Geneva - The U.S., Israel and Iran are playing a very dangerous game of chicken that soon could result in a new Mideast war.
U.S. intelligence has concluded that Iran is not working on nuclear weapons. But the Bush administration and Israel, recently joined by France, are issuing increasingly loud threats of military action to frighten Iran into halting its nuclear enrichment program.
Iran insists its nuclear program is entirely for civilian use. Tehran is alternating between conciliatory statements and threats to retaliate against any attack by inflicting economic chaos on the global economy. Europe fears the economic damage a war against Iran would bring far more than Iran's nuclear program.
Puppet Masters
United States and NATO missile and mortar strikes continued to exact a heavy toll on Afghans over the weekend, killing at least 13 in two attacks that Afghan officials said were mistakes.
A very frequently used question designed to confuse and distort the fact of the Palestinian Israeli conflict; to which the so obvious answer is: Israel does not have the right to ethnically cleanse 750,000 Palestinian and steal 78% of Palestine (Known to the Palestinian as an Nakba) so it can have a place to exist. Israel does not have the right to imprison 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza after she made them refugees. Israel does not have the right to inflict horror and atrocities against the Palestinian people on a daily bases so it can have a place to exist. Israel does not have the right to terrorize, to dispossess, to torture people in order to have a place "to exist". Israel does not have the right to take away other people's rights. The answer is as simple as that.
The Pope played a leading role in a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests, according to a shocking documentary to be screened by the BBC tonight.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy presided over a conference of 44 leaders from Mediterranean and European states on Sunday, which founded the "Union for the Mediterranean." Most of the heads of state in attendance were invited to take part the following day in the traditional military parade and celebrations marking the July 14 Bastille Day holiday.
The new union is planned as an economic and political bridgehead between Western Europe and the major North African, Arab and Balkan states, which lie on the Mediterranean Sea. The union was originally planned by Sarkozy as an organization of Mediterranean states exclusively under French leadership, but vigorous opposition, particularly from the German government, led Sarkozy to accept a compromise allowing the 27 states of the European Union to also take part.
The new union is planned as an economic and political bridgehead between Western Europe and the major North African, Arab and Balkan states, which lie on the Mediterranean Sea. The union was originally planned by Sarkozy as an organization of Mediterranean states exclusively under French leadership, but vigorous opposition, particularly from the German government, led Sarkozy to accept a compromise allowing the 27 states of the European Union to also take part.
After all there are great personal advantages to be had from aligning oneself and one's nation (whether they like it or not) with the last great empire. There is the sense of being on the "winning side" (who now can stand up to the US juggernaut?). There is immediate access to the massive resources, influence and intelligence assets of the empire through which previously impossible goals become not just possible but a matter of policy.
Up until Sarkozy's nomination as President last year, France had a 40 year long history of staunch opposition to the type of US diplomacy that has brought us the ludicrous yet deadly "war on terror". As long as there was a major world power that was still relatively independent, there was still a third option - that if small yet strategically important nations weren't "with the US" they weren't by definition "with the terrorists". They could be "with France".
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The full scale of Bush's assault on our civil liberties may not be known until years after he's left office. At the moment, all we can do is get glimpses here or there of what's going on.
And the latest one to come to my attention is the dispatching of police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and utility workers as so-called "terrorism liaison officers," according to a report by Bruce Finley in the Denver Post.
US Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who once sang in jest about bombing Iran, has reacted to a report of rising US cigarette exports to the country by saying it may be "a way of killing 'em."
Comment: Psychopaths are known for their inability to grasp the correct use of language (take Bush for but one example) and their inability, at a neurological level, to experience empathy for others.
So, Mr McCain, if the shoe fits....
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tells Judy Woodruff that she remains "proud" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, although it has been "tougher than any of us really dreamed.''
Comment: In true fashion of the psychopath who creates her own reality, Rice "simply doesn't see" the violent deaths of millions wrought by Bush and his coterie of miscreants occupying the White House. The pure depravity of those without conscience to create paramoralisms is clear to see in her statement that "it's not so popular to be a suicide bomber", while at the same time coercing jobless youth in a crashing economy into joining a military machine to kill those who don't conform to their world view - and who live to kill again and again. Immoral. Disgusting. Repugnant.
An Afghan governor Monday said at least seven civilians have been killed in air strikes by the coalition troops against Taliban in a western Afghan province. The strike was carried out in Khashrod district of Afghanistan's western Nimroz province on Sunday.
Comment: The above link contained within the text "those that so deftly shunted him into the Elysee Palace" has been removed from the original Quatar Penninsula site, but is still available on archive.org. In case it ever disappears completely from the web, here are two screen-shots of the article for a more secure archive experience: