Thursday, February 17th, 2011
Stephan: Now it is absolutely clear. The entire rationale for the insane Iraq war was a lie. Hundreds of thousands have died and hundreds of thousands more are maimed because the neo-cons wanted a war so they could capture the Iraqi oil -- which in fact is not going to happen. There is no upside and we have beggared ourselves to serve a conservative fantasy.
LONDON – An Iraqi man whose testimony the United States used as a key evidence to build a case for war in Iraq says he is proud that he lied about his country developing mobile biological warfare labs.
The Guardian newspaper published an interview Wednesday with Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, who has been identified as the informer called ‘Curveball,’ whose claims about weapon labs formed part of then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the U.N. Security Council in 2003, shortly before the war began.
The Guardian quoted al-Janabi as saying: ‘I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that.’
Although some intelligence agents were skeptical of Curveball’s story, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee reported in 2004 that the Central Intelligence Agency ‘withheld important information about Curveball’s reliability’ from analysts dealing with the case.
The Guardian interviewed al-Janabi in Karlsruhe, Germany in a mixture of Arabic and German. The U.S. Senate panel’s report said Curveball spoke in English and Arabic when he was interrogated by intelligence officers.
Asked about his feeling’s about the deaths and destruction during the war and in the years following, The Guardian said al-Janabi said there was no other way.
‘I […]
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Wednesday, February 16th, 2011
MICHELLE OBAMA, - Politifact.com - The Truth-O-Meter
Stephan: This article has been fact checked by the non-partisan politifact.com, and found to be accurate. What a sad commentary on the nation's health.
America, the first lady says, has a pudgy problem.
A significant percentage of its youths are too fat to fit in military uniforms.
First lady Michelle Obama talked about the issue during her visit Wednesday to the Atlanta area to promote healthy eating. In a speech at Alpharetta’s North Point Community Church to highlight her ‘Let’s Move’ healthy living campaign, Obama relayed a gaudy statistic.
‘Believe it or not, right now, nearly 27 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds are too overweight to serve in our military,’ she said.
Perhaps the military needs its own ‘Biggest Loser’ contest for recruits.
AJC PolitiFact Georgia had another thought. Should we believe the first lady?
Obama’s claim apparently came from a study released last year that was titled — aptly perhaps — ‘Too Fat to Fight.’ It was released by more than 100 high-ranking retired military officials and other enlisted leaders who want high-calorie food and sugar-sweetened drinks removed from the nation’s public schools.
That doesn’t include sweet tea, does it?
The report said: ‘over 27 percent of all Americans 17 to 24 years of age — over nine million young men and women — are too heavy to join the military if they want to do so.’ The estimate was […]
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Wednesday, February 16th, 2011
JODI JACOBSON, - AlterNet
Stephan: America is sinking into a mire of hate and self-righteousness. It's like a sickness that is devouring the health of this nation.
If you had any doubt that we are moving toward a hate-filled, vigilante society, you now have an unequivocal answer. Scott Roeder claimed justifiable homicide in the assassination of Dr. George Tiller in his church vestibule. Now, just two days after a female member of the Minuteman militia was convicted of murdering two innocent people–including a 9-year-old girl–while attempting to murder another, South Dakota legislators have introduced legislation that could de-criminalize the shooting of doctors, nurses, patients and volunteers at clinics providing abortion care.
Yup. You read that right. Elected officials–all of whom supposedly swore to uphold the law–are now encouraging people to literally take the law–as they understand it–into their own gun-owning hands.
The South Dakota bill, House Bill 1171 (the language of which is below), is an outgrowth of legislation that criminalizes harm to fetuses, a back-door route used by anti-choice forces for the past decade to criminalize abortion by conferring the rights of personhood on a fetus.
HB 1171 is one of three new bills being considered by the South Dakota legislature which seems, in ‘representing the people,’ to have completely forgotten that those same South Dakotans have repeatedly rejected such measures at the ballot box. The other two […]
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Wednesday, February 16th, 2011
PAUL KRUGMAN, Nobel Laureate Economist & Op-Ed Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan: More on the food crisis. If you are able to I would give serious thought to starting a garden.
We’re in the midst of a global food crisis – the second in three years. World food prices hit a record in January, driven by huge increases in the prices of wheat, corn, sugar and oils. These soaring prices have had only a modest effect on U.S. inflation, which is still low by historical standards, but they’re having a brutal impact on the world’s poor, who spend much if not most of their income on basic foodstuffs.
The consequences of this food crisis go far beyond economics. After all, the big question about uprisings against corrupt and oppressive regimes in the Middle East isn’t so much why they’re happening as why they’re happening now. And there’s little question that sky-high food prices have been an important trigger for popular rage.
So what’s behind the price spike? American right-wingers (and the Chinese) blame easy-money policies at the Federal Reserve, with at least one commentator declaring that there is ‘blood on Bernanke’s hands.
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Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
Stephan: The petroleum industry seems to have sleaze and greed in its DNA. American courts won't take it on, but emerging countries seem to be stepping up.
A court in Ecuador has fined US oil giant Chevron $8.6bn (£5.3bn) for polluting a large part of the country’s Amazon region.
The oil firm Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001, was accused of dumping billions of gallons of toxic materials into unlined pits and Amazon rivers.
Campaigners say crops were damaged and farm animals killed, and that local cancer rates increased.
Condemning the ruling as fraudulent, Chevron said it would appeal.
The company will also have to pay a 10% legally mandated reparations fee, bringing the total penalty to $9.5bn (£5.9bn).
Pablo Fajardo, lawyer for the plaintiffs, described the court ruling as ‘a triumph of justice over Chevron’s crime and economic power’.
‘This is an important step but we’re going to appeal this sentence because we think that the damages awarded are not enough considering the environmental damage caused by Chevron here in Ecuador,’ he told the BBC World Service.
A Chevron statement said the firm would appeal, and called the ruling ‘illegitimate and unenforceable’.
The lawsuit was brought on behalf of 30,000 Ecuadoreans, in a case which dragged on for nearly two decades.
BBC map
The plaintiffs said the company’s activities had destroyed large areas of rainforest and also led to an increased risk of cancer […]
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