The Rise of the Imperial Class
The evidence for the rise of this new class – and its exponentially increasing power – is all around us. U.S. arms exports have hit a new high. Since 9/11, the United States has stood astride the global arms market and shows no signs of slacking off. In 2006, Washington wrapped up the biggest number of new arms deals, to the tune of some $16.9 billion, over 40 percent of the worldwide total. Russia came in second, with a mere $8.7 billion. More than half of the global arms deliveries were made by the U.S. More...
'Dodgy dossier' was 'wrong', its author says
The government official who wrote the first draft of the "dodgy dossier" that helped propel Britain into war in Iraq today admits, "We were wrong."
The draft was not disclosed at the Hutton inquiry into the death in 2003 of the former Iraq arms inspector David Kelly. The scientist had suggested the dossier was exaggerated to justify the UK joining the 2003 invasion.
TVNL Comment: They were not "wrong", they "lied!" This was not a mistake, it was a deception.
Imagine 50 Million American Refugees
It would be an unparalleled, even unimaginable, catastrophe. Consider, then, what we would think if, back in Baghdad, politicians and the media were hailing, or at least discussing positively, the "success" of the prime minister's recent "surge strategy" in the U.S., even though it had probably been instrumental in creating at least one out of every ten of those refugees, 5 million displaced Americans in all. Imagine what our reaction would be to such blithe barbarism. More...
CIA's ambitious post-9/11 spy plan crumbles
The CIA set up a network of front companies in Europe and elsewhere after the Sept. 11 attacks as part of a constellation of "black stations" for a new generation of spies, according to current and former agency officials.
But after spending hundreds of millions of dollars setting up as many as 12 of the companies, the agency shut down all but two after concluding they were ill-conceived and poorly positioned for gathering intelligence on the CIA's principal targets: terrorist groups and unconventional weapons proliferation networks.
TVNL COMMENT: Of course this failed. 9/11 was an inside job. The anti-terror effort is smoke and mirrors to distract citizens and the majority in the intelligence community who do not realize this.
The President We Were Warned About
George W. Bush is the imperial president that James Madison and other founders of this great republic warned us about. He lied the nation into precisely the "foreign entanglements" that George Washington feared would destroy our experiment in representative government, and he has championed a spurious notion of security over individual liberty, thus eschewing the alarms of Thomas Jefferson as to the deprivation of the inalienable rights of free citizens. But most important, he has used the sledgehammer of war to obliterate the separation of powers that James Madison enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. More...
Israel Bombs Journalists As New Report Marks Grim Milestone For Gaza's Press
Israeli forces bombed a tent full of Palestinian media workers on Monday in Gaza, killing at least two and wounding nine more — just days after a new report concluded that more journalists have been killed in the territory’s crisis than in most other major wars combined.
An Israeli strike hit the media tent overnight near a hospital in Khan Younis, setting it ablaze and killing Palestine Today journalist Helmi Al-Faqawi, according to local media. Reports have also identified civilian Yousef Al-Khazandar as the second person killed in the strike.
Read more...Israel Bombs Journalists As New Report Marks Grim Milestone For Gaza's Press
Israeli forces bombed a tent full of Palestinian media workers on Monday in Gaza, killing at least two and wounding nine more — just days after a new report concluded that more journalists have been killed in the territory’s crisis than in most other major wars combined.
An Israeli strike hit the media tent overnight near a hospital in Khan Younis, setting it ablaze and killing Palestine Today journalist Helmi Al-Faqawi, according to local media. Reports have also identified civilian Yousef Al-Khazandar as the second person killed in the strike.
Read more...Israel Bombs Journalists As New Report Marks Grim Milestone For Gaza's Press
Israeli forces bombed a tent full of Palestinian media workers on Monday in Gaza, killing at least two and wounding nine more — just days after a new report concluded that more journalists have been killed in the territory’s crisis than in most other major wars combined.
An Israeli strike hit the media tent overnight near a hospital in Khan Younis, setting it ablaze and killing Palestine Today journalist Helmi Al-Faqawi, according to local media. Reports have also identified civilian Yousef Al-Khazandar as the second person killed in the strike.
Read more...At least 26 tourists killed by gunmen at a resort in Kashmir, Indian police say
Gunmen shot and killed at least 26 tourists on Tuesday at a resort in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said in what appeared to be a major shift in a regional conflict in which tourists have largely been spared.
Police said it was a “terror attack” and blamed militants fighting against Indian rule. “This attack is much larger than anything we’ve seen directed at civilians in recent years,” Omar Abdullah, the region’s top elected official, wrote on social media.
Two senior police officers said at least four gunmen, whom they described as militants, fired at dozens of tourists from close range. The officers said at least three dozen people were wounded, many of them reported to be in serious condition.
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