It's the media, stupid by Ramzy Baroud

But what has in fact magnified the impact of the Israeli lobby and its influence on the media -- whose work on behalf of Israel has exceeded Palestine, Palestinians and even the Middle East as a whole to all kinds of geopolitical boundaries as far as Africa, Asia, Latin America, and of course, Washington itself -- also known as ‘the other occupied territory’ by a former US congressman -- was the pitiable and most disorganized response of Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs. Some out of fear, perhaps, chose to disown the matter altogether using whatever injudicious logic they could drum up. Others tried to develop their own media alternatives, which is commendable. However, such mediums have failed -- unlike the Israeli media machine -- to carry any depth, strategy or sense of unity toward a fixed goal. In fact, it reflected Arab factionalism and brought into question the actual motives behind these ‘alternative’ ventures.

The myth of the 'honest broker': Britain and Israel by Mark Curtis

Britain’s apparent complicity in Israel’s military assault on Jericho prison should finally demolish an enduring myth about Britain’s foreign policy. Iraq’s supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction was not the only line peddled by the government to justify the invasion. Another was that Britain was an ‘honest broker’ in the Middle East and would influence Washington to press Israel for peace with the Palestinians. Now that peace prospects look gloomier than ever following Israeli, US and EU reactions to Hamas’ success in Palestinian elections, the reality of Britain’s role needs to be exposed.

What they think in Tehran by Pepe Escobar

A day after the UN Security Council, in a non-binding decision, gave Iran one month to stop enriching uranium, the Nayeb restaurant, serving the best kebab in Tehran for the upper middle classes, was absolutely packed for lunch.

In this worldly, secular atmosphere - no clerics, only two chador-clad women in sight, and most displaying authentic Hermes and Burberry scarves - some were nonetheless incensed that the decision in New York was timed to a particularly holy holiday in the Islamic Republic: the anniversary of the death of Prophet Muhammad. The Iranian government has officially designated 2006 as "The Year of the Prophet".

Imperial overreach is accelerating the global decline of America by Martin Jacques

The disastrous foreign policies of the US have left it more isolated than ever, and China is standing by to take over

Will The U.S. Nuke Iran? - Dr Jeorge Hirsch

Professor of Physics Highlights The Dangers

In an August 2005 issue of The American Conservative, former CIA officer Philip Girarldi raised the alarm over in-process Pentagon contingency plans drafted in preparation for another terrorist attack in the United States. The response includes a plan for a massive air assault on Iran with the use of both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons regardless of whether Iran is any way involved in such an attack against the U.S.

The Irony of the Israeli Elections by NEVE GORDON

The ultimate irony is that Kadima's political vision actually puts the peace process into reverse. On the one hand, it is trying to persuade the public that it can make the Palestinian problem disappear by reintroducing the age-old Zionist trope of an iron wall. On the other hand, it has abandoned all forms of dialogue and negotiation, which Israeli leaders since the early 1990s understood to be the only way to reach a solution with the Palestinians. Kadima is accordingly an oxymoron. While the party's name means forward its political program will effectively take Israelis several steps backwards.

U.S. firm offers 'private armies' for low-intensity conflicts

J. Cofer Black, vice chairman of Blackwater USA told the Special Operations Forces Exhibition (Sofex-2006), that his company could supply private soldiers to any country. Black, a former U.S. State Department counter-terrorism coordinator, said Blackwater has been marketing the concept of private armies for low-intensity conflicts.

UN Once Again Fails at Reform by Eliott Engel

Kofi Annan attempted to calm the naysayers of the UN’s latest concoction, the new Human Rights Council, in a recent Wall Street Journal commentary (free link here). Secretary General Annan used his characteristic mellifluous tone and soothing verbiage – techniques he has used his entire tenure – deflecting people from the obvious with his calming and noble words.

Top Ten Mistakes the Bush Administration Is Repeating from Vietnam by Ivan Eland

Because the Bush administration, almost from the start, has eschewed any comparison of Iraq with Vietnam, officials apparently never read the history of the nation’s heretofore worst war and have made the same 10 major mistakes:

After the Israeli Election, What Next? by Gwynne Dyer

"It's a trade-off," said Dror Etkes, director of the Israeli organization Settlement Watch, just after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon carried out the dramatic withdrawal from the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip last August. "The Gaza Strip for the settlement blocks; the Gaza Strip for Palestinian land; the Gaza Strip for unilaterally imposing borders. They don't know how long they've got. That's why they're building like maniacs."

Israeli Elections: Whom To Vote For? by Uri Avnery

AHEAD OF all considerations, there stands a categorical imperative: Everybody must vote!

It is easy and tempting to say: There is nobody to vote for. They are all corrupt hypocrites. There is no real difference between them. So why take the trouble? Why dirty oneself? Why be a party to this?

This assumes that abstaining from voting strengthens the convictions of the abstainer and hurts their opponents. Or that this protest is registered somewhere and thus influences somebody. That's a great mistake. A total logical fallacy.

Messages of hope from Iran by Pepe Escobar

In many aspects, it was an extraordinary sight. Right at the heart of the Islamic Republic, one could see Rabbi Moshe Friedman, the hyperactive chief rabbi of the Orthodox anti-Zionist community in Vienna, lashing out at Zionist control of the world economy and media. New Delhi-based Swami Agnivesh, a proponent of "applied spirituality", in full sartorial orange splendor, was denouncing that "conventional weapons kill more people than the so-called weapons of mass destruction". And Dr Bawa Jain, the New York-based secretary general of the World Council of Religious Leaders, was dreaming of politicians really having to pay attention to religious feelings.

America's Reign of Terror in Iraq by Justin Raimondo

Today, Americans look on the Iraq war as little more than a form of entertainment, a series of flickering images darting across their television screens, disturbing but no more real than the latest horror movie. Although we are not quite as bad as the Romans – yet – in that no one seems to be enjoying the show all that much (save, perhaps, for Max Boot and Michael "Creative Destruction" Ledeen), we are inured, like our Roman antecedents, to the moral meaning of what we are seeing, numbed by our own powerlessness and a paralyzing indifference. Infantilized by a culture of narcissism and insulated by our enormous wealth, we place a comfortable distance between the actions of our rulers and ourselves. The atrocity stories coming out of Iraq seem unreal, as if they are happening in another dimension, and certainly we bear no personal responsibility for the crimes being committed in our name.

Al Qaeda's nuclear option by Arnaud de Borchgrave

"The Race Between Cooperation and Catastrophe," or why "the [nuclear] threat is outrunning our response" is how Sam Nunn, the former senator and co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, describes an overarching terrorist construct. The starter's gun for this new race went off at the end of the Cold War. Congress has appropriated almost $12 billion under Nunn-Lugar legislation designed to enhance security in scores of former Soviet and now Russian nuclear weapons and nuclear materials storage sites. Another $20 billion was pledged for the same purpose at a G-8 summit of the major industrialized nations in Canada three years ago -- $1 billion by the U.S. and $1 billion by the other seven per year for 10 years.

Reheating the Cold War by M K Bhadrakumar

The EU and the US are indeed very concerned that "Russia has acquired a freedom to behave ... at the critical stage of formation of a new architecture of international relations" - to quote from Lavrov's article in Rossiskaya Gazeta. The irony and paradox consist in the fact that Russia is turning out to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the phenomenon of globalization in the post-Soviet era.

The "victor" ending up as a dependant of the "vanquished" - it is a rare occurrence in history. It creates profound psychological problems. It can be the stuff of cold wars.

Globalization: The Final Demise of National Security

Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the global elitist Trilateral Commission in 1973 and the principal architect of modern globalization, recently wrote in 2004,

"The notion of total national security is now a myth. Total security and total defense in the age of globalization are not attainable. The real issue is: with how much insecurity can America live while promoting its interests in an increasingly interactive, interdependent world?"1

The original Trilateral Commission policy of national insecurity has now come full circle.

The U.S. Department of Commerce white paper, Maritime Security and Beyond, tells us what is at stake in our maritime security policies:

God Forgive America by Kurt Nimmo

Bush tells us nuclear war (and using depleted uranium is indeed nuclear war) is required in order to save us from “al-Qaeda,” a phantom created by the very government Bush represents. In order to protect us (so we may die from depleted uranium and other toxins released in our names), Bush tells us we must “stay the course” in Iraq.

Tal Afar; war crimes in Bush’s dystopia by Mike Whitney

Bush says: “The savagery of the terrorists is hard for Americans to imagine. They enforced their rule through fear and intimidation . . . In one grim incident; the terrorists kidnapped a young boy from the hospital and killed him.” (There’s no record of this incident.) “And then they booby-trapped his body; he was blown up. (Never happened.) “These weren’t random acts of violence; these were deliberate and highly-organized attempts to maintain control through intimidation. In Tal Afar, the terrorists had schools for kidnapping and beheading.” (Schools for beheading?) “And they sent a clear message to the citizens of the city: Anyone who opposes their reign of terror will be murdered.” (Absurd.)

The Iranian Nuclear Showdown by DAVID MacMICHAEL

Will Washington, regardless of the weakness of its case and its limited international support, still press on? If it fails to carry the Security Council, as it probably will, will it then take unilateral military or economic action? Military action is madness; unilateral economic sanctions are basically cutting of the American nose to spite the American face.

The Iran nuclear issue. An unnecessary crisis, totally manufactured and fatuously pursued. Just one more Bush administration fiasco.

Iran scores a winner over Iraq by Gareth Porter

The convergence of the two issues is being driven by the need of the United States and the Iraqi political factions for Iranian help in resolving the sectarian violence and political deadlock in Iraq, and by Iran's desire to reach a broader settlement with Washington.

The US reactions to the Iranian acceptance of talks on Iraq reveal a sharp contrast in the attitudes of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other administration officials toward the talks.

Kissinger: "'America's global strategy benefits from the Indian participation in building a new world order."

The civilian nuclear agreement reached by the United States and India ''promises to make a seminal contribution to international peace and prosperity, '' according to former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

He has welcomed the agreement as ''an unprecedented level of cooperation and interdependence between the two powers''.

Taking American Land and Rights - How It Works by Nancy Levant

Why the “New World” is so difficult to understand is not as complex as one might guess. While we naturally focus upon local issues and concerns such as community development, forest access, sportsmen’s rights, etc., one does need to understand the “whys” of local political decisions, and the decisions of local commissions and councils. There is rhyme and reason to our loss of rights, land, privacy, and public opinion.

The Sino-Russian romance by Rian Jensen and Erich Marquardt

This Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin is to make an official state visit to China. Putin will arrive in time to witness China's Year of Russia ceremony, kicking off a year-long festival with the aim of encouraging improved cultural relations between the two countries.

Putin's visit to China is further evidence of the intensifying ties between Moscow and Beijing, with Liu Guchang, China's

The Increasing Importance of African Oil by Adam Wolfe

Africa is becoming an increasingly important factor in global energy markets. By the end of the decade, the continent's significance will rise dramatically. Africa currently contributes 12 percent of the world's liquid hydrocarbon production, and one in four barrels of oil discovered outside of the U.S. and Canada between 2000 and 2004 came from Africa. IHS Energy, an oil and gas consulting firm, calculates that Africa will supply 30 percent of the world's growth in hydrocarbon production by 2010. West Africa's low-sulfur oil is highly desirable for environmental reasons, is readily transported to the eastern U.S. seaboard, and can be easily processed by China's refineries.

Bush At The Tipping Point: A Lawless And Incompetent Leadership by Ralph Nader

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, two top outlaws smashing our country's rule of law and democratic liberties, are testing the American people's resistance. Every day they are testing. Every day they think by flaunting the words, "war on terror", they can get Americans to concede more and more of what makes the United States a constitutionally-abiding government under the rule of law.

Milosevic: Test your Media by Michel Collon

It becomes a little less difficult to determine whether we have been informed correctly about Yugoslavia. Did they have a right to present the Nato war as "humanitarian"? Did the Great Powers have secret strategies? Were there media lies told and war propaganda spread?

We recommend that you take this brief Media test in order to have a clear view, and to test how your medias are going to inform you in the coming hours.

The Real Butchers Of Serbia: Clinton, Clark, NATO by Paul Joseph Watson

The media coverage of Slobodan Milosevic's death has branched off into two distinct contexts. One is the desperate scramble to spin evidence and testimony suggesting Slobo was murdered and the other revolves around discussion that Milosevic was knocked off because he was about to call Bill Clinton as a witness at the Hague.

The consequence of 'The Butcher Of Serbia's' death remains the same. The only man in a position to legally implicate the real butchers of Serbia, Clark and Clinton, in war crimes that all but wiped an entire race off the map, is silenced.

The 'Why' Of The War On Terror by Joe Quinn

The bottom line: at least on one level, the lives of America's uniformed sons and daughters are being expended to fulfill the biblical prophecy of a 'greater Israel'. But before American citizens think that this is simply a military matter, they should realise that these insane U.S. military campaigns at the behest of Israel can only continue with the consent of the rest of the American public (all of this applies to the British public also, but perhaps to a slightly lesser extent). As the insanity and illegality of these campaigns becomes more and more obvious to Americans, the means to ensure that the they stay 'on side' and 'patriotic' become increasingly necessary. Reference Patriot Acts I and II, and those are just for starters.

Britain gave Israel plutonium, files show by Richard Norton-Taylor

Britain secretly supplied Israel with plutonium during the 1960s despite a warning from military intelligence that it could help the Israelis to develop a nuclear bomb, it was disclosed last night. The deal, made during Harold Wilson's Labour government, is revealed in classified documents released under the Freedom of Information Act and obtained by BBC2's Newsnight programme.

The European Union Dilemma: Israel, Palestine and the Geneva Initiative by Am Johal

From November 2004 until March 2006, Israelis and Palestinans will have seen the following happen in only seventeen months: the death of Yasser Arafat, the election of Mahmoud Abbas as President of the Palestinian Authority, the first withdrawal from Gaza and four West Bank settlements since 1967, a centrist breakaway from the ruling Likud Party in Israel and a new leader of Kadima and the Labor Party, a debilitating stroke which has incapacitated former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the election of Hamas in Palestinian legislative elections and the upcoming Israeli elections in March.

Rest Easy, Bill Clinton: Milosevic Can't Talk Anymore by Jeremy Scahill

To be sure, there will never be indictments of these U.S. war criminals at The Hague: Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Jamie Rubin, William Cohen, Sandy Berger, Richard Holbrooke, and Wesley Clark. For many of Serbia's victims of U.S. war crimes, Milosevic's trial was a "Hail Mary" pass, as awful an historical irony as that is, aimed at someone recognizing their forgotten suffering.

It is a sad testimony to the state of international jurisprudence that after many attempts to find justice, the only hope for U.S. victims in the Yugoslavia wars was the trial defense of a man many of those same victims despised. If there was an independent international court that was recognized and respected by the U.S., those responsible for bombing Yugoslavia would have been alongside Slobodan Milosevic in the docks these past years instead of having their responsibility buried with him.

Was Serbia a Practice Run for Iraq? by Paul Craig Roberts

If the massive propaganda campaign against Milosevic had many facts behind it, he long ago would have been convicted at The Hague. What was the episode all about?

In my opinion, it was to establish the precedent, later to be employed in the Middle East, that the U.S. government could demonize a head of state geographically distant from any legitimate "sphere of influence" and use military force to remove him. This is precisely the fate of Saddam Hussein, and the Bush regime still hopes to repeat the strategy in Iran and Syria.

Cultural Warmongers by Patrick J. Buchanan

If you wish to get along with a man, you do not insult his faith. And if you seek to persuade devout Muslims that al-Qaeda is our enemy, not Islam, you do not condone with silence insults to the faith of a billion people.

Understanding this, President Bush ceased to call the war on terror a “crusade.” Visiting a mosque, he removed his shoes. He has hosted White House gatherings for the breaking of the fast at the end of Ramadan. He sent Karen Hughes to the State Department to improve our dismal image in the Islamic world. He has declared more times than many of us care to recall, “Islam is a religion of peace.”

Denmark's Intifada by Paul Belien

The cartoon affair comes as the second clash in barely three months between the traditional territorial nation-states of Europe and the forces of Eurabia. The first clash was November’s French intifadah when Sarkozy opposed gangs of Muslim thugs who wanted to assert power over parts of French territory. In Denmark, radical imams tried to assert power over the media. In both cases, Europe fought back, albeit hesitantly. The Danish resistance even compelled the generals of Eurabia to enlist the help of the entire Muslim world to intimidate one of Europe’s smallest countries. And still the Vikings held their ground. Perhaps all is not yet lost.

Iran's turn for a 'coalition of the willing' by Ehsan Ahrari

The Bush administration has conducted a calculated three-tiered campaign either to force Iran to lower its "threat potential" with regard to its nuclear program or, failing that, to bring about a regime change in Tehran. And within these tiers, other layers are unfolding that confirm Washington's unwavering determination to resolve the matter, one way or the other, one plodding step at a time.

Dubai and the Straits of Hormuz by Mike Whitney

United Arab Emirates is located at the center of an oil-dependent world. This tiny state forms the promontory that juts out into the famed Straits of Hormuz through which 40% of the world’s oil passes every day. Across the narrow straights sits Iran, the next victim on the list of "axis of evil" nations. Any attack on Iran will require that military forces quickly deploy to Dubai to forestall the closing of the straits and the subsequent devastation that would cost to world oil supplies and financial markets.

US, Russia moving apart by Jim Lobe

Almost 15 years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, ties between Russia and the United States are "headed in the wrong direction", suggests a new report released here this week by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

In addition to disagreements over an increasing number of foreign-policy issues - most recently, Moscow's hosting of top officials of the Palestinian Hamas party - the US is concerned about internal developments in Russia, particularly what it regards as the growing concentration of power in the Kremlin under President Vladimir Putin.

Iraq, a Solution to Nothing by Scott Ritter

As the United States and Iraq approach the third anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, it might do all Americans well to take some time out and reflect on how we got where we are, as well as where we are going in Iraq and the Middle East as a whole.

Gone forever is any talk of song and flowers, economic recoveries paid for by Iraqi oil, or a blooming democracy in the cradle of civilization. The state of affairs between the Bush administration and the newly elected government of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari is strained, to say the least, with the United States threatening to cut off aid to Iraq, and Iraq telling the United States to "butt out."

The US's nuclear cave-in by Joseph Cirincione

If Bush were riding high in the polls and had a string of national-security victories behind him, this David-and-Goliath battle would be won by the nuclear giants. But with sagging popularity, deep concern over his leadership, and anger at his administration's disregard for laws and consultation, lawmakers more concerned about proliferation than profits could block or amend this deal. The president may have made a fatal error in putting nuclear weapons at the heart of improved US-India relations. US lawmakers want the latter, but not at the price of the former.

Is Carlyle Group at heart of DPW deal? by Jerome R. Corsi

What once seemed the propaganda ramblings of none other than "Fahrenheit 911's" Michael Moore may end up becoming the subject of the Senate's upcoming investigation into what Washington insiders are beginning to call the "Dubai Debacle." As reported in the Guardian as early as 2001, Bush '41 and '43 have been connected to the Carlyle Group in various ways resulting in substantial compensation to the Bush family from Carlyle Group investments.

The Permanent Revolution, Conspiracy Theories, Carroll Quigley's Tragedy & Hope & Patriot Cognitive Dissonance by Terry Hayfield

The Permanent Revolution is the continuous economic evolution for a Socialistic form of control through the eventual establishment of Capitalism (American/British) as the sole means of production for the Global Society [See The Permanent Revolution, www.proliberty.com for a more complete definition of the Permanent Revolution].

Unfortunately Americans were not educated adequately enough to understand what true Socialism is. We are unable to identify it even if it hit us in the face! For that reason, many of the "most popular" conspiracy theories are very convincing. They contain "just enough truth" to be persuasive. This reality is described by Daniel Pipes (member of the CFR/TLC) in pages 32 through 33 of his 1997 book Conspiracy. Pipes observed the most effective means of gaining "public acceptance" for a Conspiracy Theory is when,

10-Year U.S. Strategic Plan For Detention Camps Revives Proposals From Oliver North by Peter Dale Scott

What these managers in this shadow government worked on has never been reported. But it is significant that the group that prepared ENDGAME was, as the Homeland Security document puts it, "chartered in September 2001." For ENDGAME's goal of a capacious detention capability is remarkably similar to Oliver North's controversial Rex-84 "readiness exercise" for COG in 1984. This called for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to round up and detain 400,000 imaginary "refugees," in the context of "uncontrolled population movements" over the Mexican border into the United States.

CFR President says: "'State sovereignty must be altered in globalized era'"

Our notion of sovereignty must therefore be conditional, even contractual, rather than absolute. If a state fails to live up to its side of the bargain by sponsoring terrorism, either transferring or using weapons of mass destruction, or conducting genocide, then it forfeits the normal benefits of sovereignty and opens itself up to attack, removal or occupation.

Red Lines Crisscross Iraq's Political Landscape by Dr. Michael A. Weinstein

Even if civil war is averted in the short term and a government is formed, that government will not be a genuine national-unity administration, but an arena of conflict between contending power groups. In one of the most astute observations on the situation by an Iraqi politician, Abdul-Mahdi -- the S.C.I.R.I.-backed candidate in the U.I.A.'s election for the prospective prime minister -- shrugged off his loss, saying that any new government would not be popular and would not be likely to serve out a four-year term.

Gulags For American Citizens In Final Planning Stages by Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones

Following the news first given wide attention by this website, that Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency, the Alternet website put together an alarming report that collated all the latest information on plans to initiate internment of political subversives and Muslims after the next major terror attack in the US.