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!

By Justin Podur - July 14, 2008

Most societies seem to combine both irrationality and hypocrisy in their drug policies. These serve those who profit from the drug war, the monies, the weapons, and the pretexts that it provides. They do not serve addicts, users, or farmers. An end to prohibition and an end to the drug war would take a powerful weapon away from the war on terror.

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 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.

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.

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.

By Toni Solo - July, 16 2008

It may well be time to start taking NATO's role as an aspiring global enforcer of Western Bloc economic strategy more seriously. However true it may be to argue that it is still the United States government that makes the running, the US is less and less able to do so without the willing support of its allies. Their joint global military activity can well be interpreted as an effort to compensate for the growing discomfort they feel at the increasing power and influence of other countries like China and Russia, globally, and Iran and Venezuela regionally.

JERUSALEM - Shopping malls. Schools. Medical centres. Charities, orphanages. Soup kitchens. These are the latest targets in the campaign the Israeli military is waging against Hamas in the West Bank. Israeli military officials have identified Hamas’s civilian infrastructure in the West Bank as a major source of the Islamic group’s popularity, and have begun raiding and shutting down these institutions in cities like Hebron, Nablus and Qalqilyah.

Veteran Israeli peace activist, journalist and author Uri Avnery weighs in on the debate over whether a U.S./Israel attack on Iran is imminent.

By JASON STRAZIUSO AND GLEN JOHNSON - Monday, July 14, 2008

A multipronged militant assault on a small, remote U.S. base close to the Pakistan border killed nine American soldiers and wounded 15 yesterday in the deadliest attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan in three years, officials said...The attack on the American troops began around 4:30 a.m. local time and lasted throughout the day. Militants fired machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars from homes and a mosque in the village of Wanat in the mountainous northeastern province of Kunar...