By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS - Counterpunch

I say this as a person who has done as much for the Republican Party as anyone...If I could have looked into a crystal ball and seen that under a free trade banner, Republicans would enable corporate executives to pay themselves millions of dollars in “performance pay” for deserting their American work forces...I never would have helped the Republicans...Republicans have run roughshod over the US Constitution, Congress, the courts and civil liberties...Republican disregard for human rights ranks with that of history’s great tyrants...The Republicans have put in place the foundation for a police state...We must get the Republicans totally out of power, or we will have no country left for the Democrats to mess up.

Fwd -

Wednesday, July 30, 2008
5:00pm
Vancouver Art Gallery

Tell Stephen Harper:
Bring Omar Khadr Back to Canada!

Halper's account of Israeli repression plus an equitable solution he proposes in Part II of this review.

By RON JACOBS; July 19/20, 2008 - Counterpunch

It's the perennial thorn in the colonialist's side. It's the war that won't go away. It's a wasp sting that swells, slowly choking the life out of the sting's recipient. It is the nearly seven-year old occupation of Afghanistan by the United States and various NATO allies. Nearly forgotten by most Americans, the situation in that country has taken headlines away from the occupation of Iraq because of the resurgence of the anti-occupation forces. Nine US troops were killed in one day, easily topping any recent US fatality figures coming out of Iraq in recent months.

By Richard Sanders, Editor, Press for Conversion!

During the lead up to Haiti’s 2004 coup, the Québec Association of International Cooperation Organizations (L’Association québécoise des organismes de coopération internationale - AQOCI) supported the campaign to oust Aristide’s elected government...Then, after the regime change, this coalition of several dozen large aid agencies not only ignored the newly-installed regime’s human rights abuses, it played a key role in quashing an effort by Montréal’s anti-war coalition (the Collectif Échec à la guerre) to expose Canadian complicity in the coup.

By URI AVNERY - July 19/20, 2008

On Wednesday, [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah became the most important and powerful person in Lebanon. Three months after the crisis that almost caused a civil war, when [Lebanese] Prime Minister Fuad Siniora demanded that Hezbollah turn over its private communication network, Lebanon has become a unified country. Demands like the disarming of Hezbollah have become a pipe dream. Lebanon is also united in the demand for the liberation of the Shebaa farms [from Israel] and for the delivery by Israel of the maps of minefields and the deadly cluster bombs left by [Israel's] army after the second Lebanon war.

by Ted Rall - Common Dreams

When [Republican Presidential candidate and Senator John] McCain was shot down during his 23rd bombing sortie, he was happily shooting up a civilian neighborhood in the middle of a major city. Vietnamese locals beat him when they pulled him out of a local lake; yeah, that must have sucked. But I can’t help think of what would have happened to Mohammed Atta had he somehow wound up alive on a lower Manhattan street on 9/11...Maybe he would have made it[?]...But I do know this: no one would ever have considered him a war hero.

Adapted from No One Is Illegal – Vancouver

The publication ban on Shawn Brant's preliminary hearing was lifted today in a Napanee Court, making crucial evidence available to public scrutiny for the first time. The preliminary hearing dealt with charges arising from Mr. Brant's participation in two highway and rail blockade[s] held by Tyendinaga Mohawks in 2007 to pressure the government to resolve longstanding land claim[s] and poverty-related grievances.

by Joseph Massad - 16 May 2008

One of the most difficult things to grasp in the modern history of Palestine and the Palestinians is the meaning of the Nakba (catastrophe). Is the Nakba to be seen as a discrete event that took place and ended in 1948, or is it something else?...What are the effects of making the Nakba a finite historical episode that one bemoans but must ultimately accept as a fact of history?...[T]he Nakba is none of these things, and the attempt to make this year the 60th anniversary of the Nakba's life and death is a grave error. The Nakba is...much older than 60 years and it is still with us, pulsating with life and coursing through history by piling up more calamities upon the Palestinian people.

By Pervez Hoodbhoy - July 02, 2008

There is, of course, reason for people in Pakistan and across the world to feel negatively about America...[T]he United States has for decades waged illegal wars, bribed, bullied and overthrown governments, supported tyrants, undermined movements for progressive change...American hypocrisy has played into the hands of Islamic militants. They have been vigorously promoting the notion that this is a bipolar conflict of Islam...versus imperialism. Many Pakistanis, who desperately want someone to stand up to the Americans, buy into this...This is a fatal mistake...A Taliban victory would transport us into the darkest of dark ages.

By Kevin Skerrett - Canada Haiti Action Network

There are times when the things that people say — or publish — can get people killed...On December 14, 2006, Rights and Democracy (R&D) — Canada’s best-funded "human rights organization" — may well have done exactly that when it published a news release about a crime spree in Haiti. Following a series of well-publicized kidnappings in Port-au-Prince, R&D published a statement ridiculing the recently elected Haitian government’s "policy of dialogue with violent gangs," and its supposed preference for "dialogue at the expense of justice"...The content of R&D’s text — blaming all of the kidnappings and other crimes on "armed gangs" from the capital’s poorest neighbourhoods — matched the ugly tone of Haiti’s right-wing elite-owned media.

America's darkest hour under George W. Bush.

July 16, 2008 - The Australian

The US's ability to defeat insurgents in Afghanistan has been thrown further into doubt after Sunday's deadly Taliban attack on a US outpost in the east of the country - an area recently touted as a counter-insurgency success...Increasingly bold attacks on US and NATO forces have forced them on to the defensive and analysts say coalition forces are now stretched to deal with deteriorating fronts both in the south and the east.

By Andrew G. Marshall - July 10, 2008

...[W]hy [was] Iraq...occupied[?]...If the answer is...to spread democracy and freedom and rid the world of tyranny and terror, then it doesn’t make sense that the British or Americans would orchestrate terror...However, if the answer to the question...was not to spread democracy and freedom, but to spread fear and chaos, plunge the country into civil war, balkanize Iraq into several countries, and create an "arc of crisis" across the Middle East, enveloping neighboring countries, notably Iran, then terror is a very efficient and effective means to an end.

by GRAEME SMITH - July 16, 2008

More districts of Kandahar are controlled by the Taliban than by the Afghan government, according to a U.S. assessment that casts doubt on Canada's upbeat view of the war...A detailed analysis by U.S. security officials shows that foreign troops and their local allies hold sway over the core, highly populated districts of Kandahar, but the zone of government control remains a small part of the vast territory assigned to Canadian responsibility two years ago.