"... number one, we're going to reduce non-defense discretionary spending to the lowest levels in decades"
Obama, NYT interview
Obama’s New York Times interview: Military aggression and attacks on democratic rights to continue
In an extensive interview conducted last Friday [3/6/9] with the New York Times and published on Sunday, President Barack Obama outlined policies on national security and foreign affairs that underscore the essential continuity between his administration and that of his predecessor, George W. Bush.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/obam-m10.shtml

Generic Invader Nonsense: Obama on Iraq
Candidate Barrack Obama described the war in Iraq as one that “should never have been authorised and never been waged.” February 27 president Obama... told US troops at Marine Camp Lejeune, NC, "You have fought against tyranny and disorder. You have bled for your best friends and for unknown Iraqis. And you have borne an enormous burden for your fellow citizens, while extending a precious opportunity to the people of Iraq..." [...]
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/ by Media Lens March 7th, 2009

FUCKING AMERIKAN LIBERATION...MOVING ON TO FINISH AFGHANISTAN
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=52386

continuity: made-in-usa mujahadeen to defeat Russia in Afghanistan
'obama ponders outreach to Taliban elements'
Obama declared declared the United States was not winning the war in Afghanistan and opened the door to a reconciliation process in which the U.S. military would reach out to elements of the Taliban, much as it did with Sunni militias in Iraq.

Bomber Kills Dozens in Iraq as Fears of New Violence Rise
By ALISSA J. RUBIN, NYT
A suicide attack on Iraqi army officers killed 33 people two days after another bomber killed 28, suggesting a renewed deadliness in attacks by insurgents.

but predictably, timely 'increase in Iraq violence' resulted in...
'If They Ask Us to Stay We Will Probably Stay'
Gen. Ray Odierno, top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said that continuing the fight against insurgents in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul may lead to U.S. troops remaining past a June 30, 2009 deadline for all U.S. combat troops to leave Iraqi cities http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7037897&page=1

1,311,696 Iraqis Slaughtered In US War And Occupation

PSYWAR PROPAGANDA
Iraqi Surveys Start to Unveil the Mental Scars of War, Especially Among Women
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
BAGHDAD — Only when the guns fall silent does the extent of damage wrought by conflict become visible. So in Iraq, as security improves, only now are the full effects of the violence on the Iraqi people emerging. Two studies being released this weekend, one on mental health and the other on the status of women, paint a sobering portrait of the enormous difficulties that lie ahead as the country tries to recover from years of war and state-sponsored terrorism under Saddam Hussein and the more recent sectarian and ethnic strife that followed the American invasion...the psychiatrists and psychologists who carried out the survey in 2006 to 2007 said that they were surprised that the percentages were not even higher given the levels of violence and trauma, and they hypothesized that Iraqis had developed defenses to protect themselves. “Iraqi society has suffered for nearly 50 years from difficult circumstances, but gradually people seem to have become accustomed to enduring hard experiences,” ... The higher levels of stress and mental illness among women, common in many postconflict societies, may be even higher in Iraq because of the long period of war... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/world/middleeast/08iraq.html?em

capitalist dictatorship...
What's Law Got To Do With It?
Reza Fiyouzat
http://revolutionaryflowerpot.blogspot.com/2009/03/whats-law-got-to-do-w...
www.uruknet.info?p=52380
...Liberals like to say the neo-con agenda is dead. Is it? Then why are a majority of its most significant achievements still in place and being protected by the new Obama administration? An important point regarding the necessity of fighting against superficial legalese when it comes to the U.S. government's fundamental violations of civil rights of individuals, U.S. citizens or not, regards the approach taken by the liberals in letting Obama off the hook already. The insistence by the liberals that "this whole legal nightmare is now over", with the insinuation that no legal proceedings should be brought against all the criminals of the last eight years (at least), is itself a criminal utterance....

The reason we are awed by and love Joseph K. in Kafka's The Trial is mostly because, I think, though he does not start out as a classic hero and is in fact a most ordinary man, he acts heroically by the end of the story. As compared with another accused man in the story, the cowardly Rudi Block, who stays an utter slave to the machinery, Joseph K. defies all authorities, starting with his own uncle, through to the lawyer his uncle gets for him, then the court, and finally the church and god; hence his final fate. By defying all these arbitrarily imposed authorities, he chooses to be human and free, even if only in death. He refuses to live by an insane irrationality. That's why we love him.

Liberals are like Rudi Block. They are forever waiting slavishly for this structurally flawed and contradictory system to correct itself and address the concerns of justice. A true humanist with a realist outlook would follow the path of Joseph K. and defy the entire structure, come what may. revolutionaryflowerpotsociety@gmail.com
A tunnel under every Palestinian house!

POLL: Hamas's popularity among Palestinians rose sharply since Israel's three-week offensive against the Islamist group in Gaza
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1069762.html

U.S. PROXY'S MOSSAD AGENT
A NEW ISRAELI CONNECTION to Sept. 11, 2001 unveiled
in NYT story [Lebanese in Shock Over Arrest of an Accused Spy, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/world/middleeast/19lebanon.html?scp=1&sq=NYT,%20feb.%2019,2009,%20Ziad%20al-Jarrah&st=cse] ... revelation that a Lebanese taken into custody by the Lebanon—which accused him of being a spy for some 25 years for Israeli intelligence— happens to be a cousin of one of the men alleged to have been one of the 9-11 hijackers. Although Ali al-Jarrah was—publicly—an outspoken proponent of the Palestinian cause, it turns out that he was actually working as a paid asset of the Mossad for more than two decades, betraying his own nation and conducting spying operations against Palestinian groups and the pro-Palestinian party Hezbollah. A.N.Idelbi http://www.sana.sy/eng/22/2009/03/10/216416.htm

Pots of urine, feces on the walls - how IDF troops vandalized Gaza residents and homes
By Amira Hass
"Jail" ("mikhla'a" in Hebrew), wrote the soldiers on the wall of the room where they kept the man and the four women. They did not allow them to use the toilet, but forced them to use all kinds of plastic containers kept in the room, for ten days... In the midst of all of this were plastic bottles of urine and many closed bags - in some houses, olive-colored ones - of excrement. People assumed that the commanders stayed there. There are houses where excrement was smeared on the walls, or where dry piles of it were found in corners. In many cases, the smells indicated that soldiers had urinated on piles of clothing or inside a washing machine. In all the houses the toilets were overflowing and clogged, and there was filth all around. When the Abu Eidas returned to house No. 5 in Jabalya, they discovered pots of urine and excrement in the refrigerator... The five prisoners could not pray, as they were not allowed to clean themselves up before prayer and were forbidden to stand up. They were given two blankets, which were not enough, especially because the windows were smashed and the door was always open. A soldier always sat next to the door aiming his rifle at them... On January 18, when the forces pulled out, similar sights awaited people whose homes had become military bases in their absence. There were bullet-pocked walls, ripped-up sofas and armchairs, smashed televisions and computers, shards of glass and porcelain dishes and broken wooden thresholds. Clothing was ripped up. And there were mountains of very Israeli garbage... http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1068989.html

U.S. gov't takeover of mortgage giants good for Israeli banks
By Yuval Maoz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1018922.html
The U.S. government's landmark takeover of troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will also serve to boost banks in Israel, according to banking analysts.
Officials announced that both giant institutions were being placed in a government conservatorship, a move that could end up costing taxpayers billions of dollars. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said allowing the companies to fail would have extracted a far higher price on consumers by driving up the cost of home loans and all other types of borrowing because the failures would "create great turmoil in our financial markets here at home and around the globe."
Alon Glazer, banking analyst at Leader Capital Markets, says "The nationalization of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is good for the local banks." "The banks that today hold bonds of Freddie Mac and Fannies Mae are Israel Discount Bank, Bank Leumi and First International Bank. As far as they are concerned, the nationalization is a positive step because now the bonds are those of the U.S. government - and their price can only go up," Glazer said...

CLINTON TURNS UP CAUTION IN MIDEAST
From Egypt to Israel and the West Bank, Mrs. Clinton dropped the penchant for plain-spoken analysis she had shown in Asia for a more formal style based on time-tested diplomatic formulations. When Mrs. Clinton was asked in Ramallah how she felt about Jewish settlements in the West Bank, a cause of strife with Palestinians, she said the United States would raise “the issue” with the next Israeli government. Asked about it again in Brussels, she recited the official American position that settlements were “unhelpful.” In Israel, Mrs. Clinton did not publicly broach settlements at all. And she only gingerly raised the issue of border crossings to Gaza, which Israel has mostly kept closed, drawing criticism from European leaders and human rights groups...The potential for missteps was even greater this time, with the Israelis in the throes of putting together a new government...Some Middle East analysts said the Obama administration had calculated that immediately pushing Israel would make no sense — with so little to gain in a largely paralyzed peace process, and so many thorny domestic challenges of its own. “Pressuring Israel because we’re frustrated with them or because we want to make nice with the Arabs is a dumb policy,” said Aaron David Miller, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars... Once Mrs. Clinton left the Middle East, she loosened up. She joked with reporters after a linguistic gaffe in which she handed a red “reset button” to the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, as a gift, only to be told by him that the Russian inscription was a mistranslation [accidental? it means 'overcharged'].
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/world/europe/08diplo.html?th=&emc=th&p...

PFLP
...despite the arrogance of imperialism and capitalism and their repeated wars in the world under many slogans, reflecting the crisis of capitalism and serving the objectives of multinational monopolist corporations, the sun of justice must rise, bring with it freedom, liberation, equality and socialism, and the inevitable victory of the people. There is no choice... but to rise up to win our objectives and build communities and organizations to fight for justice, freedom, equality and an end to global capitalism and its savage globalization and its repressive dictatorships... U.S. imperialism is not and will never be a friend to the Palestinian people...the complicity of this [Palestinian] leadership is an integral part of the Zionist/American project and plan in the region...end the useless negotiations and return instead to strengthen the unity and steadfastness of our people and resist the occupation by all available means...
from Comrade Nasser Kafarneh, member of the Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, speech at founding of the New Anticapitalist Party (Nouveau parti anticapitaliste, NPA) February 10, 2009
http://www.pflp.ps/english/?q=pflp-greets-founding-new-french-anticapita...

USSRAELI MEDIA
...U.S. corporate media....far from representing the interests or perspectives of the vast majority of people living in the United States itself, are, by and large, owned by major multinational corporate conglomerates at the highest levels of the ruling class of the U.S. empire. The U.S. media, in many ways, serves as the incubator of the Zionist media... It is not the strength of Zionist media labeled Israeli, but rather the reach and power of Hollywood, the news networks, and U.S. news agencies that serve U.S. interests and serve Israel as a primary U.S. project, that present the Zionist narrative in media.... This overwhelming Zionist narrative, portrayed in the U.S. media and echoed even more shrilly in the Israeli media, speaks not to the control of a few influential Zionists in the U.S., but rather of the centrality of the Zionist project, and Israel, to the U.S. strategy for control of the Arab homeland....the long-term, unchallengeable role of the Zionist project as an outpost and colonial base of the U.S. Rather than conveying the views of some few individuals, the U.S. media directly represents the largest corporations - including the largest military corporations - in the country and internationally, and the perspective of the rulers of the U.S....The liberation of the U.S. media to transform its perspective means the alteration of the entire system that produces such media, yet with each victory of the Palestinian people and for the movement in the U.S., the strength of the liberation movement ensures that such a propaganda war is no longer possible.
PFLP Comrades Khalil Maqdesi and Rayya Amin on responses of U.S. and Israeli media to the death of Al-Hakim, Dr. George Habash, founder of the Arab Nationalist Movement and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
http://www.pflp.ps/english/?q=editorial-analysisresponse-us-and-israeli-...

U.S. Army document describes Israel [and N.K.] as 'a nuclear power'
By Amir Oren
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1069303.html
In a rare breach of official American adherence to Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity, the U.S. military is terming Israel "a nuclear power" on a par with Russia, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea, all of which have declared their nuclear weapon status, and ahead of "nuclear threshold powers" Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, and the "emerging" Iran.
The reference to Israel as a nuclear power is contained in a document published late last year by the U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), the Norfolk, Virginia-based headquarters in charge of preparing American forces for their military missions worldwide, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. JFCOM's chief, U.S. Marine Corps Four-Star General James Mattis, also heads NATO's Allied Command Transformation....
JFCOM's "Joint Operating Environment" (JOE) document, with a forward by Mattis and drafted by a team of officers and civilians he selected, was signed in mid-November 2008 and posted on the Pentagon's Web site. It has generated protests by the governments of Mexico - whose potential collapse is depicted as a grave threat to U.S. national security - and South Korea, which resented the reference to North Korea as a nuclear power. Following the Korean controversy, JFCOM issued a clarification, noting that this reference does not reflect U.S. government policy, which has vowed never to accept North Korea as a nuclear power....
"In effect," the document continues, "there is a growing arc of nuclear powers running from Israel in the west through an emerging Iran to Pakistan, India and on to China, North Korea and Russia in the east. Unfortunately, that nuclear arc coincides with areas of considerable instability of enormous interest to the United States."

you knew why the sudden, relentless 'news' of u.s. 'grave concern about Mexico's drug violence crossing into peace-protecting usa?
Obama and US commander discuss military intervention in Mexico
By Bill Van Auken
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen briefed President Barack Obama over the weekend on the so-called drug war in Mexico and the prospect of increased US military involvement in the conflict south of the border. Mullen had just returned from a six-day tour of Latin America, which took him on his last and most important stop to Mexico City. There he held meetings with Mexico's secretary of national defense and other top military officials and discussed proposals for rushing increased US aid to Mexico under the auspices of Plan Merida, a three-year, $1.4 billion package designed to provide equipment, training and other assistance to the Mexican armed forces.
In a telephone press conference conducted as he returned from Mexico, Mullen said that the Pentagon was prepared to help the Mexican military employ the same tactics that US forces have applied in counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US military, he said, was "sharing a lot of lessons we have learned, how we've developed similar capabilities over the last three or four years in our counterinsurgency efforts as we have fought terrorist networks." He added, "There are an awful lot of similarities."...
In a March 1 television interview, Defense Secretary Robert Gates sounded a similar note, praising Calderon for having "taken on the battle" against drug trafficking by deploying the army and claiming that the "old biases against cooperation" between Mexico and the Pentagon were "being set aside." As a result, Gates added, Washington was prepared to provide the Mexican military "with training, with resources, with reconnaissance and surveillance kinds of capabilities."
The indications of more direct US military involvement follow a growing chorus of official as well as media reports portraying Mexico as a potential "failed state" and a mounting threat to US national security. n its annual report assessing global security threats, the Pentagon's Joint Forces Command lumped Mexico together with Pakistan as countries that "bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse." The document added a warning: "Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response, based on the serious implications for homeland security as well." This was followed by a report released at the US Military Academy in January by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who was director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Bill Clinton. Mexico, he wrote, is "fighting for survival against narco-terrorism" and required greater US intervention.[...]
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/mexi-m10.shtml

U.S., South Korea open war games; North Korea in combat mode [not misprint]
The U.S. and South Korea began annual war games involving tens of thousands of troops, prompting North Korea to call its military into "full combat readiness," saying it views the joint land and sea exercises as a prelude to an invasion. The hostilities raised tensions on the Korean peninsula to their highest point in weeks as the U.S. and its allies anxiously awaited North Korea's test launch of its most advanced long-range missile.... http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-korea-war-games10-20...

...U.S. and Japanese officials suggested they could shoot down a North Korean missile if necessary...
NKorea threatens 'war' if satellite is shot down
U.S. and Japanese officials suggested they could shoot down a North Korean missile further incensing Pyongyang. "Shooting our satellite for peaceful purposes will precisely mean a war," the general staff of the North's military said in a statement Monday by the official Korean Central News Agency: Any interception will draw "a just retaliatory strike operation not only against all the interceptor means involved but against the strongholds" of the U.S., Japan and South Korea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/08/AR200903...

"...the first time that the Obama administration will flex its muscle overseas in a new show of American power"?
Top-level talks continue on US-led military intervention in Sri Lanka
By Peter Symonds
Further evidence has emerged confirming that top-level discussions are underway involving Washington, Colombo and New Delhi over an American-led military intervention in northern Sri Lanka on the pretext of evacuating civilians trapped by the island's civil war. Speaking to a group of South Asian journalists last weekend, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher was asked about press reports in Colombo revealing plans for a marine expeditionary brigade attached to Pacific Command (PACOM) to be sent to Sri Lanka....According to the Telegraph, a PACOM team visited Colombo a fortnight ago for discussions with the Sri Lankan army on the proposal. James Moore, deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Colombo, was dispatched to the northern Jaffna peninsula to make an independent assessment. "Moore's report is said to have persuaded Hillary Clinton's state department to line up behind the idea of a US-led evacuation of Tamils," the article stated... The Washington correspondent of the Calcutta-based Telegraph, K.P. Nayar, provided the only detailed report. No account has appeared in the US media, even though, as Nayar wrote: "If the invasion comes about, it will be the first time that the Obama administration will flex its muscle overseas in a new show of American power."...
In the short-term, the US is seeking to prevent any further destabilisation in a region that is already political tinderbox. In the longer-term, Washington is seeking to augment its position in Sri Lanka, which is strategically adjacent to South Asia and the Middle East and astride key naval routes to North East Asia. A key element in any US-led intervention in Sri Lanka is the attitude of India, which regards the island as part of its regional sphere of influence. New Delhi has been engaged in a delicate balancing act over the past three years. The Indian government has backed Rajapakse's war, politically and militarily, in large part to curb the growing influence of rivals Pakistan and China which have supplied the Sri Lankan army. At the same time, it has had to tread warily, as the war in Sri Lanka has provoked anger among Tamils in southern India. Over the past decade, Washington and New Delhi have forged a closer strategic partnership based in particular on a shared concern about the rising influence of China. The interests of the two countries, however, are far from completely coinciding. A unilateral US intervention in northern Sri Lanka would raise fears in the political establishment in New Delhi that the US was undercutting Indian influence.

NATO restores normal relations with Russia
Allies lift freeze started after invasion of Georgia
By ROBERT BURNS, AP
...U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said there would be no avoiding, or backing down from, disputes with Moscow....
"The United States will not recognize any nation having a sphere of influence over any other nation," Clinton told a news conference at NATO headquarters. She was referring to Moscow's assertion that it has a historic role and leading voice in the region -- a position that many east Europeans as well as the Obama administration view as an illegitimate claim to domination of the area....
"We can and must find ways to work constructively with Russia where we share areas of common interest, including helping the people of Afghanistan, arms control and nonproliferation, counterpiracy and counternarcotics and addressing the threats posed by Iran and North Korea," she [Clinton] said...
"Russia is an important player, a global player, and that means that not talking to them is not an option," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a news conference, at which he announced the decision made by NATO foreign ministers.... De Hoop Scheffer said there was a NATO consensus that Russia must deal forthrightly with issues of concern to alliance members. He said NATO continued to strongly disagree with a number of Moscow's actions, including its recognition of the independence of Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.... http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/402500_nato06.html

GOOD 'OL HILARIOUS HITMAN HILLARY
Lost in Translation: A U.S. Gift to Russia
At a dinner with Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, Mrs. Clinton presented him with a gift — a red plastic button labeled with the word “reset” and the Russian word “Peregruzka.”... a play on Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s call in Munich last month for the two countries to reset their relationship. “We worked hard to get the right Russian word,” Mrs. Clinton said to Mr. Lavrov, as he gazed at the button. “Do you think we got it?”“You got it wrong,” he replied, explaining that the Americans had come up with the Russian word for “overcharged.” “We won’t let you do that to us,” she said quickly, with a hearty laugh....

New Trial for Tycoon Is a Test for Russia [TREATMENT OF U.S. FRIEND-GANGSTER TEST OF RUSSIA'S COOPERATION/CAPITULATION TO U.S.]
MOSCOW — Shortly before he was sent to a Siberian prison in 2005, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky seemed willing to take on the mantle of a martyr for political freedom in Russia. With his business empire destroyed and his vast fortune gone, he nevertheless vowed to continue his fight against Vladimir V. Putin, then Russia’s president, from his prison cell.
Now, Mr. Khodorkovsky is back in Moscow for a new trial, and after five and a half years behind bars he appears ready to act on what may be a possibility for negotiations with the Kremlin to secure his freedom. ... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/world/europe/06russia.html?th=&emc=th&...

still operative: Russia & China now biggest threats to u.s. global supremacy
Pentagon's Plan: 'Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival'
NYT March 8, 1992
Excerpts from the Pentagon's draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for the Fiscal Years 1994-1999: This Defense Planning guidance addresses the fundamentally new situation which has been created by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the disintegration of the internal as well as the external empire, and the discrediting of Communism as an ideology with global pretensions and influence. The new international environment has also been shaped by the victory of the United States and its coalition allies over Iraqi aggression -- the first post-cold-war conflict and a defining event in U.S. global leadership. In addition to these two victories, there has been a less visible one, the integration of Germany and Japan into a U.S.-led system of collective security and the creation of a democratic "zone of peace. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE1D7173AF93BA35750C0A...

Bolivia expels US diplomat, alleging conspiracy
LA PAZ, Bolivia -- President Evo Morales on Monday ordered a U.S. diplomat to leave Bolivia for allegedly conspiring with opposition groups, further straining tense relations six months after he expelled the American ambassador....investigations determined that the U.S. Embassy's second secretary, Francisco Martinez, "was in permanent contact with opposition groups." Last week, Morales publicly accused Martinez of "coordinating contacts" with a former Bolivian police captain he accused of infiltrating the state energy company, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos, on behalf of the CIA. In September, Morales expelled U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg, alleging he was inciting the political opposition.[after] bloody rioting between Morales supporters and pro-autonomy activists in Bolivia's wealthier, unabashedly capitalist eastern lowlands. Morales later kicked out the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, accusing it of espionage and of funding "criminal groups" seeking to undermine his government. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1102ap_lt_bolivia_us.html

u.s. global 'strategic non-violence' soft power at work on every continent
Kenya: Human rights activists killed
Jack Shaka, AfricaNews reporter in Nairobi, Kenya
Oscar Foundation Executive Director Kamau King'ara and Programmes Co-ordinator Paul Oulu have been shot dead. The killing took place around 7.30pm on State House Road. The two were among the people that met UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial Killings Philip Alston during his ten day visit. Earlier Wednesday, the Government Spokesman accused the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Mungiki and the Oscar Foundation for planning the demonstrations.‘This illegal demonstration meant to cause mayhem is planned by the Mungikis, NGOs and The Oscar Foundation.’
OSCAR FOUNDATION CONNECTED TO USAID/NED/SOROS NGO Civil Society Links:
Africa Diaspora Policy Centre,African Studies Centre University of Pennsylvania,News from Africa,OneWorld, Reliefweb, VoaNews [VOICE OF AMERICA]
FOR COMPREHENSIVE AFRICAN COVERAGE OF U.S. ROLE SEE KEITH HARMON SNOW'S www.allthingspass.com http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/02/gertlers-bling-bang-torah-gang/)

so much easier for the state terrorists behind Mumbai attacks
Court rejects Mumbai gunman's translation request
By AIJAZ ANSARI, AP
Mohammed Ajmal Kasab - a Pakistani captured during the attacks and jailed ever since - addressed a court for the first time, joining the proceedings via video link because of concerns he poses too great a security risk to appear in person. He asked for an Urdu translation of court documents that include details of the charges he faces, his confession and witness testimony.
The court rejected his request, saying he will be given a lawyer who can read English and Marathi, the two languages in which the documents were printed. Marathi is the language spoken in Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital. Kasab can only read Urdu, a language commonly understood in Pakistan. Kasab, 21, was charged last month with 12 criminal counts, including murder and waging war against India and could face the death penalty if convicted....

U.S. SPY SHIP PROVOCATION: TIBET AGAIN AND 'OVERTONES OF SPYCRAFT'

Dalai Lama Harshly Condemns China Over Tibet
By EDWARD WONG
In a report released Tuesday, Human Rights Watch said that a careful study of official Chinese accounts of last year’s uprising and its aftermath showed that “there have been thousands of arbitrary arrests, and more than 100 trials pushed through the judicial system.”...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/world/asia/11tibet.html?hp [charming pic of his wholly CIA holyness!]

China Tightens Security in Tibet
By EDWARD WONG
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/world/asia/10tibet.html?hp
BEIJING — Security forces have increased patrols in central Tibet and vigilance along international borders ahead of a sensitive anniversary to guard against possible disruptions caused by followers of the Dalai Lama or Western groups advocating Tibetan independence, according to state news reports on Monday. The reports were the most detailed acknowledgment so far by the government that it has clamped down on the Tibetan regions. The announcement of the increased patrols came one day before the 50th anniversary of a failed Tibetan rebellion against Chinese rule. After the 1959 revolt was suppressed, the Dalai Lama fled into exile in India...
A senior Chinese police official said Monday that security was also being tightened along the border areas of the Tibet Autonomous Region. The official, Fu Hongyu, political commissar of the border control department of the Ministry of Public Security, said that security forces “will firmly crack down on criminal activities in Tibet’s border area that pose a threat to China’s sovereignty and government,” Xinhua reported. The Tibet Autonomous Region has international borders with Nepal, India, Myanmar and Bhutan.

FYI: My 3/10 comment on Wong article 'moderated', never posted : http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/03/11/world/asia/11ti...

NYT 'reports' are part of U.S. neoliberal propaganda against one of its 2 major geostrategic capitalist rivals, China & Russia. The 'news' supplied by vast, U.S. supported 'humanitarian' NGO including HRW, Amnesty International, and OSI is thoroughly documented including by the following:

Risky Geopolitical Game: Washington Plays ‘Tibet Roulette’ with China
By F. William Engdahl April 10, 2008
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8625

The crimson revolution’s true colours
http://www.howardwfrench.com/archives/2008/04

Blum, William, The NED and ‘Project Democracy,’ January 2000, in www.friendsoftibet.org/databank/usdefence/usd5.html

"Democratic Imperialism": Tibet, China, and the National Endowment for Democracy
by Michael Barker - bibliography:
[1] McGranahan, C. “Tibet’s Cold War: The CIA and the Chushi Gangdrug Resistance, 1956–1974.” Journal of Cold War Studies, 8 (3), (2006), p.105.
[2] Conboy, K. and J.Morrison. The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2002.
Deane, H. “The Cold War in Tibet.” Covert Action Information Bulletin 29 (Winter 1987): 48-50.
Knaus, J. K. Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival. New York: Public Affairs, 1999.
[3] Mann, J. “CIA Funded Covert Tibet Exile Campaign in 1960s.” The Age (Melbourne), 16 Sept. 1998. 21 Jun. 2007. .
[4] Parenti, M. “Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth (Updated).” Jul. 2004. 21 Jun. 2007. .
[5] Mann, J. “CIA Funded Covert Tibet Exile Campaign in 1960s.” The Age (Melbourne), 16 Sept. 1998. 21 Jun. 2007. .
[6] Knaus, J. K. Orphans of the Cold War: America and the Tibetan Struggle for Survival. New York: Public Affairs, 1999.
Salopek, P. “The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet.” Seattle Times, 26 Jan. 1997. 21 Jun. 2007. .
[7] Knaus, J. K. “Official Policies and Covert Programs: The U.S. State Department, the CIA, and the Tibetan Resistance.” Journal of Cold War Studies, 5 (3), (2003), p.78.
[8] Reagan, R. W. “Address to Members of the British Parliament.” Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, 8 Jun. 1982. 21 Jun. 2007. .
[9] Rasmus, J. The War at Home: The Corporate Offensive Against American Workers and Unions from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush. San Ramon, CA: Kyklos Productions, 2006.
[10] Ignatius, D. “Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups.” The Washington Post, 22 September 1991.
[11] Robinson, W. I. and J. Gindin. “The Battle for Global Civil Society.” Venezuelanalysis.com, 13 Jun. 2005. 21 Jun. 2007. .
[12] Barker, M. J. “Taking the Risk Out of Civil Society: Harnessing Social movements and Regulating Revolutions.” Refereed paper presented to the Australasian Political Studies Association Conference, University of Newcastle 25-27 September 2006. 21 Jun. 2007. . Roelofs, J. Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003.
[13] Barker, M. J. “The National Endowment for Democracy and the Promotion of ‘Democratic’ Media Systems Worldwide.” Communication for Development and Social Change: A Global Journal (In Press).Barker, M. J. “Democracy or Polyarchy? US-Funded Media Developments in Afghanistan and Iraq Post 9/11.” Media Culture Society (In Press). Sussman, G. “The Myths of ‘Democracy Assistance’: U.S. Political Intervention in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe.” Monthly Review, Dec. 2006. 21 Jun. 2007. .
[14] Barker, M. J. “A Force More Powerful: Promoting ‘Democracy’ Through Civil Disobedience.” State of Nature, Mar. 2007. 21 Jun. 2007. .
[15] Fenton, A. “Canada’s Growing Role in Haitian Affairs (Part I).” Znet, 21 Mar. 2005. 21 Jun. 2007. .
[16] For a detailed examination of both individuals strong ties to the NED see Barker, M. J. “Promoting a Low Intensity Public Sphere: American Led Efforts to Promote a ‘Democratic Media’ Environment in China.” A paper to presented at the China Media Centre Conference (Brisbane, Australia: Creative Industries Precinct, 5-6 July 2007).
Also of interest is Barker, M. J. “Hijacking Human Rights: A Critical Examination of Human Rights Watch’s Americas Branch and their Links to the ‘Democracy’ Establishment.” Znet, August 3, 2007. .
[17]Grandin, G. Empire's workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006.
[18] Robert, P. “Tibet Information Network Closes as Funds Dry Up.” Tibet Information Network, 13 Sep. 2005. 21 Jun. 2007. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/huma...

HRW RESOURCE LINKS -search Open Society Institute : 60451 Results found in 0.712s.
http://www.humanrightsdigest.org/1078/china-chinese-human-rights-defende...

China accuses US Navy of breaking the law
China, however, said the US claim was "totally inaccurate and wrong". Ma Zhaoxu, a foreign ministry spokesman, said the ship "broke international and Chinese laws in the South China Sea without China's permission."
An unnamed spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington said the USNS Impeccable had been "consistently conducting illegal surveying in China's exclusive economic zone" and that China had "repeatedly used diplomatic channels to demand that the US side cease unlawful activities in China's exclusive economic zone," according to Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television...
In April 2001, just after George Bush's election to the White House, a US spy plane made an emergency landing on Hainan after crashing into a Chinese fighter jet, killing a pilot. China detained the US aircrew for 11 days until a US sent an apology.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/4966588/China-accus...

US protests 'harassment' of USNS Impeccable by Chinese vessels
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-impeccable-china10-2... March 9, 2009
Chinese ships surrounded and harassed a Navy mapping ship in international waters off China, at one point coming within 25 feet of the American boat... the Defense Department said today.The Obama administration said it would continue naval operations in the South China Sea, most of which China considers its territory, and protested to China about what it called reckless behavior that endangered lives.. The incident had overtones of spycraft, but the U.S. ship is not, strictly speaking, a spy ship. It maps the ocean floor with sonar, compiling information the Navy can use to steer its own submarines or track those of other nations....Sunday's incident near Hainan Island is reminiscent of a much more dramatic foreign policy crisis with China that played out in the same area. The forced landing of a U.S. spy plane and China's seizure of the crew in April 2001 came just four months into President George W. Bush's tenure.

'PRO-DEMOCRACY' NGOS INCREASINGLY EXPOSED & OPPOSED WORLDWIDE
China drives home rejection of 'Western' democracy
By Christopher Bodeen, AP
"The Western model of a legal system cannot be copied mechanically in establishing our own," Wu said. Wu's remarks appeared to be a deliberate rebuttal to critics calling for greater liberalization, including legalizing opposition parties and direct elections for legislative bodies. The boldest such call, known as "Charter '08," began circulating on the Internet in December and won endorsements from hundreds of intellectuals and pro-democracy activists both inside China and overseas. It declares authoritarian rule on the wane and calls for a new Chinese constitution, separation of powers, competitive elections and other hallmarks of Western democracy. Authorities have suppressed all mention of the document in Chinese media while harassing or detaining its drafters and signatories...."They are saying that China will go its own way and reject the universally recognized achievements of human civilization, which are human rights, democracy, and the responsiveness to public opinion," said Bao Tong, who spent seven years behind bars for leaking state secrets...

THE 'It's NOT the system stupid' MYTH: INDIVIDUAL POLITICIANS ESTABLISH U.S. STRATEGIC AGENDA
It's all Geithner's Fault
http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/index.html
...1997, when the Asian financial crisis was ravaging the world. In the initial media reaction to Geithner's appointment as Treasury Secretary, he received high marks for his efforts handling the crisis while an underling in the Clinton Treasury Department. Keating demurs. In a speech to a closed gathering at the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Thursday, Paul Keating gave a starkly different account of Geithner's record in handling the Asian crisis: "Tim Geithner was the Treasury line officer who wrote the IMF [International Monetary Fund] program for Indonesia in 1997-98, which was to apply current account solutions to a capital account crisis." The tough conditions imposed by the IMF on many Asian nations encouraged them to make every effort to avoid needing to ask for such help ever again. So they began building up huge stores of foreign reserves:
Keating went on to argue that, by frightening the Chinese into building their vast $US2 trillion foreign reserves, Geithner was responsible for the build-up of tremendous imbalance in the world financial system. This imbalance, in turn, according to Keating, contributed to the global financial crisis which has since devastated the world economy.
China invested most of its reserves in U.S. debt markets. Keating again: "So we have this massive recycling of funds into the system by [the former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan] Greenspan's monetary policy so even if you are greedy Dick Fuld [the former head of the collapsed investment bank Lehman Brothers] or you are hopeless Charles Prince at Citibank, you're being told there's an endless supply of money at a low interest rate and no inflation. So of course the system geared up to spend it...
Geithner's tenure at Treasury during the Asian financial crisis has been previously noted by economist Dean Baker (who treated him with kid gloves in last November -- how times have changed.) But this is the first commentary I've seen in which Geithner is made the fall guy for IMF policy, or pinned as at least partially responsible for creating the global imbalance that enabled unsustainably cheap credit to flourish for so long in the United States. And it's probably overdone. Robert Rubin and Larry Summers were likely far more responsible for steering U.S. policy and influencing the IMF during the Asian financial crisis than Tim Geithner...

MAJOR PREDATORY U.S. DOMINATION ARM WILL LEND ALREADY INDEBTED DEPENDENCIES MORE TO SERVICE U.S. 'DEVELOPMENT' DEBTS
Developing World May Need $700 Billion: World Bank
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/03/08/world/international-us-worldba...
DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Developing countries could face a financing gap of $270-$700 billion -- equivalent to the latest U.S. economic rescue package -- to help deal with the effects of the global crisis, the World Bank said Sunday.The World Bank said even at the lower end of that estimate, resources of international institutions would not be sufficient to meet the financing needs as more and more emerging and developing countries are hit. "Should a more pessimistic outcome occur, unmet financing needs will be enormous," the World Bank said in a paper prepared for meetings of the G20 group of countries in London in April. The World Bank spends billions of dollars annually fighting poverty in developing countries. Many of the worst affected countries are heavily reliant on aid [SIC]which could be cut as rich nations cope with budget pressures of their own."There is a therefore a strong need to expand assistance to (lower income countries) to protect critical expenditures and prevent an erosion of progress in reducing poverty," the World Bank said.[!!!]

exposes tactic, obscures state-propagandist context...
The casual, corrupting use of anonymity for political officials
Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html
Obama officials routinely are allowed to speak to the public while hiding behind journalist-granted anonymity, just as Bush officials did. It's the central objection I had to Marc Ambinder's reporting on the state secrets controversy: by granting anonymity to DOJ officials to justify without challenge why the administration did what it did, those government officials were allowed to spout utter nonsense, filled with internally contradictory and incoherent claims, without any accountability whatsoever, because they were allowed -- with zero journalistic justification -- to hide behind a wall of anonymity when making their case. anonymity is now eagerly granted to any government official the minute they ask for it -- even when they are doing nothing but spouting the official, pro-administration line -- by journalists eager to be chosen as the White House's anointed message-carrier and who are therefore willing to agree to any conditions imposed by the White House in exchange for that "honor."... http://www.burbankdigest.com/node/175 for more on state's propaganda breeding grounds and the following...

BIG 'TERRORIST' PROPAGANDA BREEDING GROUND
The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) is a non-profit research group founded by Steven Emerson in 1995. It is recognized as the world's most comprehensive data center on radical Islamic terrorist groups. For more than a decade, the IPT has investigated the operations, funding, activities and front groups of Islamic terrorist and extremist groups in the United States and around the world. It has become a principal source of critical evidence to a wide variety of government offices and law enforcement agencies, as well as the U.S. Congress and numerous public policy forums. Research carried out by the IPT team has formed the basis for thousands of articles and television specials on the subject of radical Islamic involvement in terrorism, and has led to successful government action against terrorists and financiers based in the United States....
Founder and executive director Steven Emerson is an internationally recognized expert on terrorism and national security and author. Consulted by the White House, National Security Council, FBI, Justice Department, Congress and intelligence agencies, Mr. Emerson is in great demand as one of the most astute, insightful and knowledgeable experts in the world today on the threat and prospects of militant Islamic terrorism. He has been quoted in more than 500 news articles and has appeared frequently on network television. His 2002 best-selling book, American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us, provides the first context and understanding for how one of the most notorious terrorist groups in the world could have plotted the worst terrorist attack on American soil without detection or scrutiny by American authorities.
The IPT Blog Archive http://www.investigativeproject.org/blog/

As U.S. aggression grows, its media gives 'humanitarian' propaganda big push
USRAELI 'HUMANITARIAN' AID AS WMD FOR 'CIVIL WARS' & DOMINATION EXPOSED
U.N. Panel Deadlocks Over Taking Any Action on Sudan
The International Criminal Court in The Hague indicted Mr. Bashir on Wednesday. That day, he responded by accusing the West of trying to recolonize Sudan and by closing aid organizations he accused of providing false evidence to the court. At the United Nations on Friday, the Libyan ambassador, Ibrahim O. Dabbashi, said that if the Council were “honest” about the humanitarian situation, it should defer the charges against Mr. Bashir “as soon as possible in order to calm the situation.”China, Vietnam and Uganda, representing the African Union, supported that position, according to Western diplomats who attended the closed meeting... condemning the closing of the aid groups, lambasted the idea of linking humanitarian concerns with a possible court deferral. “The United States is gravely concerned by the reckless decision of the Sudanese government to expel international aid groups working to ease the suffering of Sudan’s citizens,” said Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations.“The humanitarian situation in the country is already dire, and this callous step threatens the lives of innocents already suffering from years of war and upheaval,” she said.
Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, the Sudanese ambassador to the United Nations, dismissed the Western criticism as a “storm in a teacup” and said Sudan had compiled a dossier thick with evidence that the aid agencies being shuttered had abetted the court’s work.... as an example aid groups had used their private aircraft to fly potential witnesses against the president to Europe from Darfur. “They are spoiling, they are sabotaging, they are doing a lot of very bad activities incompatible with their humanitarian mandate,” Mr. Abdalhaleem said. He said the Sudanese government, local groups and those organizations allowed to stay would be able to fill the gap created by the expulsions... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/world/africa/07sudan.html?_r=1

'HOMELAND'
House Negro-in- Chief Denies, Defends and Militarizes U.S. Black, Brown & Red National Oppression
...In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, the president said that despite Mr. Holder’s choice of words, he had a point.“We’re oftentimes uncomfortable with talking about race until there’s some sort of racial flare-up or conflict,” he said, adding, “We could probably be more constructive in facing up to sort of the painful legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and discrimination.” Mr. Holder made his comments last month during an address to employees at the Justice Department, saying that “though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been and we, I believe, continue to be in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards.” His remarks ignited protest, particularly from conservatives. One post, by Stephan Tawney on the American Pundit blog, said that “our attorney general is black, both major parties are led by black men, the president is black.” “And yet,” Mr. Tawney wrote, “we’re apparently a ‘nation of cowards’ on race.” Mr. Obama was asked whether he agreed with Mr. Holder. He hesitated for five seconds before responding:
“I’m not somebody who believes that constantly talking about race somehow solves racial tensions,” Mr. Obama said. “I think what solves racial tensions is fixing the economy, putting people to work, making sure that people have health care, ensuring that every kid is learning out there. I think if we do that, then we’ll probably have more fruitful conversations.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/us/politics/08race.html

'soft' war complement to states' hard war on 'gangs', e.g. poor working class Black youth
Discipline of Military Redirects Dropout
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/us/08cadet.html?th&emc=th
President Obama’s urgent call for every student to graduate and receive higher training has put a new spotlight on programs like the Job Corps, the government’s education and career-training program; YouthBuild, a group that helps dropouts earn G.E.D. certificates as they rebuild urban housing; and the smaller Youth Challenge program, which graduates more than 7,000 teenagers each year — a large majority of them male — from sites in 28 states.The early results of a national study comparing youths who qualified for the program and were then admitted or denied on a random basis suggest that Youth Challenge may be the most successful large-scale program yet evaluated to help dropouts...“By taking them away from their neighborhoods, we’re giving them a safe place to get their act together,” Colonel Zimmerman said... 15 percent to 20 percent of Youth Challenge graduates have entered the armed services or the National Guard. “This is not a military recruitment program,” said Jennifer Buck, the deputy secretary of defense for reserve affairs, who oversees the program. It was founded by Congress in 1993 to make use of the military’s experience in shaping up young people. The routines have a military cast, though the rigors are short of a real boot camp and there is no training in weapons or tactics. “The dropout rate is as great a threat to this country as terrorism is,” Ms. Buck said, justifying the use of defense money for the program — $88.5 million this year, with the states adding another $50 million. The National Guard, rooted in the states and with a tradition of community service, is an ideal home for the program

City of Immigrants Fills Jail Cells With Its Own
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/us/27detain.html?pagewanted=all
CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. — Few in this threadbare little mill town gave much thought to the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, the maximum-security jail beside the public ball fields at the edge of town. Even when it expanded and added barbed wire, Wyatt was just the backdrop for Little League games, its name stitched on the caps of the team it sponsored.Then people began to disappear: the leader of a prayer group at St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church; the father of a second grader at the public charter school; a woman who mopped floors in a Providence courthouse. After days of searching, their families found them locked up inside Wyatt — only blocks from home, but in a separate world...
A Growing Detention NetworkInteractive Map http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/12/26/us/1227_DETAIN.html?ref=us
In a sinking economy, immigration detention is a rare growth industry. Congress has doubled annual spending on it in the last four years, to $2.4 billion approved in October as part of $5.9 billion allotted for immigration enforcement through next September — even more than the Bush administration had requested....
Last spring, The New York Times set out to examine this small city of 19,000 and its big detention center as a microcosm of the nation’s new relationship with immigration detention, which is now sweeping up not just recent border-jumpers and convicted felons but foreign-born residents with strong ties to places like Central Falls.... a patchwork of county lockups, private prisons and federal detention centers where government investigations and the news media have recently documented substandard, sometimes lethal, conditions... last summer, a detainee died in Wyatt’s custody...thousands jailed without charges, each a portal into an expanding network of other jails, bigger and more remote, all propelling detainees toward deportation with little chance to protest. the fastest-growing, least-examined type of incarceration in America, an industry that detains half a million people a year, up from a few thousand just 15 years ago. The system operates without the rules that protect criminal suspects, and has grown up with little oversight, often in the backyards of communities desperate for any source of money and work.

on the new road to 'peace and progress'...
U.S. Navy seeks to significantly increase live training exercises off West Coast and in Puget Sound
Michelle Ma, Seattle Times
The Navy drops bombs, fires missiles and launches torpedoes during training exercises in parts of the Northwest Training Range Complex, which stretches off the coast from Washington to Northern California. The Navy wants to let local sailors do more training close to home.The range also includes air space in Eastern Washington and Idaho and land in the Puget Sound area.... Critics say the current report is vague and incomplete, especially because the training range covers the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary off Washington. The sanctuary's advisory council agrees the current report lacks specific information on training activities, said Terrie Klinger, a University of Washington associate professor of marine affairs and chairwoman of the sanctuary's advisory council....
The Navy has used this swath of ocean — about 122,000 square nautical miles from Washington south to Eureka, Calif. — since the early 1900s for training exercises that include submarine tracking, weapons firing, combat fighting and mine detection. Aircraft practice surveillance and explosive drops over the ocean. The Navy plans to increase the number of practice activities it performs each year to 11,000 from the 7,300 it does now. The greatest increase will be for aircraft training at high altitudes.... some scientists worry that any increase in naval training could hurt a slew of listed and endangered species, including the dwindling southern-resident orca population....
In a separate project, the Navy plans to increase the size of several areas, including in Puget Sound and off the Washington coast, used for testing new technology. Some residents and experts also object to that plan as well.

Judge Weighs Dismissing Case Involving Torture Memorandums
Lawyers for the Obama administration want a judge to throw out a lawsuit against John C. Yoo, the former government lawyer whose memorandums justified policies on detention and interrogation... President Obama has shown little interest in prosecuting officials of the previous administration, and it is not clear whether there will be a government-sponsored investigation of Bush administration polices... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/us/07yoo.html?ref=us

Preventing a judicial ruling on the power to imprison without charges
Glenn Greenwald, http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html
The Obama administration... explicitly refused to renounce this power while simultaneously ensuring that the Supreme Court would -- once again -- refrain from ruling on its constitutionality:
While the government did not defend its power to detain Mr. Marri at present, it left open the possibility that he or others might be subject to military detention as enemy combatants in the future. “Any future detention — were that hypothetical possibility ever to occur — would require new consideration under then-existing circumstances and procedure,” the Justice Department told the court in a brief filed Wednesday.
This action means not only that Obama could imprison legal residents or even American citizens as "enemy combatants," but could even re-declare Al-Marri himself to be an "enemy combatant" if he's acquitted in his trial. It's disturbing that this question remains unresolved particularly given that key Obama appointees -- including Solicitor General Elena Kagan and White House Counsel Gregory Craig -- have openly suggested that, at least with regard to foreign nationals, the "War on Terror" paradigm empowers the President to view the world as a "battlefield" and thus imprison people without charges as "enemy combatants." This action by the Obama administration should also (at least in a rational world) put to rest the painfully sycophantic claim that the only reason the Obama DOJ is embracing radical Bush-era legal positions is because they secretly hope to lose in court and thereby create good judicial precedent. If that were really their secret, noble goal, then they would have urged the U.S. Supreme Court here to rule on Al-Marri's claims (which many legal observers expected would end in Al-Marri's favor) -- not urged the Court to refrain from ruling, thus shielding this asserted power from ultimate judicial scrutiny...
it is both unjust and dangerous to preserve this power by engaging in maneuvers (whether intended or not) to block the Supreme Court from finally ruling on the constitutionality of this ultimately tyrannical weapon. Thus far, in the realm of the Constitution and civil liberties, the primary attribute of the Obama administration is to do everything in its power to protect and preserve the President's ability to assert the radical powers invented and seized by the Bush administration... whether they actually intend to use those powers at some point.

2 FROM http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news:

Obama administration backs immunity for author of Bush torture memos
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/jyoo-m09.shtml
In legal arguments before a federal court in San Francisco Friday, the Obama administration stepped in to defend one of most notorious figures in the Bush administration, John Yoo, author of legal memoranda used to justify torture and indefinite detention without trial as part of the "war on terror." The intervention makes clear that the Obama administration opposes any serious effort to shed light on the attacks against democratic rights carried out by its predecessor or to hold any officials of the previous administration accountable for their actions.

Court Puts Off Decision On Indefinite Detention Justices: Indictment Made Issue Moot
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/06/AR200903...
The Supreme Court yesterday vacated a lower court's ruling that the president has the right to indefinitely detain a legal U.S. resident as a terrorism suspect, and put off a decision on one of the most expansive legal claims of the Bush administration. The justices did not rule on the merits of the decision but, instead, said it is moot now that the Obama administration has indicted suspected al-Qaeda agent Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri... IN PRISON NEARLY SIX YEARS... and said it would move him from a Navy brig to the federal court system. The court's action relieves the new administration of having to either endorse or repudiate the Bush administration's assertion that the president may use the military to detain those legally in the country but accused of being enemy combatants without charging them with a crime.... pressed... to renounce counterterrorism positions adopted in the Bush years, President Obama's team... plans to move slowly on whether to discard those positions...
The Marri case is only one of the Bush administration war-on-terror court controversies that the new administration is now faced with either embracing or reversing, as civil libertarians remind Obama of some of his campaign rhetoric about what he called the excesses of his predecessor. Still, the new team at Justice last month asserted a state secrets defense in a case that revolves around CIA rendition of terrorism suspects to countries where they allegedly faced torture. Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that "the attorney general has directed senior department officials to review all state secrets' cases to ensure the privilege is only invoked in legally appropriate circumstances."
Separately, government lawyers rebuffed a pointed request by U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco to weigh in on whether an intelligence-gathering law that Congress passed last year gives the attorney general too much power to bestow retroactive legal immunity on telecommunications firms that helped authorities engage in warrantless surveillance on U.S. citizens. A department spokesman said last week that the 2008 legislation is "the law of the land, and, as such, the Department of Justice defends it in court."
The department also is squaring off against the judge in another case, involving the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, which alleges it was the target of illegal government electronic surveillance. Walker has ordered the Justice Department, which is defending the National Security Agency in the case, to develop a plan for proceeding, but government lawyers are balking at the idea that sensitive materials could be shared with lawyers representing the charity.

police state priorities increase to suppress 'civil unrest'
Obama Highlights Funds for Law Enforcement
Mr. Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder visited Columbus to watch the 24 recruits be sworn in as officers. The visit, which is the new president’s second to Ohio since he won the state in November, will help him highlight the $2 billion in Justice Assistance Grants that the stimulus package funnels to the states and cities for law-enforcement programs to fight crime and help local economies. Columbus is getting $1.25 million of that. But the money is not a panacea for the city’s financial woes, or for the recruits either; it covers their salaries only through Dec. 31, and there is no guarantee that they will have jobs after that... Mr. Obama’s spokesman, Robert Gibbs, told reporters Thursday that trips like this helped show the concrete ways in which the stimulus package was working. He also said the visit would provide some positive news on “a day in which there will be some very tough economic figures.”... referring to the new unemployment numbers, which came out Friday morning and showed the loss of 651,000 more jobs nationwide last month, bringing unemployment to 8.1 percent, its highest level in a quarter century. Against that backdrop, the trumpeting of 25 jobs in Columbus for less than a year only underscored, perhaps inadvertently, the magnitude of the problem...

Illinois: Police Official Releases List
Chicago’s top police official turned over list of officers who had repeated complaints filed against them by the public. On Wednesday, a judge held the official, Superintendent Jody Weis, in contempt for refusing to release the list. Mr. Weis said he wanted the judge to understand the seriousness of the request. The list was requested in a lawsuit by a woman who says an officer beat up her children during a playground incident... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/us/07brfs-POLICEOFFICI_BRF.html?ref=us

CRISIS MADE-IN-USA SERVES ITS IMPERIALIST DOMINATION INTERESTS
Global investors flock to safety of U.S. bonds
By PETER S. GOODMAN, NY
As the world is seized with anxiety in the face of a spreading financial crisis, the one place having a considerably easier time attracting money is, perversely enough, the same place that started much of the trouble: the United States. American investors are ditching foreign ventures and bringing their dollars home, entrusting them to the supposed bedrock safety of U.S. government bonds. And China continues to buy staggering quantities of American debt. These actions are strengthening the dollar and giving the Obama administration a crucial infusion of financing as it directs trillions toward rescuing banks and stimulating the economy, enabling the government to pay for these efforts without lifting interest rates... the United States and the dollar have essentially benefited from the worldwide panic. In the last year, the dollar has risen 13 percent against major foreign currencies after adjusting for inflation, according to Federal Reserve data. Foreign holdings of Treasury bills increased by $456 billion in 2008....the tilt of money toward the United States appears to be exacerbating the crisis elsewhere... As Americans eschew foreign deals and keep their dollars at home, and as foreign central banks — especially China — buy Treasury bills, the United States is absorbing money that used to be scattered around the globe. And that is making money more scarce elsewhere in the world... Their debts are growing as their currencies decline in value, leading to bank losses and requiring government bailouts along with aid from the International Monetary Fund...."Low-income countries are getting hit very hard. The flow of private capital to the emerging market has dried up." Private money invested in so-called emerging countries plunged from $928 billion in 2007 to $466 billion last year and is likely to fall to $165 billion this year, according to the Institute of International Finance....

Prez' Pimp
Obama’s Narrator
By BEN WALLACE-WELLS, 4/1/07, NYT Magazine
How David Axelrod, king of Chicago political consultants, spent the past 15 years learning, recording and shaping Barack Obama’s life story.

Protection Racket
David Axelrod is a senior adviser in the White House. His title does little to capture his full importance to President Obama. His voice and political advice carries more weight than most anyone else's on the president's payroll. There are few words that come across the president’s lips that have not been blessed by Mr. Axelrod. He reviews every speech, studies every major policy position and works with Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, to prepare responses to the crisis of the day...[with] Jon Favreau, the president’s chief speechwriter... Mr. Axelrod’s background has been rooted almost entirely in politics. Strong similarities exist between his trajectory and that of Karl Rove, a friend and longtime counselor to former President George W. Bush. Both Mr. Rove and Mr. Axelrod forged partnerships with their clients long before they began campaigning for the presidency, guided them through elective office and, ultimately, to the White House. Mr. Axelrod... [said] he is more of a protector of Mr. Obama’s image and message than a policy maker or strategist intent on remaking the country’s political DNA, as Mr. Rove often talked about....
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/us/politics/09axelrod.html

Axelrod the Adman
Mr. Axelrod is an advertising guy... who perfected the craft of encapsulating an entire life in 30 seconds, he has a gift for telling personal stories in ways that people can understand. Axelrod’s essential insight — the idea that has made him successful where others might have failed — is that the modern campaign really isn’t about the policy arcana or the candidate’s record; it’s about a more visceral, more personal narrative. This is probably a big reason why Mr. Obama has, from the start, focused almost exclusively on broad themes of “hope” and “change.” His campaign reflects all the attributes of a political ad: the stirring words, the beautiful pictures, the simple and elegant story line of a ruined political system and the man whose moment has arrived.... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/weekinreview/16bai.html

Who got AIG's bailout billions?
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE52624P20090308
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that about $50 billion of more than $173 billion that the U.S. government has poured into American International Group Inc since last fall has been paid to at least two dozen U.S. and foreign financial institutions.The newspaper reported that some of the banks paid by AIG since the insurer started getting taxpayer funds were: Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Deutsche Bank AG, Merrill Lynch, Societe Generale, Calyon, Barclays Plc, Rabobank, Danske, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Banco Santander, Morgan Stanley, Wachovia, Bank of America, and Lloyds Banking Group.... The Wall Street Journal, citing a confidential document and people familiar with the matter, reported that Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank each got about $6 billion in payments between the middle of September and December last year....
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. Bank of America, Calyon, and Wells Fargo, which has absorbed Wachovia, could not be reached for comment...The U.S. Federal Reserve has refused to publicize a list of AIG's derivative counterparties and what they have been paid since the bailout, riling the U.S. Senate Banking Committee. Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn testified before that committee on Thursday that revealing names risked jeopardizing AIG's continuing business...
Once the world's largest insurer, AIG has been described by the United States as being too extensively intertwined with the global financial system to be allowed to fail.
The Federal Reserve first rode to AIG's rescue in September with an $85 billion credit line after losses from toxic investments, many of which were mortgage related, and collateral demands from banks, left AIG staring down bankruptcy.Late last year, the rescue packaged was increased to $150 billion. The bailout was overhauled again a week ago to offer the insurer an additional $30 billion in equity. Bankruptcy for AIG would have led to complications and losses for financial institutions around the world doing business with the company and policy holders that AIG insured against losses....

'national study' results ... what's the reality?
1 in 50 children in US homeless
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22186.htm

notice any media coverage of big protest in NYC...and others around amerika?
Budget Backlash: Thousands Rally At City Hall
Taxpayers Furious With Budget Cuts Take Frustration to Streets of NYC 06 Mar 2009 Tens of thousands of New Yorkers marched on City Hall, rallying to stop proposed funding cuts. The rally cries of labor unions, community groups and families outside City Hall could be heard throughout lower Manhattan. Desperation for an economic lifeline brought out more than 50,000 people along several blocks of Broadway http://wcbstv.com/breakingnewsalerts/recession.budget.protest.2.951551.h...

capital consolidation
Merck to Buy Major Rival Schering-Plough for $41.1 Billion
Merck, facing patent expirations, hopes to shore up its research pipeline and expand its global reach with the acquisition.
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/index.html?th&emc=th

is u.s. 'war on terrorism' really lagging behind its good friend ...or is u.s. suppressing 'homeland' info?
UK: Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones: Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4969312.ece

UK: films and details of police databank on thousands of protesters revealed
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/06/police-surveillance-protesters-...