions and flogging off strategic state industries for a fraction of their true value.

Iraq War Vet: "We Were Told to Just Shoot People...." (Dahr Jamail / Truthout Report)
On Monday, April 5, Wikileaks.org posted video footage from Iraq showing US troops in helicopters killing 12 people and wounding two children. The dead included two employees of the Reuters news agency. The footage clearly shows an unprovoked slaughter. As disturbing as the video is, this type of behavior by US soldiers in Iraq is not uncommon.

Stop Being and Funding the Evil We Deplore (Medea Benjamin / Common Dreams)
â€œLet us not become the evil we deplore," warned Cong. Barbara Lee when she cast the lone vote against going to war in Afghanistan in September 2001. Well, itâ€™s time to look in the mirror -- and it's not a pretty picture.

WWII Bombs Continue to Pose Threats in Germany, Britain (Associated Press & BBC News)
A WWII-era bomb was recently discovered buried under Berlinâ€™s Tegel airport, forcing the cancellation and diversions of dozens of flights. On March 4, a WWII German bomb was unearthed in the British town of Southhampton. In London, there are 100 bombs known to be buried beneath building constructed after the war. Hundreds of WWII bombs remain buried across the UK.

George W. Bush 'Knew GuantÃ¡namo Prisoners were Innocent' (Tim Reid / The Times of London)
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the GuantÃ¡namo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.

Reuters Families Demand US Troops Be Tried over Shooting (Mehdi Lebouachera Mehdi Lebouachera / Agence France-Presse)
The families of two Reuters news agency employees killed in a 2007 US helicopter attack in Baghdad are demanding justice and asking that the Americans responsible should stand trial.

Iraq Killings and Media Indifference & How WikiLeaks Works (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting & Ian Burrell / The Independent)
A leaked videotape of a 2007 US helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed a dozen Iraqis was unveiled on April 5 by the website WikiLeaks. To much of the corporate media, though, it was either not worth reporting at all, or an unfortunate incident to be defended.

Iraq Killings and Media Indifference (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR))
A leaked videotape of a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed a dozen Iraqis was unveiled on April 5 by the website WikiLeaks. To much of the corporate media, though, it was either not worth reporting at all, or an unfortunate incident to be defended.

Now We Wee What War Does to Those who Wage It (Joan Smith / The Independent)
For the crew of an Apache helicopter gunship hovering over Baghdad in 2007, the whole thing sounds like a game. "Nice... good shooting," exclaims a voice from the cockpit as a group of men in civilian clothes lies on the ground in a cloud of dust. "Yeah, look at those dead bastards," calls out another.

The New US Nuclear Posture (David Krieger / Nuclear Age Peace Foundation )
The Obama administration rolled out its Nuclear Posture Review on April 6, 2010. In both tone and substance the new Nuclear Posture Review is far more positive and hopeful than that of the Bush administration. The Obama administration seeks to bolster the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and secure all loose nuclear materials within four years. However has president failed to implement a policy of No First Use;

Popular Uprising Overthrows US Ally, Imperils US Military Bases (BBC World News & Reuters & The New York Times)
The opposition in Kyrgyzstan says it is setting up a "people's government" after deadly clashes left dozens dead. Protests at rising prices, corruption and the arrest of opposition leaders had erupted in three cities. The detention of opposition leaders on Tuesday night backfired as protests become uncontrollable. Former Foreign Minister Rosa Otunbayeva announced: "Power is now in the hands of the people's government." The future of US bases in the country is in doubt.

Time For Another War, Folks? 59% of America Says YOU BETCHA!!!! (Libby Liberal / Correnete Wire)
Commentary: "Barely a day goes by without Western media outlets and various Western elites threatening [Iran] with a bombing attack by the US or the Israel (which itself has a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons and categorically refuses any inspections or other monitoring). If our goal were to create a world where Iran was incentivized to obtain nuclear weapons, we couldn't do a better job than we're doing now."

Massacre Caught on Tape:
The US military has confirmed the authenticity of newly released video showing US forces indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians. On Monday, the website WikiLeaks.org posted footage taken from a US military helicopter in July 2007 as it killed twelve people and wounded two children. The dead included two employees of the Reuters news agency.

US Military Covering Up Civilian Killings in Iraq and Afghanistan ( Stephen Soldz / Op Ed News)
Recent news stories have exposed two incidents in two countries where US troops killed civilians and then lied to cover up the evidence. These horrific reports (one based on the release of a suppressed US combat video) are but the latest of a steady stream of lies from military and Pentagon sources about the killing of civilians.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament: Shifting the Mindset (David Krieger / New Age Peace Foundation)
This May, the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference will be held in New York, providing an opportunity to move the world back from the brink of nuclear disaster. There is no more important international gathering this year in the area of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. The world cannot afford another major failure next month, such as was experienced at the 2005 Review Conference.

ACTION ALERT: Progress on Nuclear Weapons. Tell Congress to Follow Through (Ben Cohen / True Majority)
The country's stack of strategic nuclear warheads has stayed at the same crazy level for nearly 20 years. Until now. The new nuclear arms reduction treaty which President Obama plans to sign this week with Russia's President Medvedev will start cutting those stockpiles again. It's a fantastic step toward closing the book on the Cold War, at last. That is, IF the Senate approves the treaty.

US Special Forces 'Tried to Cover-up' Botched Khataba Raid in Afghanistan (Jerome Starkey / The Times of London)
US special forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims' bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened, Afghan investigators have told The Times. US forces attempted to cover-up the fact that they had shot and killed two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother.

How the Military and the Media Orchestrated a Cover-up of US Killings (Glenn Greenwald / Salon)
On February 12, US forces entered a village in the Paktia Province and surrounded a home where they shot dead two male civilians (government officials), then shot and killed three female relatives (a pregnant mother of ten, a pregnant mother of six, and a teenager). The Pentagon then issued a statement claiming that (a) the dead males were "insurgents."

Collateral Murder: Video of US Attack (WikiLeaks.com & Rachel Maddow)
Wikileaks has just released what it describes as classified video from US Apache helicopters in a July 12, 2007 attack on the suburb of New Baghdad, Iraq. The US military has said that the dozen or so casualties were "anti-Iraqi forces" or "insurgents."

Mohamed ElBaradei Hits Out at West's Support for Repressive Regimes (Jack Shenker / The Guardian)
The former head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Nobel Peace Prize-winner Mohamed ElBaradei, warns thatWestern governments risk creating a new generation of Islamist extremists if they continue to support repressive regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Darfur.

ACTION ALERT: Disarmament Summer Campaign (Think Outside The Bomb.org)
April 5th marks the one year anniversary of President Obama's famous speech in Prague that ultimately won him a Nobel Peace Prize for his vision. We share a vision of a nuclear weapons free world and are working hard to achieve it. Call or email the White House today and let President Obama know that building new nuclear weapons factories is incompatible with a nuclear weapons free world.

Military: It Could Take A Year To Fix 'Jesus Rifles' (Brian Ross, Rachel Maddow, Joseph Rhuee and Mark Schone / ABC News)
More than two months after an ABC News report that rifle scopes used by US soldiers are inscribed with secret Biblical references, troops in Afghanistan and Iraq are still carrying the so-called Jesus rifles -- and the US military says it could take a year to remove the Bible codes from all its weapons.

The Anti-War Movement Seven Years After Shock and Awe (Dennis O'Neil & Eric See / Freedom Road )
The war in Iraq is still on. It's already the second most expensive war in US history -- only WWII cost more. The war in Afghanistan is heating up. It's now the second longest war in US history -- only Vietnam lasted longer. So what the hell happened to the anti-war movement?

DOD News Briefing with Gen. McChrystal and Ambassador Sedwill from Afghanistan (S Department of Defens4 News Transcript)
â€œThere is an awful lot of talk about what we're going to do next. And the fact is we are going to increase security in the area of Kandahar City and what we call the environs around it.... And instead of putting a date certain on which there would be a climactic military operation, I tell you... it's a complex process that's going to involve a number of military things to increase security, along with police....â€

The Evil Scourge of "Terrorism": Reality, Construction, Remedy (Noam Chomsky / The Erich Fromm Lecture)
In 1981, Ronald Readon condemned "the evil scourge of terrorism" and announced an American "war on terror." Reaganâ€™s savage terrorist war left hundreds of thousands of tortured and mutilated corpses in Central America, tens of thousands more in the Middle East, and an estimated 1.5 million killed by South African terrorist supported by the Reagan administration in violation of congressional sanctions.

Fox News, Reuters Publish False Propaganda on Nonexistent Iran Weapons Threat (Glenn Greenwald / Salon)
Fox News currently has at the top of its website headlined: "CIA: Iran Moving Closer to Nuclear Weapon." The report begins with this alarming claim: A recently published report by the CIA says Iran is still working on building a nuclear weapon. But that statement is categorically false. The actual to which the Fox article links says no such thing.

Tell Me Again, Who Made The Desert Bloom? (Lawrence of Cyberia / Aletho News)
In December 1945 and January 1946, the British Mandate authorities carried out an extensive survey of Palestine. One of the subjects investigated was land use. The survey found that in 1944-45 Palestineâ€™s farmers produced approximately 210,000 tons of grain. About 193,400 tons of that grain were cultivated on Palestinian farms; about 16,600 tons were cultivated on Jewish farms.

Depleted Uranium Radiation resulting from NATO Bombings in Serbia : High Incidence of Cancer (Ljubica Vujadinovic / Global Research & All Voices )
A leading Serbian expert in the field says the NATO's use of depleted uranium ammunition in it's aggression on Serbia has caused enormous increase in cancer rates and number of newborns with genetic malformations. Four studies conducted so far, on both civilians and those who worked on the spots' decontamination, have shown that the DU exposure causes typical and specific changes on genetic material.

ACTION ALERT: Support Progress on US-Russia Nuclear Disarmament ( Matt Holland / TrueMajority / USAction)
Last week, Russia and the USA signed an agreement to reduce their nuclear arsenals by a third. And next week, Obama is hosting leaders from 48 countries to talk about going even further in pursuit of a nuclear-free world. public support is crucial. Please sign this petition, which will be delivered to world leaders when they convene at the White House on April 12.

50 Facts About US Nuclear Weapons (The Brookings Institution)
The US Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project was completed in August 1998 and resulted in the book Atomic Audit:The Costs and Consequences of US Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 edited by Stephen I. Schwartz. These project pages should be considered historical.

Confessions of a Nuclear Warrior (Gar Smith / Environmentlaists Against War)
EAW interviews a member of an exclusive Pentagon program that costs taxpayers around $6.6 billion a year. Members of this little-known club receive the best government care, full security, special "life extension" operations, 24-hour protection, free air travel around the world and, in exchange, do absolutely nothing except remain unused and inactive for their entire lives.

A Presidential Bomber Jacket Doesn't Cover the Blood (Norman Solomon / Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives)
President Obama has taken a further plunge into the kind of war abyss that consumed predecessors named Johnson, Nixon and Bush. On Sunday, during his first presidential trip to Afghanistan, Obama stood before thousands of American troops to proclaim the sanctity of the war effort. He played the role deftly -- a commander in chief, rallying the troops -- while wearing a bomber jacket.

US-led Forces in Afghanistan Are Committing Atrocities, Lying, and Getting Away with It (Jerome Starkey / The Nieman Watchdog)
Commentary: NATO is rarely called to account. Their version of events, usually originating from the soldiers involved, is rarely seriously challenged. Far too many of our colleagues accept the spin-laden press releases churned out of the Kabul headquarters. Suicide bombers are â€œcowards,â€ NATO attacks on civilians are â€œtragic accidents,â€ intelligence is foolproof and only militants get arrested.

US Navy Nabs Pirates, Sinks Ship, Litters Ocean Floor with Debris (Agence France-Presse)
A US warship operating in the Indian Ocean captured five suspected pirates after an exchange of gunfire in international waters near the Seychelles. After taking the suspected pirates on board, the Nicholas sank the disabled skiff, sending it to the ocean floor.

The 'Long War' Quagmire (Tom Hayden / Los Angeles Times)
Without public debate and without congressional hearings, a segment of the Pentagon and fellow travelers have embraced a doctrine known as the Long War, which projects an "arc of instability" caused by insurgent groups from Europe to South Asia that will last between 50 and 80 years.

A New Middle East War? (Conn Hallinan / Berkeley Daily Planet)
When Israeli Minister without Portfolio Yossi Peled said war with Lebanon's Hezbollah was "just a matter of time" and that such a conflict would include Syria, most dismissed the comment as little more than right-wing posturing. But the threat has been backed by Israeli military maneuvers near the Lebanese border, violations of Lebanese airspace, and the deployment of an anti-missile systems on Israel's northern border.

Afghanistan Is Going to Pot (United Nations News Service)
Afghanistan, the worldâ€™s biggest producer of opium, is now also the global leader when it comes to the production of hashish, according to the UN's first-ever Afghanistan Cannabis Survey which reports the country is harvesting an estimated 10,000 to 24,000 hectares of cannabis every year.

Middle East in Huge Naval Expansion (Andrew Wander / Al Jazeera)
Concerns over maritime security in the Middle East and North Africa are fuelling a massive expansion of naval capacity in the region, bucking a worldwide trend of slowing military spending as a result of the global recession. Problems with piracy, long-term stability and energy security are prompting Arab governments to spend billions of dollars on naval equipment, ranging from ships to unmanned drones.

Militarizing Latin America ( Noam Chomsky / Chomsky.info)
The United States was founded as an "infant empire," in George Washington's words. The conquest of the national territory was a grand imperial venture, much like the vast expansion of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. From the earliest days, control over the hemisphere was a critical goal.

Official Hails Effect of Unmanned Aircraft on Warfare (John J. Kruzel / American Forces Press Service)
Perhaps no other weapon platform has more significantly transformed the way the US military wages war in recent years than unmanned aerial aircraft. Since 2006, operations have grown from about 165,000 hours to more than 550,000 hours annually. But the government of Pakistan has complained to the US government, asking them to stop the dangerous flights because they were killing civilians and violating Pakistanâ€™s sovereignty.

ACTION ALERT: Bring the Troops â€“ and the Bucks â€“ Back Home (Voters for Peace)
March 29, 2010 marked the anniversary of the last combat troops leaving Vietnam and ending US military involvement in the Vietnam War. Wars can be ended. Even wars that seem central to continuing American Empire become unnecessary wars if they are resisted.

Japanese Protest Relocation of Washington's Okinawa Base (Kyodo News Service )
Local farmers protested the proposed relocation of US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to the Kagoshima Prefecture island of Tokunoshima at a rally held in Kagoshima Prefecture that drew some 4,200 local residents â€“ one-sixth of the islandâ€™s population. "We cannot expose our children to noise and crime. We don't need a base here on this island of children, longevity and mutual corporation," said a 39-year-old housewife.

The Bases of Empire ( David Swanson / OpEd News)
"The Bases of Empire: The Global Struggle Against US Military Posts," a collection edited by Catherine Lutz, has the potential to open American eyes to both the empire they pay for and permit, and to the world's responses to it.

Can Anyone Pacify the World's Number One Narco-State?The Opium Wars in Afghanistan (Alfred W. McCoy / Tom Dispatch)
The Obama administration is now trapped in an endless cycle of drugs and death in Afghanistan from which there is neither an easy end nor an obvious exit. American commanders seemed strangely unaware that Marja might qualify as the world's heroin capital -- with hundreds of hidden labs processing the local poppy crop into high-grade heroin. The surrounding fields produce 40% of the world's illicit opium supply.

Is America 'Yearning For Fascism?' (Chris Hedges / TruthDig.com)
Commentary: "The language of violence always presages violence. I watched it in war after war from Latin America to the Balkans. The impoverishment of a working class and the snuffing out of hope and opportunity always produce angry mobs ready to kill and be killed."

Christian Militia Accused of Plotting to Kill Cops (Corey Williams and Devlin Barrett / The Associated Press)
Seven men and one woman believed to be part of a Michigan-based Christian militia group were arrested for plotting to kill a police officer and slaughter scores more by bombing the funeral -- all in hopes of touching off an uprising against the US government.

James Lovelock: Humans Are Too Stupid to Prevent Climate Change (Leo Hickman / The Guardian)
In his first in-depth interview since the theft of UEA emails, British scientist James Lovelock blames inertia and democracy for lack of action and concludes that humans are too stupid to prevent climate change.

ACTION ALERT: Pentagon Attacks Crusading Investigative Web Site (Michael Collins / OpEd News)
Since its launch three years ago, WikiLeaks -- founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa -- has produced more scoops than the Washington Post has in the past 30 years. Now, the Army Counterintelligence Center has concluded that WikiLeaks is a risk to US security and must be destroyed.

Daniel Ellsberg Says Pres. Obama is Lying About Wars (Jonathan Nack / Indy Media)
On March 20, 2010. Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg addressed a crowd at a US Labor Against War Rally in San Francisco and declared that President Obama -- like Presidents before him -- is lying about the Americaâ€™s wars â€“ this time in Afghanistan and Iraq. Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.

Rumblings of War between the Koreas (Associated Press & Sorcha Faal)
North Korea warned the US and South Korea on Monday of deadly consequences for engaging in "psychological warfare" by allowing journalists into the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas.

Face to Face with Pakistanâ€™s Most Wanted (Robert Fisk / The Independent)
Veteran reporter Robert Fisk has become the first Western journalist to interview Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the man accused of masterminding the Mumbai massacre. In his first interview with a western newspaper, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed -- suspected of organising the slaughter of 166 Indians in Mumbai in November 2008 -- denied responsibility for the bloodbath.

After Civilian Massacre, NATO Tries to Silence Journalist (Derrick Crowe / Rethink Afghanistan)
Over the past few months, Afghanistan-based journalist Jerome Starkey exposed two incidents where NATO initially claimed to have engaged and killed insurgents, when theyâ€™d in fact killed civilians, including school children and pregnant women. In both cases, when confronted with eye-witness accounts obtained by Starkey that clearly rebutted NATOâ€™s initial claims, NATO resisted publicly recanting.

Sadr Followers Bask in Poll Success (Abeer Mohammed / Institute for War & Peace Reporting)
Analysis: The movement led by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is poised to make a dramatic return to the forefront of Iraqi Shia politics, combining its success in recent elections with the anticipated elevation of its leader's religious status. The controversial clericâ€™s bid for ayatollah status could also help cement comeback after election boost.

Have a Nice World War, Folks (John Pilger / John Pilger.com & TruthOut)
Here is news of the Third World War. The US has invaded Africa. US troops have entered Somalia, extending their war front from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and now the Horn of Africa. In preparation for an attack on Iran, American missiles have been placed in four Persian Gulf states, and â€œbunker-busterâ€ bombs are said to be arriving at the US base on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Deja Vu in Marja: Our Guiding Illusions in Afghanistan (Andrew J. Bacevich / America Magazine)
Commentary: "In Washington the sky grows dark with deficit hawks. But the deficits that plague the United States extend well beyond the realm of fiscal policy. At least as important is a deficit in self-awareness that makes it difficult for policymakers to learn from and avoid repeating past mistakes. Afghanistan offers a case in point."

DR Congo Massacre Unveiled (Al Jazeera)
The Lord's Resistance Army killed about 300 people and kidnapped 250 more in a rampage in the Democratic Republic of Congo in December 2009, according to an international rights group and the UN. The previously undocumented massacre, undertaken over four-days in the remote Makombo area of the northeastern Haute Uele district, was highlighted in reports by Human Rights Watch and the UN.

Censored Documents Reveal Murders of Afghan Captives (Jim Bronskill And John Ward / The Canadian Press)
Newly released documents show a Canadian soldier alleges that Afghan authorities routinely executed detainees his unit handed over to them. The stack of records disclosed Thursday by the federal government also says detainees at a Kandahar prison told Foreign Affairs and Corrections Canada officials on a site tour that they had been tortured.

The 1,000 Day Siege of Gaza (Ann Wright / After Downing Street)
This week marked 1,000 days of an Israeli and international siege on Gaza -- 1,000 days of an open air prison where â€œinmatesâ€, the civilian Palestinian population of 1.5 million, cannot leave or enter at will -- by land, sea or air, the tiny area known as the Gaza Strip.

The Next Steps toward US-Russian Nuclear Disarmament (The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation )
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review will be held in New York at the United Nations between May3-28, 2010. Nations from all over the world will attend. Two major obstacles remain to full cooperation between the two countries on nuclear disarmament. First, the two sides still strongly disagree on the US missile defense plans. Second, the US Senate must ratify the new treaty with at least 67 votes.

Trivializing War: The Impersonal Business of Dispensing Death by Drone (Cesar Chelala / Information Clearing House)
Sitting at his computer, Captain Ferguson was directing unmanned aerial vehicles carrying powerful bombs to land in distant countries. He presumes, but he is not totally sure, that he has hit the right target. After the bombs exploded four suspected terrorists were killed. A later investigation will later reveal that they were not terrorists but rather they were parents and children at a birthday party.

ACTION ALERT: US, Russia Reach Deal to Reduce Nucelar Weapons (Friends Committee on National Legislation & The Washington Post & The Guardian)
The US and Russia have reached a deal on their most extensive nuclear arms-control agreement in nearly two decades. The pact, which would cover an estimated 25,000 of the world's 26,000 nuclear weapons, appeared to represent President Obamaâ€™s first victory in his ambitious agenda to move toward a nuclear-free world. ACTION: Ask your senators to vote to ratify the START follow-on agreement when the president submits it.

A Curious History of the CIAâ€™s Secret Interrogation Program (Jane Mayer / The New Yorker)
Book Review & Commentary: Marc A. Thiessenâ€™s new book, "Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack," offers a relentless defense of the Bush Administration's interrogation policies. In addition, Thiessen attacks the Obama Administration for having banned techniques such as waterboarding.

Afghanistan's Police: The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight (T. Christian Miller, Mark Hosenball and Ron Moreau / NEWSWEEK)
Efforts to build a post-Taliban police force have been plagued by unrealistic goals, poor oversight, and slapdash hiring. Patrolmen were recruited locally, issued weapons, and placed on the beat with little or no formal training. Most of their techniques have been picked up on the job -- including plenty of ugly habits. Barely a quarter of the 98,000-member force has received any formal instruction.

When Right-Wing Extremism Moves Mainstream (Terry Gross / Fresh Air / NPR)
The radical right caught fire last year as a broad-based, populist anger at political, demographic and economic changes in America ignited an explosion of new extremist groups and activism across the nation. That finding is published in "Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism," a special edition of the Southern Poverty Law Center's magazine, Intelligence Report.

F-35 Fighter Fleet's Price May Be Double Forecast (Jim Wolf / Reuters)
The estimated total cost of Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 fighter jets being bought by the Pentagon may be nearly twice as high as originally forecast. The bill for 2,443 F-35s is currently estimated at $278 billion to $329 billion, up from the $197 billion projected when the development program began in October 2001, taking into account inflation, a one-page Pentagon F-35 "unit cost" report said.

From Pakistan to the Pecos: US Plans to Deploy Drone Aircraft over Texas (Christy Hoppe / The Dallas Morning News & Nick Turse / TomDispatch)
Drones do just what they were meant to do, as surely as did poison gas, the airplane, and the tank early in the last century: they kill. And once the wonder fades, the wonder weapons remain in our world -- and they begin to spread. The Department of Homeland Security has announced it may soon send unmanned drone aircraft to scour West Texas and the state's coast in an effort to "boost border security."

Star Trek-style Force-field Armor being Developed by Military Scientists (Richard Gray, Science Correspondent / The Telegraph)
A space-age "force field" capable of protecting armoured vehicles and tanks by repelling incoming fire is being developed by British military scientists. The new type of armour will use pulses of electrical energy to repel rockets, shrapnel and other ammunition that might damage a vehicle.

Covering up American War Crimes, From Baghdad to New York (Charles Glass / Takimag)
BBC correspondent John Simpson reported on March 4 that the number of defects in newborn babies in the Iraqi town of Fallujah had risen dramatically since the American assault there at the end of 2004. Some people in the town blame the abnormalities in their children on whatever chemicals the US Marines may have used in their conquest of the Sunni Muslim redoubt.

Britain Expels Mossad Agent over Forged Passport Plot (Julian Borger / The Guardian & Al Jazeera)
A British investigation finds Israel forged documents used by Dubai hit squad in killing of Hamas leader. David Miliband, the foreign secretary, laid out the case against Israel in parliament, saying a police investigation found "compelling reasons" to believe Israel was responsible. The name of the Israeli official was not published but The Guardian reports the official is believed to be a senior Mossad agent.

The Truth about the Mossad (Ian Black / The Guardian & Al Jazeera)
The recent, outlandish assassination in Dubai may prove the most damaging yet in the Mossad's history of high-profile, bungled operations. How did it squander its reputation for ruthless brilliance?

Ex-Nazi Guilty in Wartime Murders (Victor Homola and Alan Cowell / Reuters)
Heinrich Boere, number six on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of most-wanted Nazis, was given the maximum sentence of life in prison by a German court on Tuesday for the 1944 killings of three Dutch civilians.

Israel UIsing "Airport Security" to "Clone Passports" for Spies (Sandra Laville, Julian Borger and Richard Norton-Taylor / The Guardian)
Passing through Israel's Ben Gurion airport is an experience no first-time visitor is likely to forget. Surrendering documents at check-in or at immigration has hitherto been considered a necessary evil for all those traveling in and out of Ben Gurion. The evidence that the Israeli state has been taking the information gleaned from these inspections to create cloned identities for its spies.

The Criminal Invasion of Mesopotamia (Felicity Arbuthnot / Global Research)
A reporter recalls the warmth and openness of the Iraqi people prior to the US invasion. Returning after the invasion, she was met with smiles and embraces from old friends. But on her most recent visit, the smiles were gone. On the seventh anniversary of the US occupation, Arbuthnot reports, she has been â€œwarned by sound sources, that if I return to democratic, liberated, free Iraq, I will be killed.â€

Who's In Charge of Washington's Hired Killers? (Eric S. Margolis / Khaleej Times )
A fascinating scandal has erupted in Washington over the use of mercenaries ("private contractors" in US terminology) that is exposing the dark underbelly of America's foreign wars. It has been [discovered] that the Pentagon and other US intelligence agencies secretly fielded mercenaries in Afghanistan, Pakistan (aka "Af-Pak"), and Iraq to assassinate tribal militants.

Poetry from the Combat Zone (Doug Soderstrom / OpEdNews & Brian Turner / Los Angeles Times)
I am Home. No more officers ordering to kill, No more bombs "bursting in air," Not even an enemy with whom to shed my blood. What Every Soldier Should Know: If you hear gunfire on a Thursday afternoon, It could be for a wedding, or it could be for you.

ACTION ALERT: Indonesian Army, Implicated in Assassinations, Set to Get US Aid (Allan Nairn / Z Space)
According to senior Indonesian officials and police, the US-trained Kopassus special forces assassinated a series of civilian activists during 2009. The news comes as President Barack Obama is reportedly set to reverse longstanding US policy of restricting categories of US assistance to Kopassus, a force which, during its years of US training, has killed hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Five Questions the Pentagon Doesn't Want You to Ask (William Astore and Tom Englehart / Tom Dispatch)
Commentary: When it comes to our nationâ€™s military affairs, ignorance is not bliss. Whatâ€™s remarkable then, given the permanent state of war in which we find ourselves, is how many Americans seem content not to know. A cloud of secrecy and â€œblack budgetsâ€ combine to obscure military's "investment investment portfolio." which ranges from global strategy to war goals to weapons procurement.

Renegade British Troops Ran 'Torture Unit' in Iraq (Andrew Johnson / The Independent)
Fresh evidence has emerged that British military intelligence ran a secret operation in Iraq which authorized degrading and unlawful treatment of prisoners. Documents reveal that prisoners were kept hooded for long periods in intense heat and deprived of sleep by defense intelligence officers. They also reveal that officers running the operation claimed to be answerable only "directly to London."

Policing Afghanistan: How a Training Program became a Train Wreck (Pratap Chaterjee / Anti-War & Tom Dispatch)
The Pentagon faces a tough choice: Should it award a new security contract to Xe (aka Blackwater), a company whose employees killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad in 2007, or to DynCorp, a company made infamous in Bosnia in 1999 when some of its employees were caught trafficking young girls for sex? Some in the government believe such tasks should not be assigned to private contractors in the first place.

American Naifs Bringing Ruin to Other Lands (Paul Craig Roberts / Chronicles Magazine)
According to news reports, the US military is shipping "bunker-buster" bombs to the US Air Force base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The Herald Scotland reports that experts say the bombs are being assembled for an attack on Iranâ€™s nuclear facilities. The next step will be a staged "terrorist attack" -- a "false flag" operation secretly run by the US -- for which Iran will be blamed.

Thousands Rally to Pull Troops from 2 War Zones (Associated Press)
Thousands of protesters -- many directing their anger squarely at President Barack Obama-- marched through the nation's capital Saturday to urge immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Friday marked the seventh anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. "Arrest that war criminal!" Gold Star Mother Cindy Sheehan shouted outside the White House before her arrest, referring to Obama.

Afghanistan War: Lessons from the Soviet War (Edward Girardet / Christian Science Monitor)
"It was early summer, 1982. The Soviet war in Afghanistan was gathering momentum against the mujahideen, the country's disparate but increasingly widespread resistance movement. I'd just trekked for 10 days across rugged mountains from neighboring Pakistan to the beleaguered Panjshir Valley, an assertive thorn against the Red Army's might barely 40 miles north of Kabul."

Israeli Fire Kills Palestinian Teen (Al Jazeera)
Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian teenager during violent clashes in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli army claims the Palestinian boys were hurt by riot-control weapons rather than live fire. Palestinian hospital officials said the 16-year-old was struck in the heart by a bullet fired by Israeli forces.

Bloodbath in Mexico: Drug Prohibition Is to Blame for Thousands of Mexican and Now American Deaths (Tony Newman / AlterNet)
When we think about wars happening in the world right now, Iraq and Afghanistan jump to mind. But there is war in our backyard that can match the violence anywhere in the world, and that is the Drug War in Mexico. More than twice the number of Mexicans have died in the last three years -- 15,000 -- than have Americans in both Iraq and Afghanistan combined after more than seven years.

ACTION ALERT: Massive Peace Protest in DC. Hundreds More across US
Thousands of people are headed to the nation's capital to protest on the seventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. More than 150 Iraq protests and demonstrations occurring across the country.

Don't Stand By as the Wars (Col. Ann Wright (US Army, rret.) / Voices of Conscience)
"Seven years ago today I resigned from the US government in opposition to the Bush administration's war on Iraq. I was one of three US diplomats who resigned over the Bush administration's decision to invade and occupy Iraq and one of tens if not hundreds of thousands of government employees that knew the war on Iraq would jeopardize our national security, not improve it."

Bush's Lawyer Would Allow President ot Bomb US (David Swanson / After Downing Street & Ray McGovern)
Former presidential attorney John Yoo, who wrote controversial rulings that justified the use of torture, was met with protests when he spoke at the University of Virginia. One speaker asked Prof. Yoo: "Can a president shoot missiles in the United States? Can a president drop nukes in the United States?" Yoo refused to concede any limits.

UN Chief Calls Israeli Settlements Illegal (BBC News)
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said Israeli settlement building anywhere in occupied territory is illegal and must stop. Mr Ban is in the Middle East to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders and press them to resume peace talks. Israel's controversial announcement of plans to build 1,600 more homes in East Jerusalem has inflamed tensions in the region.

Middle East "Quartet" Calls for Settlement Freeze (Al Jazeera & Sources)
The so-called Quartet of Middle East negotiators -- The United Nations, the US, the EU and Russia -- has demanded that Israel halt all settlement activity and denounced Israel's plan to build new housing in East Jerusalem. In the statement, the Quartet condemned "the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem".

Families Sue over Deaths at Guantanamo (Center for Constitutional Rights)
The families of two men who died at GuantÃ¡namo in June 2006 asked the district court in Washington, D.C. to reconsider its February 16 ruling dismissing their case, which seeks to hold federal officials and the United States accountable for their sonsâ€™ torture, arbitrary detention, and ultimate deaths.

ACTION ALERT: March 20 Anti-war Demonstrations in Washington, DC (Michael E. Ruane / Washington Post)
A major protest, against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will begin with a noon rally in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House on March 20. A march will follow. Organizers said that the Afghanistan conflict has become "Obama's war." They criticized the continued fighting there and in Iraq, and said the president's war policies were just like former President George W. Bush's.

Noruz Celebrated March 21: Tehran to Host Nuclear Disarmament Conference in April (Mehr News Agency)
Iran will host an international conference on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation in April. A number of major international figures, nuclear experts, and foreign ministers from over 60 countries have been invited to participate in the international conference on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, which is scheduled to be held on April 17 and 18 in Tehran,

Pakistani Court Charges 5 Americans with Terrorism (Associated Press)
A Pakistani court has charged five young Americans on Wednesday with planning terrorist attacks in the South Asian country and conspiring to wage war against nations allied with Pakistan. The men â€” all Muslims from the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia â€” pleaded not guilty to a total of five charges. Does this mean that Pakistan can now claim the right to occupy the US in the name of the "war on terror" and send killer drones into the skies over Alexandria. Virginia?

With Nuclear Weaons, There Is No Such Thing as a "Local" Waar (Alan Robock and Owen Brian Toon / Scientific American)
A nuclear war -- whether between the US and Russia or India and Pakistan -- would not be a "local" war. A new report details how a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan could blot out the sun, starving much of the human race.

Revealed" Bush Officials Warned 9/11 Commission (Sahil Kapur / Raw Story)
enior Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, according to a document recently obtained by the ACLU. Some critics believe that this was an attempt by the Bush administration to ensure that its torture of certain detainees, which has since been widely documented, remained secret.

Old Accusations Surgace that US Used Germ Warfare against Korea (Diarmuid Jeffreys / Al Jazeera -- People and Power)
On the 60th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, reporters take a new look at accusations the US attacked Korea with biological weapons, including "germ" bombs containing insects, shellfish and feathers infected with anthrax, typhoid and bubonic plague on villages across the country. The US has denied the charges. By the time a truce was agreed in 1953, two million soldiers and two million civilians had been killed or wounded.

ACTION ALERT: Remember Rachel Corrie (Cindy Corrie / A Jewish Voice for Peace)
This month, a civil lawsuit in Israel in the case of our daughter Rachel Corrie will converge with the seven-year anniversary of her killing in Gaza. Rachel, 23, was crushed to death by an Israel Defense Force (IDF) Caterpillar D9R bulldozer as she tried nonviolently to offer protection for a Palestinian home.

Final Destination Iran? US Preparing to Attack Iran? (Rob Edwards / The Sunday Herald)
Hundreds of powerful US â€œbunker-busterâ€ bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran. The shipment includes 387 â€œBluâ€ bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures. Experts say that they are being put in place for an assault on Iranâ€™s controversial nuclear facilities.

US Government Backs Honduran Oligarchy (Michael Kramer/ Workers World)
The Obama administration continues to support the ruthless Honduran oligarchy in its war against a nonviolent political and social movement that has united peasants, workers, trade unionists and students; the Garifuna, Afro-Honduran and Indigenous communities. The Honduran military has close Pentagon ties. Two of the coup leaders who ousted the democratically elected president were trained by the Pentagon.

Modern-Day American Imperialism: The Middle East and Beyond (Noam Chomsky / Boston University Address)
ANALYSIS: "Talking about American imperialism is rather like talking about triangular triangles. The US is the one country that exists -- as far as I know, and ever has -- that was founded as an empire explicitly. When the country was founded it was an "infant empire." That's George Washington. Modern-day American imperialism is just a later phase of a process that has continued from the very first moment."

Pentagon Says it Will Bomb in Somalia to Wipe Out Resistance (Abayomi Azikiwe / Pan-African News Wire)
A recent statement issued by the Obama administration indicates that it is planning to carry out aerial bombardments in the Horn of Africa nation of Somalia. The announcement comes amid intense fighting in the capital of Mogadishu between the two Islamic resistance movements, Al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam, and the US-backed Transitional Federal Government that is ruling the country.

Car Bombs Hit Nigeria Oil City (Al Jazeera)
Twin car bombs have exploded near the governor's office in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger delta region, in the middle of amnesty talks with fighters. The explosions occurred after the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta emailed a statement saying it had planted three bombs. The meetings were being held to discuss an amnesty plan for fighters launching attacks against oil workers and oil facilities.

How Food and Water are Driving a 21st-century African Land Grab (John Vidal / The Observer)
Rich countries faced by a global food shortage have bought up stretches of African land twice the size of Britain. The foreign companies are swarming the continent, seizing lands the local residents have used for centuries. There is no consultation. The deals are done secretly. The only thing the local people see is people coming with lots of tractors to invade their lands.

Why the US Occupation Makes Iraqi Women Miss Saddam (Abdu Rahman and Dahr Jamail / Common Dreams & Inter Press Service)
The US is supporting a Taliban-like theocratic regime in Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein, women in government got a year's maternity leave; that is now cut to six months. Article 2 of Iraq's Constitution states: "Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation." Under this Article, the interpretation of women's rights is left to Iranian-influenced religious leaders.

30 in Iran Arrested, Accused of US "Cyber-War" (CNN & Merh News & Ali Akbar Dareini / Associated Press)
Iran's judiciary has reported the arrests of 30 individuals accused of committing acts of â€œcyber-warâ€against Iran. Those arrested were reportedly funded by US beginning in 2006, recieving $400 million for project, from the Bush administration. Iranian media report that the countryâ€™s data banks and Web sites could have been penetrated.

War on the Horizon in Latin America (Eva Golinger / Information Clearing House)
The Empire will stop at nothing to find mechanisms and techniques to achieve its final objective, and we cannot disregard the possibility of a military conflict in the near future. If the US places Venezuela on the â€œterrorist listâ€ this year, we could be on the verge of a regional war.

An Oscar for America's Hubris (Robert Scheer / TruthDig)
Commentary: "What a shame that the one movie about the Iraq war that has a chance of being viewed by a large worldwide audience should be so disappointing. 'The Hurt Locker' is just the opposite; it's an endorsement of the politically chauvinistic view that the world is a stage upon which Americans get to deal with their demons no matter the consequence for others."

Women Veterans Four Times as Likely as Men to Wind Up Homeless (Lisa Fletcher & Felicia Biberica / ABC World News)
There are an estimated 6,500 homeless female veterans on America's streets, double the number of a decade ago, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Women veterans are four times more likely than their male counterparts to wind up homeless.

Granny D Leaves Us at 100: She Walked the Talk (WMUR-TV & William Rivers Pitt/ Truthout)
Former US Senate candidate and longtime political activist Doris "Granny D" Haddock has died. She was 100. Haddock gained national recognition when she walked across the country to call attention to the issue of campaign finance reform. The trip started in 1999 and ended in 2000. Granny D explained her epic feat in simple terms: "At 90 years old, I walked across the country -- 3,200 miles. I walked every step."

Granny D's Orchard House Speech (Doris "Granny D" Haddock)
"When people begin to really live their lives, the black and white certainties do not turn to shades of gray, but to the million-jeweled hews of a morning's dew. That sparkle is the reality of life revealed. Life is about... about helping other real people get through this world with a minimum of pain and a maximum of human dignity. We simply can't do that with authoritarian politics and its deadly abstractions."

The Rwanda Hit List: Revisionism, Denial, and the Genocide Conspiracy (keith harmon snow / Conscious Being Alliance)
For the last 15 years I have been investigating militias and criminal rackets and propaganda about Central Africa. I investigated massacres, assassinations, torture, rape as a weapon of war, individuals and groups, multinationals, state and non-state actors, Africans and non-Africans. The established narrative remains overly simplified and the truth has been hijacked and suppressed by the mass media.

Palestinians Should Now Declare their Independence (Johann Hari / The Independent)
Commentary: "This week the Obama administration -- which give Israel $3 billion a year, more than they dole out to any other nation on earth -- made a meek and craven request for Israelis to simply have a pause in seizing even more land, and to sit down with the Palestinians. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded with a big concrete slap: the announcement of 1,600 more homes to be built on occupied Palestinian land."

Enhancing Nuclear Weapons Research to Support Disarmament? (Robert Civiak / Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment))
On February 1, 2010, President Obama sent to Congress his first comprehensive budget. The Budget requests a whopping 13 percent increase for the National Nuclear Security Administration and a 14 percent increase in NNSAâ€™s Nuclear Weapons Activities. On March 15, a team of nuclear watch-dogs will be in Washington to present a "Radioactive Report Card" on President Obama and his Administration.

The Rise of the Drones: Fewer Pilots in Future as Air Force Turns to Robots (Austin Wright / National Defense Magazine)
The Air Force is now training more pilots to fly unmanned aircraft than traditional aircraft. The serviceâ€™s UAV fleet has swelled by 300 percent over the past two years. Observers wonder if this is just a temporary blip or a permanent shift in the capabilities and priorities of the Air Force. The answer is simple says USAF Secretary Michael Donley: "There is no going back to the old days."

Normalizing the Police State : Taser-firing Drones (Allison Kilkenney / The True Slant)
Commentary: Americans have already accepted forms of police brutality (macing, sound cannons, tasering) as the inevitable punishments for exercising their First Amendment rights. They are required to seek permits to gather or to use a bullhorn. And they submit to the ridiculous spectacle of gathering inside designated locations surrounded by police as they â€œexerciseâ€ their â€œfreedom of speech.â€

US Weapons Research is Raising a Stink (David Hamling / The Guardian)
The US Army's XM1063 projectile is designed to be a 'non-lethal' weapon -- that delivers clouds of incapacitating gases -- but is it peaceful or hovering on the brink of illegality? The XM1063 will use a 155m howitzer to deliver its non-lethal payload. The weapon is already being tested in Iraq.

Congress Rejects Move to End Afghan War (PressTV & WSWS.org)
The US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Wednesday evening against a resolution to end the war in Afghanistan and begin a withdrawal of US troops within 30 days. The roll call vote, with only 65 in favor and 356 against, showed top-heavy majorities of both Democrats and Republicans opposing an early end to the war.

Patrick Kennedy: Media Doing "Dispicable" Job Covering Afghanistan (CBS Evening News)
Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) railed against the Washington press corps today on the House floor for paying more attention to the likes of scandal-ridden Eric Massa than the war in Afghanistan. "There's two press people in this gallery," Kennedy yelled during a debate over an anti-war resolution. "We're talking about Eric Massa 24-7 on the TV, we're talking about war and peace, $3 billion, 1,000 lives and no press? No press.

Rachel Corrie Family Finally Puts Israel in Dock (Jonathan Cook / The National & Global Research)
Seven years after Rachel Corrie, a US peace activist, was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza, her family was to put the Israeli government in the dock today. A judge in the northern Israeli city of Haifa was due to be presented with evidence that 23-year-old Corrie was killed unlawfully as she stood in the path of the bulldozer, trying to prevent it from demolishing Palestinian homes in Rafah.

Amir, Ten Years Old, Abducted by Israeli Soldiers from His Bed (Nora Barrows-Friedman / Electronic Intifada & CommonDreams)
At 2am, Israeli soldiers broke into Amir's house, snatched Amir from his bed and threatened his parents with death by gunfire if they tried to protect him. They took him downstairs under the stairwell. They beat him so badly that he would bleed internally into his abdomen, necessitating overnight hospitalization. In complete shock and distress, Amir would not open his mouth to speak for another day and a half.

Terror Leader Arrested Enroute to Meeeting with Top US Official Allegedly Confesses Guilt (FNA & Agence France-Presse & Reuters)
The Former Director of Pakistan's Military Intelligence Organization has blamed the US for creating and training terrorist groups. General Hamid Gol says Washington is supporting the terrorist organization, Jundollah, in an attempt to destabilize Iran. Abdolmalek Rigi, captured on his way to a meeting at a US military base, has reportedly confessed that the US has been backrolling his terrorist acts.

Israel Goes on Trial for Murder of US Protestor (Al Jazeera & BBC World News)
A court case brought by the family of Rachel Corrie, a US protester killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in 2003, has begun in Israel. The civil action against the Israeli defence ministry will decide whether damages should be paid for her death in Gaza at the age of 23. Ms Corrie had been trying to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes.

Secret US "Robo-Assassinations" Kill 12 More in Pakistan (Agence France-Presse & BBC News)
Six missiles were fired by suspected US drones in Pakistan, leaving 15 people dead. More than 700 people have been killed in nearly 80 drone strikes since August 2008. These illegal "targeted assassinations" have frequently killed civilians. The US refuses to take responsibility for the use of remotely piloted aircraft to murder people from the air.

Repent Amarillo: The Hate Group With A Nuclear Twist (The Daily Kos & Lee Fang / Think Progress & Forrest Wilder / The Texas Observer)
An evangelical Christian hate group called "Repent Amarillo" is reportedly terrorizing the town of Amarillo, Texas. Led by a man named David Grisham, a security guard at the Pantex nuclear-bomb facility, Repent fashions itself as a sort of militia and targets a wide range of community members they deem offensive to their theology: gays, liberal Christians, Muslims, environmentalists, breast cancer events that do not highlight abortion, Halloween, "spring break events," and pornography shops.

The Untouchable Budget: Defense Department, Inc. (Saul Landau & Nelson P. Valdes / CounterPunch & Democratic Underground)
President Obama called his $3.8-trillion budget a big step in restoring America's economic health. But he also declared the Pentagon's $1.5 trillion portion "untouchable." The Pentagon has laid siege to nearly 40% of the federal budget, dwarfing even the rescue package for the financial oligarchs. Once again, it's money taken from the have-nots and given to the have-mores.

100 Years Ago: International Women's Day Born (Megan Cornish / Global Research & Freedom Socialist Party & La Via Campesina)
March 8th marked the 100ths anniversary of International Women's Day. There were at least 984 events last year in 64 countries. IWD is an official holiday in 29 countries. Because profit system depends on the second-class status of women, the day is mostly honored in countries with an anti-capitalist history -- including China, Cuba, Vietnam, and states within Russia, Eastern Europe and Africa.

The Washington Post on 'Lunatic' 9/11 'Conspiracy Theorists' ( Jeremy R. Hammond / Foreign Policy Journal)
An editorial in the Washington Post slammed Japanese member of parliament Yukihisa Fujita because he "seems to think that America's rendering of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, is a gigantic hoax." Yet while serving out a hit piece against the global "9/11 Truth" movement, it is in fact the editors of the Washington Post who are demonstrably "fact-averse."

Proof that 9/11 Truthers Are Dangerous (Washington's Blog)
On March 8, ABC's Nightline attempted to debunk people who doubt the "official story" about the 9/11 attack as "conspiracy theorists" without "evidence." Below is a partial list of people who question what our Government has said about 9/11. The list of skeptics includes prominent politicians, military leaders, public figures, academics and even members of the government's own 9/11 Commission.

Fiction of Marjah as City Was US Misinformation ( Gareth Porter / Inter Press Service)
For weeks, the US public followed the biggest offensive of the Afghanistan War against what it was told was a "city of 80,000 people" as well as the logistical hub of the Taliban. It turns out, however, that Marjah is not a city or even a real town. The picture presented by military officials and obediently reported by major news media is one of the clearest and most dramatic pieces of misinformation of the entire war.

ACTION ALERT: War in Afghanistan Privileged Resolution (Hon. Dennis Kucinich / US House of Representatives)
This week a privileged resolution will be brought to the floor of the House of Representatives in an attempt to get America out of the war in Afghanistan. This resolution requires the President to remove the troops within 30 days from the time the resolution is passed and no later than December 31st. Please, contact members of Congress. The vote will occur on Wednesday.

US Moves to Place Missiles in Romania & Poland in April (Arn Specter / Special to EAW & Agence France-Presse & Romanian Times & UPI & SpaceWar.com)
US makes provocative military moves on Russia's Western boarder as Romania prepares to host three batteries of interceptor missiles as part of a planned US defence shield that has upset Russia. Confirming a move speculated for months, Poland has announced plans to host controversial US Patriot missiles and a contingent of US troops that will operate them, by April.

Obama Signs Patriot Act Extension without Reforms (Michael B. Farrell / Christian Science Monitor & ACLU Blog)
Privacy advocates had called for greater oversight on aspects of the Patriot Act that give the government broad powers. But the version Obama signed on February 28, moved through Congress unchanged.

Obama, Gates Not Always Eye-to-eye on New Nukes (Politico)
President Barack Obama has been clear. He wants no new nukes. Pentagon chief Robert Gates has been equally direct, advocating in recent years for a new generation of warheads. And nearly 14 months into their bipartisan-tinged partnership, Obama and Gates haven't publicly reconciled their views.

Policy Of Provocation (Khaled Amayreh / Al Ahram)
Israeli provocations, including annexing Islamic sites to an alleged heritage list, are creating a powder keg in the occupied territories, writes Khaled Amayreh in the West BankPalestinian officials have warned that recent Israeli provocations, including government-backed attempts by Jewish religious extremists to claim a foothold at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, are creating an incendiary situation in the occupied territories.

The Harlot's Grave (Uri Avnery / Gush Shalom)
After the Six-day War and the beginning of the occupation, the worship of holy places assumed a much more sinister character. It became an instrument of the settlers. Using holy sites to justify conquest and massacres is by no means an Israeli, or Jewish, invention.

A Debate over the Claim of "Muslim Disunity" (Qais Nawwaf / Dissident Voice & Paul Craig Robert / CounterPunch)
Commentary: "I took serious offense to Paul Craig Roberts' patronizing article, "Muslim Disunity: A Religion Divided Among Itself." Roberts audaciously states that the "reason Americans are still in Iraq is because the Iraqis hate each other more than they hate the American invader." Roberts blames the vast majority of the violence in the war on Iraqis themselves."

Action Alert: This Is How We Stop Blackwater (LiAnna Davis / CREDO Action from Working Assets)
More than 22,000 mercenaries are operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, and these unaccountable hired guns have shot civilians and participated in torture at Abu Ghraib and other detention facilities. The Stop Outsourcing Security Act, would prohibit hiring private mercenaries like Blackwater to perform tasks traditionally done by the military.

US Tightens Missile Shield Encirclement Of China And Russia ( Rick Rozoff / Global Research)
The US has succeeded in inflaming tensions with China and indefinitely holding up a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia through its relentless pursuit of global interceptor missile deployments. On January 29 the White House confirmed the completion of a nearly $6.5 billion weapons transfer to Taiwan which includes 200 advanced Patriot anti-ballistic missiles.

Planning for the Next War (Tom Engelhardt / Tom Dispatch.com)
Iraq remains a mess from which the US military seems increasingly uninterested in withdrawing fully and Afghanistan a disaster area, but itâ€™s never too soon to think about the next war. The subject is already on the minds of Pentagon planners. The question is: Are they focusing on how to manage future wars so that they wonâ€™t last longer than the American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II combined?

Polls Open in Iraq Election ( Al Jazeera & San Francisco Chronicle)
Around 19 million Iraqi voters will cast their ballots at 47,000 polling stations across the country in a â€œdemocraticâ€ election that bans the participation of members of certain political parties. Meanwhile, for expatriate Iraqis, it is proving easier to express their electoral preferences in Iran than in the US where some overseas Iraqis had to drive from Seattle to the San Francisco Bay Area to cast a ballot.

Obama Vows To Reduce Nuclear Arms (BBC News)
WASHINGTON (March 5, 2010) -- US President Barack Obama has pledged to cut the number and role of nuclear weapons in America's national security strategy. Mr Obama, marking the 40th anniversary of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, said a policy review would go "beyond outdated Cold War thinking."

Troops in Afghanistan Face New Rules for 'Night Raids' ( Lynne O'Donnell /Agence France-Presse)
Foreign troops in Afghanistan have been ordered to carry out night-time raids on people's homes only when absolutely necessary and only in the company of Afghan soldiers. The raids, mainly on people's homes, are now to be conducted with Afghan forces in the lead, women are to be searched by women, any property seized is to be recorded and any property damaged is to be compensated for.

Tha Cost of War in Afghanistan (Afghan Civil Society Forum, et al )
The past three decades of war and disorder have had a devastating impact on the Afghan people. Millions have been killed, millions more have been forced to flee their homes and the countryâ€™s infrastructure and forests have all but been destroyed. The social fabric of the country is fractured and state institutions are fragile and weak.

The Need to Demilitarize US National Security (Melvin A. Goodman / t r u t h o u t )
Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave a provocative speech at the National Defense University that revealed the a dangerous hold-ver of cold-war thinking. For the past several years, under both the Bush and Obama administrations, Gates has been making the case for turning NATO into an instrument for the projection of power abroad, using Afghanistan as an example of an expanded US global role.

Can Obama Assassinate Americans? ( Nat Hentoff / The Cato Institute)
During a Feb. 3 hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair testified that the US intelligence community, when dealing with direct terrorist threats to the United States, does "take direct action against terrorists" And "if we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that."

Two Suspects Entered US After Killing in Dubai ( Robert F. Worth / The New York Times)
At least two suspects in the killing of a Hamas official in a hotel here in January traveled to the US afterward. That disclosure broadened the scope of an international investigation that has fostered diplomatic tensions and cast a harsh light on the methods of Israelâ€™s intelligence service, the Mossad, which police officials here accuse of ordering the killing.

Mossad Comes to America: Death Squads by Invitation (Prof. James Petras / Global Research & petras.lahaine.org)
Commentary & Analysis: "Among the Mossad agents who entered Dubai to kill Mabhouh, twelve agents used stolen or forged British passports, three Australian, three French, one German and six Irish. These agents assumed the identity of European citizens to commit murder in a sovereign nation. Two of the 26 assassins, carrying fake Irish and fake UK passports, are known to have entered the US after the killing.

Iran vs. Israel: What The Media Wants You To Forget (What Really Happened)
The corporate media have been given their orders to throw the focus back on to Iran. Here is a recap of what they are trying to make you forget.

ACTION ALERT: How Kucinich's Resolution to End the War Will Help Us End the War (David Swanson / After Downing Street)
On March 4, Congressman Dennis Kucinich plans to introduce a privileged resolution to end the Afghan War. The resolution requires that the House debate, within the next week, the continuing war in Afghanistan, now the second longest war in US history. While the resolution may not win a majority vote, it will put many congress members on record as to whether they support or oppose this costly war.

An Atomic Credibility Gap: Obama Goes Nuclear (Karl Grossman / CounterPunch)
Is there any chance that President Barack Obama can return to his long-held stand critical of nuclear power? Is he open to hearing from scientists and energy experts, such as Amory Lovins, who can refute the pro-nuclear arguments that have apparently influenced him?

Deadly Gamble: Nuclear Power and You -- The Ten Big Lies! ( Karl Grossman / Karl Grossman.blogspot)
Advocates in government and the private sector are engaged in a massive drive to "revive" nuclear power. Here are ten Big Lies theyâ€™re using to promote their deadly agenda.

Israel's PM Faces Arrest over Dubai Assassination: Two Suspects Linked to US (Reuters, Al Jazeera & The Irish Times)
The head of the Dubai police is planning to seek the arrest of Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the head of the country's secret service, Mossad, over the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas leader. Meanwhile, it has been revealed that two of the suspected assassins fled to the US. Britain, Australia and Ireland are investigating the use of false passports in the murder. The US has not commented on the case.

America's Global Weapons Monopoly: Don't Call It "The Global Arms Trade" (Frida Berrigan / TomDispatch.com)
In 2008, according to a Congressional Research Service report, $55.2 billion in weapons deals were concluded worldwide. Of that total, the US was responsible for $37.8 billion in weapons sales agreements, or 68.4% of the total "trade." It doesn't take a PhD in economics to recognize that, when one nation accounts for nearly 70% of weapons sales, the term "global arms trade" doesn't quite cut it. The real word is "monopoly."

Obama's New Budget Increases Funding for Nuclear Weapons (Jay Coghlan / The Watch Blog â€“ Nuclear Watch New Mexico)
In the new budget request for 2011 the Obama Administration proposes to freeze discretionary domestic spending for programs such as education, nutrition, air traffic control and national parks for three years while dramatically increasing funding for new US nuclear weapons production facilities. Meanwhile the proposed budget for dismantling warheads retired from the stockpile is down by 40%.

Despite Non-Proliferation Pledge, Obama Budget Request Seeks Additional $7B for Nuclear Arsenal (Jay Coghlan & Amy Goodman / Democracy Now!)
As part of a record $3.8 trillion budget proposal, the Obama administration is asking Congress to increase spending on the US nuclear arsenal by more than $7 billion over the next five years. Obama is seeking the extra money despite a pledge to cut the US arsenal and seek a nuclear weapons-free world.

The War Movie You Don't Want to See (Michael Jernigan / New YOrk Times Online)
"Home Fires" is a New York Times online commentary post that features the writing of men and women who have returned from wartime service in the United States military. This is the second in a five-part series, â€œRetelling the War,â€ in which veterans discuss how books, movies and other tales of combat shaped their perceptions of themselves and of war.

The Most Dangerous Man in America (Film Review by Gar Smith / Environmenetalists Against War)
An Oscar-nominated documentary tells the story of former Marine company commander and Harvard PhD, Dan Ellsberg who went from writing President Johnson's war speeches to leaking the Pentagon Papers. It was while reading all 7,000 pages that Ellsberg came to realize: â€œItâ€™s not that we were on the wrong side, we WERE the wrong side. [The war] was a crime from the start.â€

Director John Cameron Defends "Avatar" against Right-wing Attacks (Glenn Whipp / Chicago Tribune Newspapers)
Right-wing pundits have called "Avatar" a "deep expression of anti-Americanism" with an environmentalist bias towards nature and Indigenous cultures. Cameron takes no small delight in these conservative attacks. "Let me put it this way," Cameron says during a recent dinner conversation at a Hollywood cafe. "I'm happy to (tick) those guys off. I don't agree with their worldview."

Military Voices Attack Oscar-nominated (Christian Davenport / Washington Post )
Many in the military say "Hurt Locker" is plagued by unforgivable inaccuracies that make the most critically acclaimed Iraq war film to date more a Hollywood fantasy than the searingly realistic rendition that civilians take it for. Some soldiers and veterans say the movie, a favorite for the best picture Oscar, portrays them as renegades and doesn't depict combat accurately. But film critics have praised its authenticity.

James Cameron: "I'm the Geenest Director in the World!" (Janet Wilson / Grist)
He's made the highest grossing film on the planet, but Hollywood mega-director James Cameron is now promoting "Avatar" as the most successful environmental film of all time, too. Really. "There is no studio anywhere in the world who would say an environmental message would make $3 billion ... I canâ€™t think of any other really commercially successful ones, can you?" "WALL-E?" replied his wife.

Iran Captures "Top CIA Terrorist" (Press-TV & Ray McGovern / Informationa Clearing House)
Abdolmalek Rigi, the ringleader of the Jundallah terrorist group, has been captured by Iranian authorities. Rigi reportedly was scheduled to meet US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke at the Manas Air Base for talks on waging an insurgency against the Islamic Republic of Iran. A former CIA officer provides analysis.

The New Name â€œOperation New Dawnâ€ (Fatih Abdulsalam / Azzaman)
Comentary: "No one exactly knows which 'dawn' the Americans are talking about as they pack and leave a country they have imploded and humiliated for seven years. Instead of the â€œdawnâ€ they are talking about, Iraqis have borne witness to rivers of blood, deprivation, hunger, displacement, a surge in number of prisons and new laws and regulation that allow any force with or without uniform to storm houses at night."

The Road to Armageddon: Architects Call for New 9/11 Investigation (Paul Craig Roberts / Information Clearing House & Jennifer Harper / Washington Times)
How did three World Trade Center skyscrapers suddenly disintegrate into fine dust? How did massive steel beams in three skyscrapers suddenly fail as a result of short-lived, isolated, and low temperature fires? â€œA thousand architects and engineers want to know, and are calling on Congress to order a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7,â€ reports the Washington Times.

Bullets for Ballots: Iraqi PM Accused of Handing Out Guns in Bid to Buy Tribal Votes (Martin Chulov / The Guardian & UrukNet)
A senior Iraqi spy has accused the prime minister, Nour al-Maliki, of handing out thousands of guns to tribal leaders in a bid to win votes. The claim was made by Iraqi National Intelligence Service former spokesman, Saad al-Alusi, a week before Iraq's general election, in which allegations of vote buying and exorbitant handouts have become widespread.

Allied Bid for Obama to Remove US European Nuclear Stockpile (Agence France-Presse)
European NATO allies are to urge President Barack Obama to remove all remaining US nuclear weapons from European soil, as domestic pressure grows to rid its soil of outdated Cold War-era aerial bombs. Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Norway will call "in the coming weeks" for more than 200 American warheads, mostly stocked in Italy and Turkey, to be returned to the US.

NATO States Want US Nukes Out of Europe (Arn Specter / ArnPeaceBlog & Agence France-Presse & Ralf Neukirch / Der Spiegel)
Tensions are mounting in Europe and the United States over the desire for the US to remove over 200 Nuclear Warheads from European soil, mostly from Italy and Turkey. Strong objections to the continued stockpiling of US nuclear weapons have come from Belgium and Germany, as reported in the two articles below.

US Nuclear Weapons Withdrawn From the United Kingdom (Hans M. Kristensen / Federation of Atomic Scientists)
Withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from three European bases since 2001 means that two-thirds of the arsenal is now on the southern flank. The removal of nuclear weapons from three bases in two NATO countries in less than a decade (which has not been officially announced) undercuts the argument for continuing deployment in other European countries.

USAF Report: 'Most' Nuclear Weapon Sites In Europe Do Not Meet US Security Requirements (Hans Kristensen / Federation of Atomic Scientists)
An internal US Air Force investigation has determined that â€œmost sitesâ€ currently used for deploying nuclear weapons in Europe do not meet Pentagon security requirements. The investigation followed an incident in 2007 when the Air Force lost track of six nuclear warheads for 36 hours as they were flow across the US without the knowledge of the military personnel in charge of safeguarding the weapons.

Iran Captures "Top CIA Terrorist" (Press-TV & Ray McGovern / Informationa Clearing House)
Abdolmalek Rigi, the ringleader of the Jundallah terrorist group, has been captured by Iranian authorities. Rigi reportedly was scheduled to meet US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke at the Manas Air Base for talks on waging an insurgency against the Islamic Republic of Iran. A former CIA officer provides analysis.

America's Secret Afghan Prisons (Anand Gopal / The Nation)
In the past few years Pashtun villagers in Afghanistan's rugged heartland have begun to lose faith in the American project. Many of them can point to the precise moment of this transformation, and it usually took place in the dead of night. These night raids (which frequently are followed by detentions and disappearances) have become even more feared and hated in Afghanistan than coalition airstrikes.

Beyond Oil â€” Energy In a Box (David R. Baker / San Francisco Chronicle)
Bloom Energy Corp., one of Silicon Valley's most secretive startups, unveiled on Wednesday its long-awaited "power plant in a box," a collection of fuel cells that the company says can provide clean electricity to homes, office buildings -- even whole villages in the developing world.

Fear in Baghdad; Fury in Missan over US Killings (Anwar Jumaa & Ali Mawsaiw & Talib al-Zamili / Azzaman.com)
Last Sunday 67 corpses were brought to Baghdad morgue all shot with silencer guns. The latest victim was a university professor shot dead as he drove home. Iraqi security forces might have succeeded in slashing the number of massive bomb attacks but have failed to contain violent crime. Meanwhile, the Governor of Missan has formally asked US troops for an apology and compensation for the killing of 10 Iraqis in his province.

The Afghan Mask Slips (Tom Engelhardt / Tom Dispatch)
So explain something to me: Why does the military of a country convinced it's becoming ungovernable think itself so capable of making another ungovernable country governable? Whatâ€™s the militaryâ€™s skill set here? What lore, what body of political knowledge, are they drawing on?

Afghan Resistance Against US Invaders (Eric Walberg / Global Research)
Commentary: "The thousands of civilians and resistance fighters who have been killed by airstrikes -- none of them guilty of anything more egregious than defending their homeland -- is more than ample proof, as is the craven propping up of a US-imposed government, and the proliferation of US bases in the country."

A Report From The Afghanistan Resistance (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan)
Perspective: "A 15,000-strong army of NATO, British and US forces has been carrying out military operations in Marjah. Jet bombers, unmanned drones, 60 gunship helicopters and 65-ton huge Abrahams and Shifton tanks are taking part in the operations. But despite the boasts and propaganda stunts, the enemy have not been able to make any headway against a small group of Mujahideen who are not more than 1000 armed men."

The Secret War Against Iran (Global Research & ABC News)
A Pakistani tribal militant group, called Jundullah, responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, US and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News.

Israel Drones 'Could Target Iran' (Al Jazeera)
Israel's air force has unveiled a fleet of Heron TP unmanned aircraft that its says are able to reach the Gulf, putting Iran within range. The drones, which have a wingspan the size of a Boeing 737 passenger jet, can fly at least 20 consecutive hours and be used for surveillance or launching a missile attack.

Dutch Confirm Afghan Troop Pullout Sparking Fears of Domino Effect (David Charter & Tom Coghlan / The Times)
NATO was left in fear of further troop withdrawals from Afghanistan yesterday after the Dutch Prime Minister conceded that he could not prevent his forces being pulled out this year after the collapse of the Government in The Hague

Berkeley Law Students Applaud DOJ Report Findings, Torture Memo Lawyers Engaged in Misconduct (David Swanson / After Downing Street)
The final report of the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) released Friday found that former Office of Legal Counsel lawyer John Yoo engaged in "intentional professional misconduct" and that Yoo's colleague, former Office of Legal Counsel lawyer John Bybee, engaged in "reckless disregard of his professional obligations" to promote the Bush administration's "War on Terror."

Two Commentaries on the Mossad -- Israeli's International Terrorists? (Ian Black / The Guardian & Gwynne Dyer / Vancouver Free Press)
Commentaries: "The recent, outlandish assassination in Dubai may prove the most damaging yet in the Mossad's history of high-profile, bungled operations. How did it squander its reputation for ruthless brilliance?" "The Israeli government will neither confirm nor deny it, but the average Israeli citizen is sure of it, and quite pleased by it. After all, who else was going to go after him?"

Liquidating the Empire: America's Warfare State (Patrick J. Buchanan / The Creators Group)
We invaded Panama and Haiti, smashed Iraq, liberated Kuwait, intervened in Somalia and Bosnia, bombed Serbia, and invaded Iraq again and Afghanistan. Now we prepare for a new war -- on Iran. We spend more on defense than the next 10 nations combined. Our Navy exceeds in firepower the next 13 navies combined. US troops are now stationed in 148 countries and 11 territories.

Behind Taliban Line (Frontline / Public Broadcasting System)
The story of an Afghan journalist's extraordinary 10 days living and filming with an insurgent cell allied with Al Qaeda to sabotage a key US/NATO supply route. And an interview with the filmmaker, Najibullah Quraishi.

McChrystal's Nightmare (James Bays / Al Jazeera)
Once again, a NATO attack has left civilians dead. Operation Moshtarak, the largest military offensive in Afghanistan since 2001, was supposed to be NATO's chance to retake the initiative. I remember similar incidents when, for days, the military claimed the dead were Taliban fighters, despite TV pictures showing the bodies of dead civilians. General McChrystal hoped a new start. This is a serious set-back.

Troop Deployments Hit Vermont Hard (Al Jazeera Video & Vermont Public Radio)
The military offensive in Marjah in southern Afghanistan is a crucial test of the US president's new strategy in the country. It is also the first major ground operation since Barack Obama ordered 30,000 additional troops to the country. The state of Vermont, which has been hit hard by continued troop deployments, for a war already into its eighth year.

How Air Force Secretly Stole Babies' Blood to Identify "Ethnic...Corpses" (Mary Ann Roser / American-Statesman)
Without parental consent or knowledge, the Texas State Health Department sent 800 anonymous samples of blood from newborn babies to the military to help create a national DNA database. Texas officials said they agreed to take part in the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory database project because the samples might help identify "ethnic or ancestral origins of unidentified corpses using mitochondrial DNA."

US Vows Probe into 27 Afghan Civilian Deaths as NATO Asssaults Trigger a "Humanitarian Crisis" (Reuters & Al Jazeera & Washington Post)
Sunday's airstrike was the second time in nine days that NATO has apologized for killing civilians. More than a week into the NATO-Afghan offensive against the Taliban in the town of Marjah, warnings of a humanitarian crisis are growing. Members of a fleeing family say they fled the fighting because they could stop neither the Taliban nor US soldiers from entering their homes.

Burma's Kachin Army Prepares for Civil War (Alastair Leithead / BBC News)
Their discipline is good, their uniforms smart and there is little doubting their sense of purpose or patriotism towards the red and green flag with crossed machetes they proudly wear on their right shoulders. They are the next generation of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), and say they are not afraid to be the generation that fights in a civil war many fear may soon be upon them.

The Mossad's Secret Wars ( Al Jazeera)
The Mossad has built itself a formidable reputation for killing enemies of Israel. For more than half a century, the Mossad has been blamed for numerous killings around the world, and is often at the centre of conspiracy theories, including those surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the 1998 Lockerbie bombing and the 911 attacks in the US.

ACTION ALERT: NYC Peace Grannies to Hold Memorial for 1,000 GI Deaths In Afghanistan (Peace Grannies / New York City)
According to www.icasualties.com, the number of US soldiers killed in Afghanistan has reached 1,000 as of today, Feb. 22.Therefore, Grandmothers Against the War will go ahead with its commemorative vigil Tuesday, Feb. 23, at 5:30 p.m. at its regular weekly Rockefeller Center vigil site â€” the west side of 5th Ave. between 49th and 50th Sts.

A Base for War Training, and Species Preservation (Leslie Kaufman / The New York Times)
Even as it conducts round-the-clock exercises to support two wars, Fort Stewart spends as much as $3 million a year on wildlife management, grooming its 279,000 acres to accommodate five endangered species that live there. Last year, the wildlife staff built about 100 artificial cavities 25 feet high in large pines so the red-cockaded woodpeckers did not have to toil for six months to build the nests.

Falklands War II? War Over Oil? (David Leask / The Scotsman)
"The Malvinas will never be surrendered," said Cristina Kirchner, Argentina's president. Britain, which has held the Falklands since 1833, has made it equally clear it is ready to stand up for its rights to the potentially resource-rich seas around them. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the UK had "made all the preparations that are necessary to make sure the Falkland islanders are properly protected."

Peace Now Holds 'Masquerade Carnival' to Protest Government (Ben Hartman / The Jerusalem Post)
A week before Purim, the Israeli anti-war organization, Peace Now, handed out dozens of masks depicting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak at a "satirical" demonstration in Tel Aviv on Saturday night meant to protest what activists and speakers described as the government's dangerous policies.

Analyzing Obama's Nuclear Power Turn-around (AlterNet & Harvey Wasserman / The Free Press)
Commentary: "Okay. One more time. Nuclear power is neither safe nor clean. As I listened to Obama give his speech, I couldnâ€™t understand why he was buying into this big lie. Nuclear energy is not clean. It does not equate to wind and solar. Itâ€™s not even close." "As Vermont seethes with radioactive contamination and the Democratic Party crumbles, Barack Obama has plunged into the atomic abyss."

The Battle for Marjah. Why the US Has Already Lost (Dave Lindorff / Counter Punch & Deborah Sweet / World Can't Wait)
The fighting is still underway in the town of Marjah, in what is being described as the first battle in Obama's War in Afghanistan, or alternatively as the biggest battle of the US War in Afghanistan. But already, the US has lost that battle. It lost it from day one, when troops fired missiles in to a Marjah house, killing 12 civilian occupants -- half of them children.

Obama's Surge vs. Afghanistan's Eco-System (Mickey Z / Planet Green)
Commentary: "The environmental costs of war are no secret but the stakes continue to rise with the US using weapons such as depleted uranium. Afghanistan now has 33 species on its endangered list. However, the National Environmental Protection Agency expects that list to grow to over 80 species by the end of the year.

Environmentalists Oppose Army's Plan to Blow Up Old Chemical Weapons (Jeffrey McMurray / Associated Press & Tina Redlup / BioPrep Watch )
Under the gun to destroy the US chemical weapons stockpiles -- and now all but certain to miss their deadline -- Army officials have a plan to hasten the process: Blow some of them up.

The Guantanamo "Suicides": A Camp Delta Sergeant Blows the Whistle (Scott Horton / Harper's Magazine)
When President Obama took office, he promised to "restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great" by closing the Guantanamo prison. A year later, emerging evidence suggests the abuses of the Bush presidency are being maintained by the current administration -- including failure to investigate the possible homicides of three prisoners.

NATO Commanders on Afghan Civilian Deaths: Rockets (Craig Considine / World Can't Wait)
Two NATO HIMARS rockets hit a home in Marjah and killed 12 civilians -- 10 of which were of one family, 6 of which were children. NATO commanders said the rockets 'misfired' by up to 300 meters. The whole operation was deemed a regrettable and "unfortunate consequences of war." But Major General Nick Carter of Great Britain subsequently admitted the rockets did not malfunction, that they did indeed hit their intended target.

Following The Mineral Trail: Congo Resource Wars and Rwanda (John Lasker / Toward Freedom)
In 2000, Rwanda, an African ally of Washington, produced 83 tons of coltan from its own mines but found a way to export a total of 603 tons that year, according to figures from the National Bank of Rwanda. The Rwandan army, which at the time was receiving funding and training from the US military, made $250 million selling stolen Congolese minerals, most likely purchased from their shadow militias.

UK Presses Israel on Dubai Murder (BBC News)
The British government has called in the Israeli ambassador to discuss the use of fake UK passports by the alleged killers of a Hamas commander in Dubai. Gordon Brown has also ordered an inquiry into the passports, which bear the names of six British-Israelis who are not the men pictured.

Dubai Calls for Arrest of Mossad Chief; An Israeli Calls for an End to Mossad Terrorism (Julian Borger and Mark Tran / The Guardian & Gilad Atzmon)
Commentary: "Interpol should help arrest the head of Mossad if Israel's spy agency was responsible for the killing of a Hamas commander in Dubai, the emirate's police chief said today. Emirate is '99% sure' Israeli spies were behind Mabhouh death. Britain has ask its Israeli ambassador to explain use of fake British passports."

Call to Arrest Mossad Chief; A Long History of Isreali Assassinations (Julian Borger and Mark Tran / The Guardian & Heather Sharp / BBC News)
Interpol should help arrest the head of Mossad if Israel's spy agency was responsible for the killing of a Hamas commander in Dubai, the emirate's police chief said today. Emirate is '99% sure' Israeli spies were behind Mabhouh death. Britain has ask its Israeli ambassador to explain use of fake British passports.

Suicide Letter of Man who Crashed Into IRS Building In Austin Texas (A. Joseph Stack)
What is it that drives some people to execute acts of terror aimed against political targets and innocent civilians. In the case of the Joe Stack, the grievances were wide-ranging, home-grown. Stack's Web site was removed from the Internet at the request of the FBI, but not before his message was copied and widely circulated.

The Richest 1% Have Captured America's Wealth What's It Going to Take to Get It Back? (David DeGraw / AlterNet & Information Clearing House)
The US already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis â€” and it's gotten even worse. As a record amount of US citizens are struggling to get by, many of the largest corporations are experiencing record-breaking profits, and CEOs are receiving record-breaking bonuses. How could this be happening, how did we get to this point?

The Economic Elite Have Engineered an Extraordinary Coup, Threatening the Very Existence of the Middle Class (David DeGraw / AlterNet & Information Clearing House)
The economic elite have robbed us all. The amount of suffering in the United States of America is literally a crime against humanity.

Martial Law? There's an App for That (Los Angeles Times & National Public Radio & Christian Science Monitor)
What if a crippling attack struck the country's cellphones and other digital infrastructure? Experts including current and former officials tackle the question. The peril is real and growing and the responses could include a government shutdown of all phone service and a declaration of martial law. But why the focus on Al-Qaeda when North Korea and China have already launched successful attacks on the US?

Cancer: A Deadly Legacy of the Invasion of Iraq (Jalal Ghazi / Al Jazeera English & New America Media)
Cancer is spreading like wildfire in Iraq. Thousands of infants are being born with deformities. Doctors say they are struggling to cope with the rise of cancer and birth defects, especially in cities subjected to heavy American and British bombardment.

Cheney Admits to War Crimes, Media Yawns, Obama Turns the Other Cheek (Jason Leopold / t r u t h o u t | News Analysis)
In an exclusive interview onABC News' "This Week," former Vice President Dick Cheney proclaimed his love of torture and derided the Obama Administration for outlawing the practice. "I was a big supporter of waterboarding," Cheney told his listening audience, "I was a big supporter of the enhanced interrogation techniques..."

Questions Raised About Role of Military Chaplains (John Lasker / t r u t h o u t | Report)
While the US military continues to aggressively recruit Roman Catholic priests as chaplains, some Catholics question whether the military seeks priests as spiritual guides or as "force-multipliers."

Video: Dubai Names Hamas 'Killer Team' (BBC News & Al Jazeera)
Police in Dubai are to issue arrest warrants for 11 "agents with European passports" suspected of assassinating a top Hamas official last month. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was murdered in his hotel room in Dubai on 20 January. Reports have suggested that he was in Dubai to buy weapons for Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas. It has accused Israeli agents of killing him.

Interview with Murdered Hamas Leader Mahmoud Abdul Raouf al-Mabhouh (Al Jazeera Arabic)
Approximately 10 months ago, Al Jazeera Arabic interviewed a man in Damascus, Syria who was believed to be part of a cell that had kidnapped and killed two Israeli soldiers in 1989. Al Jazeera has since learned that the man -- who kept his face covered for the interview -- was Mahmoud Abdul Raouf al-Mabhouh, a Hamas military commander who was killed in Dubai on January 20. Here is a transcript of the interview.

Accord Reached with US on Drones: Reports ( Correspondent / The Dawn)
As a US national security team held strategic talks in Islamabad, defense and intelligence officials told the media that Pakistan and the US seemed to have a broad agreement on the use of unmanned drones for attacks inside the country. Meanwhile, major US media urged Washington to employ â€œrespect, reconciliation and religious freedomâ€ to defeat Taliban insurgents on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border.

The War in Afghanistan -- The View from the Other Side of the Gun Barrell (The Unjust Media.com )
The battle in Afghanistan is being waged on the ground and also in cyberspace. Compare reports in the US media to this report from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on "operations against the enemies of Islam" reported by e-mails from Mujahideen fighting US and NATO troops. The Mujahideen claim an inflated number of casualties that is far higher than anything reported in the Wesstern media.

Army to Discharge Single Mom, Rather Than Court-Martial Her (Dahr Jamail / t r u t h o u t | Report)
Last fall, Army Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother, was ordered to prepare to deploy to Afghanistan but after her childcare plans fell through, Hutchinson was faced with a dilemma. If she refused to abandon her young son, she faced imprisonment by the Army. On February 11, Army Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother, was informed she would be granted an administrative discharge from the Army.

Civilian Death Toll Climbs in Afghan Offensive (Alfred de Montesquiou / Associated Press)
Three more Afghan civilians have been killed in the assault on a southern Taliban stronghold, NATO forces said Tuesday, highlighting the toll on the population from an offensive aimed at making them safer.

ACTION ALERT: US Poised to Commit War Crimes in Marjah (Robert Naiman / t r u t h o u t | News Analysis)
If the United States cannot protect civilians in Marjah, as the US is required to do under the laws of war, the assault should be called off. Under international law, every US citizen is legally obligated to work to bring about the compliance of the United States with international law.

Did NBC's Broadcast Ignore a War Crime? (Gar Smith / Environmentalists Against War)
The broadcast version of the NBC Nightly News for February 15, contained a report on the US incursion into the Marjah region that described how the villagers voluntarily came forth to offer information on the location of hidden weapons. However, the unedited Web-only version of the story suggests that the US Marines may have committed actions that violate the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of civilians.

Civilians Die in Afghan Offensive (BBC News & Al Jazeera)
NATO has confirmed that two rockets fired at militants during its offensive in Helmand, south Afghanistan, missed their target and killed 12 civilians. Two rockets from a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System missed its intended target by approximately 300 metres â€” nearly one-fifth of a mile. The rockets struck a house in Marjah as thousands of NATO troops continued their operations to oust the Taliban.

The Deadly Debris Of War (Dorothy Bryant / The Daily )
Year after year, innocent civilians (many of them children) are injured and killed -- in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Georgia/Abkhazia, Kosovo, Mozambique, Nagorno Karabakh, Somaliland, and Sri Lanka -- by the debris of past wars: landmines; large caliber ordnance; ammunition, from shells to bullets; and weapons, from assault rifles to heavy weapons systems.The 21-year-old HALO Trust is working to reduce these dangers.

Women at War: Life on the Front Line (BBC World News)
The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are the first in which tens of thousands of women have fought alongside men for prolonged periods. This week the BBC World Service is taking an in-depth look at women's stories from the front line. Robyn Bresnahan reports on one Canadian commander based in Kandahar.

What Do Empires Do? (Michael Parenti / ZSpace & Common Dreams)
Commentary: "When I wrote my book "Against Empire" in 1995, some of my US compatriots thought it was wrong to call the US an empire. It was widely believed that US rulers only intervened abroad out of self-defense or to overthrow tyranny. But by 2000, even right-wing pundits were proclaiming: 'We're an empire, with all the responsibilities and opportunities of empire and we better get used to it.'"

Ethiopian Jetliner Brought Down by Terrorist Bomb: Cover-up Alleged (DebkaFile & China Peoples Daily & The Telegraph & Associated Press)
After an Ethiopian plane imexplicably reversed course and fell from the sky in flames, Ethiopian, French, British and US authorities rushed to dispel the idea that the tragedy was the result of terrorism. But information now suggests the plane was destroyed by a bomb blast that targeted a team of French intelligence agents. The success of the attack could explain why officials would be engaged in a cover-up.

Globalization Is Killing The Globe: Return to Local Economies (Thom Hartmann / The Huffington Post)
Commentary: "Globalization is killing Europe, just as it's already wiped out much of the American middle class. Spain and Greece are facing immediate crises that many other European nations see on the near horizon. Nations â€” and in large countries like the USA, even states â€” must again rebuild their manufacturing base and become locally self-sufficient. Globalization is the villain here."

Descent Into Barbarism: The US and NATO Wage War on the World (Finian Cunningham / Global Research)
Commentary: "The profit system has hit an historic dead-end. Similar historic junctures have been witnessed before when capitalism floundered from its inexorable tendency to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Disturbingly, the release valve for the system and its bankruptcy has always been war. Death and destruction is the lender of last resort."

Obama's Secret Prisons in Afghanistan Endanger Us All (Johann Hari / The Independent)
Barack Obama was elected, in part, to distance the country from the practices of torture and illegal detention. Instead, he is dragging us further in. Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base is being given a $60 million expansion to hold five times as many prisoners as Guantanamo Bay. Other foreign prisons are so underground they are known only by the names given to them by released inmates â€” the Salt Pit, the Prison of Darkness.

"The Spirit of the Olympics": Vancouver Becomes a "Police State" (BC Civil Liberties Association)
In the name of "security," the police force and city officials charged with protecting Vancouver and the 2010 Olympics have covered the city with surveillance cameras, beefed up police equipment, marginalized free speech and purchased a tank-mounted "sonic weapons" to disburse any protesters. And yes, the cameras will remain installed and working long after the Olympic flame is extinguished.

Olympic Surveillance Cameras Causing Concern (CBC News)
Security personnel are installing hundreds of closed circuit surveillance cameras around downtown Vancouver in preparation for the Olympics, but questions remains about whether or not many of the cameras will be removed after the Games.

Privacy and Security at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games (Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada)
In Athens, host of the first post-9/11 Summer Games in 2004, police wanted to continue using nearly 350 closed-circuit television cameras to monitor political protests after the Games ended. This sparked a public outcry that lead to the resignations of top officials of the Greek Data Protection Authority. Will Vancouver follow recommendatons of its own Privacy Commissioner and have the spy-cams removed after the games end?

â€œMy Country Has Been Hijackedâ€ (Cynthia McKinney / Munich Peace Rally Speech)
Commentary from former US Representative and Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney: "My country has been hijacked by a criminal cabal intent on using the hard-earned dollars of the American people for war, occupation, and empire. As a result, the national leadership of my country, both Democratic and Republican, became complicit in war crimes, torture, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace."

Descent Into Barbarism: The US and NATO Wage War on the World (Finian Cunningham / Global Research)
Commentary: "The profit system has hit an historic dead-end. Similar historic junctures have been witnessed before when capitalism floundered from its inexorable tendency to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Disturbingly, the release valve for the system and its bankruptcy has always been war. Death and destruction is the lender of last resort."

FBI Accused of Pakistan 'Torture' (Syed Shoaib Hasan / BBC News)
Five US citizens held in Pakistan on suspicion of plotting attacks have alleged that US officials directed their torture to extract confessions. The men, aged 18-25, deny claims they were plotting attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan and had sought links with extremists.

British Crisis over Torture Scandal (Richard Norton-Taylor & Ian Cobain / The Guardian)
For years Britainâ€™s security and intelligence agencies, backed up by the government, have insisted that they have no truck with torture but there has been a call for public inquiry after Security Service lost its legal battle to suppress court document showing involvement in torture of British resident Binyam Mohamed.

Britain Reveals US Torture of Detainee (Karla Adam / Washington Post)
The British government has disclosed once-secret details about the US' harsh treatment of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee after losing a lengthy legal battle to suppress the information. The information, from a judge's summary of a classified CIA report said Binyam Mohamed was subjected to "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment during interrogations in Pakistan in 2002.

Why The Oscars Are A Con (John Pilger / Johnpilger.com)
Commentary: "This yearâ€™s Oscar nominations are a parade of propaganda, stereotypes and downright dishonesty. The dominant theme is as old as Hollywood: Americaâ€™s divine right to invade other societies, steal their history and occupy our memory."

It Is Now Official: The US Is a Police State (Paul Craig Roberts / Anti-War.com)
Americans have been losing the protection of law for years. In the 21st century the loss of legal protections accelerated with the Bush administrationâ€™s â€œwar on terror.â€ This trend, which is continuing under the Obama administration, is essentially a war on the Constitution and US civil liberties.

Freedom Rider: Obamaâ€™s Murder Inc. (Margaret Kimberley / Black Agenda Report)
When the president can coldly order the extrajudicial killing of American citizens, the rule of law ceases to exist. Yet only Rep. Dennis Kucinich has categorically challenged President Obama's claim to be legal judge, jury and executioner. â€œWe have a 'gangsta' presidency and a Congress that isnâ€™t any better.â€

ACTION ALERT: Condemn White House "Death List" (Prof. Francis A. Boyle & Hon. Dennis Kucinich)
A respected expert on international law argues that the "extrajudicial execution of human beings constitutes a grave violation of international human rights law and, under certain circumstances, can also constitute a war crime under the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949." Congressmember Dennis Kucinick has raised a lone voice of protest over the White House's creation of "death lists" targeting American citizens.

America's Plan for 700 Military Bases in Afghanistan (Tom Engelhardt & Nick Turse / TomDispatch)
In 2003, when the Bush administration invaded Iraq, the Pentagon already had on its drawing boards plans for building a series of permanent mega-bases in that country. According to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size now dot the Afghan countryside, and more are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last year.

Global Rise in 'School Terror Attacks' (Sean Coughlan / BBC News)
"Brutal attacks" on teachers and pupils are being used as a tactic of terror and political violence, says an international report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

The â€œOsama to Obamaâ€ Audiotape and the Construction of Fear (ABC News & )
Despite the importance attributed to Osama Bin Laden by the US media, his messages are almost never published in the Western press. Instead, they are â€œcharacterizedâ€ to maximize and sustain fear. Compare the actual â€œOsama to Obamaâ€ transcript with the mainstream reporting below. Note that none of the press coverage mentions â€œGaza,â€ the core of Bin Ladenâ€™s message.

Rising Violence Targets Pakistan's Women: 2,188 Murdered in 2009 (Middle East Media Research Institute)
One of the reasons given for the US invasion of Afghanistan was that intervention was needed to easy the burden of Afghan women who were suffering under the harsh religious rule of the Taliban. Will the plight of Pakistan's women engender the same level of concern in Washington?

Pentagon Looks to Breed Immortal â€˜Synthetic Organismsâ€™ (Katie Drummond / Wired Magazine )
The Pentagonâ€™s mad science arm may have come up with its most radical project yet. DARPA is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the militaryâ€™s advantage, creating â€œsynthetic organismsâ€ that can live forever â€” or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch.

Obama's Afghan Surge Driving Thousands From Their Homes (Chris Floyd /Empire Burlesque)
Commentary: "Barack Obama's Bush-like "surge" in Afghanistan has not even reached its full strength yet, but it is already driving tens of thousands of Afghan civilians from their homes, as they flee an upcoming massive attack in Helmand province."

Wars Sending US into Ruin (Eric Margolis / Toronto Sun)
Commentary: "US President Barack Obama calls the $3.8-trillion US budget he just sent to Congress a major step in restoring America's economic health. In fact, it's another potent fix given to a sick patient deeply addicted to the dangerous drug â€” debt. More empires have fallen because of reckless finances than invasion. The latest example was the Soviet Union, which spent itself into ruin by buying tanks."

Yemen and The Militarization of Strategic Waterways (Michel Chossudovsky / Global Research)
The islands of Socotra are a wildlife reserve recognized by (UNESCO), as a World Natural Heritage Site. Ufortunately, Socotra sits at the crossroads of the strategic naval waterways of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It is of crucial importance to the US military. A military base in Socotra could be used to oversee the movement of vessels including war ships in an out of the Gulf of Aden.

Will There Be a Doup dâ€™Ã©tat in Iraq? (Fatih Abdulsalam / Azzaman)
Analysis: "Our democracy has been a restricted and conditional one. It has been confined to a limited circle of factions and personalities committed to a political program agreed to prior to the countryâ€™s occupation.... Have Iraqi factions, those in the government and outside, prepared themselves for the post-US Iraq? That is a question for which the answer is negative at least for the time being."

America's Silent War in Pakistan Unmasked (Abdus Sattar Ghazali / OpEd News)
The Pentagon's so-called "Salvador Option" (a practice of "pacification" through the use of death-squads to commit mass-murder) was first applied in Vietnam, under the rubric of the "Phoenix Program." It also has been applied in Iraq and now is coming to Pakistan, compliments of US military.

Assassinating US Citizens Raises "Troubling Issues" (David Edwards and Muriel Kane / Raw Story)
The admission by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair that the United States intelligence community is authorized to assassinate Americans working with terrorists overseas has raised serious questions of constitutionality.

Brown Accused of Cover-up: PM Under Fire as Key Papers on Iraq War Are Kept Confidential (James Chapman / The Daily Mail )
Cover-up charges fly in Britain as Prime Minister Gordon Brown is accused of having 'gagged' the Iraq inquiry by blocking the release of secret documents about the war. Lord Goldsmith condemned the Government's refusal to declassify key papers, meaning they cannot be made public or even quoted from by the inquiry panel during questioning.

Dr Aafia Siddiqui and The Truth About US Justice (Yvonne Ridley / Information Clearing House)
Commentary: " Many of us are still in a state of shock over the guilty verdict returned on Dr Aafia Siddiqui.... Even some of the US media expressed discomfort over the verdict returned by the jurors â€¦ there was a general feeling that something was not right.

Afghanistan and NATO: Figleaf Summit (Eric Walberg / )
The plan voiced at the London Afghanistan conference to pay off the Taliban is belied by the plan at the Brussels NATO conference two days earlier to bomb them into submission.

Thousands of Civilians Flee Afghan Region as NATO Plans Onslaught (Jon Boone / The Guardian)
Ten of thousands of Afghan civilians are abandoning an area of central Helmland where UK and US forces are set to launch one of the biggest operations of the year.

Airport Body Scanning Raises Radiation Exposure, Committee Says (Jonathan Tirone /Bloomberg)
In a secret report, the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety warns that air passengers should be made aware of the health risks of airport body screenings and governments must explain any decision to expose the public to higher levels of pregnant women and children should not be subject to scanning.

Pentagon to Increase Stock of High-Altitude Drones (Tony Capaccio / Bloomberg)
The US military plans to more than triple its inventory of high-altitude, armed and unarmed drones capable of 24-hour patrols by 2020. The long-range aviation plan delivered to Congress Feb. 2 calls for 800 high-altitude drones, up from 220 currently.

CIA Has Program to Assassinate US Citizens (Thomas R. Eddlem / The New American)
The US Central Intelligence Agency has maintained an assassination list of US citizens for the last eight year and has actually assassinated Americans. In 2000, the CIA used a remotely powered drone to destroy a car in Yemen, killing a US citizen named Kamal Derwish.

Extrajudicial Killing: Intelligence Chief Says CIA Can Kill Americans Abroad (Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post )
Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair acknowledged Wednesday that government agencies may kill US citizens abroad who are involved in terrorist activities if they are "taking action that threatens Americans."

Top 10 Problems With America Assassinating Americans (David Swanson / Global Research)
The director of US national intelligence told the House Intelligence Committee the government has the right to kill Americans abroad. Here are ten reasons why this may not be such a good idea.

What Americans Really Have to Fear (Scott Fina / Santa Barbara Independent & Global Research)
I was among seven people arrested on January 31 for protesting outside the main gate of Vandenberg Air Force Base. My arrest had nothing to do with the security of our country, however, if convicted, my fellow protestors and I face a potential fine of $5,000 and up to one year in prison. The real story of our arrests concerns the United States Constitution.

Muscling Latin America (Greg Grandin / The Nation)
After Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, delivered on an election promise and refused to renew Washington's rent-free lease on an air base in his country, Washington answered with a show of force. The US and Colombia signed an agreement granting the Pentagon use of seven military bases, along with an unlimited number of as yet unspecified "facilities and locations."

Iraq Rice Yields Slump; Rice Imports Surge (Ali Shatab / Assaman.com)
Iraq harvested less rice this year than any other year before. Iraq currently imports about 10 times as much rice as it produces â€“ that is about 1 million tons a year.

Decoding the Secret 'Jesus' Messages on US Military Weapons (Brian Ross / ABC News)
In August of 2005 Trijicon was awarded a $660 million dollar, multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 of its Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight (ACOG) to the US Marine Corps. At the end of the scope's model number, you can read "JN8:12", which is a reference to the New Testament book of John: "He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."

'Justice Denied' in CIA Shootdown of US Missionary Family (Matthew Cole & Brian Ross / ABC News & CIA)
On February 3, 2010, Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra, ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee, accused the CIA todof lying to Congress and covering up its role in the deaths of two innocent Americans, a mother and her infant daughter, at the hands of the CIA and the Peruvian Air Force nine years ago. The CIA has issued a dening the accusation.

Cowardly Congress Lets President Drag USA Into War ( Sherwood Ross / OpEd News)
America frequently makes wars because Congress allows the White House to make the decision for war. "Congressmen and Congresswomen are almost always political cowards, and they care only about staying in office," says Lawrence Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law. "They don't wish to cast a decision-making vote on war lest their individual decisions...cost them the next election."

Army Imprisions Soldier over Anti-war Song (Lloyd Rowsey / OpEd News & Jeff Schogol / Stars and Stripes)
The Army's "Stop-Loss" program has been called a "Backdoor Draft" and a form of illegal "enslavement" that forces soldiers to continue to risk their lives after their Army contract has expired and their term of service has ended. Army Specialist Marc Hall is in jail charged with recording a violent rap song that describes shooting those responsible for his stop-loss orders.

Under the Army's Stop Loss Policy, American Soldiers Are Enslaved to Fight (US Army Specialist Marc A Hall)
The Army's Stop-Loss program forces soldiers ato stay in the military even though they have already served and are finished with their contract as a soldier. Soldiers who rebel against are threatened with military scare tactics such as the Uniform Code of Military Justice which calls for a four-year prison term for anyone who dares resist.

Hillary Clinton's Prescription: Make The World A NATO Protectorate (Rick Rozoff / OpEd News)
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was busy in London and Paris last week advancing the new Euro-Atlantic agenda for the world. When a US secretary of state speaks the world pays heed. Any nation that doesn't will suffer the consequences of that inattention, that disrespect toward the imperatrix mundi.

Budgets, War and Blind Ambition: The Limited Minds of the American Elite (Chris Floyd / Empire Burlesque)
The American elite's unbounded, unquestioned and unconscious sense of imperial entitlement and dominance â€” based ultimately on war, the threat of war and the profit from war â€” is one of the defining characteristics of our age. If you would like to see a glaring example, look no further than the front page of the New York Times and its analysis of the Administration's just-announced $3.8 trillion budget.

Iraq to File Nuclear Warfare Lawsuit against US and Britain (The Siasat Daily)
Iraq's Ministry for Human Rights will file a lawsuit against Britain and the US over the use of depleted uranium bombs in Iraq. According to the reports, during the first year of the US and British invasion of Iraq, both countries had repeatedly used bombs containing depleted uranium. Atomic radiation has increased the number of babies born with defects in the southern provinces of Iraq, including Basra.

Plan to Oust Saddam Drawn Up Two Years before Invasion (Michael Savage, Political Correspondent / The Independent)
It has now been revealed that secret documents exist signaling that, long before the "decision was made" to topple Saddam Hussein, Britain was secretly plotting the overthrow of the Iraqi government by offering support to Iraqi dissidents and promising aid, oil and trade deals.

Chilcot Inquiry: Iraq Invasion Had No 'Legal Basis in International Law' (The Telegraph)
Senior British government lawyer Sir Michael Wood has told the Chilcot Inquiry that the invasion of Iraq had no "legal basis in international law." Sir Michael concluded: "In my opinion, that use of force had not been authorized by the (United Nations) Security Council, and had no other basis in international law."

Another US War? Obama Threatens China and Iran (Shamus Cooke / Global Research )
The possibility of yet another US war became more real last week, when the Obama administration sharply confronted both China and Iran. The first aggressive act was performed by Obama's Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who 'warned' China that it must support serious economic sanctions against Iran â€” i.e., an act of war.

US Arms for Taiwan Send Beijing a Message (Helene Cooper)
For the past year, China has adopted an increasingly muscular position toward the United States. Now, the Obama administration has started to push back. In announcing an arms sales package to Taiwan worth $6 billion on Friday, the United States leveled a direct strike at the heart of the most sensitive diplomatic issue between the two countries since America affirmed the "one China" policy in 1972.

Call for Blair to Face Trial in Scotland (Eddie Barnes, Political Editor)
Eight Members of Parliament have suggested that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair should be brought to trial before a court in Scotland on charges that he knowingly lead the nation to war on a suite of fabrications and false information.

The Corporate Takeover of US Democracy (Noam Chomsky/ In These Times)
January 21, 2010, will go down as a dark day in the history of US democracy, and its decline. On that day the US Supreme Court ruled that the government may not ban corporations from political spending on elections â€” a decision that profoundly affects government policy, both domestic and international. The decision heralds even further corporate takeover of the US political system.

Less Than Citizens (Part Two): Occupation Wars and Rights (Nick Mottern / t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed)
As President Barack Obama begins ordering 30,000 more soldiers into the Afghanistan/Pakistan War, Michele's statement raises two fundamental questions: How is the United States using its "all volunteer" military, and is this not violating basic civil and human rights of US military personnel and their families?

US Refuses to Allow Monitoring of WMD (Carl Herman / The Examiner & Noel Brinkerhoff / Associated Press)
President Obama rejected inspection protocol for US biological weapons, in Orwellian contradiction to his statement to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). This comes after increased US investment in bio-weapons during the Bush Administration with multiple reports of secret and illegal programs.

Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret CIA Raids (James Risen & Mark Mazzetti / The New York Times)
Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the CIA’s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials.

Ecuador Says U. Helped Colombia Plan 2008 Bombing (Hugh Bronstein / Reuters)
US intelligence from inside Ecuador was used to plan a 2008 bombing by Colombian troops that killed a top FARC guerrilla chieftain inside Ecuadorean territory. A 130-page report prepared by the Ecuadorean government says US forces then based in the Pacific coast town of Manta helped Colombian troops target Raul Reyes, No. 2 commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Global Warming Also Triggers Military Conflict (Madeleine Bair / East Bay Express)
If the legislators stalling a climate agreement in Copenhagen aren't sympathetic to photos of ice caps and polar bears, perhaps the prospect of more Darfurs will catch their attention. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences links global warming to human warfare and warns that over the next 20 years, if nothing is done, projected temperature increases in sub-Saharan Africa could lead to the slaughter of an additional 400,000 Africans.

Controling Climate Collapse Means Abolishing War and Multinational Corporations (Harvey Wasserman / The Free Press )
Commentary: "Waste is not sustainable. Nor is its most toxic incarnation — war. War in all forms, in all places, for all reasons, is a private profit center that furthers human, ecological and financial suicide. It is deeply ingrained in the human condition. But, one way or another, war must be definitively relegated to the compost heap of evolution."

(Ann Wright / Information Clearing House & Ben Lynfield / The Independent)
In March 2009, the US gave Egypt with $32 million for border security projects. Now details are emerging that US funds will be spent to build an underground steel wall that will be 6-7 miles long and extend 55 feet straight down into the desert sand. The steel wall is intended to cut the tunnels that go between Gaza and Egypt. The goal: to prevent the movement of food, merchandise and weapons into Gaza.

The Pentagon Is Going Green (Renewable Power News)
Pentagon is going for a long-term strategy to reduce greenhouse gases by deploying renewable sources of energy. The solar installation in California’s Mojave Desert and minor initiative such as a 30 MW geothermal plant at Fallon Naval Air Station in Nevada are only a few calls.

Excluded from the Copenhagen Agenda: The Manipulation of Climate for Military Use (Michel Chossudovsky / Global Research)
World leaders are meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009 to reach an agreement on Global Warming. The Climate Change debate focuses on the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions and measures to reduce CO2 emissions. Following the 1992 Earth Summit, the issue of Climate Change for military use was never raised in subsequent climate summits. The issue was erased, forgotten. It is not part of the current debate on climate change.

Strange Lights over Norway Provoke Rumors of Military Experiments (Daily Mail )
On December 9, a strange spiral pattern appeared in the night sky over Norway. The event was subsequently attributed to a failed Russian missile. But a similar "sky spiral" had previously occurred over Norway and both events appeared to coincide with tests at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. The collider, built to simulate the "big bang" that created the Universe, has started smashing subatomic particles "at the highest energies ever reached by a human-made accelerator.”

US Builds Up its Bases in Oil-rich South America (Hugh O'Shaughnessy / The Independent)
The United States is massively building up its potential for nuclear and non-nuclear strikes in Latin America and the Caribbean by acquiring unprecedented freedom of action in seven new military, naval and air bases in Colombia. The development — and the reaction of Latin American leaders to it — is further exacerbating America's already fractured relationship with much of the continent.

ACTION ALERT: No Funds for More Wars (EuroNews & Peaceteam & Campaign for Peace and Democracy)
US President Barack Obama’s presence in Oslo was not lost on environmentalists. “I think it does diminish the prize and it is a great disappointment and I think it undermines all of the work for peace and justice that really needs to continue happening,” said Frida Berrigan. Let the President know your thoughts. Take action by faxing, emailing, calling and writing to the White House. See the links and actions below.

Afghanistan Massacre on Eve of Obama's Surge (Bill Van Auken / Global Research)
With the first elements of 30,000 additional US troops set to arrive in Afghanistan next week, the massacre of as many as 15 civilians in a US raid has heightened fears that the Obama administration’s so-called surge will spell a dramatic rise in bloodletting.

US Military Joins CIA’s Drone War in Pakistan (Noah Shachtman / Wired Magazine)
Over the past year and a half, the United States has stepped up drone strikes against militants in Pakistan — killing as many as a thousand people, by some estimates. Press accounts have largely credited the Central Intelligence Agency with running these missions. Government officials have refused to speak in public about drone attacks.

The Secret US War in Pakistan (Jeremy Scahill / The Nation)
At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan.

Strange Lights over Norway Provoke Rumors of Military Experiments
On December 9, a strange spiral pattern appeared in the night sky over Norway. The event was subsequently attributed to a failed Russian missile. But a similar "sky spiral" had previously occurred over Norway and both events appeared to coincide with tests at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. The collider, built to simulate the "big bang" that created the Universe, has started smashing subatomic particles "at the highest energies ever reached by a human-made accelerator.”

Strange Lights over Norway Provoke Rumors of Military Experiments
On December 9, a strange spiral pattern appeared in the night sky over Norway. The event was subsequently attributed to a failed Russian missile. But a similar "sky spiral" had previously occurred over Norway and both events appeared to coincide with tests at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. The collider, built to simulate the "big bang" that created the Universe, has started smashing subatomic particles "at the highest energies ever reached by a human-made accelerator.”

Obama's Rejection Speech (David Swanson / After Downing Street & OpEd News)
Commentary: "That was not a peace prize acceptance speech. That was an infomercial for war. President Obama took the peace prize home with him, but left behind in Oslo his praise for war, his claims for war, and his view of an alternative and more peaceful approach to the world consisting of murderous economic sanctions."

The Land Mines Obama Won’t Touch (Bill Moyers & Michael Winship / Bill Moyers Journal (PBS))
Many people are troubled that Barack Obama flew to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize so soon after escalating the war in Afghanistan. The United States has not actively used land mines since the first Gulf War in 1991, but we still possess some 10-15 million of them, making us the third largest stockpiler in the world. Since 1987, 156 other nations have signed it, including every country in NATO. The US has refused to sign this agreement.

No Ducking Land Mine Treaty, Mr. President (Editorial / San Francisco Chronicle )
This country hasn't used land mines in nearly 20 years. It no longer makes the indiscriminate killers nor provides them to allies. Why then is President Obama — off to Oslo this week to collect a Nobel Peace Prize — refusing to sign an international treaty to ban the shrapnel-spewing buried bombs?

Remarks by the President at the Acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize (President Barack Onama / The White House)
US President Barack Obama accepts the Nobel Peace Prize while defending the concept of a "just war."

ACTION ALERT: President Obama's Wars Meet Resistance in US and Afghanistan (Al Jazeera & Friends Committee on National Legislation)
For many Afghans, President Obama's strategy of even more troops does not fit into their vision of what will bring peace. Meanwhile, President Obama presents us with a historic opportunity to free the world of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, our Senate stands in the way of that achievement. We have to persuade Congress to support Obama's agenda for a world without nuclear weapons.

The Environmentalists Against War Web Site Is Being Upgraded. Thank You for Your Patience (EAW Staff)
Because of increased use of our Web site, we have been advised to transfer our files — including nearly 9,000 stories, reports and commentaries — to a larger, more robust Web-hosting system. While this transition is underway, EAW will continue to collect stories but will temporarily suspend online publication. The new material will be posted when we have made our move to the new, improved system. Thank you for your participation, your support and your patience.

Human Rights Day, December 10, 2009
December 10, Human Rights Day, serves as an important benchmark by which to measure and evaluate U.S. efforts to rebuild the domestic economy and improve the lives of every man, woman and child.

Obama: Keep Your Eyes on the Prize (Tom Hayden / The Peace and Justice Resource Center)
The "From King to Obama" summarizes the evolution of the American civil rights movement into the successful presidential campaign of its heir, Barack Obama. Their the comparison ends, the linkage jarring. Perhaps it has been taken down. r. King was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1964 after being stabbed, beaten, and jailed across the American South. President Obama becomes the Nobel recipient only ten days after he began rushing 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan.

ACTION ALERT: More Troops & Drones Get You the Peace Prize? (Debra Sweet / The World Can't Wait )
Commentary: When it was first announced that Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, I asked "What about the Nobel prize for war-mongers?" Some people unsubscribed from this newsletter, offended that I was pointing out a contradiction that much of the world sees easily enough. On Saturday, December 12, there will be a demonstration across from White House in Lafayette Park from 11 AM to 4 PM/

Review: 'Scarred Lands and Wounded Lives: The Environmental Footprint of War' (Sally Pollak / Burlington Free Press)
On the eve of President Obama’s announcement that he will send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, a film about the environmental impact of war describes a number of ways in which war degrades the environment, from land mines that destroy and disrupt agricultural practices to the damage inflicted by the bombing of oil refineries and other chemical plants, to the risks posed by oil-filled World War II tankers that are deteriorating under sea in the Pacific Rim.

CIA to Expand Use of Drones in Pakistan (Scott Shane / The New York Times)
Two weeks ago in Pakistan, Central Intelligence Agency sharpshooters killed eight people suspected of being militants wounded two others in a compound that was said to be used for terrorist training. Then, the job in North Waziristan done, the CIA officers could head home from the agency’s Langley, Va., headquarters. It was only the latest strike by the agency’s covert program to kill using people using missiles fired from Predator aircraft controlled from half a world away.

US May Widen Drone Strikes in Pakistan (Lolita C. Baldor / Associated Press)
The Obama administration is considering widening missile strikes on al-Qaida and the Taliban inside Pakistan and is planning to bolster the training of Pakistan's forces in a key border battleground where militants fuel the escalating Afghan insurgency.

Pakistan Slams US Drone-attack Plans (Tom Mellen / Morning Star )
Islamabad slammed US plans to expand drone attacks into Baluchistan, warning that they would serve to further destabilise the country. US President Barack Obama, a Nobel peace laureate, has authorised an expansion of remote-controlled CIA-operated air strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas.

Obama's War (Jim Hightower / The Creators Syndicate)
Cut the music, slow the rush, and let's all ponder what Barack Obama, Roberts Gates, Stanley McChrystal and Co. are getting us into ... and whether we really want to go there. After all, just because the White House and the Pentagon brass are waving the flag and insisting that a major escalation of America's military mission in Afghanistan is a "necessity" doesn't mean it is ... or that We the People must accept it.

A Tragic Mistake (Bob Herbert / New York Times)
After going through an extended period of highly ritualized consultations, the president has arrived at a decision that will prove to be a tragic mistake. It would have been much more difficult for Mr. Obama to explain why it is in our best interest to begin winding down the permanent state of warfare left to us by the Bush and Cheney regime. It would have taken real courage for the commander in chief to stop feeding our young troops into the relentless meat grinder of Afghanistan.

ACTION ALERT: Obama's Escalation Will Be Immediately Opposed (Harvey Wasserman / The Free Press)
Tonight at 8pm EST President Barack Obama is set to announce his commitment to the worst blunder in US policy since Lyndon Johnson escalated the Vietnam War. There were those who knew the Gulf of Tonkin “incident” on which LBJ's war powers had been based was a complete deception. But it was not until the mass marches on the Pentagon and elsewhere in 1967 that one could say a truly national grassroots anti-war movement had taken shape. Find out about planned protests in YOUR neighborhood.

War Fraud Whistleblowers Under Wraps (Dina Rasor / t r u t h o u t | Special Investigative Report)
Recently, the Congressional Research Service released an amazing statistic — it will cost one million dollars a year to support one soldier for one year in Afghanistan. This number partly the cost of private contractors. Estimates for the numbers of contractors have been as high as one contractor for every soldier. One of the reasons for the high costs of maintaining each soldier is the lack of oversight of private contractor billings over the course of these two wars.

Iraq Sees Alarming Rise in Cancers, Deformed Babies (Suadad al-Salhy / Reuters )
Incidences of cancer, deformed babies and other health problems have risen sharply, Iraqi officials say, and many suspect contamination from weapons used in years of war and accompanying unchecked pollution as a cause. In the city of Falluja, scene of two of the fiercest battles between US troops and insurgents after the 2003 US invasion, a spike in the number of births of stillborn, deformed and paralyzed babies has alarmed doctors.

ACTION ALERT: Prepare to Protest Afghan Escalation (World Can’t Wait & Progressive Democrats of America)
On Tuesday, December 1st, President Obama will announce plans to expand the occupation of Afghanistan with 34,000 more troops. This is not a "good" war. Afghanistan is now really Obama's war. The richest country with the most powerful highly militarized empire is destroying one of the poorest countries.

Veterans Oppose US Afghan War Surg (Nick Spicer / Al Jazeera)
While most US war veterans tend to be supportive of their country's military operations abroad, some have been voicing their opposition to any escalation. A number of these veterans have stepped before the cameras in an attempt to bring added attention to their concerns.

ACTION ALERT: Saharan Peace Hero Fasts to Return to her West Saharan Home (Cindy Cooper / On the Issues Magazine & Giles Tremlett / The Observer & The Robert F. Kennedy Center)
Aminatou Haidar, known as the "Gandhi" of the Western Sahara for her advocacy for the human rights of her people, was stopped from returning home after returning from New York where she received an award for her nonviolent advocacy. On November 15, Haider began a hunger strike on a mat in the airport. Thousands of supporters (including filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar) have flocked to the airport to demanding justice for Aminatou Haidar.

Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan (Jeremy Scahill / The Nation)
In a stunning investigation just posted at TheNation.com, Jeremy Scahill reveals a covert military operation being run almost entirely by Blackwater, USA, a military contractor embroiled in controversy for their actions in Iraq and the Middle East. The operation that includes planning targeted assassinations, "snatch and grabs" and other sensitive actions inside and outside Pakistan. This is a program that not even some Senior Level Obama Administration and Pentagon officials are aware of.

"Profits of Doom": New Computer Game Teaches Militarism (Chris Nuttal / The Financial Times)
Dean Takahashi, video game author, longtime player and writer for the Venturebeat blog, says he was shocked by the scene. "You really do cross a line when you give the player no options except to be a very evil character. In that scene, you can't stop the slaughter from happening. Most games give you an option of choosing between being good or evil." Still, he maintains, the sequence is softened by few women and no children or elderly people being mowed down...

ACTION ALERT: Bills to Stop the Afghan Surge (US Rep. Barbara Lee and The Peace and Justice Resource Center)
While thousands of peace activists flooded the White House with calls, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) introduced her legislation, HR 3699, prohibiting taxpayer funds for more combat troops to Afghanistan.

National Call-in Against War Nov. 23-25 (Kevin Zeese / Voters for Peace)
For three days, people from every corner of the country will be flooding the White House with calls. We oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan; we want the troops that are there now to be brought home! If you cannot get through on Monday, call on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Deformed babies in Fallujah: Letter to the United Nations (Dr Nawal Majeed Al-Sammarai, Former Iraq Minister of Women's Affairs/ UN Observer)
Young women in Fallujah in Iraq are terrified of having children because of the increasing number of babies born grotesquely deformed, with no heads, two heads, a single eye in their foreheads, scaly bodies or missing limbs. In addition, young children in Fallujah are now experiencing hideous cancers and leukaemias. These deformities are now well documented.

ACTION ALERT: Tell President Obama: No to Escalation in Afghanistan (Matt Lockshin / Credo Action)
Despite over $1 trillion in costs and the majority of Americans opposing escalation, President Obama continues to move towards increased military action in Afghanistan. Less than a 100 members of Al Qaeda remain in the country. American activities are believed to be a destabilizing force in neighboring, nuclear-armed Pakistan. A corrupt Karzai government is being propped up by American intervention. The cost of escalation is estimated to be another $100 billion.

Army Sends Infant to Protective Services, Mom to Afghanistan (Dahr Jamail / Inter Press Service)
US Army Specialist Alexis Hutchinson, a single mother, is being threatened with a military court-martial if she does not agree to deploy to Afghanistan, despite having been told she would be granted extra time to find someone to care for her 11-month-old son while she is overseas. Hutchinson has been threatened with a court martial if she does not agree to deploy to Afghanistan on Sunday, Nov. 15.

ACTION ALERT: Army Sends Infant to Protective Services, Mom to Afghanistan (Friends of Alexis and Courage to Resist)
Take action to protest the treatment of single mother, Specialist Alexis Hutchinson who has stated: "It is outrageous that [the US Army] would deploy a single mother without a complete and current family care plan. I would like to find someone I trust who can take care of my son, but I cannot force my family to do this. They are dealing with their own health issues."

EAW EVENT: Book Tour: Stripping Bare the Body: Politics Violence War (EAW cosponsors Mark Danner's San Francisco appearance)
Mark Danner’s latest book, Stripping Bare the Body: Politics Violence War (Nation Books), was released in October. Environmentalists Against War is pleased to be a co-sponsor of Danner’s visit to San Francisco for a book-reading at the Booksmith Bookstore. The date is Friday, November 13 at 7:30 p.m.

Orlando Shooter, US Army Fort Hood Shooter both Linked to Psychiatric Drugs (Mike Adams / NaturalNews Editor)
As an army psychiatrist, US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was allowed to prescribe powerful psychiatric drugs to both his patients and himself. Many psychiatrists self-medicate, and Hasan was extremely anxious about the possibility of being sent overseas by the army. In almost every major mass shooting over the past two decades, since anti-depressant drugs became popular, the killer has been on SSRI's — serotonin reuptake inhibitors."

Was Fort Hood Killer On Psychotropic Drugs? (Paul Joseph Watson / Prison Planet.com )
In almost every major mass shooting over the past two decades, since anti-depressant drugs became popular, the killer has been on SSRI’s – serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Psychiatrists have a history of “self-medication” because of the easy access they have to psychotropic drugs.

Realities of War Conference: Nov 8, 2009. in San Diego (University of California at San Diego Student Groups & Supporters)
Realities of War Conference with Congressmember Bob Filner, USMC Veteran Cpl, Rick Reyes, TV/radio host Bree Walker, more. The day's events and workshops will be followed by a sunset vigil "Bring their Buddies Home" along N Torry Pines Rd "We wil provide each participant with a memorial page to wear bearing the name of a US military fatality in war."

Video: Atrocities Haunt DRC Child Soldiers (BBC World News)
The abduction of children by militias which then force them to work as soldiers, porters and sex slaves has been a long-term and widespread problem in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). But in the past few months, fighting between the DRC army and Rwandan Hutu rebels and other militias has intensified, deepening the crisis for the country's youth.

Police Relaunch Lockerbie Bombing Investigation (Robert Mendick and Andrew Alderson / The Telegraph )
Detectives have relaunched the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing and are pursuing several new lines of inquiry including a fresh analysis of forensic evidence. Authorities secretly ordered the re-examination of all evidence following the decision by Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi to drop his appeal against his conviction for mass murder. The relatives of British victims of the terrorist attack have launched a campaign for an independent public inquiry into who ordered and carried out the bombing.

ACTION ALERT: Defend Independence of Honduras' Garifuna Community Hospital (Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC) & Willie Thompson / San Francisco Bay View)
The Garifuna built their hospital brick by brick after President Manuel Zelaya gave the go-ahead. All 10 Garifuna doctors who staff it were trained in Cuba. The Honduran de facto coup government under Roberto Micheletti plans to eliminate the Honduran Garifuna people and culture. Micheletti has rescinded the Manuel Zelaya authorization to teach in the Garifuna language in school and to teach the language itself. All scholarships to Garifuna students have been eliminated.

Mysterious Deaths of Two Nuclear Test Ban Prompts Concern (Anonymous Source to EAW & CTBTO )
An anonymous source with information concerning the mysterious deaths of two CTBTO employees, recently sent the following collection of articles to Environmentalists Against War, drawing attention to the mysterious suicide death of British nuclear expert Dr. Timothy Hampton.

Beware a Times/Pentagon "Virtual Coup" on Afghanistan (Harvey Wasserman / The Free Press)
Some military coups are still done the old-fashioned way. Tanks surround the capital, generals grab the radio station, the slaughter begins. When the Pentagon wants to trash inconvenient opposition and escalate yet another war, it seeks subtler means. For example the "virtual coup" now being staged in league with the New York Times, aimed at plunging us catastrophically deeper into Afghanistan.

Did World War II Really End the Great Depression? (Richard W. Fulmer • November 2009 • Vol. 59/Issue 9)
Commentary: "Contrary to popular belief, the “public works program” known as World War II did not end the Great Depression; it ended the New Deal. The end of the war brought federal spending and tax cuts and the repeal of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. All these changes combined to pull the nation’s economy out of its long and painful slide, and all could have been made without the war."

America Appeals to Extradite Russia's Alleged "Merchant of Death" (Richard S. Ehrlich / The Free Press)
Newly obtained documents, prepared by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), portray an elaborate sting operation to capture alleged weapons trafficker Viktor Bout in Bangkok and extradite him to New York. Bout, a Russian citizen, has been dubbed "The Merchant of Death" for his long years as an alleged international weapons dealer involved in illegal and legal transfers.

New Study of 1960's Baby Teeth Reveals Nuclear Fallout Increased US Cancer Deaths (Kim McGuire / St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Following the discovery of 85,000 baby teeth donated in the 1960s to study Strontium-90 fallout, a New York-based research group has released new findings that suggest male tooth donors who ended up with cancer as adults had double the amount of a radioactive isotope created by nuclear fallout than healthy donors who participated in the original St. Louis study. "The toll from bomb fallout is probably far greater than prior estimates," says Joseph Mangano, the lead study author.

Message for United Nations Day, October 24, 2009 (Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon)
The anniversary of the entry into force of the United Nations Charter on 24 October 1945 has been celebrated as United Nations Day since 1948. It has traditionally been marked throughout the world by meetings, discussions and exhibits on the achievements and goals of the Organization. In 1971, the General Assembly recommended that Member States observe it as a public holiday. (resolution 2782 (XXVI)).

The Nuclear Double-Standard and Global Disarmament (Riz Khan / Al Jazeera)
How does the disclosure of Iran's second nuclear site affect global efforts for nuclear disarmament? Israel says it "expects the international community to take substantive and prompt steps to halt Iran's military nuclear program." But what about Israel's nuclear arsenal? Interviews with Richard Burt, former chief US negotiator in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks and journalist Gideon Spiro.

The Iran Versus US-Israeli-NATO Threats (Edward S. Herman and David Peterson / Monthly Review)
Analysis: It is spell-binding to see how the US establishment can inflate the threat of a target, no matter how tiny, remote, and (most often) non-existent that threat may be, and pretend that the real threat posed by its own behavior and policies is somehow defensive and related to that wondrously elastic thing called "national security."

Top Ten Reasons President Obama Should Give Back the Nobel Peace Prize (Bruce A. Dixon / Black Agenda Report)
At the Nobel announcement of this year's peace prize a reporter asked the Nobel spokesman “why”, since the man had only been in office less than a year, and had done so little to merit the honor. The spokesman replied that the prize had been given not so much for anything Obama had done, but in the spirit of hope and encouragement, for what he might do. Maybe.

Former Uruguayan President Jailed for Murder and State Terrorism: Abetted by US CIA (Al Jazeera & Associated Press)
A former military dictator of Uruguay has been sentenced to 25 years in jail for murder and rights violations during his rule. Gregorio Alvarez was convicted of 37 "aggravated homicides." About 150 Uruguayans disappeared in the secret flights from Argentina in the late 1970s and an additional 29 people went missing in Uruguay, according to a commission of families of the detained and missing. US intelligence services provide secret help in "Operation Condor."

Rape Used as Weapon in DR Congo War (Mohammed Adow / Al Jazeera )
The Democratic Republic of Congo is grappling with rampant rape, which has become an every day practice and is used as a weapon of war, the UN has said. It said almost 5,400 cases of rape against women were reported in the South Kivu province during the first six months of the year.

START 'Cheating' — Russia Violating Treaty, Developing Missile (Bill Gertz / The Washington Times)
Republicans in the Senate are gearing up to battle the Obama administration over the high-priority plan to finish a new arms-control treaty with Russia before the end of the year. The current Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which is set to expire Dec. 5. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and No. 2 Republican Senate leader, has accused Russia leaders of cheating by converting one of their existing missiles, the Topol-M, to a new multiple-warhead variant.

Do Candy-Eating Kids Become Criminal Adults? (Alice Park/ Time Magazine)
According to a new study, kids who eat too many treats at a young age risk becoming violent in adulthood. The research was led by Simon Moore, a senior lecturer in Violence and Society Research at Cardiff University. He discovered that "kids with the worst problems tend to be impulsive risk takers, and that these kids had terrible diets — breakfast was a Coke and a bag of chips."

David Kilcullen's Plan for Washington's 50-Year War (Tom Hayden / The Nation)
The death of capture of Osama bin Laden would not bring our troops home. Not as long as top military intellectuals envision a prolonged cold war against Al Qaeda, with hot wars along the way. It happens that the Long War is over Muslim lands rich with oil, natural gas and planned pipelines. The Pentagon identifies them as hostile terrain where Al Qaeda and its affiliates are hidden.

Goldstone Dares US on Gaza Report (Al Jazeera)
Richard Goldstone, the jurist who authored a UN report accusing Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity during its war on Gaza, has challenged the US to justify its claims that his findings are flawed and biased. Goldstone has stated: "I have yet to hear from the Obama administration what the flaws in the report that they have identified are. I would be happy to respond to them, if and when I know what they are." VIDEO Interview.

US Joins Israel in Massive Missile-base "War Games" (Al Jazeera & Roee Nahmias / Yediot Aharonot / Ynet News.com)
The United States and Israel have begun more than two weeks of tests to simulate missile attacks on the only country in the Middle East to possess nuclear weapons. The 16-day Juniper Cobra drills will simulate the firing of long-range missiles against Israel and will include a live missile interception.

Draft Resistance Erupts in Israel: Teens Refuse to Fight in IOccupied Palestine (Yediot Aharonot / Ynet News.com)
Dozens of students who signed a letter expressing their refusal to join the IDF rallied in Tel Aviv in protest of the impending recruitment of two of the teenagers behind the initiative, Or Ben-David and Effi Brenner. Protesters in Jerusalem have staged rallies in support of bill meant to block draft-evasion on religious grounds.

Japan Pressed over US Base Deal (Al Jazeera)
The US defense secretary has called on Japan to honor existing agreements on military bases in coun