Source : Counterpunch | 07 September 2011

A Decade Later Was There an Alternative?
by NOAM CHOMSKY

We are approaching the 10th anniversary of the horrendous atrocities of September 11, 2001, which, it is commonly held, changed the world. On May 1st, the presumed mastermind of the crime, Osama bin Laden, was assassinated in Pakistan by a team of elite US commandos, Navy SEALs, after he was captured, unarmed and undefended, in Operation Geronimo.
A number of analysts have observed that although bin Laden was finally killed, he won some major successes in his war against the U.S. “He repeatedly asserted that the only way to drive the U.S. from the Muslim world and defeat its satraps was by drawing Americans into a series of small but expensive wars that would ultimately bankrupt them,” Eric Margolis writes. “‘Bleeding the U.S.,’ in his words.” The United States, first under George W. Bush and then Barack Obama, rushed right into bin Laden’s trap… Grotesquely overblown military outlays and debt addiction… may be the most pernicious legacy of the man who thought he could defeat the United States” — particularly when the debt is being cynically exploited by the far right, with the collusion of the Democrat establishment, to undermine what remains of social programs, public education, unions, and, in general, remaining barriers to corporate tyranny.

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Source : The Guardian | 06 September 2011

The Guardian's comment editor at the time of 9/11 on a savage response to those who foresaw the reality of a war on terror Seumas Milne

In the wake of 9/11, Richard Littlejohn lambasted the Guardian as the 'anti-American propagandists of the fascist left press'. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

By the time the second plane hit the World Trade Centre, the battle to define the 9/11 attacks had already begun, on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US President Bush made the fateful call for a war on terror, as the media rallied to the flag. In Britain Tony Blair and his cheerleaders enthusiastically fell into line. Inevitably, they faced a bit more opposition to the absurd claim that the atrocities had come out of a clear blue sky, and the country must follow wherever the wounded hyperpower led.
But not a lot. Political and media reaction to anyone who linked what had happened in New York and Washington to US and western intervention in the Muslim world, or challenged the drive to war, was savage.
From September 11 2001 onwards, the Guardian (almost uniquely in the British press) nevertheless ensured that those voices would be unmistakably heard in a full-spectrum debate about why the attacks had taken place and how the US and wider western world should respond.
The backlash verged on the deranged. Bizarre as it seems a decade on, the fact that the Guardian allowed writers to connect the attacks with US policy in the rest of the world was treated as treasonous in its supposed "anti-Americanism".

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Source : Rebelion | 16 August 2011

Entrevista con Immanuel Wallerstein, académico e investigador en la Universidad de Yale
Sally Burch
Alainet
El destacado académico de las ciencias sociales, Immanuel Wallerstein, es uno de los más connotados exponentes del pensamiento crítico contemporáneo, y durante su reciente visita a Ecuador ALAI conversó con él sobre la actual crisis de deuda que golpea duramente a Estados Unidos y sus consecuencias para los países emergentes y América Latina.
El investigador principal de la Universidad de Yale considera que el dólar ha entrado en un proceso grave e irreversible de pérdida de valor como moneda de reserva mundial, subrayando que era “el último poder serio que mantenía Estados Unidos”.

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Source : Pepe Escobar - Asia Times Online | 11 August 2011

Talk about a double whammy. It was not enough for Standard & Poor's to downgrade the United States' credit rating; with impeccable timing, and apparently a single shot, the Taliban in Afghanistan simultaneously downgraded the empire's colossal war machine. 

As much as the US power elite refuse to accept that the US financial crisis was caused by years of George W Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and mega-corporations; massive bailouts of banks and insurance companies; and astronomic military spending on the Pentagon's declinations of The Long War, the power elite will 
also refuse to acknowledge that the "new" war strategy in Afghanistan is also a failure. 

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Source : Nick Turse - tomdispatch.com | 07 August 2011

The Pentagon’s New Power Elite
Somewhere on this planet an American commando is carrying out a mission.  Now, say that 70 times and you’re done... for the day.  Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret force within the U.S. military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world’s countries.  This new Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has never been revealed, until now.
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Source : GAR ALPEROVITZ - counterpunch.org | 06 August 2011

Ike: "It Wasn't Necessary to Hit Them With That Awful Thing"

Today is the 66th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Though most Americans are unaware of the fact, increasing numbers of historians now recognize the United States did not need to use the atomic bomb to end the war against Japan in 1945. Moreover, this essential judgment was expressed by the vast majority of top American military leaders in all three services in the years after the war ended: Army, Navy and Army Air Force. Nor was this the judgment of "liberals," as is sometimes thought today. In fact, leading conservatives were far more outspoken in challenging the decision as unjustified and immoral than American liberals in the years following World War II.

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Source : Al Jazeera | 06 August 2011

  Survivor recalls the day  the bomb hit Hiroshima

PM says Japan should aim to end its dependence on atomic power, as Fukushima crisis prompts anti-nuclear rallies.

Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan has renewed his pledge to work towards a nuclear-free Japan as Hiroshima marked the 66th anniversary of the US atomic bombing.

Speaking at a ceremony on Saturday, devoted to the victims of the bomb that killed more than 100,000 people, Kan said the meltdowns at the Fukushima plant after a March earthquake had convinced him Japan should aim to end its dependence on nuclear power.

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Source : Firat News | 19 July 2011

PJAK Foreign Relations Representative Şemal Beşiri said Iranian army retreated within Iranian borders

Heavy clashes have been lived today at midday between the Iranian army and PJAK guerrillas on the Serdeşt-Piranşar line.
IRANIAN ATTACKS FOILED IN ZELÊ
While the Iranian army reportedly attacked PJAK guerrillas in the region of Katuman village in Zelê but was forced to retreat, 17 Iranian soldiers are reported to have died in this region. According to the information received from PJAK sources, a large number of Iranian soldiers died. The guerrillas are reported to hold the bodies of nine dead guerrillas and to have seized the arms of soldiers. After a partial withdrawal, Iranian soldiers are reported to be in preparation for a new attack.
A WOMAN WOUNDED DURING THE ARMY’S BOMBARDMENT
During the intense artillery shooting on the region, the Iranian army dropped bombs on a village today, hitting a school and a house in Sune village of Qeladize. Making a statement to ANF, PJAK Foreign Relations Representative Şemal Beşiri noted that a 27-year-old woman Hatice Ömer got wounded during the attack, while local residents left their homes and fled to safe areas.
According to Cabar Yawer, the Spokesman of the Ministry of Peshmerga in Federal Kurdistan Region, 400 villages have been evacuated since 2007 due to the attacks by Turkey and Iran.
Meanwhile, according to the information received, the Iranian army has attempted to cross the border in the border regions of Sardasht and Piranşar cities of Eastern Kurdistan. While the attack therewith encountered a guerrilla resistance, clashes became intense in Dola Kokê, Deşta Wezne and Zelê regions of Qandil.

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Source : Today's Zaman | 09 July 2011

SEZAİ KALAYCI
NEW YORK


Mirnesa Ahmic
July is a month of remembrance for most Bosnian Muslims who lost their loved ones in the Bosnian war, which claimed 100,000 lives. One of the victims is Mirnesa Ahmic from Srebrenica. She lost many members of her family, including her father.
The victims were among thousands of Muslims who took shelter in the enclave of Srebrenica, declared a “safe area” by the United Nations, as Bosnian Serb forces commanded by Gen. Ratko Mladic overran Srebrenica on July 11 in what was to become the bloody climax of the 1992-95 Bosnian war. Mladic's troops forced thousands of Muslim families out of the “safe area” and Bosnian Serb forces sorted the Muslims by gender, then trucked the males away and began executing over 8,000 Muslim men and boys. Those bodies were plowed into hastily made mass graves in what international courts have ruled was genocide.

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Source : Al Jazeera | 06 July 2011

Man appears in New York court after being held on US navy ship for two months without being advised of his rights

A Somali man who has appeared before a US criminal court to face charges of assisting al-Qaeda and a Somali armed group was questioned secretly aboard a US Navy ship for more than two months without being advised of his rights.
Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame was captured in the Gulf of Aden on April 19, where he faced questioning by US interrogators "for intelligence purposes for more than two months" before being read his Miranda rights, US  prosecutors said in a statement.
Miranda rights entitle suspects to a lawyer and the right to remain silent.
Warsame appeared in a New York court on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to providing material support to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and Somalia's al-Shabaab.

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