From Information Clearing House
By Robert Fisk

In Syria, the world appears through a glass, darkly. As dark as the smoked windows of the car which takes me to a building on the western side of Damascus where a man I have known for 15 years - we shall call him a “security source”, which is the name given by American correspondents to their own powerful intelligence officers - waits with his own ferocious narrative of disaster in Iraq and dangers in the Middle East.

His is a fearful portrait of an America trapped in the bloody sands of Iraq, desperately trying to provoke a civil war around Baghdad in order to reduce its own military casualties. It is a scenario in which Saddam Hussein remains Washington’s best friend, in which Syria has struck at the Iraqi insurgents with a ruthlessness that the United States wilfully ignores. And in which Syria’s Interior Minister, found shot dead in his office last year, committed suicide because of his own mental instability.

The Americans, my interlocutor suspected, are trying to provoke an Iraqi civil war so that Sunni Muslim insurgents spend their energies killing their Shia co-religionists rather than soldiers of the Western occupation forces. “I swear to you that we have very good information,” my source says, finger stabbing the air in front of him. “One young Iraqi man told us that he was trained by the Americans as a policeman in Baghdad and he spent 70 per cent of his time learning to drive and 30 per cent in weapons training. They said to him: ‘Come back in a week.’ When he went back, they gave him a mobile phone and told him to drive into a crowded area near a mosque and phone them. He waited in the car but couldn’t get the right mobile signal. So he got out of the car to where he received a better signal. Then his car blew up.”

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From Crooks and Liars

Chris Wallace asked if Bolton planned to do away with televised press briefings which is another signal that the administration wants to manipulate and silence the press. Chris uses the old ” some people say” routine which really means right wingers who are angry that the press has the nerve to actually demand answers.

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From The Seattle Times
Editorial

Fast-rising gas prices are prompting President Bush and Congress to fall over one another with shortsighted ideas for dealing with the crisis.

The Democrats’ earlier idea to offer $500 rebates to taxpayers to compensate for soaring prices is dumber (only by $400) than the Republicans’ idea for $100 rebates for the same purpose. A government with uncontrolled deficit spending can ill afford to dole out feel-good happy checks. Taxpayers receiving those checks would know government would be spending money it doesn’t have.

Republicans try to capitalize on rising gas prices by pushing once again — when do they stop? — for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It is not smart to make long-term strategy for a relatively small amount of oil amid a price crisis.

The $100 rebate is included in the same proposal that includes drilling in ANWR. Are we really going to buy public policy by offering motorists a C-note in exchange for fouling a pristine wilderness?

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From The Times UK
By David Smith

The dollar has embarked on a big decline that will see it fall against all leading currencies, according to analysts. The plunge is being prompted by America’s $800 billion (£438 billion) current-account deficit, they say.

The dollar has been under pressure following last weekend’s meeting of G7 finance ministers and central bankers, which emphasised global imbalances and said currencies should reflect economic fundamentals. Then China raised its key interest rate to 5.85%, its first hike for months, and Ben Bernanke, the new Federal Reserve chairman, hinted that American rates would pause at 5% after a rise in May.

Analysts say that without interest-rate support, the dollar will be weighed down heavily by America’s imbalances.

I think this is it, said Tony Norfield, global head of currency strategy at ABN Amro. The dollar has been supported by high yields but markets are saying that is no longer enough. The question for policymakers is going to be how to manage the dollar’s decline. It won’t be a one-way street but the fall is likely to be biggest against Asian currencies.

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From The Seattle Times
By Mark Silva

As the Bush administration has dramatically accelerated the classification of information as “top secret” or “confidential,” one office is refusing to report on its annual activity in classifying documents: the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

A standing executive order, strengthened by President Bush in 2003, requires all agencies and “any other entity within the executive branch” to provide an annual accounting of their classification of documents. More than 80 agencies have collectively reported to the National Archives that they made 15.6 million decisions in 2004 to classify information, nearly double the number in 2001, but Cheney insists he is exempt.

Explaining why the vice president has withheld even a tally of his office’s secrecy when offices such as the National Security Council routinely report theirs, a spokeswoman said Cheney is “not under any duty” to provide it.

That is only one way the Bush administration, from its opening weeks in 2001, has asserted control over information. By keeping secret so many directives and actions, the administration has precluded the public — and often Congress — from knowing about some of the most significant decisions and acts of the White House.

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From The Toronto Star
By Haroon Siddiqui

Set aside the American spin — dutifully disseminated by the media — regarding the latest report of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s nuclear program.

Rather than augment America’s case, it proves how counterproductive George W. Bush’s bullying tactics have been.

Cornered by him, Iran has enriched uranium. It has reduced co-operation with the Vienna-based agency, thereby slowing progress on unearthing all aspects of the nuclear program. It hinted Friday that it’d co-operate even less if he does not let up.

“The international community is less well off than it was before the issue was taken to the Security Council,” said a diplomat over a phone from Vienna.

Bush’s tactics bear eerie parallels to his 2002-03 buildup to the invasion of Iraq. The ostensible issue then was the hidden weapons of mass destruction. Now, it is the Iranian intention to develop a nuclear bomb.

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From Reuters News

The U.S. government has asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit by a San Francisco civil liberties group against AT&T because it says the case could reveal military and state secrets.

The class-action suit by the group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, on behalf of AT&T customers accuses the company of unlawful collaboration with the National Security Agency in its surveillance program to intercept telephone and e-mail communications between the United States and people linked to al Qaeda and affiliated organizations.

President George W. Bush authorized the intercepts following the September 11 attacks without court approval.

In a “Statement of Interest” filed on Friday, the government asked U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to throw out the suit, saying the government “cannot disclose any information that may be at issue in this case.”

“The government intends to assert the military and state secrets privilege (that) permits the government to protect against the unauthorized disclosure in litigation of information that may harm national security interests,” it said.

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From Tom Dispatch
By Tom Engelhardt

It’s the perfect day for a march. Sunny, crisp, clear, spring-like. The sort of day that just gives you hope for no reason at all, though my own hopes are not high for New York’s latest antiwar demonstration. I haven’t received a single email about it. Many people I know hadn’t realized it was happening. I fear the outreach has been minimal and despite all the signals of danger (of another war, this time with Iran) and of possibility (nosediving presidential approval polls, an administration in disarray, and the Republican Party in growing chaos), I approach this 30 block march with something of a sinking heart.

This is only reinforced by the scene that meets the full staff of Tomdispatch.com — Nick Turse and me — as we leave the subway at 18th street and head east about an hour before the demonstrators are to step off. The streets are still largely empty of all but the police, gathered in knots at every corner. Their blue sawhorses (”police line do not cross”) rim the sidewalks seemingly to the horizon and everywhere you can see stacks of the metal fencing with which the NYPD has become so expert at hemming in any demonstration. None of this inspires great confidence.

Sometimes, though, surprise is a wonderful thing. Who would have guessed that several hours later I would be standing on Broadway and Leonard Street looking back at perhaps 20 packed blocks of demonstrators — bands, puppets, signs by the thousands, vets by the hundreds (if not the thousands), huge contingents of military families, congeries of the young, labor, women, the clergy, university and high school students, raging grannies, radical cheerleaders, and who knows who else — an enormous mass of humanity as far as the eye can see and probably another 10 to 15 blocks beyond that. It was enough to make the heart leap. I had no way of counting, no way of knowing whether what I saw was the 300,000 the organizers claimed or merely the vague “tens of thousands” mentioned in most media reports. It was, to say the least though, a lot of people, mobilized on limited notice.

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From sjlendman.blogspot.com
By Stephen Lendman

Noam Chomsky hardly needs an introduction. Throughout his lifetime as an internationally esteemed academic, scholar and activist he’s the rarest of individuals I know. He’s world renown twice over - in his chosen field of linguistics where he’s considered the father of modern linguistics and as a leading voice for equity, justice and peace for over four decades. Although the dominant US corporate media religiously ignore him (especially on air), the New York Times Review of Books said of him a generation ago that “judged in terms of the power, range, novelty and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive today.” He still is, and someone should inform the Times he’s also still alive, but you’d never know it from the silence today from “the newspaper of record” and the rest of the corporate media as well.

Noam, as his friends call him, is the Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics at MIT where he taught in his chosen field beginning in 1955. He’s written many dozens of books, and despite a nonstop schedule that would challenge most anyone half his age, he still travels the world to speak to large enthusiastic audiences where he’s in great demand. He also gives many interviews that appear in print and on air and continues his prolific writing producing many articles and a new book about every year or two. I don’t know how he does it, and I lost count of the number of books he’s written. But I’m proud to say I’ve read and have on my shelves at home about 45 of them (the political ones) and always look forward to his newest when it’s available.

For those who feel as I do and admire him greatly, it’s always with anticipation and great expectation of more vintage Chomsky when his latest book arrives. One just did, called Failed States, and I couldn’t wait to read it and again immerse myself in the thinking and discourse of this great man. It’s a privilege and honor to write about it as I’m about to do while taking a little editorial license to add a few of my own comments. Read the rest of this entry »

From Editor and Publisher
By E&P Staff

A blistering comedy tribute to President Bush by Comedy Central’s faux talk show host Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondent Dinner Saturday night left George and Laura Bush unsmiling at its close.

Earlier, the president had delivered his talk to the 2700 attendees, including many celebrities and top officials, with the help of a Bush impersonator. Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, and reality has a well-known liberal bias.

He attacked those in the press who claim that the shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. This administration is soaring, not sinking, he said. They are re-arranging the deck chairs–on the Hindenburg.

Colbert told Bush he could end the problem of protests by retired generals by refusing to let them retire. He compared Bush to Rocky Balboa in the Rocky movies, always getting punched in the face–and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world.

Turning to the war, he declared, “I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.”

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From Crooks and Liars Watch Video