World-News

The Bush administration is quietly remaking the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, filling the permanent ranks with lawyers who have strong conservative credentials but little experience in civil rights, according to job application materials obtained by the Globe.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072306X.shtml

In part one of this Washington Post series Thomas E. Ricks analyzes the the war in Iraq and how early missteps by the Bush administration left troops unprepared for guerrilla warfare.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072306Y.shtml

Iraqi detainees were routinely subjected to beatings, sleep deprivation, stress positions and other forms of abuse by US interrogators, according to a Human Rights Watch report released on Sunday that offers first-hand accounts from three former soldiers.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072306Z.shtml

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1827041,00.html


Informant: binstock

http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html


Informant: binstock

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/4862/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Watada

by Joyce Morrison

Will this great tradition of 4-H and FFA draw to an end when the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is mandated and every animal is tagged and tracked? Many say “yes.” There is a strong feeling among small producers and hobby farmers that if the National Animal ID is forced upon them, George Orwells’ quote will become reality when he said, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever." .....

http://www.newswithviews.com/Morrison/joyce35.htm

The PBS documentarian Ken Burns has been working for six years on "The War," a soldier's-eye view of World War II, and those who have seen parts of the 14-plus hours say they are replete with salty language appropriate to discussions of the horrors of war. Mr. Burns hopes PBS and public television stations will unite and "stand our ground" in opposing the self-censorship sought by FCC policy.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072206G.shtml

"In the United States today, there's a new twist to the familiar plot. Income inequality used to be about rich versus poor, but now it's increasingly a matter of the ultra rich and everyone else," writes Teresa Tritch.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072206F.shtml

The top US commander for the Middle East said Friday that the escalating sectarian violence in Baghdad had become a greater worry than the insurgency and that plans were being drawn up to move additional forces to the Iraqi capital.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072206E.shtml

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced it will hold a hearing with Bolton on July 27 and top Senate Republicans said they would move quickly to confirm President George W. Bush's pick.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072206C.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bolton

In a report to be released Monday, an American Bar Association task force will recommend that Congress pass legislation providing for some sort of judicial review of presidential signing statements. Some task force members want to give Congress the right to sue over the signing statements; other task force members will not characterize what sort of judicial review might ultimately emerge.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072206A.shtml

--------

Group decries Bush's law interpretations

Cambridge Daily-Jeff

07/23/06

President Bush's penchant for writing exceptions to laws he has just signed violates the Constitution, an American Bar Association task force says in a report highly critical of the practice. The ABA group, which includes a one-time FBI director and former federal appeals court judge, said the president has overstepped his authority in attaching challenges to hundreds of new laws...

http://tinyurl.com/g4yn9


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

--------

American Bar Association Objects to Bush's "Signing Statements"

The American Bar Association said Sunday that President Bush was flouting the Constitution and undermining the rule of law by claiming the power to disregard selected provisions of bills that he signed. In a comprehensive report, a bipartisan 11-member panel of the bar association said Mr. Bush had used such "signing statements" far more than his predecessors, raising Constitutional objections to more than 800 provisions in more than 100 laws on the ground that they infringed on his prerogatives.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072406B.shtml

An Italian court has requested the extradition of 26 CIA agents . The court in Milan, which is leading the investigation, sent an extradition request to the public prosecutor’s office which would then pass it to Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, the daily said. Mastella should then in turn send it to his US counterpart.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=16635


From Information Clearing House

US to sell arms worth over $ 6 bn to Saudi Arabia

The United States Defence Department has notified Congress of possible arms sales such as helicopters, radios and armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia worth over $ 6 billion.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14131.htm



War is a racket!

Flush with cash and fearful, Gulf Arab states plan weapons buying binge

Deep fears about the war in Iraq and growing tension between the United States and Iran are driving the wealthy oil states of the Persian Gulf to go on shopping sprees for helicopters, ships and tanks, officials say.

http://tinyurl.com/3dob3z


From Information Clearing House

--------

War Is A Racket
http://tinyurl.com/qc5es


Informant: Wiseguy

This week, George Bush used his presidential veto to block a bill on stem cell research, saying he couldn't support the 'taking of innocent human life'. In Iraq, six civilians are killed by a US air strike, while casualties in Lebanon and Israel mount. George Bush (and Tony Blair) oppose UN calls for an immediate ceasefire.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14132.htm

By Associated Press

Four U.S. soldiers accused of murdering suspected insurgents during a raid in Iraq said they were under orders to "kill all military age males," according to sworn statements obtained by The Associated Press.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14126.htm

By Aljazera

Condoleezza Rice has described the plight of Lebanon as a part of the "birth pangs of a new Middle East" and said that Israel should ignore calls for a ceasefire.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14146.htm

--------

More “Birth Pangs” in Rice's “New Middle East”

By Mike Whitney

Assistant Secretary of State Nicholas Burns appeared on the Sunday talk shows defending Israeli aggression as the necessary path to achieving a “durable peace”. In the Orwellian-world of Bush doublespeak, a “sustainable cease-fire” is a tacit endorsement of perennial war.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14282.htm

--------

Rice's Fallacy

What if Israel can't win militarily?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14300.htm

--------

Rice's Fantasy Ride
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/07/24/rices_fantasy_ride.php

--------

"Her description of the conflagration in Lebanon as the 'birthpangs of a new Middle East' was about as callous as it gets, matched only by Bush's remark that the conflict represents 'a moment of opportunity,'" writes Matthew Rothschild describing Condoleezza Rice's opposition to an immediate cease-fire.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072906Y.shtml

--------

Labor Pains of a Stillborn Foreign Policy

Robert Scheer argues that Condoleezza Rice, in calling the Israel-Lebanon crisis simply the "birth pangs of a new Middle East," underscored the Bush administration's blindness to the disastrous effects its foreign policy has wrought.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072606B.shtml

--------

The Birth of the New Middle East
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lind/lind102.html

The Birth Pangs of Rosemary’s Baby
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger96.html

--------

Loopholes let Israeli airstrikes continue

Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic success in arranging a 48 hour halt to Israeli air strikes contains two loopholes so large that it is having virtually no effect.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14297.htm



Israeli Air Strikes Resume

Israeli warplanes carried out strikes in southern Lebanon on Monday, hours after agreeing to temporarily halt air raids. Israel accidentally killed a Lebanese soldier when it hit a car it believed was carrying a senior Hezbollah official, the Israeli army said.

http://keyetv.com/national/topstories_story_212064923.html


From Information Clearing House

--------

Birth Pangs of What?

"President Bush sees the Israel-Hezbollah conflict as 'an opportunity.' Condoleezza Rice calls it 'the birth pangs of a new Middle East.' These statements are likely to be remembered by history as even more iconically absurd than Vice President's Cheney's description of the Iraqi insurgency as being 'in its last throes,'" writes William Fisher, who suggests that "the real winner in this game of smoke and mirrors will be neither Israel nor Hezbollah."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080906A.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Lebanon

Audio and transcript
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14141.htm

--------

Who Benefits from the Israel-Lebanon Flare-Up?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/hirsch1.html

--------

Israel's star-spangled arsenal

Much has been made in the US media of the Syrian- and Iranian-origin weaponry used by Hezbollah in the escalating violence in Israel and Lebanon. There has been no parallel discussion of the origin of Israel's weaponry, the vast bulk of which is from the United States.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14237.htm

--------

US supplies the bombs that break the law: 'That's the nature of the relationship,' says White House

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/4863/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

--------

60+ Including 34 Children Killed by Israeli Attack on Qana
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0731-07.htm

Global Outrage Greets Israel "War Crime" in Qana
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0731-02.htm

Massacres at Qana: When "Never Again" Needn't Apply to Lebanon
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0731-24.htm

Qana Bombing Aftermath
http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0731-04.htm

Robert Fisk Reports From Lebanon on the Israeli Bombing of Qana

What’s going on in southern Lebanon is an outrage. It’s an atrocity. The idea that more than 600 civilians must die because three Israeli soldiers were killed and two were captured on the border by the Hezbollah on July 12, my 60th birthday -- I’ve spent 30 years of my life watching this, this filth now, you know -- is outrageous. Real audio

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14294.htm

Qana Again: Israel says it was a mistake

They said the same in 1996 until a video recorded by one of the UN soldiers was handed to The Independent veteran Robert Fisk proved that an Israeli 'drone' was flying low over the base. They knew it was full of refugees and still they bombed it.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14289.htm

The moral culpability for Qana

AntiWar.Com
by Pat Buchanan

08/01/06

Today, we hear unctuous statements about how Israel takes pains to avoid civilian casualties, drops leaflets to warn civilians to flee target areas, and conforms to all the rules of civilized warfare. But Israel's words and deeds contradict her propaganda. As the war began, Ehud Olmert accused Lebanon, which had condemned Hezbollah for the killing and capture of the Israeli soldiers, of an 'act of war.' Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz publicly threatened 'to turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years.' Gillerman, at a pro-Israel rally in New York, thundered, '[T]o those countries who claim that we are using disproportionate force, I have only this to say: You're damn right we are'...

http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=9453


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

48 Hours Not Enough As War Crimes Continue
http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0731-03.htm

US Cease-fire Rejection May Be "Missing Response" From 1983
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0731-26.htm

The World Has to Stop This Slaughter If A Democratic Lebanon Is to Have A Future
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0731-29.htm

How Can "Terrorism" Be Condemned While War Crimes Go Without Rebuke?
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0731-28.htm

--------

Disaster In The Making

By Charley Reese

You can observe three important things simultaneously in the Middle East: One, Israel's total disregard for the lives and property of the Arab people; two, the effectiveness of the Israeli propaganda machine; and three, the utterly craven support for Israel by the U.S. government.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14251.htm

--------

Israelis Rain Down Deadly DU On Lebanese Civilians
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/infowarsnews/message/992



Israeli Justice Minister: IDF Entitled to Kill Everyone in South Lebanon

Ramon made these comments on Israeli Army radio. He was apparently not asked about the IDF’s practice of blowing up the cars full of civilians fleeing south Lebanon.

http://tinyurl.com/fkng3



Criminalizing Civilians

Look at this logic: since Israel has asked civilians to leave, any that disobeyed have forfeited their status as civilians.

http://www.juancole.com/2006/07/criminalizing-civilians-patrick.html


From Information Clearing House



The "hiding among civilians" myth

The analysts talking on cable news about Hezbollah "hiding within the civilian population" clearly have spent little time if any in the south Lebanon war zone and don't know what they're talking about. Hezbollah doesn't trust the civilian population and has worked very hard to evacuate as much of it as possible from the battlefield.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14252.htm

--------

As Toll Rises, Lebanese Resort to Mass Graves

In Tyre, Lebanon, citizens are burying the dead in mass graves. The government hospital had run out of room for human remains by Friday. More than 100 bomb-wrecked bodies were already crammed into poorly refrigerated container trucks, and more corpses were pouring in daily.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072206B.shtml



Israel Drops White Phosphorus Bombs, Littlest Victims Suffer

Jawad Najem, a surgeon at the hospital, said patients admitted Sunday had burns from phosphorous incendiary weapons used by Israel. The Geneva Conventions ban using white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072506A.shtml



Lebanon Bleeds, Iraq Burns, People Flee

Dahr Jamail quotes a conversation with his interpreter: "Habibi, to live in Baghdad now is to live in a big prison," he told me recently, "You stay in your home, and that's it. You only go out when you must. So many are being killed daily, and you only hope that your day to die is not today."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072506Z.shtml

--------

The wounded cry out for slain loved ones

By Anthony Shadid

"Where's my father? Where's my father?" asked Mahmoud Srour, an 8-year-old whose face was burned beyond recognition after an Israeli missile struck the family's car Sunday. His mother, Nouhad, lurched toward his hospital bed, her eyes welling with tears.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14178.htm



'They are treating us like meat in a butcher's shop'

Outside the hospital, men were nailing shut around 70 coffins for just some of the scores of innocent civilians killed in the previous nine days' bombardment. Among them were the small coffins of 20 children.

http://www.sundayherald.com/56880


From Information Clearing House



Israeli army embarrassed by video broadcast
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14232.htm



Why Is Israel Destroying Lebanon?

By Patrick Seale

Its strategy in Lebanon seems to be to empty the south of its population, driving the Shi'ites out of their traditional homeland, where they have lived for centuries, in much the same way as it continues its pitiless onslaught on Gaza. In Lebanon, some 600,000 people have already been displaced, while the entire country is being brutalized and strangled.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14191.htm



War on Lebanon Planned for at least a Year

The Bush Administration's Grand Strategy and the Birth Pangs of Terror

By Juan Cole

"More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14159.htm



Israel used cluster grenades on civilians

A US-based human rights group has accused Israel of using artillery-fired cluster grenades against a Lebanese village last week during its assault against Hezbollah.

http://tinyurl.com/oydmp

Full HRW Report: Israeli Cluster Munitions Hit Civilians in Lebanon - Israel Must Not Use Indiscriminate Weapons

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/07/24/isrlpa13798.htm



MK Bishara: IDF attacks 'like a nuclear bomb on Lebanon'

Knesset member Azmi Bishara (Balad) has accused Israel of such massive use of force in the conflict with Hizbullah that "it's like a nuclear bomb falling on Lebanon - the whole country is destroyed."

http://tinyurl.com/myp6v


From Information Clearing House



Why Israel Can’t Win the War

The world is witnessing what could be a critical turning point in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel is now engaged in a war that could permanently undermine the efficacy of its much-vaunted military apparatus.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14226.htm

--------

It's hard to imagine something more cynical than the White House exploiting Middle East convulsions -- in which many innocents on all sides are dying in real time -- to divide Americans at home in order to try and squeeze through the Senate confirmation of the pugnacious radicalizer and international de-stabilizer, John Bolton.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001553.php


From Information Clearing House

--------

Bush countenances Middle East violence
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0607c.asp



While Beirut burns
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072106A.shtml



Helplessly hoping

Truthout
by Cindy Sheehan

07/25/06

Who started the cycle of violence in those countries? Who knows? Who cares! The important question is: who are going to be the courageous ones with integrity, wisdom and compassion who are going to at long last stop the absurdity? As hard as I may try, I cannot wrap my mind around the fanatical rhetoric coming out of DC and from all over the world and the mindless and seemingly overwhelming support of Israel's right to 'defend itself.' What Israel is doing in Lebanon by killing hundreds of innocent civilians in a relatively short period of time is like the US defending itself from the tens of thousands of innocent babies, women and children in Iraq. It is morally reprehensible and just an extension of BushCo's campaign to enrich the voracious war profiteers...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072506J.shtml



Assigning blame in the Middle East

Reason
by Brian M. Doherty

07/25/06

If we start with the assumption that killing people and destroying things is wrong and stop there, we have Israel in our sights. If we complexify it with some uncontroversial utilitarianism -- that we are concerned with the long-term greatest good for the greatest number, and some apparent crimes are justified in accomplishing this, as per Chait in his dismissal of proportionality -- then we can give Israel a bye, on the presumption that without strong action on its part its enemies in the Arab and Muslim world will continue killing Israeli innocents. Complexifying that is the empirical observation that no amount of Israeli toughness seems ever get us to where they've successfully killed people to prevent future killing, rather than just laying the groundwork for the next wave of killers...

http://www.reason.com/links/links072506.shtml


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

--------

Bush's New Frontier in the 'War on Terrorism'
http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis40.html

--------

Empire: War and Propaganda

By John Pilger

The US role in supporting Israel’s military assault on Lebanon falls into a pattern of imperial tyranny, where history is rewritten to suit America’s needs while Europe stands cravenly by.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14211.htm



Lebanon's Children and Israeli Phosphorous Bombs

By Randa Takieddin

Did the American people see on CNN the child whose face was burnt by Israeli phosphorous bombs in Lebanon? Did they hear him screaming in pain at Sidon Hospital, with his mother falling to pieces in agony beside him because of the injury he sustained from the terrible bombs? How can the American people accept their elected President George W. Bush's rejection of a ceasefire?

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14208.htm



You Can Not Kill Us All

This is a must listen interview with Tina Naccache in Beirut

The Silence of the good people of the United States is deafening! How can they not do anything?

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14195.htm



Twin wars `a calculated kind of madness'

Israel's twin wars, one in Lebanon and the other in the Gaza Strip, are a disaster, not only for their civilian victims but also Israel itself, as well as for the United States, and the chief cheerleader for both, Stephen Harper.

http://tinyurl.com/eh5pg



Israel's war with Hizbollah part of wider U.S. plan

The United States wants to destroy Hizbollah, partly to prevent it from menacing Israel but also to humble the group's "founding patron Iran and its ally Syria", whose actions Washington says threaten the entire Middle East.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L25902370.htm


From Information Clearing House



Invasion and Resistance

CounterPunch
by Sharon Smith

07/27/06

The Bush administration's rush shipment last weekend of precision bombs to aid Israel's onslaught should be a wake-up call for those on the U.S. left who purport to follow antiwar principles yet until now have failed to take a clear stand against Israeli manifestations of the U.S.' so-called war on terror. To do so requires acknowledging that the U.S.' wars on Afghanistan and Iraq were meant as mere stepping stones in a strategic plan aimed at establishing U.S. and Israeli dominance over the entire Middle East. With the U.S. occupation of Iraq rapidly spinning out of control and descending into bloody civil war, Israel is providing an alternate route toward achieving those shared goals-for U.S. domination over the Middle East ensures Israel's domination as well.Look no further than the mainstream media to verify this revelation...

http://www.counterpunch.org/sharon07272006.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

--------

'How can we stand by and allow this to go on?'

By Robert Fisk

They wrote the names of the dead children on their plastic shrouds. "Mehdi Hashem, aged seven - Qana," was written in felt pen on the bag in which the little boy's body lay. "Hussein al-Mohamed, aged 12 - Qana',' "Abbas al-Shalhoub, aged one - Qana.'' And when the Lebanese soldier went to pick up Abbas's little body, it bounced on his shoulder as the boy might have done on his father's shoulder on Saturday.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14287.htm



The American Guilt
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14197.htm



The Shame of Being an American
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14128.htm

--------

Britain criticises Israeli tactics

Britain has dramatically broken ranks with George Bush over the Lebanon crisis, publicly criticising Israel's military tactics and urging the Americans to 'understand' the price being paid by ordinary Lebanese civilians.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14153.htm



UK Assists Israel and U.S. In Killing Lebanese Civilians

US Sending Bombs To Israel Through The UK
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14203.htm



Bombs bound for Israel came via British airports

Ministers are embroiled in a row over whether British military equipment and airports are being used to assist Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1199343.ece


From Information Clearing House

--------

UN Officials: Observers Asked Israel 10 Times To Halt Bombs

By Associated Press

U.N. peacekeepers in southern Lebanon called the Israeli military 10 times over a six-hour period to ask it to halt its nearby bombing before their observation post was hit, killing four people, according to details of a preliminary U.N. report on the incident released to The Associated Press on Wednesday.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14206.htm



If GoogleEarth can spot UN Observers, Can't Israel Too?
http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/135947


Informant: Eleanor

--------

Gideon Levy: Stop now, immediately

This war must be stopped now and immediately. From the start it was unnecessary, even if its excuse was justified, and now is the time to end it.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/741435.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Lebanon

http://www.alternet.org/story/39152


Informant: ranger116

Die Nutzung von Atomreaktoren hat erheblich schlimmere Auswirkungen auf die Gesundheit und Sterblichkeit der Menschen als bisher bekannt ist.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=6&news:oid=n5696

Diese Woche wird in München beim Filmfest Al Gore's neuer Film "An Inconvenient Truth" ("Eine unbequeme Wahrheit") gezeigt.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=6&news:oid=n5709



Wieder ein Rekordhitzesommer?

Schon wieder ein Jahrhundert-Hitzesommer? Wir hatten doch erst, im Jahr 2003, einen Rekordhitzesommer.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=6&news:oid=n5704



WWF: Häufigere Hitzewellen sind hausgemacht

WWF fordert erneut einen Nationalen Allokationsplan, der den Klimawandel mildert, und warnt vor katastrophalen Waldbränden.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=6&news:oid=n5706



Alpen in 100 Jahren ohne Gletscher?

Steigen die Sommertemperaturen um 3 Grad Celsius, verlieren die Gletscher in den Europäischen Alpen 80 Prozent ihrer Eisfläche.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=6&news:oid=n5675



Hitzewelle führt zu gefährlich hohen Ozonkonzentrationen

Die andauernde Hitzewelle hat die bodennahen Ozonwerte in besorgniserregende Höhen schnellen lassen. Greenpeace fordert Fahrverbote zum Schutz der Menschen.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=6&news:oid=n5705