Archive for the ‘Opinion’ Category
Military Admits ‘Errors’ in Civilian Bombing in Afghanistan, But Still Defends the Attacks and Warns of Greater Casualities
3 Jun 09 | Rebel Reports and LAT
The attack in Farah province killed as many as 140 Afghan civilians. The U.S. military says errors were made, but insists the “targets” “posed legitimate threats to Afghan or American forces.”
Obama Should Visit Gaza
by Medea Benjamin
3 Jun 09 | ei
U.S. President Obama should visit the Gaza Strip to see the death and the destruction caused by Israel’s recent attacks.
War With Iran: Has It Already Begun?
by Justin Raimondo
3 Jun 09 | AWC
Obama talks peace with Iran, but what’s he doing under the radar? Read the rest of this entry »
U.S. Out of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
by Ivan Eland
30 May 09 | AWC
Hillary Clinton’s blunt public statement that President Obama “wants to see a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions” made for good headlines. The Israelis were shocked and upset that their slavish ally had acted slightly less obsequious and engaged in a public spat with them. Read the rest of this entry »
Backlash Grows Against Obama’s Preventive Detention Proposal
by Glenn Greenwald
25 May 09 | Salon
The backlash against President Obama’s extraordinary proposal for indefinite “preventive detention” — already widespread in the immediate aftermath of his speech — continues to grow. Read the rest of this entry »
U.N. Drafting Resolution Against North Korea; Pyongyang Threatens South Korea
What You Know About Iran is Wrong
by Fareed Zakaria
23 May 09 | Newsweek
They may not want the bomb and many other unexpected truths. Read the rest of this entry »
President Obama Defends Guantánamo Closure, But Endorses Indefinite Preventive Detention
22 May 09 | AI
In a major speech on national security on 21 May 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama restated his commitment to closing the Guantánamo detention facility and to ending the use of the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” approved under the previous U.S. administration. Read the rest of this entry »
Watching Obama Morph Into Dick Cheney
by Paul Craig Roberts
21 May 09 | AWC
America has lost her soul, and so has her president. Read the rest of this entry »
Using the Courts to Undercut Union Power
by Lee Sustar
21 May 09 | SWO
Lee Sustar looks at the court order banning an L.A. teachers’ strike last week in the context of the long history of anti-union judges intervening in labor struggles.
Prosecutors Still Opposing DNA Access for Prisoners Despite New Laws
by Jonathon Turley
18 May 09 | Jonathon Turley.org
We have seen a number of cases on this blog where prosecutors fought efforts by prisoners to obtain DNA tests that might prove their innocence — only to be proven innocent once the tests were performed. Prosecutors are rarely denounced for these reprehensible efforts. The story in the New York Times indicates that prosecutors are continuing to oppose such testing even in states that passed new laws guaranteeing such testing. Read the rest of this entry »
Unexceptional Americans: Why We Can’t See the Trees or the Forest
by Noam Chomsky
20 May 09 | LAW
The Torture Memos and Historical Amnesia
The torture memos released by the White House elicited shock, indignation, and surprise. The shock and indignation are understandable. The surprise, less so. Read the rest of this entry »
The Netanyahu-Obama Meeting
No relays on The Wire from today’s meeting.
Our Google Readers aren’t broken. We just really don’t care today.
It’s not that we don’t care in the apathetic sense, but in the sense that today was a joke — a photo-op. The empirical evidence shows the direction where Palestine-Israel is going in the short term and we’ve busted our tails in our free time to share this information on The Wire and The Blog. We’re also shared a wealth of evidence comparing the Newspeak with the facts on Iran on The Wire and The Blog.
Educate yourselves and reason through the facts. We’ve labored hard to gather what we have for you.
Always keep in minds who pulls the strings on the players in this drama.
Lies, Deceptions Hallmark of Sri Lanka War
by Richard Dixon
18 May 09 | TamilNet
The real culprits behind Sri Lankan war. Read the rest of this entry »
Death From Above, Outrage Down Below
by David Kilcullen and Andrew McDonald Exum
17 May 09 | NYT
It would be in our best interests, and those of the Pakistani people, to declare a moratorium on drone strikes into Pakistan.
Imagine, for example, that burglars move into a neighborhood. If the police were to start blowing up people’s houses from the air, would this convince homeowners to rise up against the burglars? Wouldn’t it be more likely to turn the whole population against the police? And if their neighbors wanted to turn the burglars in, how would they do that, exactly? Yet this is the same basic logic underlying the drone war.
The Impotent President
by Paul Craig Roberts
15 May 09 | Counterpunch
Who runs America?
What do you suppose it is like to be elected president of the United States only to find that your power is restricted to the service of powerful interest groups? Read the rest of this entry »
The Elite Gather in Greece for a Not-So-Secret Meeting
15-16 May 09 | WSJ and Guardian
The Astir Palace hotel in this Greek coastal town wasn’t open for coffee Friday. Greek media, apparently tipped off, were abuzz over the reasons behind the heightened security at the hotel: a gathering of the Bilderberg Group, a secretive annual rendezvous of top politicians and business leaders. Read the rest of this entry »
Chinese Yuan: Next World Currency?
by Nouriel Roubini
14 May 09 | NYT
The 19th century was dominated by the British Empire, the 20th century by the United States. We may now be entering the Asian century, dominated by a rising China and its currency. Read the rest of this entry »
Obama Justice Department Continues to Cover Up Bush-Era Crimes
by Larisa Alexandrovna
13 May 09 | Raw Story
Something very questionable is happening in Obama’s Department of Justice. I don’t know if it is simply institutional loyalty that is the reason for a once admired office of justice to simply abdicate from its official duty. Whatever the reason, there is one question that no one will answer and this question only grows more urgent as new developments are made public. Read the rest of this entry »
Was Tortured CIA “Ghost Prisoner” Murdered?
by Andy Worthington
13 May 09 | AlterNet
The suspicious death of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who was tortured into lying about an Iraq-al Qaeda connection, raises a series of troubling questions. Read the rest of this entry »
Accountability for Torture: Questions and Answers
13 May 09 | HRW
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, U.S. officials approved various interrogation methods that were illegal under both U.S. and international law. Read the rest of this entry »
This Has Not Been a Pure Failure of Markets
by Leszek Balcerowicz
13 May 09 | FT
Only the rulers of Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and some ideologues in the west condemn capitalism. Empirically minded people know that there is no good alternative. However, capitalism takes many forms and evolves over time. The questions to ask, then, are “What capitalism?” and “Does the present crisis shed new light on this issue?” Read the rest of this entry »
Turnabout: Obama Blocks Release of Torture Photos; Pelosi was Told of Torture Use
12-13 May 09 | PTV, AJE, CNN and JonathonTurley.org
The U.S. president has ordered to stop the release of compromising photos depicting the abuse of prisoners in U.S. detention after initially agreeing to their publication.
Gaza and the Moment of Truth
by Haidar Eid
13 May 09 | SWO
A resident of Gaza makes an appeal for people throughout the world to absorb the meaning of Israel’s 2009 onslaught.
Gaza has returned to its pre-massacre state of siege, confronted with the usual, conspiratorial, “international” indifference after 22 long days and dark nights, during which its brave people were left alone to face one of the strongest armies in the world–an army that has hundreds of nuclear warheads, and thousands of trigger-happy soldiers, armed with Merkava tanks, F-16s, Apache helicopters, naval gunships and phosphorous bombs.
What is Anti-Semitism?
by Nicholas Goldberg
12 May 09 | LAT
A UCSB professor’s controversial e-mail underscores the need to define a sensitive subject. Read the rest of this entry »
