contributions

Near-panic atmosphere as US Federal Reserve chairman testifies before Congress
By Barry Grey 9 November 2007
On Thursday, one day after American stock markets plummeted in the face of mounting bank losses, soaring oil prices and record lows for the US dollar, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a gloomy economic forecast in testimony before Congress’ Joint Economic Committee.
Bernanke admitted that the US housing slump and the credit crisis resulting from soaring (…)

RULING THE WORLD
A Satirical Exposition
By Peter Fredson
November 8, 2007
I just finished a long compilation of reasons why Bush invaded Iraq, using several thousand files from the past 5 years. Many reasons have been alleged for the invasion, some humorous, and others reaching the edge of criminality. The reasons seemed to shift and multiply as the administration gradually realized things were not going as well as it had hoped. Then a fellow blogger asked me to identify the reason I (…)

By Michael T. Klare, The Nation
This past May, in an unheralded and almost unnoticed move, the Energy Department signaled a fundamental, near epochal shift in US and indeed world history: we are nearing the end of the Petroleum Age and have entered the Age of Insufficiency. The department stopped talking about "oil" in its projections of future petroleum availability and began speaking of "liquids." The global output of "liquids," the department indicated, would rise from 84 million (…)

In a CIA sub-station close to al Libi’s jail cell, the CIA’s "debriefers," who had been talking to al Libi for days after his return from Cairo, were typing out a series of operational cables to be sent Feb. 4 and Feb. 5 to the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Va. In the view of some insiders, these cables provide the "smoking gun" on the whole rendition program — a convincing account of how the rendition program was, they say, illegally sending prisoners into the hands of torturers.
November (…)

By Peter Fredson
This week I took a trip with a busload of other veterans to visit the World War II monument in Washington. While there I saw the paranoid fear and the tense security in our Capitol city. Our driver was told he could not pass in front of either the White House or the Capitol. I wondered if our people were cowards when the British King George held sway over our destiny.
I harkened back to our Declaration of Independence, got a copy to peruse, and was astonished at the (…)

Global Research and the UN Observer
Reminder to the crusading Armageddonists... “Thou shalt not kill.” Exodus 20: 13
They are at it again. Remember when Milosovic was labelled “the butcher of Belgrade”, the new Hitler?
Then Saddam Hussein was “the butcher of Bagdad” and, of course the most dangerous man since Hitler - with weapons of mass destruction which could be unleashed on the world “in forty five minutes”.
Colin Powell lied to the U.N., about the danger Iraq posed to the (…)

by Robin McKie
The latest gloves-off documentary to hit screens predicts a global meltdown as vital fuel runs out
Oil is ‘the bloodstain of the earth’s economy’ and will soon trigger a global conflict that will cost millions of lives. That is the stark claim of a controversial new film, which says a crash in oil production is about to set off worldwide recession and economic collapse
A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash, which opens in UK cinemas this week, shows stark images of rusting (…)

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister says Israel’s arsenals of weapons of mass destruction are the most serious threat to global security.
Abbas Araqchi, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, said Israel has refused to join the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and has stockpiled weapons of mass destruction which makes the Zionist Regime the biggest obstacle to the disarmament process in the region.
Araqchi made the remarks in the 12th annual conference of members (…)

by Dennis Kucinich
As a member of Congress, I have sworn an oath to defend the Constitution and the laws of our nation, and I have pledged to represent the views of my constituents and of all Americans.
That’s why I feel both duty and sorrow in pursuing the path of impeachment against Vice President Richard B. Cheney.
While the impeachment movement has generated intensely strong sentiment and activism, there have been only two polls published on the question of impeaching Vice (…)

by Neal Peirce
Could there be a pattern here?
The San Diego and Los Angeles areas are hit by a raging series of high-impact wildfires — the worst in the state’s history. Many of the blazes coincide with areas already scorched in 2003 by fires that themselves were declared California’s worst ever.
But is there any move to get away from the areas where a century of firefighting has left many forests choked and overgrown, thick underbrush creating tinderbox conditions? Apparently not. (…)