By GARY LEUPP - September 6/7, 2008

...[T]his largely ignored event holds potentially horrifying significance. “Top American officials” have told the New York Times that this raid “could be the opening salvo in a much broader campaign by Special Operations forces against the Taliban and Al Qaeda inside Pakistan, a secret plan that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has been advocating for months...The plan of course enjoys the support of John McCain...Barack Obama has been saying...that [if] the U.S. has “actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets” in Pakistan and the chance to hit them, it should do so. The hell with Pakistani sovereignty! Why should such a detail matter after “we were attacked”?

Harry Shannon - Aug 14, 2008

As a Jew, I...am ashamed and disgusted at what is happening...Israel's actions amount to collective punishment, forbidden under international law...I am ashamed that the Harper government has tilted toward unconditional support for Israel against the Palestinians...The current policy is unconscionable, as anyone who visits Gaza can see only too well.

By MANUEL GARCIA, Jr. - September 1, 2008

...I think [war between the US and Russia] less likely to occur. However, one must not underestimate the stupidity of imperialists, if war does break out then I think the Russians will have a clearer view of how to proceed, and this will mean painful losses for the US, its allies and enablers.

By Amy Goodman - Znet

ST. PAUL, Minn.—Government crackdowns on journalists are a true threat to democracy. As the Republican National Convention meets in St. Paul, Minn., this week, police are systematically targeting journalists. I was arrested with my two colleagues, "Democracy Now!" producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, while reporting on the first day of the RNC. I have been wrongly charged with a misdemeanor. My co-workers, who were simply reporting, may be charged with felony riot.

by Bruce Loudon - September 05, 2008

WASHINGTON'S ambassador to Islamabad was last night given a "shellacking" by Pakistan after the first ever ground attack by US special forces inside the troubled nation...At least 20 people were killed in the targeted, helicopter-borne assault by what are believed to have been US special forces on the village of Jalal Khel in South Waziristan...

"I wish someone could take the baby. It's cold here at night." -- Shakeba, 17 years old, prisoner of Bagram AFB.

Behind these crumbling prison walls, in [a] series of cold, crude cells where women sleep eight to a room, lies a medieval reality that sits just across the street from Kabul's bustling downtown district. Shakeba is imprisoned with her daughter Ravina, 11 months, for "illegal marriage" because she has no papers to prove her first marriage ended in divorce.

Will you join forces with me this week and write a letter for Mohamad Jawad?

[Mohamad was arrested on charges related to terrorist activity in 2002 at the age of 16 or 17]

By JONATHAN COOK - September 2, 2008

The window through which Salam Amira, 16, filmed the moment when an Israeli soldier shot from close range a handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainee has a large hole at its centre with cracks running in every direction...“Since my video was shown, the soldiers shoot at our house all the time,” she said...“When we leave the windows open, they fire tear gas inside too.”

September 2, 2008 - Los Angeles Times

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — At a time of rising public outrage over civilian casualties, Western troops killed three Afghan children and wounded seven other noncombatants in an errant artillery strike Monday, military officials said...The latest instance of civilian deaths and injuries could hardly have occurred at a more sensitive time. The United Nations, the Afghan government and the American military are investigating allegations that as many as 90 civilians, including 60 children, were killed Aug. 22 in a U.S.-led airstrike...

By Yves Engler - September 01, 2008

The mainstream media's hypocrisy during the Olympics would have been funny if it weren't so ignorance-producing...So many words written or spoken about human rights violations, lip-synching, suppression of Tibet, taped fireworks, Communist dictatorship, evil Chinese nationalism...Has any media discussed Canada's decades-long support of British imperialism in China?...From historical amnesia concerning Canada-China relations through Tibet and Sudan the media's double standard is glaring...[H]ow about comparing Canada's role in the Congo to China's role in Sudan?

Israel and the US are the only countries where torture is official policy.

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS - Counterpunch

The gratuitously aggressive US military policy toward Russia will lead to nuclear war. I am confident that if Americans elect John McCain, or the Republicans steal another presidential election, there will be nuclear war in the second decade of the 21st century. The neocon lies, propaganda, macho flag-waving, and use of US foreign policy in the interests of a few military-security firms, oil companies, and Israel are all leading in that direction.

Dr. Siddiqui is a Pakistani national, physician, mother of three young children, one in US detention since 2003. She was kidnapped five years ago in Pakistan and is obviously a victim of horrendous torture at Bagram AFB.

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS - August 19, 2008

The Republicans will get us into more wars. Indeed, they live for war. [Republican Presidential candidate John] McCain is preaching war for 100 years. For these warmongers, it is like cheering for your home team. Win at all costs. They get a vicarious pleasure out of war. If the US has to tell lies in order to attack countries, what’s wrong with that? “If we don’t kill them over there, they will kill us over here”...The mindlessness is total...The US government’s insane hegemonic foreign policy is a direct threat to life on the planet.

By John Pilger - August, 16 2008

The secrets of the crushing of Yugoslavia are emerging, telling us more about how the modern world is policed...At a 1999 Kosovo "peace" conference in France, the Serbs were told to accept occupation by Nato forces and a market economy, or be bombed into submission. It was the perfect precursor to the bloodbaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.