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World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
By Patrick Martin
17 September 2007

When those responsible for the American war in Iraq face a public reckoning for their colossal crimes, the weekend of September 15-16, 2007 will be an important piece of evidence against them. On Friday, September 14 there were brief press reports of a scientific survey by the British polling organization ORB, which resulted in an estimate of 1.2 million violent deaths in Iraq since the US invasion. Read the rest of this entry »

EDITORS’ PREAMBLE: Boyish and all-American-looking GOP language whore Frank Luntz has perverted further (a feat in itself!) the sordid and utterly immoral “art” of political p.r. The raves he receives by fellow establishment whores like Time Magazine are eloquent commentary on how “American civilization” operates in corporate terms. On his own website, he touts his horn thusly:

“Frank Luntz is one of the most honored communication professionals in America today. “Time Magazine” named him one of “50 of America’s most promising leaders aged 40 and under” and he is the “hottest pollster” in America according to the “Boston Globe.” Frank was named one of the four “Top Research Minds” by Business Week and was the winner of the coveted Washington Post “Crystal Ball” award for being the most accurate pundit in 1992. Public Television’s Bill Moyers had this to say about Frank: “He’s a magician with a gift for the politics of words and what words best connect with the hearts and minds of the public.” Said comedian Al Franken: ” Asking Frank Luntz if he understands public opinion is like asking Julia Childs if she knows how to make a soufflé.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Caudillo in winter, fading into history with all honors and total impunity. Certainly persona most grata in Washington.

BY VICENTE NAVARRO; September 15-16, 2007

According to conventional wisdom in Spain and in the U.S., in Spain’s transition from the Franco dictatorship to democracy, it was King Juan Carlos, with the assistance of the U.S. government (first the Ford administration, then the Carter administration), who brought democracy to Spain. In this interpretation of events taking place from 1975, when the dictator died, to 1978, when the first democratically elected government was installed, the U.S. government actively supported the development of democracy in Spain. Read the rest of this entry »

John McCain a militaristic plutocrat of unregulated fascistic temperament. Thank you, GOP for giving America another great politician…

BY JUSTIN RAIMONDO, Editorial Director, Antiwar.com (Libertarian)
Dateline: April 13, 2007 | Antiwar.com

He’s volatile – and, in the White House, he’d be dangerous

John McCain was really caught off guard not only by the reaction to his recent walk in the Iraqi marketplace – ringed by a veritable wall of security, while US army helicopters hovered overhead – but also by subsequent events on the ground. “I just returned from my fifth visit to Iraq,” he told the cadets in a speech at the Virginia Military Institute: Read the rest of this entry »

Petraeus—A military man for one season. Career over constitutional duty.

BY JUSTIN RAIMONDO,
Dateline: September 14, 2007

Savior of the surge has big political ambitions

For months, we heard nothing but a constant refrain: wait for Petraeus! That’s what they told us, Republicans and Democrats alike. Rather than face the ire of their largely antiwar constituents, Congress demurred and waited for the military messiah to show up with his much-anticipated report – even though they all knew what he would say. It gave both parties breathing room, and permitted the Democrats to criticize without taking any actions, while allowing the Republicans to go into a significantly less critical holding pattern, albeit with the promise of a “GOP revolt” to come if Petraeus failed to please. Read the rest of this entry »

The unsinkable Bill Moyers.
In a 2003 interview with BuzzFlash.com,[13] Moyers said, “The corporate right and the political right declared class warfare on working people a quarter of a century ago and they’ve won.” He noted that “The rich are getting richer, which arguably wouldn’t matter if the rising tide lifted all boats.” Instead, however, “The inequality gap is the widest it’s been since 1929; the middle class is besieged and the working poor are barely keeping their heads above water.” He added that as “the corporate and governing elites are helping themselves to the spoils of victory,” access to political power has become “who gets what and who pays for it.” Read the rest of this entry »

Alan Greenspan, libertarian Republican and former controversial skipper of the Federal Reserve system, has finally found his voice to denounce George W Bush, albeit 1.2 millions lives (and still counting) too late…Thank you, Alan.

By Peter Beaumont and Joanna Walters in New York
Sunday September 16, 2007
The Observer | GUARDIAN Unlimited [U.K.]

The man once regarded as the world’s most powerful banker has bluntly declared that the Iraq war was ‘largely’ about oil.
Appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1987 and retired last year after serving four presidents, Alan Greenspan has been the leading Republican economist for a generation and his utterings instantly moved world markets. Read the rest of this entry »

Dateline: Published on Sunday, August 19, 2007 by the International Herald Tribune

“Pacifying” Iraq has proved not just elusive but a costly nightmare with no end in sight. The truth on the ground that most American media continue to fudge about.

VIEWED FROM IRAQ at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is surreal.

Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. Read the rest of this entry »

BY BRIAN BOGART
DATELINE: Information Clearinghouse 09/11/07 to whom we are indebted.

The Unwarranted Influence of America’s Global “Defense” Corporation

You know your country’s “democratic” leadership and rationale for war are in trouble when the anointed most-evil enemy makes more sense than they do.

Although for all we know Bin Laden’s “annual message to Americans” originated below Dick Cheney’s office where Bin Laden is living in luxury chained to a pool table, its contents ring with refreshing logic relative to what usually passes for truth in and around the White House. Read the rest of this entry »

Flight carrying badly injured soldiers out of Iraq.

BY SHAYNE NELSON

The Iraq War’s “hidden casualties” is yet another scandalous instance of media malfunction which somehow favors the warmongers amongst us. This post challenges the accuracy of the official tallies. What would the world do without citizens’ journalism?

Back in the Seventies a French journalist told me a not-so-hard-to-believe tale of the Vietnam war, from his days as a war correspondent in Vietnam for the French newspaper Le Monde. He said that every evening during that conflict, a huge jet full of dying soldiers took off from Saigon, headed to Japan. He said that war correspondents in Saigon called it ‘The Flying Coffin,’ since most of the soldiers aboard the plane, though still alive, were so badly injured that most of them would soon be dead. Read the rest of this entry »