You cannot avoid it any longer. You cannot pretend it did not happen. You cannot wish it away. It's real. The President of the United States lied to start a war. Under American system of laws, only Congress has... Full text
Politics: In Speech Before Israeli Parliament, Bush Compares Democrats To Nazi-Appeasers
President Bush committed political treason today But what Bush did in Israel this morning goes well beyond the accepted confines of American political debate, When the president speaks to a foreign parliament on behalf of our country, his message needs to be clear and unambiguous. Our democracy may look messy to outsiders, and we may have our disagreements with some sharp elbows thrown around, but at the end of the day we are not Republicans or Democrats or liberals or conservatives.
We are Americans.
And you, Mr. Bush, are the leader of us all. To use a diplomatic setting on foreign soil to score a cheap political point at home is way beneath your office, way beneath your country, and way beneath the people you serve. You have been handed an office once uplifted to great heights by fellow countrymen from Washington to Lincoln to Roosevelt to Eisenhower, and have plunged it so deeply into the Karl-Rove-and-Rush-Limbaugh-fueled world of political destruction and survival of all costs that have lost all perspective -- and all sense of decency. To travel to Israel and to associate a sitting American senator and your possible successor in the Oval Office with those who at one time gave comfort to an enemy of the United States is, in and of itself, an act of political treason.
Obama clashes with Bush in Nazi appeasement row Barack Obama today accused President Bush of launching a "false political attack" after he appeared to compare the Democratic presidential hopeful's foreign policy to appeasement of the Nazis. We have heard this kind of rhetoric coming from folks like Bibi Netanyahu frequently, in terms of comparing Ahmedinejad to Hitler, and Iran to Germany.
But for Bush to open his mouth and say this (in front of the Knesset and the world) is truly, horrifically amazing.
And particularly so, in light of the fact that USA Defense Secretary Gates has also just stated that he sees negotiation with Iran as the logical way out of the current stalemate.
McCain Adviser: Christian Right a "Serious Problem" Clinton adviser Ann Lewis tacked to the right, criticizing Obama for saying he'd meet with the President of Iran and for suggesting that a US President needn't have to echo the policies of the Likud Party in order to be "pro-Israel." "The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel," Lewis said. "It is not up to us to pick and choose from among the political parties." "The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel," Lewis said.
"The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel," Lewis said.
"The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel," Lewis said.
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Folks, it just does not get any more obvious than that!
In Speech Before Israeli Parliament, Bush Compares Democrats To Nazi-Appeasers In Speech Before Israeli Parliament, Bush Compares Democrats To Nazi-Appeasers... As I recall history, the Nazis were the ones doing the invading, on the claim that it was the only way to prevent BEING attacked ... the role the United States has assumed today.
Egyptian culture minister: I would burn Israeli books myself Diplomatic tensions have arised between Israel and Egypt due to a harsh statement made recently by Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni. In a conference that took place in the Egyptian Parliament last week, the minister said that he "would burn Israeli books himself if found in Egyptian libraries." The first thought that comes to mind is how many books on Egyptian culture do we find in Israeli libraries, and how accurate are the books Hosni has an issue with? If you read past the sensational headline, you will find that his specific issue seems to be that Israel's books attempt to grant ancient Israel credit for Egyptian cultural artifacts.
Emotional Bush pledges support to Israel An emotional President George W. Bush pledged that America would remain "Israel's best friend in the world" on Wednesday during a celebratory visit to Jerusalem to mark the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state. I wish he felt that way about AMERICA!
Thursday, May 15 @ Eastern Daylight Time (66 reads) (Full text... | Politics | Score: 0)
War in Iraq Badly Damages US Image Internationally The image of the United States has suffered as a result of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. Opinion surveys show international approval of the United States at all-time lows. VOA's Michael Bowman reports form Washington, America's continued involvement in Iraq remains a major irritant in global perceptions of the United States. Gee, the Us Government was only caught lying about Saddam,'s 'nookular' bombs, lying about Saddam and 9-11, lying about Iraq and Al Qaeda, then invading Iraq, killing a million people, and destroying life for the survivors. What's not to like about that?
Especially as they are trying to do the same thing with Iran?
History is no longer the sole province of the powerful. The Internet has given mankind a collective memory that exists outside the grasp of government-sanctioned publishers. That will never change. The powerful have no more chance of stopping the internet than they did of movable-type printing. And in this collective memory of the internet the crimes of the United States in its declining years will live forever as a warning to those with the wisdom to listen.
Baghdad: City of walls In the first of Ghaith Abdul-Ahad's extraordinary series of films to mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, he investigates the claims that the US military surge is bringing stability to Iraq. By travelling through the heart of Baghdad he exposes how, by enclosing the Sunni and Shia populations behind 12ft walls, the surge has left the city more divided and desperate than ever
AP president: US arrests journalist in Iraq to 'control' information Associated Press president Tom Curley says his news organization does not buy the government's argument that one of its photographers arrested in Iraq was working on behalf of the enemy, and he alleged the US is rounding up journalists in an attempt to control information.
U.S. Spy Boss: Iraq WMD Intel Failure Just 'A Bad Hair Day' The failure of U.S. intelligence in assessing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was like "a yearbook photo on your worst hair day ever," according to one of the country's top spy bosses, Thomas Fingar, deputy director of National Intelligence. I am sure that is a comfort to the families of those 4000 dead Americans.
Bin Laden issuing new message soon "Just as soon as we finish putting the gray back into that fake beard!" -- Official White Horse Souse
Bush's Dirty Secret: Bribing Iraq Insurgents Not to Fight The real purpose of the "surge" was to hide another deception. The Bush regime is paying Sunni insurgents $800,000 a day not to attack US forces. That's right, 80,000 members of an "Awakening group," the "Sons of Iraq," a newly formed "US-allied security force" consisting of Sunni insurgents, are being paid $10 a day each not to attack US troops.
Today is March 19th, step away from the Machine Today is March 19th. We celebrate five years of bloody war and torture based on lies. These lies came from Michael Ledeen and various neo-con insurgents like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Douglas Feith and Dick Cheney, operating in the United States government at various agencies. Well... the Afghan war began on October 7th, 2001 and that was also based on a lie so actually we have had around 6.5 years of bloody war and torture. This is a good one!
Bush Continues To Link Iraq With 9-11 Five years after the beginning of the Iraq War, some things never change. Among them, our President's continuing effort to sell his Middle East misadventure as a response to the September 11th attacks. He did it again today, as a means of shaming those who doubt the wisdom of ignoring a central threat to our national security for the purpose of creating a newer, costlier one.
Asked about two thirds of Americans' opposition to war, Cheney says, 'So?' Informed during a Good Morning America interview broadcast Wednesday that two-thirds of Americans now think the war was not worth fighting, Cheney said: "So?"pHe added: "I think we cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations of the public opinion polls. There has in fact been fundamental change and transformation and improvement for the better. That's a huge accomplishment." He can say that from the sumptuous safety of a Sultan's yacht because he has absolutely no idea, nor does he care, wof hat has become of ordinary Iraqis.
How to Destroy a Country and Get Off Scot-Free Someone once told me if you're going to tell a lie make it a whopper based on the premise the more outrageous the lie the more likely it is to be believed. At the time, I wrote off his advice as hogwash but as we see from the Iraq debacle, he was right. Five years later, the deceit continues undiminished and nobody has been held to account.
Tune in to Winter Soldier Hearings Get ready for the horrible, honest reality of the American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan like you haven't heard it before. For three days, March 14-16, hundreds of U.S. veterans of the two wars will descend on Washington and testify in the "Winter Soldier" hearings about what they really did while they were serving their country in Iraq. And their experiences aren't pretty.
Celebrating the Anniversary, Mr. Bush? Five years, George. Five ugly, deadly, bloody years. This is quite an anniversary. If you wait a day or two, you'll be able to celebrate the 4,000th US military death as well. Break out the champagne.
Iraq Reconciliation Talks Hit By Walkouts A conference to reconcile Iraq's warring political groups began to unravel even before it got under way on Tuesday, with the main Sunni Muslim Arab bloc pulling out and protesting it had not been properly invited.
Hundreds of politicians gathered for the conference a day after Vice President Dick Cheney, on a visit marking the fifth anniversary of the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion, hailed what he called "phenomenal" political and security improvements.
Price of Iraq war now outpaces Vietnam According to two prominent economists, in a study the White House has not disputed, the cost of the war now outpaces the total price of the 12-year US conflict in Vietnam. It's now nearly double the total cost of the Korean War. Do remember that as you fill out your tax forms next month.
Iraq invasion was "successful endeavor": Cheney Iraq invasion was "successful endeavor": Cheney... "Hey, drove my Halliburton shares right through the roof! I cashed 'em out and converted them to gold two weeks ago. Now I just ride out the dollar collapse until my gold is worth ten times what I paid for it. Success!"
Reviving Vietnam War Tactics Phoenix was far from an "aid and development" program. To achieve deniability, the CIA trained and transferred operational authority to the South Vietnamese national police, who tortured suspects indiscriminately. CIA officer William Colby, founder of the program, told a Congressional committee in 1971 that the Phoenix operation had killed 20,587 Vietcong suspects in two years. An official Pentagon evaluation in 1968 found that "the truncheon and electric shock method of interrogation were in widespread use, with almost all [US] advisors admitting to have witnessed instances of the use of these methods...[and] 'turned their backs on them.' " A Naval Institute historian later found that "the large majority of South Vietnamese interrogators tortured some or all of the communist prisoners in their care" as well as Vietnamese suspected of collaboration with the Vietcong. With people like this calling the shots in Iraq, this country simply needs to withdraw from any and all human rights treaties this country has ever signed, just to make it clear to the world what the US policy is on torture and human rights.
Abu Ghraib abuses were 'de facto US policy' "the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was de facto United States policy. The authorization of torture and the decriminalization of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of captives in wartime have been among the defining legacies of the current Administration; and the rules of interrogation that produced the abuses documented on the M.I. [Military Intelligence] block in the fall of 2003 were the direct expression of the hostility toward international law and military doctrine that was found in the White House, the Vice-President's office, and at the highest levels of the Justice and Defense Departments." The Iraqis and Afghanis do not "hate USA because they are free". they hate USA because of what they have done to their respective countries, and fellow citizens.
And a small note to Secretary Rice; please, if you don't want to get laughed out of an official capital in your next round of foreign trips, please say absolutely nothing about human dignity, human rights, or freedom.
If you do, you run the risk of being laughed out of the room by folks who understand full well, that under USA administration's watch, torture by Americans has become routine, and accepted.
Iraq war's cost: Loss of U.S. power, prestige, influence
Thanks in part to the Iraq war, the next U.S. president -- Republican or Democrat, black or white, man or woman -- will take office with America's power, prestige and popularity in decline, according to bipartisan reports, polls and foreign observers.
"The winner of the 2008 elections will command U.S. forces still at war in Iraq, Afghanistan and against elusive terrorists with a deadly reach. The U.S. economy will remain burdened. ... America's moral leadership and decision-making competence will continue to be questioned," begins a study of foreign-policy choices for the next president, which a Georgetown University task force released last month.
Bush's legacy will be that of destruction of two nations for no good reason, the destruction of the US economy, and the destruction of the reputation of US country almost beyond repair.
An estimated 1,500 people marched through downtown Hollywood Saturday to protest the Iraq War's fifth year. The protesters were marching behind coffins and banners. Police say no arrests were made during the protest.
Of course, neither the NYT nor any of the "nine experts" refer to the invasion and ongoing occupation as a war crime. Not a single one of these eminent personages acknowledges that Iraq had never attacked us, that Iraq constituted no threat to the U.S. of any consequence whatsoever, and that these facts -- which are the only facts relevant to a determination of whether the U.S. had any justification at all to launch this criminal war -- could have been known in the winter and spring of 2002-2003, and that these facts were known to many "ordinary" persons in the United States and around the world. But none of the "ordinary" persons who understood the truth were "experts." None of them belonged to the ruling class.
So, Israel felt threatened by Iraq's 'nookular bombs', which Iraq didn't really have, but still 4000 of young Americans have died , and more will continue to die, because helpless little Israel, which really HAS nuclear weapons, felt so scared.
The mentioned sources explained that the late Archbishop of Nineveh, Paulos Faraj Rahho was one of the most outspoken Iraqi high graded clerics who rejected publicly and utterly the US' occupation of Iraq and denounced many a times President Saddam Hussein murder by the US.
Tuesday, March 18 @ Eastern Daylight Time (118 reads) (Full text... | Politics | Score: 0)
Horror and shame "We heard him screaming day and night. His screams were heart-rending, but we could do nothing to help him," said one detainee who was released following Barghouti's death.
Israel sounds out world opinion on large-scale ground incursion into Gaza Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni also seemed to be preparing the world for an intensified Israeli action, telling visiting Lithuanian Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas Thursday that the international community should "respect" all actions that Israel takes to protect its citizens, according to local daily Jerusalem Post. Translation: Israel is "selling" a war against an impoverished people who have been starved of food, fuel, clean water, and work. They can barely bury their dead hygienically.
This siege of Gaza has, essentially, "softened up the population" to make killing them that much more easy.
And this is precisely the outcome the Israeli government wants.
Israeli-Palestinian clashes kill 46 As many as two dozen civilians died in the fighting, including at least two babies and two other children. Two Israel soldiers were also killed. Gaza Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said 160 people were wounded and 14 were in critical condition.
Palestinians leaders called the killings "genocide" and threatened to call off peace talks with Israel. The Israelis knew full well that this incursion, coupled with the loss of civilian life, would absolutely stop the talks dead, which is precisely the outcome Israel wants.
Settlers dig tunnels around Jerusalem Jewish settler groups are digging an extensive tunnel network under Muslim areas of Jerusalem's Old City while building a ring of settlements around it to bolster their claim to the disputed city in any future peace deal, anti-settlement campaigners have told The Times.
Holocaust wolf memoir a fake, author admits A Belgian writer has admitted her bestselling memoir about how she lived with a pack of wolves in the woods to escape from the Nazis during the Second World War was fabricated.
Israeli Airstrike in Gaza Destroys Medical Relief Head Office, Kills Baby An Israeli airstrike aimed at the ministry of interior building in Gaza City also destroyed the nearby Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS) head office in Gaza and killed a 5-month-old baby in a residential building in the same area. Free world: Nice shooting, boys!
Israel prepares for assault on Gaza As Hamas drew Ashkelon into the circle of communities coming under heavy rocket attacks, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the Foreign Ministry on Thursday began preparing both Israeli and world opinion for the possibility of a large-scale incursion into Gaza. Translation: The Israeli politicians and the military are "selling" their own people - and the world - on the urgent need for the slaughter which is to come soon to Gaza.
Saturday, March 01 @ Eastern Standard Time (139 reads) (Full text... | Politics | Score: 0)
‘Dodgy dossier’ draft reveals war lies It’s bad enough that Tony Blair took us into a war apparently on the basis of a document written by a foreign office press officer.
But what’s worse is that the infamous claim that Saddam Hussein could launch chemical weapons within 45 minutes was not in the draft document.
It was written in the margin by someone else in Whitehall and appears in the final dossier – backing up the claim that the dossier was “sexed up” to justify the war.
"I think they said, 'If we can't get this guy out of the U.N., let's disappear him from the Internet,'" Lee said. I have stopped using Google, not because of this particular case of censorship but because too many of my searches on Google fail for the message, "We're sorry... ... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now. "
The identical searches always work on Yahoo, so that is becoming my favorite search engine.
Shoot-down of dead satellite could happen tomorrow Press secretary Geoff Morrell said Tuesday that senior military officers, including the head of the U.S. Strategic Command, are evaluating the situation and will advise Defense Secretary Robert Gates when is the best time to carry it out.
The plan is to fire a missile from a Pacific-based ship that would release a "kenetic kill vehicle," — a nonexplosive device — on a path that would enable it to collide with the satellite, destroying the spacecraft and its components by force of impact alone. It is looking more and more that this has become a public demonstration that the US military is capable of knocking other countries' satellites out of the sky.
Gazprom to develop two or three South Pars blocks in Iran Russia’s gas giant Gazprom has agreed the terms on which it will be developing “two or three” blocks of the South Pars field in Iran, and also on the participation of its daughter company, Gazpromneft, in an oil project in Iran, Gazprom press office said on Tuesday upon the end of Tuesday’s visit to Teheran by the company’s delegation under Gazprom CEO, Alexei Miller. Russia is not going to want any interruption of its business dealings (particularly regarding oil) with Iran.
Any Israeli and/or US tactician might want to consider; if there is a pre-emptive attack on Iran, just what will Russia do?
Does any sane person in Washington or Tel Aviv really want to go to war with Russia?
Israel: We Are Ready For Iran, Syria, Hezbollah As the Israel Foreign Ministry protests to the UN repeated statements by Iran to "wipe Israel off the map" security analysts in Israel say that the Jewish democratic nation is more than ready for any aggression by Iran, Hezbollah and Syria. Translation: look for some kind of false flag operation, courtesy of Israel, to trip off the next war in the Middle East.
And remember: Bush has promised to support Israel militarily, no matter whether or not it starts a confilct.
Despite intense pressure from the United States and warnings that the dispute could lead to an irreparable split in the trans-Atlantic alliance, Mrs Merkel said that her government would not reconsider the terms of the mandate under which German soldiers are stationed in the country. It looks as though the dissolution of NATO may well come about soon, courtesy of the campaign in Afghanistan.
We are going to see a "coalition of the willing" morph into the "coalition of the non-existent", and the US may well be left alone here.
Taliban defeat will take years: US general Major General David Rodriguez, head of the US-led coalition force, said the US military would stay in the country "as long as they are needed." Translation: we're never leaving.
Ambulances in Gaza unable to run due to fuel shortage Ambulances in the Gaza Strip ran out of fuel on Monday due to the reduction of fuel shipment from Israel to Gaza. The ambulance and emergency service in the Palestinian Health Ministry organized a 'sit-in' for the ambulance drivers in protest against the Israeli decision to further reduce fuel deliveries. Even more Gazan Palestinian deaths without Israel even having to pull a trigger.
Soldiers sue over nerve gas guinea pigs A GROUP of former Israeli army recruits are suing the government for compensation after it allegedly made them unwitting guinea pigs by testing them for nerve gas antidotes, a newspaper reported. I seem to remember something like this happening in a European country in the last century. Now let's see.
Oh yeah, I remember: Nazi Germany!
Turkey ready for ground operations in Iraq to fight PKK The Turkish army was preparing for a comprehensive ground operation into northern Iraq against the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) in the coming spring, local Today's Zaman daily reported on Monday. And the US has utterly no choice but to let Turkey invade Iraq, because American troops can barely contain Baghdad.
Israel blocking Gaza kids from joining parents in Ramallah The state told the court the family intends to move to the West Bank and there is no reason to allow them to do that. "The petitioners have no right, either in Israeli law or international law, to move from the Gaza Strip, which is no longer under military control, to the West Bank," the prosecution stated.
Attorney Ido Blum, who represents the minors, said the state was ignoring the doctors' opinions that she must remain under his constant supervision. Another medical opinion said the complicated treatment requires the supervision of an expert doctor who is familiar with the illness and patient. One has to wonder that these policies could have possibly originated from the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors who full well know the human price of prejudice.
Olmert says Gaza blockade to continue In response to the rocket fire, Israel has kept Gaza under effective lockdown since last June following the territory's takeover by the Islamist movement Hamas. On January 17 it tightened the blockade before easing it again slightly. One of the items, in the writing of future history of Israel, will be a very thick chapter on the collective punishment utilized against Gazan Palestinian civilians in the 21st century.
That interception drew criticism from senior U.S. military officials, who complained that it had left a cloud of debris that was dangerous to other space traffic. Chinese experts in turn have questioned the Pentagon's explanation that it wanted to down the spy satellite to avoid contamination from hazardous fuel on board.
Castro quits as Cuba's president This morning the Mainstream media is falling all over themselves as to why Cuba is still "The Bad Guys" and why the embargo must be maintained and how the mighty nuclear-armed United States is still threatened by tiny little Cuba (about as silly as nuclear-armed Israel being threatened by Gaza).
So, a bit of history the MSM will probably NOT mention, but which goes farther in explaining this strange bullying by the US.
A long time ago, about the time the second Godfather film is set, Cuba was ruled by Fulgencio Batista, a US puppet ruler, not unlike the Shah of Iran, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Augusto Pinochet in Chile, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
Like those other rulers, there were rumors that Batista had won office in Cuba through CIA-assisted election fraud. Like those other rulers, Batista oppressed and impoverished his own people in order to allow US Corporations operating in Cuba to make more profits. Batista sold Cuba's agricultural produce at below-market prices to PepsiCo, United Fruit, and other US companies. Batista also extended a welcoming hand to the Mafia, which built hotels and casinos in Havana, which was wide open to every vice imaginable. Anything could be had for the price, nothing was illegal.
The CIA was well-entrenched in Cuba. It made a very convenient base to operate out of for operations in South America (see reference to Chile above). It gave the CIA "deniability" to operate out of Cuba rather than directly out of the US.
This was all very cozy for the mafia and the corporations and the CIA. It was not very well for the people of Cuba who, forbidden to sell their produce at fair market prices, languished in poverty.
Had Batista not so abused his own people, Fidel Castro would have likely remained a farmer his entire life. But, Cuba was a living hell for the Cuban people, and Fidel became the focal point for the inevitable revolution.
So, Batista fell, the members of his government fled to Florida, and Castro came to power. The irony is that he approached the United State about establishing relations. But Castro wanted to sell Cuba's agricultural produce for the going global market price. This did not sit well with US Corporations that had grown wealthy on Batista's "discounts." Castro also wanted to curb some of the more extreme activities at the Havana casinos. The Mafia did not like that at all. They had invested heavily in Havana to have a place where they could do and sell things still illegal in Las Vegas. And the CIA wanted their base of operations back.
So the US, urged on by the corporations, the Mafia, the CIA, and Batista's henchmen (now called the Cuban Exiles) took a hard line. They did not want to be friends with Castro, unless Castro were willing to be the new Batista. Knowing that being a new Batista would result in a new revolution, Castro prudently declined the offer.
The US declared an embargo to starve Cuba into getting rid of Castro and allowing the Batista regime to return. This forced Castro to turn to the USSR for trade relations in what was possibly one of the worst foreign policy blunders the US ever made. That Cuba had broken free of its US puppet was bad enough, but that Cuba was now a soviet satellite just 90 miles from the United States was a major embarrassment.
US Corporations started backing candidates who promised to restore Cuba to its former subservient condition. United Fruit was one of Richard Nixon's largest backers, and Nixon, while vice-President under Eisenhower, started the preparations to try to invade Cuba, assuming that he would complete the plan as President after Eisenhower. Of course, John F. Kennedy beat Nixon in the 1960 election, but the plan went forward anyway. The CIA covertly armed and trained the "Cuban Brigade" made up of former Batista government thugs, then lied to John F. Kennedy by telling him that the Cuban people would rush right down to join an invasion to crush Castro and return Cuba to a Batista-style regime. So, Kennedy approved the invasion plan, yet another foreign policy blunder. (As a side note, a Texas oil company owner by the name of George Herbert Waker Bush was involved with the CIA at that time, recruited by legendary CIA operative Felix Rodriguez. Bush supplied three ships for the operation, named the Barbara, the Houston, and the Zapata, named for his wife, his home town, and his oil company.)
The invasion force landed at the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban people rushed right down to the landing zone and proceeded to stomp the invading force into the sand, sending a clear message to the world that the people of Cuba preferred communist rule by Castro to anything the US had to offer. JFK, incensed that the CIA had lied to him, terminated the operation and fired Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA.
In the end, the United States had to violate its own embargo and ship $5 million worth of badly needed medical supplies to Cuba to secure the release of the captured CIA invasion force.
As a result of the attempted invasion, the USSR sent nuclear missiles to Cuba, both to prevent another invasion and to counter the US missiles that threatened the USSR from Turkey.
The world avoided a nuclear war only when Khrushchev removed the missiles from Cuba, with the explicit understanding that if the US attacked Cuba ever again, the USSR would immediately launch a nuclear strike at the United States. This was a mirror of Kennedy's own doctrine in which he had proclaimed that an attack on any nation in the Americas would be construed as an attack on the US itself.
So, the US, despite positive spin, the reality is that the history of Cuba is the story of one major policy screwup after another, which ended with the US embarrassed before the world. The CIA, the mafia, the Cuban Exiles, and the corporations all have long memories and they know how to hold a grudge. They also know that normal relations with Cuba will allow the story of Cuba's history to be told from Cuba's point of view, and that is something they cannot allow.
So, as Fidel steps down, expect a non-stop Cuba-bashing to dominate the mainstream media news. Pay no attention to what really happened in Cuba. Just know that drinking Cuban rum or smoking a Cuban cigar is a crime punishable in the United States, because Cuba refused to sell that run or those cigars at prices the United States dictated.
Ultimately, it was the US and its puppet Batista that created Castro, and the story is one more black eye in the history of the United States.
World split on Kosovo issue The Russian parliament warned that countries that recognised Kosovo "will be fully responsible for the inevitable heightening of existing territorial conflicts and the appearance of new ones." This is a real problem with countries which have various "breakaway autonomous zones" which want to be independent: the recognition of Kosovo as an independent country precisely sets the stage and precedent for this.
Lebanon braces itself for possible Hezbollah attack on Israel Tensions are growing in Lebanon over the possibility of renewed fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. Bracing itself for the likelihood of Hezbollah retaliation for the assassination of terrorist mastermind Imad Mughniyah in Damascus last week, Israel on Monday deployed Patriot air defense missiles near Haifa. Suuuuuuuuuuure.....................!
Sources: Israel deploys Patriot missiles, fearing Hezbollah strike Israel has deployed a battery of U.S.-made Patriot air defense missiles near the northern port city of Haifa as part of precautions against a possible attack by Hezbollah in response to the assassination last week of the group's top commander Imad Mughniyah, Israeli security officials said Monday. It's no secret that Israel is spoiling for some kind of military confrontation against its perceived "existential threats"; the only questions are, when, and against whom.
Israel reaches a new low for an already unbelievably barbaric nation “We have completely a free hand to respond, to reach out and to attack everyone (who has) any kind of responsibility on behalf of Hamas,” Olmert told Jewish-American leaders in Jerusalem. “That applies to everyone, first and foremost Hamas.” You know, the guys who actually WON the Palestinian elections.
Officials: Gaza op will bring int'l troops Israel is considering a large-scale incursion into the Gaza Strip during which it would present an ultimatum to the international community for the deployment of a multinational force as the only condition under which it would withdraw, defense officials have told The Jerusalem Post. If there is a major incursion, look for Israel to be in Gaza forever.
The politicians don't want an exist strategy: they want a justification to never leave.
More than one-third of settlements built on private Palestinian land More than one-third of Israel's 122 West Bank settlements were built on land confiscated from private Palestinian owners on security grounds, including some erected after the Israeli Supreme Court outlawed such seizures three decades ago, the Haaretz newspaper reported on Monday.
Tuesday, February 19 @ Eastern Standard Time (165 reads) (Full text... | Politics | Score: 0)
