Time to Apologize to Plame/Wilson

By Robert Parry
October 31, 2007

During the scandal known as “Plame-gate,” it became an article of faith in many Washington power centers that CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson wasn’t “covert” and thus there was no “underlying crime” when the Bush administration intentionally blew her cover.

This view was pushed not only by right-wing acolytes of George W. Bush but by leading media outlets, such as the Washington Post editorial page, which championed an argument from Republican lawyer Victoria Toensing that the CIA-headquarters-based Plame wasn’t covered by the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982.

Read on.

Attacking Iran for Israel?

By Ray McGovern
October 30, 2007

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is at her mushroom-cloud hyperbolic best, and this time Iran is the target.

Her claim last week that “the policies of Iran constitute perhaps the single greatest challenge to American security interests in the Middle East and around the world” is simply too much of a stretch.

Read on.

Bush’s Free-Fire Zones

By Robert Parry
October 25, 2007

Determined to gain the upper hand in Iraq and Afghanistan, George W. Bush has turned large portions of the two countries into near free-fire zones where any resistance, even in populated areas, is met with aggressive tactics that often kill civilians.

Though more attention has been focused on trigger-happy Blackwater “security contractors,” Bush’s military strategy has employed its own indiscriminate firepower – from loose “rules of engagement” for U.S. troops, to helicopter gun ships firing on crowds, to jet air strikes, to missiles launched from Predator drones.

Read on.

U.S. Double Standards for Friend/Foe

By Ivan Eland
October 24, 2007

The Bush administration is attempting to soothe the Turkish government’s apoplectic reaction to the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s label of “genocide” on Turkey’s slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians, which occurred almost a century ago.

The administration fears that an enraged Turkish ally, already threatening to invade northern Iraq in order to suppress armed Turkish Kurd rebels seeking refuge there, will also cut off U.S. access to Turkish air bases and roads used to re-supply U.S. forces in Iraq.

Read on.

Bush’s Heated ‘World War III’ Rhetoric

By Brent Budowsky
October 23, 2007

The president speaks of World War III and potential war with Iran with fevered rhetoric, in a near hysterical atmosphere, at a moment of great danger in the world.

The Congress, which has surrendered much of its constitutional responsibility on war and peace while the president aggressively seizes it, treats discussion of World War III as business as usual in Washington.

Read on.

Why Is CIA Suppressing JFK Files?

By Lisa Pease
October 23, 2007

The CIA is withholding key documents in the JFK assassination case.

As Jefferson Morley reports in the Huffington Post:

“Lawyers for the Central Intelligence Agency faced pointed questions in a federal court hearing Monday morning about the agency’s efforts to block disclosure of long-secret records about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”

Read on.

How Best to Partition Iraq

By Ivan Eland
October 22, 2007

In an otherwise divisive, partisan debate on the Iraq war, the 75-23 bipartisan Senate vote to divide Iraq into autonomous regions was astounding. People who disagree on everything else about Iraq, such as conservative Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and liberal Democrat Barbara Boxer of California, voted in favor of the non-binding measure.

The Bush administration and the international community, made up of many states that have their own restive minority populations, have been reluctant to reconcile themselves to the pragmatic Senate admission that Iraq is unlikely to have a unified democratic government.

Read on.

Bush’s Spying Hits Americans Abroad

By Robert Parry
October 19, 2007

In August after the Democratic-controlled Congress caved in to George W. Bush’s demands for broader surveillance powers, I noted that the new authority went far beyond what was advertised and that the President could obtain year-long spying orders on Americans who ventured outside the United States.

My analysis, which was based on a reading of the law’s language, wasn’t shared by commentators in the major U.S. news media and even drew some reader criticism as alarmist for failing to take into account secret “minimization” provisions that supposedly would protect American citizens.

Read on.

On the Ground in Israel-Palestine

By Ray McGovern
October 19, 2007

I saw nothing that surprised me — but plenty that shocked me. Let me explain.

I had learned from books and newspapers about what happened in 1948 when 750,000 Palestinians were removed from their land in historic Palestine; about the results of the Israel-Arab war in 1967, which years later former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin publicly admitted was started by Israel; and about the confiscation and settlement by Israelis of Palestinian lands in the territories that Israel has now occupied for over 40 years.

Read on.

Risky Jokes About Burma’s Dictators

By Don North
October 19, 2007

On a makeshift stage in a slum dwelling on 39th Street in Mandalay, it is over 100 degrees Fahrenheit at 8 p.m. The Moustache Brothers, actually two brothers and a cousin, are checking the mikes and plugging in the electric generator.

In this neighborhood of jerry-built houses and open sewers, the electricity is out most of the time. Tonight, as they would do seven nights a week, the three comedians were preparing to regale the audience of a dozen foreign tourists with their “politically incorrect” humor.

Read on.