"Troops to Stay Longer in Iraq as Support, U.S. Says"
U.S. Already Refusing to Comply With Withdrawal Agreement ...
"15 Dec 2008 ... Troops to Stay Longer in Iraq as Support, U.S. Says NYT, ELISABETH BUMILLER. BALAD , Iraq — The top American commander in Iraq said Saturday ..."
afterdowningstreet.org/node/38244

CUI BONO? timely Bush finale: creating fake difference between Bush & Obama admin.'s ongoing occupation via quisling 'Iraqi govt.'
The Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at President Bush has stirred emotions across the Arab world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/world/middleeast/16shoe.html?th&emc=th

Al-Baghdadi Iraqi satellite channel have been part of CBS since its inception in 2005. Reactions of the Arab and international calls for the release of CBS correspondent Zaidi expected
بعث عدد من الشخصيات السياسية والفكرية رسائل احتجاج وتضامن مع مراسل البغدادية منتظر الزيدي فقد بعث الكاتب والمفكر حسن العلوي رسالة جاء فيها: باعتباري من مؤسسي نقابة الصحفيين العراقيين وباسم احرارهم ندعوا الصحفيين العرب على الطريقة الفاشستية التي عومل بها الصحفي الشجاع على مرأى من دمر سيادة العراق تحت لافتة حقوق الانسان وممارسة حرياته . كما اعرب عدد من اعضاء مجلس النواب وشيوخ عن تضامنهم مع دعوة البغدادي... .
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ar&u=www.albaghdadia.com/...

Digest: sources for U.S. mainstream coverage of this event mainly (if not totally) are CBS & Soros OSI 'soft power' connected orgs.

"Reporters Without Borders and its Iraqi partner organisation the Journalistic Freedom Observatory today renewed their call for the release of photographer ..."
www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29363

Iraqi TV journalist kidnapped: press group
Nov 16, 2007
Muntazer al-Zaidi, a correspondent for al-Baghdadiya TV was kidnapped on Friday after leaving his home in Baghdad, Iraq's -"The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory asks Zaidi's kidnappers once more for his swift release for humanitarian reasons," .

"14 Aug 2006 ... The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory has condemned violations against journalists in Kurdistan last week and urged Iraqi President Jalal ..."
www.iraqupdates.com/p_articles.php/article/9874

Digest Googled ' Open Society Institute and Iraq's Journalistic Freedom's Observatory'
http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/nbbw.cgi

"The Iraqi Society for Defending Journalists Rights is a non-governmental body. ... Meanwhile, the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory on Friday revealed that ..."
www.newssafety.com/index.php?view=article&catid=83%3Airaq-media-safety&i...

INT'L. NEWS SAFETY INSTITUTE / INSI
http://www.newssafety.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5...
Links [to a few other OSI orgs.]
NGOs and humanitarian organisations

Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch
Index on Censorship
International Criminal Court
International Medical Corps
International Pen
International Rescue Committee
Médecins Sans Frontières
Telecoms Sans Frontieres

HRW & OTHER SOROS GROUPS BLAME IRAQ, NOT U.S., FOR TORTURE & SLAUGHTER OF OVER A MILLION IRAQIS
Iraqi Justice System Is Faulted
Defendants are often abused in custody and held for months or even years before being referred to a judge, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/world/middleeast/16iraq.html?th&emc=th

NOT 'BLUNDERS: U.S. PLANS TO ELIMINATE IRAQ AS AN ARAB NATION - NO RECONSTRUCTION EXCEPT WHAT OCCUPATION REQUIRED, THUS ITS OBSCENE CHARGES THAT IRAQ IS RESPONSIBLE FOR COSTS
Official History Spotlights Iraq Rebuilding Blunder
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/world/middleeast/14reconstruct.html?th...
BAGHDAD — An unpublished 513-page federal history of the American-led reconstruction of Iraq depicts an effort crippled before the invasion by Pentagon planners hostile to the idea of rebuilding a foreign country, and then molded into a $100 billion failure by bureaucratic turf wars, spiraling violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society and infrastructure... concludes that... the Pentagon simply put out inflated measures of progress to cover up the failures...
Among the overarching conclusions of the history is that five years after embarking on its largest foreign reconstruction project since the Marshall Plan the policies and technical capacity nor the organizational structure that would be needed to undertake such a program on anything approaching this scale.
The bitterest message of all for the reconstruction program may be how the history ends...

SECOND 'HOMELAND' NORTHCOM Garden Plot domestic security DEPLOYMENT
New Rapid-Response Forces to Bolster Homeland Defense Mission
By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=52307
WASHINGTON, Dec. 12, 2008 – Pentagon officials have established a new rapid-response joint task force and plan to create two more in coming years to bolster assistance to civil authorities following potential chemical, biological or nuclear attacks or natural disasters, a senior U.S. official said here yesterday. The new units will team with other federal agencies in support of local responders following chemical, biological or nuclear terror attacks on the homeland or during natural disasters, Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and Americas’ security affairs, told American Forces Press Service and Pentagon Channel reporters.

note: the U.S. generated crisis of capitalism is being used to intensify U.S. capital's permanent war against working class/oppressed people
Collapse of Pension Funds: The End of Retirement?
Shamus Cooke:
ww.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11379
December 13, 2008
...After World War II...European and Japanese economies stood in tatters, American capitalism [digest: as intended, ruled the world] could fulfill “the American dream,”...workers were promised that — after working thirty or so years — they would be able to securely retire...largely the case for one generation.
The second generation is having a devastating reality check. 2008 was supposed to be a watershed year for retirement: it was the first year that the baby-boomers turned 62... when people could begin to draw on their social security benefits... The economy has nosedived, and... retirements are being delayed...many who planned on retiring will work until the grave, joining the millions of other baby-boomers who never had such dreams....experts are calling this the “perfect storm” for retirement. Everything that could go wrong is in fact going wrong. This storm, however, was not created by supernatural forces, but the coordinated effort of big-business and their puppet politicians.
The deliberate destruction of the pension and its replacement by the 401(k) was, of course, a giant step towards attacking retirement; but now that the economic crisis has emerged, we’re beginning to see just how ruinous the effects are.
At the end of September, just as the crisis was beginning to gain steam, it was discovered that in the previous year the value of stocks in 401(k) accounts had fallen by nearly $2 trillion! Much more has been lost since then. This is especially devastating since almost one-third of 401(k) participants in their 60s had 80 percent of their money in stocks (pension funds have been similarly destroyed). The 401(k) was the scheme of the century. Corporations offloaded their “burdensome” pensions and used the combined forces of the media and politicians to sell the ruse to the public, to the great benefit of Wall Street. Workers were told that the boom-slump cycle was over, and that stocks were a sure thing. There were additional factors to invest in stocks: interest rates were so low that investing in bonds and other less-risky instruments offered only tiny returns; and since employers stopped contributing to retirement funds, a bigger return was required.

More importantly, corporations have been driving down real wages since the seventies, allowing less money to be saved for retirement, creating a mood of desperation.

Every “safe bet” for investing has been proven unsafe; the recession has left nothing untouched. After the dotcom bubble burst — taking with it millions of people’s 401(k) savings — the housing market became the place to invest. Now the safest possible investment, too, has turned sour. For millions of people, the home they lived in was their nest egg, which they planned to sell and move into a smaller place. No more...
This process is being accelerated by the newest trick of big business: declaring bankruptcy to destroy “pension obligations”. These obligations apply with equal weight to workers already retired, many of whom are seeing their pensions slashed in half, forcing them out of retirement. Now the threat of bankruptcy is constantly used in union contract negotiations to scare workers into concessions, since after achieving bankruptcy, labor agreements are torn up. The threat of closing the company’s doors is a very effective form of intimidation. This phenomenon is at the center of the GM debate. The corporate politicians in congress cannot decide whether to appoint a “Car Tsar” to oversee the destruction of the autoworkers pensions, or use the proven method of bankruptcy. Not a day goes by that the corporate media doesn’t join hands to assail the pension and health care benefits of the “spoiled” GM workers.

sound familiar?
Dec. 16, 1950, President Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight "Communist imperialism."

Navy Shells Reds: MacArthur Aides Report Chinese Build-Up for Attack in West Disaster Services Put on Alert Here: Wallander Orders Agencies to Be in Condition of Readiness on 24-Hour-a-Day Basis Red China's Assets in U.S. Are Frozen: Washington Takes Unilateral Action
Today was a day of action in the White House, in Congress and elsewhere in the Government as officials moved to implement the President's declaration to the nation and the world last night that the United States would meet the challenge of communism. Mr. Truman had pleaded for unity, like past Presidents coping with crises, and as in 1917 and 1941 the country was rallying with vigor...

In his proclamation President Truman declared that conquest of the world was the objective of "Communist imperialism." He said this now constituted a threat to the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, to the free enterprise system and to other rights, like collective bargaining, that free people had chosen for themselves.These were the elements of a "full and rich life" that could be lost by the triumph of the Communist way of life, Mr. Truman said, calling for "a mighty production effort" for defense... The Economic Stabilization Agency canceled the price increases made by Ford, General Motors and Chrysler in the last few days, and this was merely the harbinger of many new controls that eventually will encompass the entire economy... Industry evinced its readiness to accept any war production goals, striking railroad men returned to work, and the general response from the public indicated an acceptance of the austerity program suggested by the President... Recent Auto Rises Canceled by First Price-Freeze Edict: 'Ceiling Regulation No. 1' of Economic Stabilization Agency Holds Schedules to Dec. 1 Levels -- Wage Study Set...

In the free countries of Western Europe Mr. Truman was applauded for his no- appeasement speech in which he pledged to create an "arsenal of freedom" to strengthen all free countries. From Russia, which the President blamed directly for the postwar troubles of the world, came a typical blast that this country was warmongering.
Mr. Truman took two actions this morning to start a drastic increase of the mobilization program. He signed the proclamation of emergency, which unleashed scores of additional executive powers, and issued an executive order granting virtually blanket authority to Mr. Wilson to carry out all aspects of war production and economic control he deemed necessary. This authority received by Mr. Wilson will be subject in the Executive Branch of the Government only to the veto of President Truman....Mr. Wilson, who has resigned his $175,000-a-year position as president of the General Electric Company to take the $22,500 job of Director of Defense Mobilization...

The proclamation of emergency, apart from an important psychological effect it is expected to have on the approach of the average citizen to his part in the crisis, revived scores of powers which have been latent. Some of them had been rescinded by Congress in 1947, and some were enacted since then but could be given life only by the proclamation.
Most of them were nominal powers or pertained to particular facilities that had been built or leased by the Government, with the privilege of recapturing them in an emergency like the present. Some of the powers were important and extensive, however, like the broad ones authorizing recapture of the many airfields and plants built during World War II.
But Mr. Truman already had the most critical powers for mobilization, vested in him by the Production Act of 1950, and it was this which he invoked in designating Mr. Wilson as the person who will implement them....http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20081216.html

PRESIDENTIAL SELECTION PROCESS...UNLESS JUDGES DEEMED NECESSARY TO INSURE CAPITALIST DEMOCRACY
In a quadrennial ritual that has been criticized by some as an outdated part of the American political system, 538 electors, chosen for their party loyalty, cast their votes on Monday. Mr. Obama was expected to receive 365 votes to 173 for Senator John McCain, his Republican challenger, although the tally will not be made official by Congress until January.Electorre not legally bound to vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged, but they generally do. Their votes will be sent to Washington and counted in early January at a joint session of Congress.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/us/politics/16electors.html?th&emc=th