U.S. Funding Armed Groups to Overthrow Iranian Government: AuthorBERKELEY, United States (IPS) -- Author of the upcoming book "The Iran Agenda: the Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis", due for release in September from Polipoint Press, Reese Erlich recently spent three weeks investigating Kurdish resistance organisations in Iran and Iraq's Kurdish region. He tells IPS that "the United States is officially funding armed groups to overthrow the Islamic government" in Tehran.
In an interview with IPS's Omid Memarian, Erlich, who ... (more)
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Too Guilty to Fly, Too Innocent to Charge? As the Canadian government forges ahead with its cleverly named Passenger Protect Program, the timing could not be better to seriously reconsider what is for all intents and purposes a no-fly list.
The attention to the issue of watch lists generated by the struggles of Maher Arar (the Canadian citizen detained by Americans and shipped off to torture and interrogation in Syria) to clear his name should make us all sit back and reflect. There are many lessons to be learned from the ... (more)
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Blaming The Victims: Covering Up Terrorism In Iraq A recent cover story in the Time magazine (March, 2007, Europe and Asia) by Bobby Ghosh, “Why They Hate Each Other”, aimed at removing the Occupation as the generator of violence against the Iraqi people, and portrays the violence as “Iraqis killing Iraqis”. This media distortion obfuscates the U.S. monopoly on terrorism and allows the U.S. to use Iraq as a laboratory for terror at the expense of the Iraqi people.
Nowhere in his story does Ghosh tell the re... (more)
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Time to Ditch those Bloody-minded, Ungrateful Iraqis It’s time for the Iraqis to cease their bloody sectarian rivalries, disband their ruthless militias and death squads and take responsibility for their country’s fate. Why should American boys continue dying to save Iraqis from their own perverse selves? It’s a view expressed by all sides in the U.S. four years after the 2003 invasion. The problem is it shows no understanding of Iraq’s nightmarish past and calamitous psych... (more)
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Crime Blotter: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue While serving as President Bush’s White House lawyer, Alberto Gonzales advised Bush that the president’s war time powers permitted Bush to ignore the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and to use the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on US citizens without obtaining warrants from the FISA court as required by law. Under an order signed by Bush in 2002, NSA illegally spied on Americans without warrants.
... (more)
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Shriners' charitable accounting questioned: Only 2% of funds went to hospitalNEW YORK, March 19 A New York Times investigation published Monday claims just 2 percent of funds Shriners raised in 2005 went to operate their charitable hospitals.
In interviews with current and former members of the Masonic order, the newspaper reported more than 57 percent of the $32 million the group raised in 2005 through circuses, bingo games and raffles went to costs of the fraternity.
''Money raised for the hospitals is being used to pay for parties and ... (more)
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The waterboarded evildoer Waterboarding involves being bound upside down to an inclined board, head wrapped in cellophane. Fear of drowning is inevitable and kicks in after just a few seconds. Waterboarding was widely practiced by US-advised military dictatorships in Latin America during the 1970s.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) customers to waterboarding usually don't last more then 14 seconds before confessing to anything. Salafi-jihadi mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammad - or KSM, as he is known in the... (more)
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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s Gitmo song: “Confession” or Bush administration propaganda?According to a transcript of a Guantanamo Bay military tribunal newly released by the Bush administration, “Al-Qaeda mastermind” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has “confessed” that he directed the 9/11 attacks, and was fully or partially responsibility for more than 30 other terror plots and attacks. With this “confession,” the mysterious Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (or “KSM”) becomes the ult... (more)
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WTC7 - The Smoking Gun of 9/11
This video is now on Google Video. It is only 16 minutes long yet contains the BBC-Jump the Gun reports of Bldg 7 collapse, Craig Bartmer-First Responder-Interview, "Lucky Larry" Silverstein "pull it" admission, Danny Jowenko Demolition Expert Interview. It also has numerous ... (more)
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Only 10% in U.S. See Iran as Immediate Threat(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Very few Americans believe Iran represents a danger for their country, according to a poll by New York Times and CBS News. Only 10 per cent of respondents think Iran is a threat to the United States that requires military action now, down 11 points since mid-February.
Conversely, 65 per cent of respondents think Iran is a threat that can be contained with diplomacy now, while 18 per cent say the country is not a menace to the U.S. at this tim... (more)
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Hicks was forcibly sedated, says lawyerDAVID HICKS was left frightened and confused after being forcibly sedated at Guantanamo Bay last month and then told of new charges the prosecution wanted to bring against him, his US military defence lawyer, Major Michael Mori, has said.
The incident happened the day after Hicks's legal team, including Adelaide lawyer David McLeod, left Guantanamo Bay early last month. Major Mori, who last week saw Hicks for the first time since early February, said yesterday that Hicks told him ... (more)
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Intelligence experts: al Qaeda in Iraq 'poses little danger' to US Though al Qaeda is the biggest threat to US forces in Iraq, intelligence officials feel that the Qaeda branch there "poses little danger to the security of the U.S. homeland," reports the Washington Post.
"Attacking the United States clearly remains on bin Laden's agenda. But the likelihood that such an attack would be launched from Iraq, many experts contend, has sharply diminished over the past year," writes Karen DeYoung and Walter P... (more)
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AG: State Employees Among Those Working In Drug RingHARRISBURG, Pa. -- Four state correctional workers and a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation employee were among those working in a marijuana and cocaine ring that trafficked in Lancaster, Dauphin and Cumberland counties, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office announced today.
The Attorney General's office said 12 arrests have been made and two more are pending in the drug ring bust.
Officials identified Iris Smith, known as Mooch, and Juan Sanchez, known... (more)
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REPORT: Public Support for Iraq War In Fast Decline Since 2003 Monday marks the four-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. President Bush still believes launching this war was the right decision, and that it has been worth the cost in blood, money, damaged security and lost international reputation. The American public strongly disagrees.
American Progress fellow Ruy Teixeira has tracked polls on public support for the war since March 2003 on two key q... (more)
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U.S. attorney's firing may be connected to CIA corruption probe WASHINGTON - Fired San Diego U.S. attorney Carol Lam notified the Justice Department that she intended to execute search warrants on a high-ranking CIA official as part of a corruption probe the day before a Justice Department official sent an e-mail that said Lam needed to be fired, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday.
Feinstein, D-Calif., said the timing of the e-mail suggested that Lam's dismissal may have been connected to the corruption probe.
Justice Depar... (more)
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Man dies after hit from stun gunA mentally ill Middle River man died Friday night after police, responding to a domestic violence call, fired on him with a Taser stun gun, officials said yesterday.
Ryan Lee Meyers, 40, of the 4000 block of Keeners Road, was shot with the weapon after he refused police orders to drop a baseball bat, authorities said.
Meyers briefly continued fighting after being stunned but then went into cardiac arrest, according to Baltimore County police. He was pronounced dead ... (more)
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Council tax snoops call on the spies in the skies Satellite imagery and aerial photos are being used by Government snoopers as part of a council tax revaluation which could see bills soar.
Opposition MPs claimed the 'spy-in-the-sky' surveillance technology was being used to recalculate bills in Northern Ireland, which they said was a 'testing ground' for using the 'sinister' technique in Britain.
Officials are using covert images to spot home improvements such as ex... (more)
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Watada defends refusal before anti-war crowdIn a slow, measured voice, Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada urged people at an anti-war rally in downtown Eugene on Saturday to choose what is right, even when faced with negative consequences.
Watada, stationed at Fort Lewis, Wash., faces a court-martial and up to six years in prison for refusing to fight in Iraq. He was the main speaker at Eugene's annual protest against the war, held each year at the Federal Building to mark the March 20, 2003, anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of... (more)
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The regrets of the man who brought down SaddamHis hands were bleeding and his eyes filled with tears as, four years ago, he slammed a sledgehammer into the tiled plinth that held a 20ft bronze statue of Saddam Hussein. Then Kadhim al-Jubouri spoke of his joy at being the leader of the crowd that toppled the statue in Baghdad's Firdous Square. Now, he is filled with nothing but regret.
The moment became symbolic across the world as it signalled the fall of the dictator. Wearing a black vest, ... (more)
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Some parents question how global warming is taught in schoolsIn Montpelier earlier this year, Bill Burrell’s sixth-grade students testified before legislative committees about global warming and what Vermont can do about it. The students also are immersed in conservation and alternative energy projects.
In South Burlington recently, a middle school math teacher used a portion of Al Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” to illustrate linear equations. An English teacher used the... (more)
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