Adnan Al-Daini

Iraqi women farmers unload wheat in this Diyala
Province village. The Iraqi government is trying
to develop more drought-resistant varieties.

Is there no end to the suffering of the country of my birth, Iraq, and its people?

In my early teens in Iraq, in the late fifties and early sixties, I used to accompany my father to farms to buy wheat grain for our own consumption, and a few sacks more to sell in the village to make some profit.  I remember the discussions between my father and the small farmers regarding the quality of the grain, and whether the dough would stick (hounta khabbaza) to the walls of the clay oven in which my mother baked the bread.  This particular quality is essential to prevent it falling into the hot embers at the bottom of the oven. The farmers used to assure us of the quality, giving a little history of how the grains had been improved by knowledge sharing between farmers, with the best quality seed being adopted. 

The system had an inbuilt informal ability to improve the quality of the wheat grain.  This method of sharing expertise and the use of knowledge passed through the generations were applied to every aspect of farming and fruit orchards to improve the quality and quantity of the produce. 

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Paul Craig Roberts

Truly, Amerika is a light unto the world, an example for all.

In the past decade, Washington has killed, maimed, dislocated, and made widows and orphans millions of Muslims in six countries, all in the name of the “war on terror.” Washington’s attacks on the countries constitute naked aggression and impact primarily civilian populations and infrastructure and, thereby, constitute war crimes under law. Nazis were executed precisely for what Washington is doing today.

Moreover the wars and military attacks have cost American taxpayers in out-of-pocket and already-incurred future costs at least $4,000 billion dollars--one third of the accumulated public debt--resulting in a US deficit crisis that threatens the social safety net, the value of the US dollar and its reserve currency role, while enriching beyond all previous history the military/security complex and its apologists.

Perhaps the highest cost of Washington’s “war on terror” has been paid by the US Constitution and civil liberties. Any US citizen that Washington accuses is deprived of all legal and constitutional rights. The Bush-Cheney-Obama regimes have overturned humanity’s greatest achievement--the accountability of government to law.

If we look around for the terror that the police state and a decade of war has allegedly protected us from, the terror is hard to find. Except for 9/11 itself, assuming we accept the government’s improbable conspiracy theory explanation, there have been no terror attacks on the US. Indeed, as RT pointed out on August 23, 2011, an investigative program at the University of California discovered that the domestic “terror plots” hyped in the media were plotted by FBI agents.

FBI undercover agents now number 15,000, ten times their number during the protests against the Vietnam war when protesters were suspected of communist sympathies. As there apparently are no real terror plots for this huge workforce to uncover, the FBI justifies its budget, terror alerts, and invasive searches of American citizens by thinking up “terror plots” and finding some deranged individuals to ensnare. For example, the Washington DC Metro bombing plot, the New York city subway plot, the plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago were all FBI brainchilds organized and managed by FBI agents.

RT reports that only three plots might have been independent of the FBI, but as none of the three worked they obviously were not the work of such a professional terror organization as Al Qaeda is purported to be. The Times Square car bomb didn’t blow up, and apparently could not have.

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Stephen Lendman

Inmates inside the Los Angeles Men's Central Jail waiting
to be transferred to another jail. (J. Emilio Flores / NYT)

Prison is hell everywhere. America is no different in, by far, the world's largest gulag. Inmates are treated worse than subhumans.

Torture is commonly used. It not just at Guantanamo and similar offshore hellholes. It happens across America in federal, state and local prisons where inmates are terrorized by dogs, shocked with cattle prods, burned by toxic chemicals, harmed by stun guns, beaten, stripped naked, raped, and abused in other ways.

In July 2008, the Southern California ACLU (ACLU/SC) released a "Report on Mental Health Issues at Los Angeles County Jail." It discussed how confinement in overcrowded conditions produces an epidemic of unaddressed mental health issues. It also addressed excessive staff abuse, including beatings, compounded by the stress of overcrowding and deputy or inmate-on-inmate violence. A previous article discussed it, accessed through this link.

On September 28, New York Times writer Jennifer Medina headlined, "Report Details Wide Abuse in Los Angeles Jail System," saying: According to an ACLU/SC report, "(o)ne inmate said he was forced to walk down a hallway naked after sheriff's deputies accused him of stealing a piece of mail." Another said "deputies....slammed his head into a wall and repeatedly punched him in the chest" for protesting guard treatment of a mentally ill prisoner. As a result of daily abuse, the ACLU/SC will "file (suit) in Federal District Court here on Wednesday. The Los Angeles County jail system, the nation's largest, is also (the) most troubled, according to lawyers, advocates and former law enforcement officials."

Retired LA office FBI official Tom Parker called the "situation, the length of time it has been going on, the volume of complaints, and the egregious nature much, much worse than anything (he's) ever seen." "They are abusing inmates with impunity, and the worst part is that they think they can get away with it."

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