By Mike Head, 11 February 2011.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has confirmed for the first time that the Obama administration has demanded the establishment of a system of permanent US military bases across the country, effectively laying the basis for an indefinite neo-colonial occupation.
Karzai stated that his government was negotiating with US officials on a range of strategic agreements, including the permanent bases. He said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had discussed the issue with him during last week’s Munich Security Conference in Germany.
Referring to his discussions with US officials and …

Richard Falk, Sunday 09 November 2008, The Journal Issue 13

Every so often attention is called anew to the doubts surrounding the true character of the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks. Recently, the report of the collapse of Building 7 represented such an occasion. Any close student of 9/11 is aware of the many serious discrepancies between the official version of what took place and the actual happenings on that fateful day in 2001. David Ray Griffin and others have analyzed and assessed these discrepancies in such an objective and compelling …

By Kevin Ryan.
Nothing moves through the path of most resistance, and certainly not the human mind.  A recent article written by journalist Robert Parry has provided another good example of this long-standing fact.   In that article, Parry exhibits an astonishing lack of knowledge about the truth movement and the questions posed by honest 9/11 skeptics as he attempts to publicly denigrate those questions and people.  The well-respected journalist Parry provides excellent examples, throughout his article, of how normally reasoned and well-researched professionals can suddenly turn into people who cannot deal with facts …

By Staff Report.
Pop star Lady Gaga wasn’t in the Senate chamber Saturday, but she was among the celebrities virtually taking part in the historic vote to repeal the 17-year policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Saturday sent Lady Gaga a message on Twitter: #DADT on it’s way to becoming history. Later he tweeted: @ ladygaga We did it! #DADT is a thing of the past. After the Senate voted 65-31 to give final congressional approval to end the ban on openly gay troops, Lady …

By James Cogan.
A special forces unit completing an early morning raid on Saturday gunned down seven men in the village of Rohani Baba, in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktia province. Abdul Rahman Mangal, the deputy governor of Paktia, told CNN that the victims were road construction workers. A press release by the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) alleges that the men were employees of a private security company.
Details of the incident remain sketchy, but the ISAF statement claims that its troops had detained an alleged arms dealer and had moved on …

How can you claim to understand war if you don’t understand the events that trigger it?
Posted by Truth Excavator.
It has been obvious for several years that the worldwide peace movement, if you can call it that, is a total sham. It needs a radical transformation. And groups like Code Pink can’t be expected to lead it because truth demands the blue flame of anger, not flower power.
Governments and media propagandists have failed in containing the force of truth. And their betrayal of humanity in these dark times will not be …

By Barry Grey.
The element of manipulation in US elections is immense. Under conditions of a political monopoly of two right-wing big business parties, legally enforced by ballot access restrictions and a host of other barriers to third party campaigns, torrents of corporate campaign cash, and the exclusion of anti-capitalist views by the corporate-owned media, elections in America have far more to do with the ruling class’s recalibration of policy and changes in its governing personnel than with the democratic will of the people. The sentiments and desires of the people …

By Paul Craig Roberts.
Does anyone remember the “cakewalk war” that would last six weeks, cost $50-$60 billion, and be paid for out of Iraqi oil revenues?
Does anyone remember that White House economist Lawrence Lindsey was fired by Dubya because Lindsey estimated that the Iraq war could cost as much as $200 billion?
Lindsey was fired for over-estimating the cost of a war that, according to Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, has cost 15 times more than Lindsey estimated. And the US still has 50,000 troops in Iraq.
Does anyone remember that …

By the Editor.
My curiosity was piqued when a friend told me of the upcoming Wall Street documentary exposé ‘Inside Job’. It’s got some pretty good reviews, and perhaps it will pack enough punch to educate the general public about the theft of taxpayer money that constituted the euphemistically termed ‘bailout’. Online reviews have praised the film, “A wake-up call of macroeconomic proportions”, “Economics explained beautifully” – certainly sounds worth a watch.
Admittedly though, you have to be quite naive to think that a genuine expose of Wall Street could …

By John Pilger.

Washington: The TV anchorwoman was conducting a split-screen interview with a journalist who had volunteered to be a witness at the execution of a man on death row in Utah for 25 years. “He had a choice,” said the journalist, “lethal injection or firing squad.” “Wow!” said the anchorwoman. Cue a blizzard of commercials for fast food, tooth whitener, stomach stapling, the new Cadillac. This was followed by a reporter in Afghanistan sweating in a flak jacket. “Hey, it’s hot,” he …