By Ahmed Al-Jarallah
Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times
The attack will be launched from the sea and Patriot missiles will guard all oil-producing countries in the region, they add. Recent statements emanating from the United States indicate the Bush administration’s new strategy for Iraq doesn’t include any proposal to make a compromise or negotiate with Syria or Iran.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16169.htm ===
Chavez and Iran unveil "anti-US" fund
By Al Jazeera
The presidents of Iran and Venezuela have agreed to spend billions of dollars to help other countries free themselves from what they describe as US domination.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16172.htm ===
Palestinian Opposes Provisional State
By THOM SHANKER and GREG MYRE
“We have also noted to Minister Rice our decision to end any temporary or transitional solutions including a state with temporary borders because we do not believe it to be a realistic choice that can be built upon,” Mr. Abbas said during a joint news conference with the secretary of state.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16167.htm ===
Absolute Power
The real reason the Bush administration won't back down on Guantanamo.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Why is the United States poised to try Jose Padilla as a dangerous terrorist, long after it has become perfectly clear that he was just the wrong Muslim in the wrong airport on the wrong day?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16171.htm ===
A Time to Break Silence
"A time comes when silence is betrayal."
By Rev. Martin Luther King
In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 -- a year to the day before he was murdered -- King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." Audio and transcript
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm ===
Remember Segregation
Founded in the core belief that segregation is, was and has always been wrong, this campaign is intended to make people stop, think and perhaps get a little uncomfortable in the process of realizing the modern day importance of Dr. King's life.
http://www.remembersegregation.org/
This January, Tomdispatch has been focusing on the Pentagon, the imperial path, and militarization. Last week, Nick Turse explored the way Pentagon strategists, having taken possession of our future, are writing their own dystopian science fiction scenarios about how to fight in Baghdad 2025 and other urban megaslums of the planet (as American troops may soon be doing in Baghdad's huge Shiite slum of Sadr City). Then, Frida Berrigan considered the massively profitable business operation the Pentagon was running off fictional futures and the all-too-real weapons systems that will result from it.
Today, Michael Klare, an expert on resource wars and the author of the indispensable Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum, offers a startling vision of the grim energy future that the Pentagon is actually helping to create -- as well as the ruthless scrambles for energy resources, the Great Power energy races, and the kind of Big Brotherhood that may lie in our near future. This is the first of a major two-part Tomdispatch series on the possible emergence of a new phenomenon in our world that Klare dubs "Energo-fascism." Tom
Is Energo-fascism in Your Future?
The Global Energy Race and Its Consequences (Part 1)By Michael T. Klare
It has once again become fashionable for the dwindling supporters of President Bush's futile war in Iraq to stress the danger of "Islamo-fascism" and the supposed drive by followers of Osama bin Laden to establish a monolithic, Taliban-like regime -- a "Caliphate" -- stretching from Gibraltar to Indonesia. The President himself has employed this term on occasion over the years, using it to describe efforts by Muslim extremists to create "a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom." While there may indeed be hundreds, even thousands, of disturbed and suicidal individuals who share this delusional vision, the world actually faces a far more substantial and universal threat, which might be dubbed: Energo-fascism, or the militarization of the global struggle over ever-diminishing supplies of energy.
Unlike Islamo-fascism, Energo-fascism will, in time, affect nearly every person on the planet. Either we will be compelled to participate in or finance foreign wars to secure vital supplies of energy, such as the current conflict in Iraq; or we will be at the mercy of those who control the energy spigot, like the customers of the Russian energy juggernaut Gazprom in Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia; or sooner or later we may find ourselves under constant state surveillance, lest we consume more than our allotted share of fuel or engage in illicit energy transactions. This is not simply some future dystopian nightmare, but a potentially all-encompassing reality whose basic features, largely unnoticed, are developing today.
These include:
* The transformation of the U.S. military into a global oil protection service whose primary mission is to defend America's overseas sources of oil and natural gas, while patrolling the world's major pipelines and supply routes.
Click here to read more of this dispatch.
"Get Out the Vote!" No Nukes! No Wars!
NEW on the WSLF website: Complex 2030: The U.S. plan to rebuild
the nuclear weapons complex: www.wslfweb. org/nukes/ complex2030. htm
New Year’s resolution: No Nukes! No Wars!
ACTION ALERT: CAST YOUR “VOTE”
FOR THE ABOLITION NUCLEAR WEAPONS!
As North Korea’s recent nuclear test demonstrated, nuclear weapons continue to pose a real and growing danger. But there may be a silver lining to North Korea’s mushroom cloud, because it has exposed the staggering level of U.S. nuclear hypocrisy. Just ten days after the North Korean test, the National Nuclear Security Administration of the Department of Energy announced its intention to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the modernization of the U.S. nuclear weapons manufacturing complex, under a plan called “Complex 2030.”
The only good thing about “Complex 2030,” the U.S. plan to modernize its nuclear weapons complex and replace its entire nuclear arsenal with new “Reliable Replacement Warheads” by the year 2030, is that it’s visible. The proposed project, which could cost more than $150 billion over 25 years, is tantamount to a U.S. declaration of “nukes forever,” and a repudiation of its obligation under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to end the arms race “at an early date” and to negotiate “in good faith” the elimination of its nuclear arsenal.
Complex 2030 has not gone unnoticed by North Korea, which issued an official reponse: “This is clear proof that [the United States] is putting spurs to the moves to bolster is modern nuclear force, increasingly depending on nukes in realizing its strategy for world domination.”
Under the National Environmental Policy Act, the initial phase of the EIS process provides for public input into the “scope” of the environmental review, which must, by law, analyze “reasonable alternatives.” Scoping meetings on Complex 2030 were recently held in a dozen locations around the United States, in communities near nuclear weapons facilities and in Washington, DC. The “public comment” period will remain open until January 17, 2007.
Indefinite maintenance of a huge, sophisticated nuclear arsenal, by the only country that has so far used nuclear weapons, is an unreasonable, unacceptable, and unlawful alternative. The only reasonable alternative is nuclear abolition. The United States, in compliance with its obligation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, should commit to the elimination of nuclear weapons no later than 2030, by initiating negotiations leading to conclusion of a verifiable treaty, under strict and effective international control.
Help turn the Complex 2030 EIS process into a national referendum on the future of nuclear weapons! Cast your “vote” for the elimination of nuclear weapons by printing out, filling in and mailing copies of the attached “ballot” to the Department of Energy, your two Senators and your Representative. The official “public comment period” ends January 17, 2007, but there’s no time limit for contacting your elected representatives. .
Mail your signed ballots to:
Theodore A. Wyka Senator____________ _________ _____
Complex 2030 SEIS Document Manager United States Senate
Office of Transformation Washington, DC 20510
U.S. Department of Energy, NA-10.1
1000 Independence Avenue SW Representative____________ _________
Washington, DC 20585 House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
More information:
Western States Legal Foundation: http://www.wslfweb. org
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability: http://www.ananucle ar.org
Department of Energy official Complex 2030 website: www.Complex2030PEIS .com
"Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions. " - Albert Einstein
U.S. PEACE MOVEMENT PLANS TO "ESCALATE" STREET PROTESTS
The ANSWER Coalition Responds to Bush's War Speech of January 10, 2007
ANSWER Coalition Statement:
Unwilling to accept the failure of his war of aggression in Iraq, his "war of choice," Bush announced tonight a plan that will succeed only in sending thousands of Iraqis and U.S. soldiers to their graves in the next year.
What Bush is really proposing is using thousands of additional U.S. soldiers in a planned reign of terror in the streets and neighborhoods of Baghdad against those who want the U.S. to leave. Bush chose to use a euphemism about the planned reign of terror when he stated that one of the past "mistakes" of the U.S. military operation in Baghdad was that, "there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have." The blood will flow just as Bush promises but this plan will fail just as badly as every announced initiative since Bush arrogantly taunted the Iraqi resistance with his infamous "Bring em on" speech back in 2003.
Bush gave the people of the United States a warning that they should expect the coming year will be "bloody and violent," with "television screens filled with images of death and suffering." He tried to innoculate himself from responsibility for this carnage although his plan makes it inevitable.
Bush's aspiration to salvage his "legacy" and his place in history isn't worth one more life. Every mother and father of a U.S. soldier, every person who has a loved one in the U.S. armed forces should make it clear that the lives of their family members are too precious to be sacrificed for such an ignoble cause.
For the last six years, Bush has provided huge tax breaks for the billionaires and multimillionaires of this country. But it will not be their children who will be sent to fight and die in Iraq. The privileged ultra-rich, Bush's real "base," are shielded from the horrors of the war.
The deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis since March 2003 (see Lancet medical journal 10/06), proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Bush's claim that his invasion was for the liberation of the Iraqi people is a complete and utter lie.
"Clearing and holding neighborhoods in Iraq" is not the duty or right of members of the U.S. military. The people who live in those neighborhoods lived in peace before the arrival of the occupation forces. The occupation is illegal and the order to stiffen the occupation is illegal too. U.S. soldiers have the right and duty to disobey illegal orders.
Neither one more Iraqi nor one more soldier should die so that the politicians, who inaugurated a criminal "pre-emptive" invasion of a country that posed zero threat to the people of the United States, can postpone the verdict of history.
For their part, the Democrats in Congress are involved in a slightly more complicated dance. They want to posture as opponents of Bush's escalation and so-called surge without taking responsibility for bringing the war to a close. They could cut funding for the war which is their exclusive Constitutional prerogative. But they will absolutely refuse to take this responsibility. They are merely posturing for the 2008 elections hoping to take advantage of the well deserved public disgust for Bush and the Iraq war.
The issue right now for the anti-war movement can not simply be opposition to a surge or an escalation: the issue is the war itself. The troops must be brought home now. As in Vietnam, that is the only solution. Those who initiated the war and who funded the war should be held accountable for one of the great crimes of the modern era.
Everything that Bush has said about the Iraq war has proved to be a lie. This was always a war for Empire in a strategic area that possesses two thirds of the world's oil supply. He proclaimed tonight that, "failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States." If Bush fails in Iraq the people of the United States lose nothing. It is not our Empire.
On March 17, 2007, the anniversary of the start of the criminal invasion of Iraq, tens of thousands of people from around the country will descend on the Pentagon in a mass demonstration to demand: U.S. Out of Iraq Now! 2007 is the 40th anniversary of the historic 1967 anti-war march to the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. The message of the 1967 march was "From Protest to Resistance," and marked a turning point in the development of a countrywide mass movement.
Thousands of organizations and individuals are mobilizing for the upcoming March on the Pentagon:
Organizing committees and transportation centers are being established to bring people to the March on the Pentagon.
Tomorrow, January 11, there will be emergency demonstrations in scores of cities around the country protesting Bush's planned escalation of the war in Iraq. A schedule of the demonstrations can be found by clicking here:
The March 17 demonstration will assemble at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Constitution Gardens) at 12 noon in Washington, D.C.and march to the Pentagon.
There are more than 1,000 endorsers for the March on the Pentagon including:
Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General
Alice Walker, Pulitzer prize winning author
Cynthia McKinney, Congresswoman
Cindy Sheehan, co-founder Gold Star Families for Peace, author
Ron Kovic, Vietnam Veteran, author, Born on the 4th of July
Malik Rahim, Founder, Common Ground Collective, New Orleans
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit
Paul Haggis, Director of Crash, 2005 Academy Award for Best Picture
Elias Rashmawi, National Coordinator, National Council of Arab Americans (NCA)
Howard Zinn, Author, A People's History of the United States
Rev. Luis Barrios, Iglesia de San Romero - UCC
Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild
Chaplain James Yee, former Army chaplain, Guantánamo Detention Center
Mahdi Bray, Executive Director, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation
Father Roy Bourgeois, Founder, School of the Americas Watch
Leonard Weinglass, Attorney for the Cuban Five
Eric LeCompte, National Office, School of the Americas Watch
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Co-founder, Partnership for Civil Justice
Brian Becker, National Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition
Mounzer Sleiman, TV commentator and Vice Chair, National Council of Arab Americans
Ben Dupuy, Co-Director, Haiti Progres
Juan Jose Gutierrez, Executive Director, Latino Movement USA
Calvin Gipson, Former President, San Francisco LGBT Pride Committee
Rev. Graylan Hagler, Senior Pastor, Plymouth Congregational Church, Washington D.C
Kay Lucas, Director, Crawford Peace House, Crawford, TX
Chuck Kaufman, Co-coordinator of the Nicaragua Network
Al Garcia, Alliance for a Just & Lasting Peace in the Philippines
Macrina Cardenas, Mexico Solidarity Network
Eugene Puryear, Howard University, student leader
Gloria La Riva, Coordinator, National Committee to Free the Cuban Five
CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities
Nodutdol for Korean Community Development
KAWAN: Korean Americans Against War and Neoliberalism
Justice Committee
Ed Asner, Actor
Shirley Knight, Actor
Debra Sweet, National Coordinator, World Can't Wait -- Drive Out the
Bush Regime
Jennifer Harbury, Human Rights Lawyer, author
United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA)
Jim Lafferty, Director, National Lawyers Guild - Los Angeles
Iglesia de San Romero - United Church of Christ
Mimi Kennedy, Actor (Dharma & Greg)
**********************
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-694-8720
Los Angeles: 323-464-1636
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
Chicago: 773-463-0311
Surging from Kenai
Bush's Sacrificial AmericansBy Tom Engelhardt
A Surge of Bodies
On January 4th, the Pentagon "announced the identities" of six American soldiers who had died between December 28th and New Year's Eve. It was just one of many such listings over these last years and, like similar announcements, this one had a just-the-facts quality to it -- spare to the bone, barely more information than you would get from a POW: rank, age, place of birth, date of death, place of death, type of death, and the unit to which the dead soldier belonged.
These announcements, which blend seamlessly into one another, also blend the dead into a relatively uniform mass. You can, of course, learn nothing from such skeletal reports about the dreams of these young men (and sometimes women), their hopes or fears, their plans for the future or lack of them, their talents and skills, their problems, their stray thoughts or deepest convictions, their worlds, and those who cared about them.
So few paragraphs are almost bound to emphasize not the individuality of the dead, but their similarity in death. Five of these soldiers died due to roadside explosives (IEDs), one from small-arms fire. Two died in Baghdad; two in Baqubah; the embattled capital of Diyala Province, north of Baghdad, where civil war rages; one in Ramadi, the capital of al-Anbar Province, the heartland of the Sunni insurgency; and one in Taji, also in the "Sunni Triangle." None had a rank higher than sergeant. The oldest was only 22; the youngest, 20. Another thing five of the six had in common was not coming from a major American city.
In order of population:
