Tom Engelhardt, The Nation
At any moment, somewhere in the now-Bush-administration destabilized “arc of instability,” with its six crisis areas, a seventh crisis could indeed rise, demand attention, and refuse to be ejected from the premises. There are many possible candidates.
(Original Article)
By Julian E. Barnes, The Los Angeles Times As the Bush administration deals with the fallout from the recent killings of civilians by private security firms in Iraq, some officials are asking whether the contractors could be considered unlawful combatants under international agreements. The question is an outgrowth of federal reviews of the shootings, in…
By Elizabeth de la Vega, t r u t h o u t …In the early 1900s, as a former New York City fire chief testified regarding factory conditions after the Triangle fire, there was “nobody responsible for anything.” Now, of course, we have an office – the Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA) –…
By Justin Rood, ABC News Al Hurra television, the U.S. government’s $63 million-a-year effort at public diplomacy broadcasting in the Middle East, is run by executives and officials who cannot speak Arabic, according to a senior official who oversees the program. That might explain why critics say the service has recently been caught broadcasting terrorist…
Saad Tawfiq told his handlers that saddam had shut down wmd program By Agence France Presse (AFP) AMMAN: When Saad Tawfiq watched then-US Secretary of state Colin Powell’s presentation to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, he shed bitter tears as he realized he had risked his life and those of his loved ones…
By Gareth Porter, IPS News. In his prepared statement to the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees last week, General David Petraeus claimed that Iran is using the Quds Force to turn Shi’ite militias into a “Hezbollah-like force” to “fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in…
By Scott Shane, New York Times The Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday questioned the continuing value of the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret interrogation program for terrorism suspects, suggesting that international condemnation and the obstacles it has created to criminal prosecution may outweigh its worth in gathering information. The committee rejected by one vote a Democratic…
