From Information Clearing House

The Bush administration promoted the misguided and destructive war in Iraq by targeting our concerns about vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness. The continued occupation of Iraq or an attack on Iran will likely be sold to us in much the same way. This video examines these warmongering appeals and describes how to counter them.

Watch Video

From The Nation
By John Nichols

Most Democrats may not want New York Senator Hillary Clinton ˜¼ to be their party’s presidential nominee in 2008. But that won’t necessarily stop the former First Lady.

Clinton’s determined bid looks to be succeeding, in large part because her many opponents — all of whom had hoped to emerge as “the anti-Hillary” are instead dividing up the great mass of voters who would prefer another nominee. That’s especially true of former North Carolina Senator John Edwards and Illinois Senator Barack Obama ˜¼.

Both Edwards and Obama have staked out positions to the left of Clinton on the war in Iraq and a host of other issues. Combined, their support in key states and nationally overwhelms Clinton. Divided, they fall behind.

Interestingly, while Obama remains the darling of the Washington press corps and, increasingly, of donors in Hollywood, polls from early caucus and primary states suggest it is Edwards who is edging into a more competitive position with Clinton.

Yet, with Obama still very much in the running and taking a substantial amount of support, Edwards falls just short quite of overtaking Clinton in at least two of the states that are increasingly likely to determine the direction of the race.

Read more Hill Tops

From The Progressive
By Amitabh Pal

A nation is falling apart, and one man is largely responsible.

Zimbabwe is rapidly going to seed, and Robert Mugabe is presiding over its decline with relish.

How the mighty fall! Here is a man who presided over the liberation of Rhodesia from a racist apartheid regime in 1980, and was mentioned in the same breath as Nelson Mandela. To do so now would be unimaginable, except to point out the contrast.

Mugabe governed with at least a semblance of democracy early on in his tenure. But he suppressed the Ndebele Rebellion at the cost of tens of thousands of lives. And as time went on, his desire to remain in power became more insatiable, and his tactics more desperate. At the age of eighty-three, he seems to have no intention of leaving. He needs to give it a rest. He is roughly the same age as my maternal grandparents, and I’m quite certain neither of them would relish the challenge of governing a country.

Or misgoverning it, as Mugabe is doing. Inflation in Zimbabwe is an unbelievable 1,700 percent a year. An estimated 80 percent of the working-age population is unemployed. Basic foodstuffs and fuel are unavailable. Zimbabweans are fleeing their country in large numbers.

Read more Corruption

From The BBC News

President George W Bush has condemned Iran’s “inexcusable behaviour” after its capture of 15 Royal Navy personnel. The US leader added that he would “strongly support” the British government over the crisis. However, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has attacked the UK as “arrogant and selfish”.

He insisted that “British occupier forces” trespassed into Iranian waters and that his country’s border guards had displayed “skill and bravery”.

‘Inexcusable behaviour’

Speaking at his mountain retreat in Camp David, Maryland, Mr Bush told reporters: “The British hostages issue is a serious issue because the Iranians took these people out of Iraqi water.

“And it is inexcusable behaviour. “I strongly support the Blair government’s attempts to resolve this peacefully. “And I support the Prime Minister when he made it clear there were no quid pro quos.

Read more Iran

From Common Dreams
By Christopher Brauchli

The one thing we’ve learned but Mr. Bush has not, is that depending on whom you do it to, lying can be a crime even if you are not under oath. Mr. Bush knows that if his in-house liars, of whom he has an abundance from whom to select, lie under oath they may be subject to criminal prosecution. He thinks if they are not under oath when they lie to Congress it’s not a crime. There’s a reason for his confusion. He told the biggest lie of all and has not been prosecuted for it. What he doesn’t realize is that’s not because he was not under oath. It’s because he didn’t tell it to a Congressional committee. He told it to the entire world and that’s not a crime even though to date it’s gotten 3400 American soldiers killed, more than 25,000 American soldiers wounded and depending on what reports you choose to read, between 200,000 and 600,000 Iraqis killed. Mr. Bush’s lie is the lie that continues to give, as more soldiers and Iraqis die and are grievously wounded daily. All Mr. Bush has to do to educate himself on the two methods of criminally lying is to examine two guilty pleas entered by two former members of his administration.The most notable was Scooter Libby, Mr. Cheney’s former chief of staff. His lie couldn’t hold a candle to George Bush’s lies but it was under oath. He was convicted of lying to a Grand Jury and obstructing justice. Compared with the war-starting lies of the Cheney-Bush team, it barely registers on the scale that measures such things.

Steven Griles was formerly the Deputy Secretary of the Interior. He lied but not under oath. He pled guilty to obstructing justice and lying before a senate committee in connection with the Jack Abramoff scandal. Mr. Griles learned, as may others in the administration, that lying is a sin even when not told under oath if told to the right people.

At the same time these stories were playing out, another story making the rounds involved another highly placed liar in the Bush administration, Alberto Gonzales. It involved the firing of 8 United States attorneys. The firing may or may not have been for political purposes and for our purposes that is immaterial. What is astonishing is watching Mr. Gonzales’s memory at work. In what some might describe as early onset of Alzheimer’s, Mr. Gonzales’s memory is constantly and publicly refreshed by facts.

Read more Lies

From The Khaleej Times
By Fawaz A. Gerges

Four years ago the US and its coalition of the willing plunged into Iraq to punish it among others for an alleged connection with the 9/11 attacks. In a self-fulfilling prophesy, what was not true then has come to pass: Iraq has become the mecca of terrorism against people of all faith. It is as good as an occasion as any to examine the roots of an American blunder and its consequences.

The US has long viewed terrorism as ahistorical and apolitical, more of a moral mutation than a social phenomenon, which can be battered away with military might. Analysing jihadists as social actors driven by political, religious and geostrategic concerns may prove beneficial to the US and the world at large in seeking a lasting and nuanced political-diplomatic strategy to deal with this essentially social phenomenon.

Three background points are in order:

The jihadist enterprise represents a tiny fraction of the larger Islamist movement, which renounced violence in the early 1970s and which dominates the social and political space in most Muslim societies.

From the mid-1970s until the mid-1990s, the jihadist movement targeted Arab and Muslim governments, particularly in Egypt and Algeria, and labelled them as the near enemy.

It was not until the second half of the 1990s that a small fraction of jihadists, Al Qaeda and its affiliates, decided to target the US and some of its Western allies, and labelled them as the far enemy.

Read more Legacy

From The Asia Times
By Mahan Abedin

As the war of words between Iran and the United States continues to escalate, the psychological-warfare campaign of the latter is assuming greater and more sinister proportions, so much so that there are now good reasons to believe the US has orchestrated the kidnapping of a former Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps general in Istanbul.

Unfortunately for Iran, the US psychological-warfare campaign seems to be working. This is evident on both the domestic and external fronts. Domestically, the Mahmud Ahmadinejad government and its allies - who favor a tough approach to nuclear negotiations - are being increasingly attacked by a broad range of political forces. Moreover, on the foreign-policy front, the Islamic Republic continues to lose ground. Having acceded to Saudi Arabia’s new and more forceful diplomacy, the Iranians have now acquiesced - albeit very tentatively - to US security designs in Iraq, as evidenced by their participation in the Baghdad security conference this month.

Ancient battles and modern disappearances

Hollywood’s 2007 film adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel 300 has generated controversy everywhere, including in the United States, where critics are divided over its look, style, visuals and, more important, grossly partisan depiction of the ancient Persians. While the film’s director (Zack Snyder) and executive producer (Frank Miller) protest that it is merely a historical fantasy, this does nothing to ease the violence it inflicts on modern perceptions of the ancient Persian Empire.

Read more Battles

From The Khaleej Times

Iran’s ambassador to Moscow on Saturday denied he had said the British sailors and marines seized by Iran in the Gulf eight days ago may face trial, the official IRNA news agency reported.

IRNA had earlier carried a report saying the envoy, Gholamreza Ansari, had made the comments to Russian television on Friday evening.

Iran’s ambassador to Russia denied comments that a Russian television channel said he had made about the possibility of British soldiers going on trial in Iran, it said in a later news item.

Ansari told IRNA he had said the case had entered a legal phase. But he added the television channel had made a translation mistake and reported the possibility of them facing a trial.

IRNA had earlier quoted him as telling Russian television channel Vesti-24:

It is possible that the British soldiers who entered into Iranian waters will go on trial for taking this illegal action. The legal phase … has started and if charges against them are proven, they will be punished.

Read more Iran

From The Independent UK
By Angus McDowall

Ahmad Khatami, Tehran’s thickset leader of Friday prayers, gesticulated in the air as he rebuked Britain. The thousands of people sitting before him are regime loyalists, representing the fifth of Iranians who always vote conservative.

A thundering salavat, an invocation of God, his prophet and the imams, greeted Mr Khatami’s more robust statements, followed by chants of “Death to America! Death to England!” As the crowd poured out, the worshippers expressed their defiance and anger at America’s smaller ally, nicknamed “the little Satan”.

“The British should get it out of their heads to act like they used to,” said Hassan Asghari, an angry middle-aged man in a green felt jacket. “They have a very bad record here but must learn the colonial days are over. Now they’re so weak all they can do is follow America.”

Near the back of the courtyard sat President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He has so far played a low-key role in this crisis. There is a suggestion that he is still under instruction - reportedly issued two months ago - not to comment too strongly on foreign policy.

Read more Iran

From The Vancouver Sun
By Andrew Mayeda

Two Afghanistan experts painted a sobering picture of the conditions there yesterday, arguing support among Afghans for NATO forces is plummeting, the U.S.-driven policy of poppy eradication is wrongheaded, and the war might not be winnable in its present form.

U.S. scholar Barnett Rubin and Gordon Smith, Canada’s former ambassador to NATO, delivered their withering comments to a Commons committee only days after Canada’s top military commander, Gen. Rick Hillier, touted progress being made there.

Hillier, the chief of defence staff, this week predicted Canadian troops in southern Afghanistan will soon see a rise in attacks from the Taliban. But he insisted on using the term “surge” rather than “offensive.”

He also noted many Afghans are moving back into their homes in districts west of Kandahar following a Canadian-led NATO offensive last fall.

But Rubin, who has been to Afghanistan 29 times over more than two decades, said yesterday many Afghans are growing frustrated with the pace of Western efforts to stabilize the country.

Read more Afghanistan