MJ Rosenberg

Anyone who wonders what American foreign policy might look like if it was not so utterly ridden with partisan political considerations should take a look at the United Kingdom.

This is not to say that politics never intrudes on foreign policy in the UK. It does, but not in any way comparable to the way politics overruns policy here.

There are many reasons for the difference but one stands out: the cost of running political campaigns in the UK as compared to the US. In the UK, television time is free for candidates. In the United States, candidates and incumbents spend a sizable chunk of time (even a majority of time in many cases) raising money to pay for campaign ads. Much of that money comes from single-issue donors.

It is hard to imagine what US policy in the Middle East would be without the influence of campaign dollars. One thing is certain: it would be very different.

This week the House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on Turkey's "New Foreign Policy Direction." Its tone was set by the committee's chair, Howard Berman (D-CA) who made clear that he has had it with Turkey.

Berman said that he was not among those who criticized Turkey in 2002 when the Islam oriented AK party came to power.

After the AK Party was elected, I was encouraged by their focus on internal reform and the European Union as well as by the hopeful prospect that AK would be a model for a moderate Islam that would inspire others throughout the Islamic world.

But then he became aware of "the intensity of Prime Minister Erdogan's anger at Israel" over the 2008 invasion of Gaza. Since then, "Turkey's growing closeness with Iran has added, for many of us, a new dimension of outrage and concern." Berman said his "concerns about Turkey hit a new peak with the flotilla incident."

Berman is far from alone. All of a sudden, Congress is pretty down on Turkey. And the reason is obvious. This new hostility is all about pleasing Binyamin Netanyahu and his right-wing Israeli government.

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Stephen Lendman

Daily, Israeli oppression continues - demolishing homes, dispossessing occupants, and revoking residency rights, three of its many crimes under international law, Israel spurning it with impunity.

On July 22, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) reported mass Jordan Valley Al Farisyie village demolitions, displacing 107 people, including 52 children. Targeted were 26 residential tents, 22 animal shelters, seven taboun clay ovens, eight kitchens, 10 bathrooms, four water tanks, and an agricultural equipment shed - in all, 74 structures illegally bulldozed, family homes and belongings destroyed along with large quantities of food and animal fodder.

Many families weren't warned or present, so lost everything under rubble, Israel displacing Palestinians to make way for Judaization, area residents on their own, abandoned and unaided.

In July, three other communities were affected:

● Fasayile al Fuga where a family home of nine, including seven children and a 10-month old infant, was destroyed;

● Bardala where evacuation and demolition orders were issued; and

● Ras Ar Ahmar where 13 homes and dozens of animal shelters were bulldozed after declaring the area a Closed Military Zone.

The Jordan Valley comprises about 30% of the West Bank, Israel continuing demolitions, dispossessions, land theft, and appropriation of water resources, annexing areas for Jews, collectively punishing its residents by declaring large areas Closed Military Zones, ordering entire villages evacuated in defiance of international law, hundreds of residents affected, half of them children.

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Khalid Amayreh

Cartoon © Pat Oliphant

I do realize that the use of terms like "Jewish Nazism" offends many people, particularly among Jews. However, those offended should also have sufficient rectitude to call the spade a spade, especially when they see it in Jewish hands.

In the final analysis, we are living in a moral universe where truth should apply to all human beings equally. This means that all peoples and all communities, Jews and non-Jews alike, ought to be treated in accordance with the same moral standards.

In fact, this is what the Ten Commandments taught thousands of years ago. Hence, when the Almighty taught "thou shall not murder," He meant thou shall not murder any human beings, and when He taught "thou shall not steal," He meant "thou shall not steal from any human beings." And when He taught thou "shall not lie," He meant "thou shall not lie to any human beings."

Unfortunately, some misguided Talmudic sages, who appeared hundreds of years later, distorted the meaning and intention of these sublime moral standards, by arguing rather erroneously that since these commandments were given to "Jews," it followed that Jews and Jews alone were concerned with these principles. The implication was very clear:

"Thou shall not murder" meant thou shall not murder a Jew. "Thou shall not steal" meant thou shall not steal from a Jew, and "thou shall not lie" meant thou shall not lie to a Jew.

As to non-Jews, the goyem, who are often viewed as cattle in some Talmudic literature, they may be murdered, stolen from and lied to. The reason is clear. Goyem are not bona fide human beings and their very existence is not essential in terms of universal wisdom.

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Batoul Wehbe

“We have lived through hell,” Qana resident, Fawzeya Atwi cried. “The people were chopped into pieces by the Israeli bombs. They bleed these people. You should have seen the heads.”

“Do you know what the dogs did at night after the killings? They were hungry and I saw them in the ruins eating fingers and pieces of our people,” Atwi said about the Qana massacre during the July 2006 Israeli War on Lebanon.

Head of the Red Cross in Tyre Sami Yazbak, who was helping to pull bodies from the ruins, told The Guardian that the first call about the bombing was received at 7 a.m., 6 hours after the bombing took place. He said that previous shelling on the road to Qana had delayed the arrival of Red Cross personnel.

Yazbak said that “many of the children who were sleeping inside were handicapped.”

Many journalists who arrived in Qana to cover the incident became rescuers, dugging through the rubble with the Red Cross in search for bodies.

Journalist Bahia El Ainain talks about her experiences during the 2006 Israeli massacre in Qana. “I cried several times. I couldn’t be a journalist over being a mother when I saw dead young girls. I couldn’t but think of my daughter.” She also recounts an incident when she was on a roof, along with all the foreign press and their cameras. Bahia pushed the cameras away; she admits that her patriotism outweighs the journalist’s instincts for objectivity.

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Robert Koehler

A US marine walks past two bodies lying along a street in the Fallujah.
Photo: AFP/Patrick Baz The WE!

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fallujah . . .

And so it turns out that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, though not until we arrived and started using them.

Along with whatever else we did to Fallujah – exacted collective punishment on a defiant city (a war crime) in November 2004, killed thousands of civilians, shattered the infrastructure (nearly six years later, the sewage system hasn’t been repaired and waste flows in the streets) — we also, apparently, nuked the city, leaving a legacy of cancer, leukemia, infant mortality, and genetic abnormality.

Freedom isn’t free. Remember when that was the go-to phrase of the citizen war zealots among us, their all-purpose rebuttal when those of us appalled by this insane war cited civilian casualty stats? Discussion over. Thought stops here.

This is the power of language. Call it "war" and along come glory, duty, courage, sacrifice: the best of humanity writ large. The word is impenetrable; it sets the heart in motion; God makes an appearance, blesses the troops, blesses the weapons. Operation Iraqi Freedom: They’ll greet us with open arms.

At what point do we learn our lesson, that "war" is a moral cesspool of horrific consequences, especially, and most troublingly, unintended ones?

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Stephen Lendman

Assange said Monday he believes there is evidence of war crimes
in the thousands of pages of leaked U.S. military documents re-
lating to the war in Afghanistan. The remarks came after Wikileaks,
a whistle-blowing group, posted some 91,000 classified U.S. military
records over the past six years about the war online, including un-
reported incidents of Afghan civilian killings and covert operations
against Taliban figures. (Source) (AP Photo/Lizzie Robinson, PA)

When truths are too disturbing to conceal, downplay them, change the subject, and blame others, not responsible Washington officials and key allies, culpable politicians and media misinformation masters suppressing and misreporting the facts, their well-oiled spin machine counterattacking WikiLeaks - revelations too sensitive to explain, a potential game-changer otherwise, so pundits and reporters duck them.

Above all, WikiLeaks "Afghan War Diaries" are a powerful indictment of wars, their true face, the mindless daily slaughter and destruction too disturbing to reveal, for Julian Assange:

"the vast sweep of abuses, everyday squalor and carnage of war....one sort of kill after another every day going on and on and on....one damn thing after another....(endless) small events, the continuous deaths of children, insurgents, allied forces....(many) thousands" of war crimes needing exposure, accountability, and prosecutions.

The "Diaries" document them, suppressed by the major media, choosing embedded complicity and Pentagon handouts over real journalism, WikiLeaks "high quality material" and solid analysis their antidote, so far not enough to stop Congress.

One day after their release, following the Senate's passage days earlier on top of $130 billion already approved this year, the House overwhelmingly passed a $60 billion supplemental spending bill, including $37 billion for America's wars, mostly for 30,000 additional troops in Afghanistan. Obama tripled the force since taking office, now around 100,000 and increasing by about 2,000 a month, their numbers exceeded by private military and other contractors, making the annual cost per US soldier $1 million and rising, reason enough to end both wars and bring them home.

Yet more escalation is planned, breaking candidate Obama's October 27, 2007 pledge saying:

"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home, We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank," perhaps an insolvent one under FDIC receivership.

A day after the WikiLeaks release, he ignored old promises, evaded indictable war crimes evidence and a deepening unwinnable quagmire, urging the House authorize more supplemental funding, then engaged in contradictory, deceitful damage control.

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Khalid Amayreh

The shipyard dogs of Zionism get ferociously mad whenever Israel is described as a racist and apartheid state. They argue rather vehemently that it is unfair and unjust to describe the deformed pariah entity as an apartheid state, citing the fact that non-Jews in Israel are accorded equal political rights and are allowed to vote.

Well, I think we do a great injustice to language when we call Israel an apartheid state because the Zionist regime is far more nefarious than all the apartheid and discrimination in the world combined.

Theoretically, Israel does give some rights to non-Jewish citizens. However, when these rights are dealt with in practice, they are effectively devoid of any substance. In fact, non-Jews are accorded citizenship in Israel only in exchange for coming to terms with Jewish supremacy and inherent discrimination against them. After all, the state is defined as Jewish first and only democratic second, meaning that in any conflict between the "Jewish" and "democratic" aspects of the state, the Jewish component will always come first.

So what is the point of having rights and privileges that are used solely for propaganda purposes and not meant to be implemented in any genuine manner?

Besides, "democracy" goes for the Jews, while "Jewish supremacy" is smacked in the face of the native Arab community?

In addition, we all know that democracy can produce criminal and racist laws. Fascism is often of a populist nature, especially in the absences of constitutional checks and balances which don't exist in Israel.

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John Pilger

The rise to power of Australia’s first female prime minister led to hopes for political change. But early signs indicate that Gillard will do little more than protect vested big-business interests.

The Order of Mates celebrated beside Sydney Harbour the other day. This is a venerable masonry in Australian political life that unites the Labor Party with the rich elite known as the big end of town. They shake hands, not hug, though the Silver Bodgie now hugs. In his prime, the Silver Bodgie, aka Bob Hawke, or Hawkie, wore suits that shone, wide-bottomed trousers and shirts with the buttons undone. A bodgie was a 1950s Australian Teddy Boy and Hawke's thick grey-black coiffure added inches to his abbreviated stature.

Hawke also talked out of the corner of his mouth in an accent that was said to be "ocker", or working class, although he was of the middle class and Oxford-educated. When he was president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, his popularity rested on his reputation as a hard-drinking larrikin, an Australian sobriquet once prized almost as much as an imperial honour. For Hawke, it was the disguise of one whose heart belonged to the big end of town, who cooled the struggles of working Australians during the rise to power of the new property sharks, mineral barons and tax avoiders.

Indeed, as Labor prime minister in the 1980s, Hawke and his treasurer Paul Keating eliminated the most equitable spread of personal income on earth: a model for the Blairites. And the Great Mate across the Pacific loved Hawkie. Victor Marchetti, the CIA strategist who helped draft the treaty that gave America control over its most important spy base in the southern hemisphere, told me: "When Hawke came along . . . he immediately sent signals that he knew how the game was played and who was buttering his bread. He became very co-operative, and even obsequious."

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Neve Gordon

Link to the Guardian video HERE.

Neve Gordon recounts his experience of visiting the Israeli Arab village of Al-Arakib moments after it had been razed to the ground by the Israeli authorities, in the latest example of ethnic cleansing in the Negev desert.

A menacing convoy of bulldozers was heading back to Be'er Sheva as I drove towards al-Arakib, a Bedouin village located not more than 10 minutes from the city. Once I entered the dirt road leading to the village I saw scores of vans with heavily armed policemen getting ready to leave. Their mission, it seems, had been accomplished.

The signs of destruction were immediately evident. I first noticed the chickens and geese running loose near a bulldozed house, and then saw another house and then another one, all of them in rubble. A few children were trying to find a shaded spot to hide from the scorching desert sun, while behind them a stream of black smoke rose from the burning hay. The sheep, goats and the cattle were nowhere to be seen – perhaps because the police had confiscated them.

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Matthew Nasuti

“The Chinese contribution (to Afghanistan) is as important as that of Western troops.” ~ A quote from Mohammad Yalaqi, the Afghan Minister of Commerce and Industry to Tini Tran of the Associated Press on July 4, 2010, for the story: “As US fights, China spends to gain Afghan foothold.”

It should stun the American public to discover that some Afghan officials place Chinese commercial ties on an equal par with ten years of American military and reconstruction efforts.

On July 5, 2010, Senator John McCain, speaking in Afghanistan, stated: “If we succeed there (Kandahar) we will succeed in the rest of this struggle.” The reality is that Afghans may credit China for any defeat of the Taliban. It is disquieting that the American Embassy in Kabul is losing a little-known propaganda war over who is helping the Afghans the most.

In contrast, the Chinese Embassy in Kabul is waging a brilliant campaign to advance its interests. Almost as significant, it is waging its war so skillfully that American diplomats are seemingly oblivious to the Chinese efforts. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell traveled to Beijing in October 2009, to urge China to assist and invest in Afghanistan. Earlier this month, when the Associated Press interviewed State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid, he praised China’s efforts in Afghanistan!

China is not merely winning the propaganda war. It is keeping a low public profile in Afghanistan, which keeps Muslim militant efforts focused on the very visible American military presence.

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Gilad Atzmon

"Stone doesn’t refer to race. There is nothing anti Semitic in his remark whatsoever unless telling the truth is a form of anti Semitism. Moreover, Stone didn’t demonize Jews for being Jews, he described some actions committed by Jewish institutional lobbies, actions that are now academically documented and studied. He did it for a good reason. Stone is probably patriotic or pragmatic enough to gather that peace is important."

There you go, Oliver Stone apologized for suggesting that the Jewish lobby controls Washington's foreign policy and that Hitler's actions should be put into context.

In fact, Stone’s apology confirms Stone’s argument. We are subject to constant assault by Jewish and Israeli gatekeepers who insist on controlling the political and historical discourse and defy any possible criticism of Jewish national affairs.

“In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret,” Stone said in a statement released late Monday, the day after his remarks were published in a British newspaper.

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Stephen Lendman

Calling itself "the intelligence agency of the people," WikiLeaks is "a multi-juristidictional public service designed to protect whistleblowers, journalists and activists who have sensitive material to communicate to the public" that has a right and need to know - to then use responsibly for better government in a free and open society, absent in today's America run by warlords, criminal politicians, and corporate bosses, spurning the rule of law for their own gain.

On July 26, WikiLeaks published "The Afghan War Diaries," its modern day Pentagon Papers, top-secret documents eroding support for the Vietnam War, the New York Times saying they "demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance" - what Julian Assange has done on Afghanistan, revealing Bush and Obama administration lies and duplicity about their illegal war of aggression, America's longest. More on that below.

Releasing over 75,000 of nearly 92,000 reports, they represent a small fraction of millions of US files uploaded to WikiLeaks databases, more to be regularly released, "high quality material," according to Assange.

They're chronologically listed in over 100 categories, covering the period January 2004 - December 2009, describing lethal US military actions, including numbers internally killed, wounded, or detained by geographical location, units involved, and major weapons used.

Since the Pentagon Papers, they comprise the "most significant (comprehensive) archive about the reality of war," with no resolution or opposition in Congress, providing "a comprehensive understanding of the war (and) modern warfare in general."

Accounts come mainly from soldiers and intelligence officers, but also from US embassies and other sources revealing corruption and criminality across Afghanistan, including coverups, collusion, distortion, and duplicity - a sordid story needing telling to shock a comatose public to action, and revive a badly needed anti-war movement.

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Kurt Nimmo

Not long after Wikileaks dumped tens of thousands of classified Afghanistan “war” documents into the public arena for consumption, the corporate media zoomed in on Pakistan. “WikiLeaks documents released Sunday shine a spotlight on Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, a spy agency that has been accused for years of having links to terrorist groups,” writes the Wall Street Journal.

“In the reports, the retired general [Hamid Gul] and former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from 1987 to 1989 is accused of ordering IED attacks against Afghan and international forces in December 2006 and of plotting to kidnap United Nations staff to use as hostages in exchange for militant prisoners,” reports the Christian Science Monitor. “The ISI is mentioned in at least 190 reports, and is accused of backing attacks against US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Afghanistan.”

Demonizing Pakistan and Gul play right into the Pentagon’s script as the puppet Barry Obama expands the “war” in Afghanistan and sends drones armed with Hellfire missiles into Pakistan’s tribal areas to kill a never-ending cast of intelligence created bad guys.

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Jonathan Cook

Sheikh Raed Salah (center)

The arrest by Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, of an Israeli Jew accused of killing at least four Palestinians has thrown a rare light on the secret police, including attempts by one of its agents to enlist the accused to assassinate a Palestinian spiritual leader.

Chaim Pearlman, who was arrested a fortnight ago, has been charged with murdering four Palestinians in Jerusalem and injuring at least seven others in a series of knife attacks that began more than a decade ago. Police are still investigating whether he was involved in additional attacks.

Although Pearlman was denied access to a lawyer until 23 July, far-right groups have rapidly come to his aid, waging what the Shin Bet officials have described as “psychological warfare” by revealing damaging details about the case.

Pearlman has released tape recordings he secretly made of recent conversations with an undercover Shin Bet agent who tried to get Pearlman to incriminate himself.

The agent, who befriended Pearlman and was known as “Dada”, can be heard exhorting him both to go to an “Arab village” to “turn it into a fireworks display” and to execute Sheikh Raed Salah, a leader of the Islamic Movement and a recent participant in the aid flotilla to Gaza that was attacked by Israel.

In another blow to the Shin Bet, Pearlman’s supporters have released a video secretly filmed of the head of the Shin Bet’s Jewish division, which arrested Pearlman, both naming him and identifying where he lives.

Although he is in charge of handling “Jewish terror” cases for the Shin Bet, the video states that he lives in Kfar Adumim, a West Bank settlement. It is a criminal offence to identify any employee of the Shin Bet.

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Kevin Barrett / Gordon Duff
truthjihad.blogspot.com

"Chris Hedges wrote that he had been in several war zones, but he had never seen soldiers luring children within range of their guns, then gut-shooting them for sport, until he saw Israeli soldiers doing it in the Occupied Territories."

ISRAEL CLAIMS “NO PTSD IN IDF, JEWS IMMUNE TO MENTAL ILLNESS”: STUDY COMPARES “RESETTLING PALESTINIANS” WITH WARS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

Gordon is skeptical of the Zionist claim that their troops, unlike American soldiers, don't suffer from PTSD. If this is true, Gordon says, maybe it's because American soldiers are fighting and dying for a Zionist-orchestrated series of lies, and are treated like "broken toys" when they come home; while Israeli soldiers are committing genocide for their own national benefit, and are relatively well-treated by their US-taxpayer-funded regime.

But there is a simpler explanation: In claiming that its soldiers are immune to PTSD, Israel is implicitly confessing that its troops are psychopaths.

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Chris Floyd

(Updated and revised.)

"I am shocked -- shocked! -- to find gambling is going on in here" ~ Captain Renault at the gaming tables in Casablanca.

The much ballyhooed dump of intelligence and diplomatic files concerning the Afghan War has been trumpeted as some kind of shocking expose, "painting a different picture" than the official version of events -- revelations that are sure to rock the Anglo-American political establishments to their foundations.

The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel were given 92,000 reports by Wikileaks, including thousands of pages of raw "human intelligence" (i.e., uncorroborated claims and gossip from interested parties and anonymous sources pushing a multitude of agendas), and diplomatic notes passed between the promulgators of the occupation in Washington and their factotums "in country" -- reports which you might imagine also purvey a multitude of agendas ... not least the supreme agenda of all officials involved in a dubious enterprise: ass-covering.

Yet these reports are being treated as if they are the "grim truth" behind the shining picture of official propaganda. But what do these stories in the NYT and Guardian actually "reveal"? Let's see:

● That the occupation forces kill lots of civilians at checkpoints and botched raids, then lie about it afterward.
● That these killings make Afghans angry and fuel the insurgency.
● That elements of Pakistani intelligence are involved with some elements of the many resistance groups known collectively (and incorrectly) in the West as the Taliban.
● That the Americans are using more and more robot drones to kill people.
● That the Americans are running death squads in Afghanistan aimed at Taliban leaders.
● That Afghan officials are corrupt, and that Afghan police and military forces are woefully inadequate.

Is there anything in these breathless new recitations that we did not already know? For example, the NYT offers a few short vignettes from the leaked documents concerning botched raids and errant missiles that slaughter civilians. But in almost every case, these have already been extensively reported -- in the Times itself and other mainstream venues -- in much greater detail, with quotes and evidence from the victims and local eyewitnesses, and not just the self-interested, ass-covering perspective of official occupation reports. And the "revelation" that occupation forces are killing "an amazing number of people" who have "never proven to be a threat" at checkpoints was confirmed months ago by no less than Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the erstwhile commander of the whole shebang.

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Stephen Lendman

The combination of millions of gallons of oil and dispersants has made large areas of the Gulf toxic and dangerous, marine toxicologist Ricki Ott saying if she lived there with children she'd leave - based on her firsthand experience after the 1989 Prince William Sound, Alaska Exxon Valdez disaster and subsequent research, documented in her books titled, "Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill" and "Not One Drop - Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill."

Ongoing today, the legacy includes criminal negligence, bankruptcies, destroyed lives and livelihoods, domestic violence, severe anxiety, trauma, PTSD, drug and alcohol abuse, serious illnesses, suicides, massive loss of plant and wildlife, and vast ecological destruction from the 30 million or more gallons spilled, the State of Alaska's conservative estimate, not Exxon's 11 million figure, its lowball claim to hide the disaster's magnitude and minimize its liability.

The Gulf catastrophe is infinitely greater, estimates up to three or more Exxon Valdez incidents (using Exxon's figure) a week until capped. Yet some experts think another seabed hole (a few miles from the Macondo well) is emitting 100,000 or more barrels daily, greatly compounding the growing disaster, added to more by numerous small leaks, five or more alone in BP's Macondo well - the "well from hell," according to some.

Geologist Chris Landau is one, telling Petroleum World that "BP has drilled into a deep-core oil volcano that cannot be stopped, regardless of the horizontal drills the company claims will stop the oil plume in August."

Ocean Energy Institute Founder Matthew Simmons is another, telling Bloomberg we've killed the Gulf of Mexico - its $2.2 trillion economy by depleting oxygen, decimating aquatic life and poisoning the food chain. We've also created a public health crisis, problems showing up first in cleanup workers experiencing dizziness, fainting, nausea, nosebleeds, vomiting, coughing, headaches, stomach upset, and difficulty breathing, compounded by heat, fatigue, hydrocarbon smell, and combined toxicity of oil and dispersants.

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Chris Floyd

Years ago, I wrote about the use of chemical weapons in the American assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. I was attacked at the time for my "wild accusations" by many people, across the political spectrum, even by stalwart dissidents, who felt that such "exaggerations" undermined the "effectiveness" of the anti-war movement, preventing it from being taken "seriously" by the "serious" players in the power structure. Later, of course, American military officials -- and serving soldiers -- admitted using white phosphorus and other chemical weapons in the assault.

Over the years, small-scale medical studies have pointed to the horrific effects of these USA-WMD attacks. Now, a new comprehensive medical study has shown that the "dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukemia" in Fallujah since 2004 have "exceeded those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945," The Independent reports.

The Independent story follows up on an initial video report by top BBC journalist John Simpson last week -- a story that was almost universally ignored, not only in the fawning corporate press but also across the "dissident" blogosphere (except by a very few, such as Winter Patriot). Both stories make clear that the chief victims of the American WMD are, overwhelming, children:

Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.

Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.

Dr Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster and one of the authors of the survey of 4,800 individuals in Fallujah, said it is difficult to pin down the exact cause of the cancers and birth defects. He added that "to produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened".

US Marines first besieged and bombarded Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, in April 2004 after four employees of the American security company Blackwater were killed and their bodies burned. After an eight-month stand-off, the Marines stormed the city in November using artillery and aerial bombing against rebel positions. US forces later admitted that they had employed white phosphorus as well as other munitions.

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Stephen Lendman

Hopefully its folly will prevent it. Otherwise, expect severe repercussions, including a considerable counterattack and disruption of regional oil supplies, further impacting a troubled global economy. So why consider it, given the December 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) saying:

"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; (perhaps it never had one); we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons..." True or not, dozens of nations may consider one, for defense, not offense in a hostile world, America and Israel the main aggressors, threatening humanity with their weapons of mass destruction.

The NIE also said:

"We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop (them).

Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop (them) than we have been judging since 2005."

Expect a new NIE update later this summer, hopefully with similar conclusions, then Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair saying so to Congress before his dismissal, perhaps why he was sacked, a "mistake" his successor, General James Clapper, won't make, but what's coming isn't certain, given influential forces on both sides in America, the same ones arguing them for years. Yet beyond saber-rattling rhetoric and sanctions, the administration's position is unclear.

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William A. Cook

A confluence of news stories emerged this past week that, if related, shed an unusual light on the deteriorating crisis in the mid-east, most especially on Palestine and Iran. On June 27th, Ha’aretz made this observation about discussions at the G-8 meeting in Ontario: “World leaders ‘believe absolutely’ that Israel may decide to take military action against Iran to prevent the latter from acquiring nuclear weapons,” citing a statement made by Italy’s PM Silvio Berlusconi. Indeed, he went on to say that “Israel will probably act preemptively.” So engaged were the representatives of the G-8 that they issued a statement “calling on Iran to ‘respect the rule of law’ and to ‘hold a transparent dialogue’ over its nuclear ambitions.” Their statement went on to say that Iran should show a ‘commitment to international law’.

On July 7th, Newsmax, in an article titled “Lieberman: US Prepared to Strike Iran to Stop Nuclear Weapons” states: “The United States may be forced to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities if diplomatic efforts and economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic fail, Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Wednesday after a meeting with Israeli officials in Jerusalem.”

On July 11th, Ali Asghar Soltaniyeh told Press TV that “over a 100 countries in the general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency have condemned Israel for not cooperating with the IAEA. The Zionist regime has refused to sign the Non Proliferation Treaty and it is believed that the regime has about 200 nuclear warheads capable of being mounted on long-range missiles and a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons.”. How are these stories related?

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