Tag Archives: international

The Nation: Ron Paul’s Fight For Transparency

The Obama administration condemns WikiLeaks in the most extreme terms, with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs referring to the people involved in the leaking and distribution of diplomatic cables as “criminals,” and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton describing the latest WikiLeaks revelations as an ” attack on America's foreign policy interests.” Attorney General Eric Holder talks of using the Espionage Act and other tools to go after WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Democrats in Congress echo the criticisms — with Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair John Kerry ripping Assange for having done “real damage” to U.S. interests — or simply remain silent. Some are openly working with neoconservative Republicans to come up with new laws to restrict the flow of information about U.S. foreign policy, Is anyone in official Washington standing up for transparency? Is anyone saying that we should be more concerned about the revelations of wrongdoing than killing the messenger? Yes, if you count Texas Congressman Ron Paul as a resident of official Washington. The Texas Republican who has long been the sternest critic in Congress of the imperial ambitions of presidents of both parties, rejects the notion that WikiLeaks is the problem. “Rather than worry about the disclosure of embarrassing secrets we should focus on our delusional foreign policy,” argues Paul, who has run for the presidency as both the Libetarian nominee and a Republican primary candidate. “We are kidding ourselves when we believe spying, intrigue and outright military intervention can maintain our international status as a superpower while our domestic economy crumbles in an orgy of debt and monetary debasement.” Continued at: http://www.npr.org/2010/12/13/132021734/the-nation-ron-paul-s-stand-for-transpar… added by: Dagum

Colossal "rape mine" where more than 300,000 women and girls have been brutalised

Hundreds of women and children were raped over and over during 3 days in July, another incident reported in August… estimates indicate many thousands of women and girls are brutalized each year on a gross scale …for the creature comforts of civilized society. Efforts to combat illicit mining of coltan and other minerals are gaining traction, as politicians in Canada and other Western governments look to establish tough penalties against the practice. When we glance at the holocaust in Congo, with about 7 million dead, the clich

Cancun Betrayal, UNFCCC Unmasked as WTO of the Sky/Real Solutions to the Climate Crisis Will Come From Grassroots Movements

Canc

Fareed Zakaria Calls Out Glenn Beck’s Math Skills On Muslim Terrorist Claim

Fareed Zakaria, who occasionally throws fairly well-disguised bombs from his perches at CNN and Time in a manner so serene many fail to notice– is taking on his cable news stylistic opposite, Glenn Beck– or at the very least, his math skills. In his trademark soothing tones, Zakaria gave Beck a math lesson on those 10%, or 157 million, “Muslim terrorists” Beck claimed were plotting to attack America– namely, that that figure is “1000% wrong.” Zakaria opens up his segment, aptly titled “What in the world?,” by simply following through on the 10% math to figure out just how many people 10% of the international Muslim community would be. Zakaria’s lesson even included a virtual chalkboard, just to make sure Beck got the message, one must assume. He correctly points out would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 157,000,000 Muslim terrorists, and notes Beck’s laments of “why, oh why wasn’t this receiving any media coverage?” Zakaria’s answer? “Well, let me suggest one reason: it is total nonsense– a figure made up by Glenn Beck with absolutely no basis in fact.” He also uses U.S. State Department figures to negate Beck’s, which claim there were 11,000 total terrorist attacks around the world in 2009, including every act of terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, and testimony from terror expert Peter Bergen, who emailed Zakaria to tell him Beck’s figures were “1000% wrong.” It doesn’t get much better for Beck during Zakaria’s semi-out of character deconstructing of his argument. Team Beck, meanwhile, has already put together a comprehensive retort to Zakaria, with data showing, among other things, that support for Osama Bin Laden “ranges from 4% in Azerbaijan to 56% in the Palestinian territories.” added by: TimALoftis

11 reasons why the threat from Al Qaeda is not real

“All governments lie.” You can add to that great quote “and all newspapers lie, too.” -American journalist I. F. Stone. Knowing the truth matters in a democracy because without the truth citizens can’t make informed decisions about government policies that impact their lives. It is not possible to consciously answer fundamental societal questions like “should we go to war?” without a firm grasp of all the facts at hand. When independent journalists fail to provide the simple and straightforward facts to the public, they become complicit in government murder and fraud, and deserve even more ridicule than dishonest government officials and government-owned journalists. 11 Reasons Why The Threat From Al-Qaeda is Not Real Al-Qaeda is either one of these things, or it is a combination of them: a) a completely fake threat; the organization does not exist, b) an organization that exists in small numbers but was created by the CIA to serve a corrupt U.S. foreign policy, and remains a U.S. intelligence asset in the manufactured global war on terrorism, or c) a small organization that exists independently of the U.S. government but its strength and influence in the Middle East is exaggerated by radical policymakers and officials in Washington. Out of all three statements the first and second deserve the most serious attention because they are supported by the evidence listed below. #1. Radical American cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki, who was ordered to be assassinated by President Obama, met with top military officials at the Pentagon months after the 9/11 attacks. #2. CIA Director Leon Panetta revealed in June 2010 on ABC’s This Week that there are less than 100 Al-Qaeda members in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. #3. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), one of the world’s leading security think tanks, published a report this year which said that the threat of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban is exaggerated by Western policymakers. #4. Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview to the Los Angeles Times’s Patt Morrison in October 2010 that Al-Qaeda doesn’t exist. #5. The U.S. government created, and funded Islamic fundamentalism in the 1980s to be used to draw the Soviet Union into Afghanistan, and bleed it to death in a costly and unwinnable war. #6. Robin Cook, who served as a British MP for 22 years and as Foreign Secretary from 1997 to 2001, wrote an article for the Guardian in July 2005, a month before his death, called “The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means.” #7. A BBC article from July 2004 called “Al-Qaeda’s origins and links” reveals that Osama Bin Laden was a CIA agent in the 1980s. #8. J. Michael Springmann, a 20 year foreign service official, and a former Consulate officer in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, has publicly stated for many years that the CIA brought over Muslim radicals to the United States for secret terrorist training. #9. Germany’s Der Spiegel’s published an article by Siegesmund von Ilsemann called “Arming the Middle East: The Checkered History of American Weapons Deals” in June 2007. The article backed up the reporting done by the BBC, and elsewhere that the United States government “supplied Afghan freedom fighters in the 1980s with money and arms for their struggle against occupying Soviet troops. One of the best customers for the CIA back then was Saudi millionaire Osama Bin Laden.” This account is only half-true. The CIA funded and trained a network of Muslim fighters not to liberate Afghanistan from corrupt Soviet influence, but to create havoc and instigate a Soviet invasion so that it would drain itself of blood and treasure. Once the objective of bringing down the Soviet Union was achieved, the stage was set for the United States and the West to invade Afghanistan and take advantage of the country’s vast resources, from oil to heroin. #10. Selig Harrison, a current member of the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, a former senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and an expert on South Asia, said in March 2001 at a conference called “Terrorism and Regional Security: Managing the Challenges in Asia,” that the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI helped create the backward and tyrannical Taliban. #11. The September 11, 2001 attacks, which serve as the basis for America’s wars in the Middle East, were committed by the United States government with assistance from the government of Israel. This is an indisputable fact added by: maasanova

Sierra Club Pulling Heads Out of the Sand in Cancun

Photo credit: Sierra Club This week, I’m happy to introduce Justin Guay of the Sierra Club’s International Climate Program, who is in Cancun at the international climate negotiations. He helped write this post to explain more of the important work happening over the past two weeks. The Sierra Club has been busy building the momentum, and pressure needed to ensure that our politicians and leaders live up to international responsibilities and infuse positive momentum into the climate change negotiations in Canc… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Sierra Club Pulling Heads Out of the Sand in Cancun

New ‘OC Housewife’ Flashes Her Brazilian Booty

Filed under: Fernanda Rocha , Hot Bodies , Real Housewives , Paparazzi Photo , Stars In Heat , Photo Galleries She may be the newest cast member of ” The Real Housewives of Orange County ,” but Fernanda Rocha is a pro when it comes to showing off her gorgeous goods . The bisexual personal trainer — who specializes in a workout called Brazilian Booty — further… Read more

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New ‘OC Housewife’ Flashes Her Brazilian Booty

Bieber & Selena Gomez — The Pancake Date

Filed under: Justin Bieber , Selena Gomez Here’s a breakfast combo for ya — Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez leaving the International House of Pancakes yesterday … ARM-IN-FRICKIN-ARM!!! The two international pop stars sat down for breakfast yesterday in Philadelphia …. hours before they were… Read more

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Bieber & Selena Gomez — The Pancake Date

New York Times/Wikileaks: Afghanistan Corruption Is ‘Overwhelming’

WASHINGTON — From hundreds of diplomatic cables, Afghanistan emerges as a looking-glass land where bribery, extortion and embezzlement are the norm and the honest man is a distinct outlier. Describing the likely lineup of Afghanistan’s new cabinet last January, the American Embassy noted that the agriculture minister, Asif Rahimi, “appears to be the only minister that was confirmed about whom no allegations of bribery exist.” One Afghan official helpfully explained to diplomats the “four stages” at which his colleagues skimmed money from American development projects: “When contractors bid on a project, at application for building permits, during construction, and at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.” In a seeming victory against corruption, Abdul Ahad Sahibi, the mayor of Kabul, received a four-year prison sentence last year for “massive embezzlement.” But a cable from the embassy told a very different story: Mr. Sahibi was a victim of “kangaroo court justice,” it said, in what appeared to be retribution for his attempt to halt a corrupt land-distribution scheme. It is hardly news that predatory corruption, fueled by a booming illicit narcotics industry, is rampant at every level of Afghan society. Transparency International, an advocacy organization that tracks government corruption around the globe, ranks Afghanistan as the world’s third most corrupt country, behind Somalia and Myanmar. But the collection of confidential diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of publications, offers a fresh sense of its pervasive nature, its overwhelming scale, and the dispiriting challenge it poses to American officials who have made shoring up support for the Afghan government a cornerstone of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. Story continues here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/world/asia/03wikileaks-corruption.html?_r=1&am… http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/12/03/world/03corruption-web1/03corrupt… added by: ThatCrazyLibertarian

Angelina Jolie Hits Back at Sarajevo Haters

Angelina Jolie paused from plugging her new film with Johnny Depp (watch The Tourist trailer ) to hit back at critics of her upcoming directorial debut. The Oscar winner lashed out at the Bosnian haters who have called her ignorant and sought to block her from shooting her film in the country. “There’s one person who has a gripe. The majority of the population, the cast, the president, have been extremely supportive,” Jolie said in Paris. A number of people were upset after hearing the still-untitled film’s plot dealt with a Bosnian Muslim woman who falls in love with her Serbian soldier rapist. The storyline from the film set during the 1990s war turned out to be a rumor, and a false one at that, but their protests were enough to spark controversy. The outcry even prompted officials to cancel the star’s film permit, citing insufficient paperwork, only to reissue in days later. But has she already moved on? As a result, producers of Jolie’s untitled drama kept shooting in Sarajevo to a minimum, instead opting to shoot a key scene in Budapest, Hungary. Jolie defends the film, noting that 95 percent of those in the cast had lived through the war. She said she wanted to tell this story due to her anguish over the fact that the international community was so reticent to try and stop the war. “I wanted to learn more about it and the people, the more I read and learned I was drawn to that part of the world,” Jolie said. “I met artists from that part of the world and found they were extraordinary for what they’d gone through. “I wanted to give them a platform.” The Mighty Heart star and U.N. goodwill ambassador previous said she would meet with some the Bosnian critics, but