Laurence M. Vance

The civil war in Korea from 1950 to 1953 that the United States foolishly intervened in, and, for the first time for a major conflict, without a congressional declaration of war, is known as the Forgotten War. The number of American soldiers killed in this senseless war is over 36,000. Yet, Korea remains divided at the 38th parallel to this day just like it was before the war began. Talk about dying in vain. None of these soldiers died in defense of the United States; all of them died for the United Nations, for the foolish policies of Harry Truman, and for the failed diplomacy of World War II.

Most Americans have no idea that there are still over 24,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea (some no doubt the grandchildren of the soldiers who fought in the Korean War). Fewer still probably know anything about the war that put them there in the first place.

There is another war that, incredibly, is fast becoming a forgotten war: the war in Iraq. I lamented last year at this time that we didn’t hear much about the war in Iraq anymore. Even though candidate Barack Obama pledged in 2007 that the first thing he would do if elected was bring the troops home and end the war, the war wasn’t an issue in the 2008 election. And before the electoral vote was even counted, Democratic opposition to the war had evaporated.

Now, on the seventh anniversary of the unconstitutional, immoral, aggressive, unjust, unnecessary, manufactured, manipulated, and senseless war that is the war in Iraq, the escalation of the war in Afghanistan has eclipsed any mention of the ongoing war in Iraq. And this in spite of the fact that there are still 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

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Rodrigue Tremblay

"It is well enough that people ... do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." ~ Henry Ford, American industrialist

"It seems to me that Europe, especially with the addition of more countries, is becoming ever-more susceptible to any asymmetric shock. Sooner or later, when the global economy hits a real bump, Europe's internal contradictions will tear it apart." ~ Milton Friedman, American economist

"The normal functioning of our economy leads to financial trauma and crises, inflation, currency depreciations, unemployment and poverty in the middle of what could be virtually universal affluence-in short ... financially complex capitalism is inherently flawed." ~ Hyman Minsky, American economist

I have spent some fifty years studying economic cycles and teaching international finance, but I had never seen the likes of what we witnessed and experienced over the last three years. That's because such financial crises seem to happen 60 to 75 years apart.

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Keith Johnson

Without regard for the severe economic devastation and loss of life that a war with Iran would create, Israel’s agents in the United States continue to aggressively stoke the fires of anti-Iranian rhetoric and mobilize their minions on the floor of the House. The Brzezinski-Soros machine failed in their attempt to effect regime change in Iran by way of a “color revolution” in the summer of 2009. This has only emboldened the Israeli lobby to pursue more drastic measures. There is only one card left for them to play before provoking conflicts that will most certainly catapult the United States into direct military action against the Islamic State.

Tuesday, the American Israeli Political Action Committee gave their marching orders to their congressional War Hawks. The message was short, concise and clear.

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Chris Floyd

If you are an American -- or indeed, any denizen of "Western Civilization" whose security and values are supposedly being "defended" on the far-flung fields of the Terror War -- then take a good, long look at what is being done in your name, with your money, by the ever-surging Peace Laureate and his War Machine. From The Times:

Covert troops who killed two pregnant women and a teenage girl in eastern Afghanistan went on to inflict “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” on the survivors of a botched night raid, a report by the UN said.

The family of the victims in Paktiya province have accused Nato of trying to cover up the atrocity after an investigation by The Times revealed that two men, who were also killed, were not the intended targets of the raid. One was a police commander and his brother was a district-attorney.

...The report, written in the aftermath of the February 12 attack, states: “As a result of the operation, five people were killed, two men and three women, all belonging to the same family.” There were about 25 guests and three musicians at the house on the night of the raid. They had gathered to celebrate the naming of a newborn child. It was only when a musician stepped outside to go to the lavatory at about 3.30am, that someone flashed a light in his eyes and he ran back inside shouting “Taleban”.

Witnesses said that Commander Dawood, the policeman, was shot with his son, Sediqullah, 15, when they ran across a courtyard. His brother, Saranwal Zahir, was shot trying to protest the family’s innocence. The three women were caught in a volley of fire behind him.

They had gathered to celebrate the naming of a newborn child. They had gathered in a family home, in their own country. They were not insurgents -- indeed, they at first mistook the Guardians of Western Civilization themselves as "Taliban," and sought to flee from them. But they were caught, shot, killed -- in their own country, in a family home, celebrating the naming of a newborn child.

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Stephen Lendman

Ideologically it believes governments must provide for the greatest good for the greatest number of people. It opposes concentrated wealth, demagogy, and despotism, and supports democracy, human and civil rights, and social justice - an ideology the 19th century People's Party and 20th century Progressive Party endorsed without majorities.

Until recently, faint echoes remained, sadly silenced after Senator Bernie Sanders and sole House populist capitulated.

Former Kucinich for president consultant, David Swanson, said

"he gave in to the power of a false narrative, and that he ought to have said so....I think the corporate media has instilled in people the idea that presidents should make laws and the current president is trying to make a law that can reasonably be called 'healthcare reform' or at least 'health insurance reform.' " I don't excuse Kucinich flipping....I just want to find the right explanation for it."

The web site singlepayeraction.org, ("everybody in. nobody out.") called the Democrats (like Republicans) "a corporate party, rotting from the core."

SPA called Kucinich's "flameout....spectacular" in support of a bill he and progressive Democrats strongly opposed until they flipped, including Congressman Danny Davis, representing this writer's 7th Illinois District.

Kucinich said "I've taken a detour supporting this bill." For SPA, it's one "that will condemn millions of Americans to ongoing suffering and death" because insurers make money by denying care, why real reform requires their removal and assuring everyone of universal single-payer coverage. Everyone in. Nobody out. What your senator and House representative get, you get. What congressional Democrats won't enact.

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Joshua Kurlantzick

[Tearing Apart the Land: Islam and Legitimacy in Southern Thailand by Duncan McCargo
Cornell, 227 pp, £12.95, ISBN 0 8014 7499 X]

In recent decades, Thailand has been running one of the world’s most successful national marketing campaigns. Building on its reputation for hospitality, beautiful beaches and splendid food, the tourism ministry has created an image of Thailand as an exotic paradise where travellers are ushered from spa to floating market to Buddhist ruin, all beneath a never dimming tropical sun. In 2008, the country had more than 14 million visitors – neighbouring Cambodia had two million – and tourism was the country’s biggest source of foreign exchange. Sleepy islands like Koh Samui and Koh Chang are fishing for tourists where once they fished for sea bass; even the smallest Thai towns seem to have boutique hotels offering wi-fi and fancy coffee.

Now, however, the number of tourists visiting Thailand is beginning to level out and even to drop, perhaps because they have noticed what many Western governments, focused on the situations in Pakistan, Iraq and North Korea, have ignored: Thailand, once known as one of the most stable democracies in Asia, is in political and economic crisis. The scale and speed of the meltdown have been staggering. In 2001, I travelled in southern Thailand, through the three provinces near the Malaysian border. Most of the inhabitants there are Muslims, ethnically Malay people who speak their own dialect, and the region feels more like Malaysia than Buddhist central Thailand. At that time, the south seemed quiet. Women sold crispy fried chicken from handcarts at the side of the road, and Buddhist monks and Muslim prayer leaders walked down village streets. In Pattani, one of the larger towns, Western backpackers wandered through the market, where they stared at plates of biryani and mounds of jackfruit.

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Matt Ridley

Trees on the Gaspé Peninsula in Canada.

The "hockey stick" temperature graph is a mainstay of global warming science. A new book tells of one man's efforts to dismantle it—and deserves to win prizes

Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion is one of the best science books in years. It exposes in delicious detail, datum by datum, how a great scientific mistake of immense political weight was perpetrated, defended and camouflaged by a scientific establishment that should now be red with shame. It is a book about principal components, data mining and confidence intervals—subjects that have never before been made thrilling. It is the biography of a graph.

I can remember when I first paid attention to the “hockey stick” graph at a conference in Cambridge. The temperature line trundled along with little change for centuries, then shot through the roof in the 20th century, like the blade of an ice-hockey stick. I had become somewhat of a sceptic about the science of climate change, but here was emphatic proof that the world was much warmer today; and warming much faster than at any time in a thousand years. I resolved to shed my doubts. I assumed that since it had been published in Nature—the Canterbury Cathedral of scientific literature—it was true.

I was not the only one who was impressed. The graph appeared six times in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s third report in 2001. It was on display as a backdrop at the press conference to launch that report. James Lovelock pinned it to his wall. Al Gore used it in his film (though describing it as something else and with the Y axis upside down). Its author shot to scientific stardom. “It is hard to overestimate how influential this study has been,” said the BBC. The hockey stick is to global warming what St Paul was to Christianity.

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Jennifer van Bergen

[Note: This is the fifth part in a seven-part series.]

PART X: The Arkhelogy Skill: Lost in Time

If the ability to “do archetypes” is so critical to human development and so universal, how is it that it has been left out of educational curricula for so long? How is it that it is completely unknown to modern man? It is my belief that Arkhelogy was lost to mankind either when organized Christianity began to proliferate or when science became the dominant means of understanding the universe. In either case, it's a victim of historical accident. It was lost in the transition to modern times and because it was never completely understood by the new modern man, who had changed his approach to understanding from pagan-based spiritual beliefs to religion-based or to science-based understandings. To the extent modern man perceived the arkheloging ability, he probably incorrectly classed it as unscientific or heretical.

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Stephen Lendman

It's what economist David Rosenberg calls recovery given plenty of supportive evidence, including:

-- over five million homeowners behind on their mortgage payments;

-- at record levels, foreclosures are alarmingly high; moreover, "the foreclosure pipeline is enormous;"

-- "housing, the quintessential leading indicator," turning lower again in starts, sales and prices;

-- instead of a normal 5 - 6 months home supply, the market has a 21 month overhang, including shadow inventory from the foreclosure pipeline;

-- mortgage applications for new home purchases down 13.9% on top of last year's 29.4%;

-- over six million Americans unemployed for at least six months, "a record 40% of the ranks of the joblessness;"

-- over 11 million full-time jobs lost since late 2007, and well over four and a half million since Obama took office, despite pledging to create them;

-- millions of jobs lost despite massive economic stimulus, and when it slows, watch out;

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Patrick Mac Manus
Rebellion (Denmark)
Translated from the Danish by Ron Ridenour.

1. At the Copenhagen City Court, Rebellion (Denmark) is accused of the transferral of financial support to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The demand is imprisonment. Judgement will fall on February 8.

2. History has been driven by peoples’ resistance and change throughout the centuries on all our continents. All change has been created through conflict, from the times of slavery to our own days.

3. The American Declaration of Independence was written by insurgents against British colonial power in 1776, a declaration of “unalienable rights”—among these the rights “to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”. And the right to resistance against every regime that violates these rights: “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…”

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted after World War 11, accentuates: ”Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.”

These are declarations created through a hard-won history, which Rebellion (Denmark) determinedly will defend.

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Michel Chossudovsky

Legislation to Establish Internment Camps on US Military Bases

The Economic and Social Crisis

The financial meltdown has unleashed a latent and emergent social crisis across the United States.

What is at stake is the fraudulent confiscation of lifelong savings and pension funds, the appropriation of tax revenues to finance the trillion dollar "bank bailouts", which ultimately serve to line the pockets of the richest people in America.

This economic crisis is in large part the result of financial manipulation and outright fraud to the detriment of entire populations, leading to a renewed wave of corporate bankruptcies, mass unemployment and poverty.

The criminalization of the global financial system, characterized by a "Shadow Banking" network has resulted in the centralization of bank power and an unprecedented concentration of private wealth.

Obama's "economic stimulus" package and budget proposals contribute to a further process of concentration and centralization of bank power, the cumulative effects of which will eventually resul in large scale corporate, bankruptcies, a new wave of foreclosures not to mention fiscal collapse and the downfall of State social programs. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, America's Fiscal Collapse, Global Research, March 2, 2009).

The cumulative decline of real economic activity backlashes on employment and wages, which in turn leads to a collapse in purchaisng power. The proposed "solution" under the Obama administration contributes to exacerbating rather than alleviating social inequalities and the process of wealth concentration.

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Stephen Lendman

Its web site (thelawfareproject.org) calls Lawfare:

"The use of the law as a weapon of war."

Fact Check

Provided they contradict no others, laws are sacrosanct, especially fundamental international ones like the UN Charter, Four Geneva Conventions, their Common Article 3, the Rome Statute, Nuremberg Tribunal and judgment, Genocide Convention, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and many others - ones Israel and America are sworn to uphold but consistently violate with impunity.

Lawfare Project (LP) claim: "The abuse of the law and legal systems (is used) for strategic or military ends."

Fact Check

International law is clear and unequivocal. The UN Charter explains under what conditions violence and coercion by one state against another are justified. Article 2(3) and Article 33(1) require peaceful settlement of international disputes. Article 2(4) prohibits force or its threatened use, and Article 51 allows the "right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member....until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security."

In other words, justifiable self-defense is permitted, and Articles 2(3), 2(4), and 33(1) absolutely prohibit all unilateral threats or use of force not allowed under Article 51 or authorized by the Security Council. Even then, under Fourth Geneva, civilians are "protected persons" off-limits to attack. Doing it is a war crime.

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Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine / Dissident Voice

"This won’t stop me or us. We will continue to seek an end to these terror laws, to their terror wars. Our struggle is worth it regardless of court judgments. We act in the long history of solidarity, supporting those who fight for liberation and self-determination."

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine salutes the efforts of the Danish comrades in Oprør (Rebellion) and Fighters + Lovers to challenge so-called "anti-terror" laws and defend the right to support national liberation movements. We salute Patrick Mac Manus and all those who struggle around the world in solidarity with the cause of the Palestinian people and all oppressed peoples and call upon all to emulate this example of courageous defiance and solidarity in the face of injustice and oppression.

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John Pilger

In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger goes back to Australia, where Rupert Murdoch launched his worldwide media empire, and describes how his and Murdoch's homeland has become a murdochracy - a country where important media, issues and perception are influenced if not dominated by Murdochism: "an inspiration to his choir on seven continents".

Adelaide is Australia’s festival city. Its arts festival is currently in swing. Polite debate, aesthetics and high-octane wine are putting the world to rights. With one exception. Adelaide is where Rupert Murdoch began his empire. The voracious trail starts here. No statue stands; his is a spectral presence, controlling the only daily newspaper, even the printing presses. Across Australia, he owns almost 70 per cent of the capital city press and the only national newspaper, and Sky Television, and much else. Welcome to the world’s first murdochracy.

What is a murdochracy? It is where the fealty and augmentation of Murdoch’s editors and managers are undisguised, an inspiration to his choir on seven continents, where even his competitors sing along and wise politicians heed the Murdochism: “What’ll it be? A headline a day or a bucket of shit a day?”

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Chris Hedges

Israeli soldiers take position next to the highly contro-
versial security barrier, which has been used, critics say,
to seize Palestinian land and manipulate the population.
(AP / Muhammed Muheisen)

The Israeli government, its brutal war crimes in Gaza exposed in detail in the U.N. report by Justice Richard Goldstone, has implemented a series of draconian measures to silence and discredit dissidents, leading intellectuals and human rights organizations inside and outside Israel that are accused—often falsely—of assisting Goldstone’s U.N. investigators. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu is attempting to shut down Israel’s premier human rights organizations, including B’Tselem, the New Israel Fund (NIF) and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. It is busy expelling or excluding peace activists and foreign nationals from the Palestinian territories. The campaign, if left unchecked, will be as catastrophic for Palestinians as it will be for Israel.

The Goldstone report, which is over 500 pages, investigated Israel’s 22-day air and ground assault on Gaza that took place from Dec. 27, 2008, to Jan. 18, 2009. The United Nations and the European Parliament have endorsed the report. The report found that Israel used disproportionate military force against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip while failing to take adequate precautions to protect the civilian population against the military assault. The Israeli attack killed 1,434 people, including 960 civilians, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. More than 6,000 homes were destroyed or damaged, leaving behind some $3 billion in destruction in one of the poorest areas on Earth. No Israelis were killed by Hamas rockets fired into Israel during the assault. The report did not limit itself to the 22-day attack; rather, it went on to indict the occupation itself. It examines the beginning of the occupation and condemns Israel for the border closures, the blockade and for the wall or security barrier in the West Bank. It has two references to the right of return, investigates Israeli torture and criticizes the willful destruction of the Palestinian economy.

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