Sunday, Dec 21st
Last update09:46:34 AM GMT
An Israeli security plan presented to the United States demands that any future Palestinian state not have defense forces or weapons.
According to the plan, Israel would set up alarm stations on the West Bank hills, deploy forces to the Jordanian border and exercise full control over Palestinian airspace.
The plan has drawn angry reactions from Palestinian political groups, who argue that the proposals would completely erase the concept of an independent Palestinian state.
A former Marine sergeant facing the first federal civilian prosecution of a military member accused of a war crime says there is much more at stake than his claim of innocence on charges that he killed unarmed detainees in Fallujah, Iraq.
In the view of Jose Luis Nazario Jr., U.S. troops may begin to question whether they will be prosecuted by civilians for doing what their military superiors taught them to do in battle.
Paul Hoffman, high-ranking Interior official, resigns - Hoffman, who got his post thanks to Vice President Dick Cheney, regularly helped the veep undercut environmental regulations, according to a Washington Post investigation published last year. From keeping the Yellowstone cutthroat trout off the Endangered Species List to helping lift the Clinton-era ban on snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park, Hoffman, former director of the Cody, Wyo., Chamber of Commerce, made sure that commerce in his and Cheney's home state wasn't unduly burdened. Hoffman also overrode the decision of the Grand Canyon's park superintendent to remove biblical plaques from the park, and forced its bookstores to stock a creationist text claiming the canyon was created in six days a few thousand years ago. More recently, he tried to rewrite national park management rules to give snowmobiles and off-road vehicles free rein and allow commercial activities, like mining and rock concerts. Perhaps Interior will bleed a bit more green now.
Nine days ago, late in the afternoon of Aug. 7, Georgian tanks, artillery and infantry began moving out of bases in Georgia and toward South Ossetia, a zone long held by separatists who are backed by Moscow.
As the Georgian units approached the contested zone from the south, Russian army forces were massed just to its north, separated from it only by the 4,000-yard-long Roki Tunnel through the Caucasus Mountains.
TVNL Comment: The US corporate media are reporting this conflict as an unprovoked invasion by the Russians. That is NOT what happened, but it IS something the US does very well.
By Paul Craig Roberts - The success of the Bush Regime's propaganda, lies, and deception with gullible and inattentive Americans since 9/11 has made it difficult for intelligent, aware people to be optimistic about the future of the United States. For almost 8 years the US media has served as Ministry of Propaganda for a war criminal regime. Americans incapable of thinking for themselves, reading between the lines, or accessing foreign media on the Internet have been brainwashed.
As the Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, said, it is easy to deceive a people. You just tell them they have been attacked and wave the flag.
It certainly worked with Americans.
Russian forces are advancing towards Tbilisi, according to the Georgian government, despite a fragile ceasefire being agreed by the two sides.
The reports on Sunday come hours after Russian troops were seen beginning to withdraw from Kaspi and Igoeti, towns close to the Georgian capital.
Americans have many fine qualities. A capacity to see ourselves as others see us is not high among them.
The outcome of six grim days of bloodshed in the Caucasus has triggered an outpouring of the most nauseating hypocrisy from western politicians and their captive media. As talking heads thundered against Russian imperialism and brutal disproportionality, US vice-president Dick Cheney, faithfully echoed by Gordon Brown and David Miliband, declared that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered". George Bush denounced Russia for having "invaded a sovereign neighbouring state" and threatening "a democratic government". Such an action, he insisted, "is unacceptable in the 21st century".
Could these by any chance be the leaders of the same governments that in 2003 invaded and occupied - along with Georgia, as luck would have it - the sovereign state of Iraq on a false pretext at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives? Or even the two governments that blocked a ceasefire in the summer of 2006 as Israel pulverised Lebanon's infrastructure and killed more than a thousand civilians in retaliation for the capture or killing of five soldiers?
"I don't think you can control all the world from one centre," Gül told the Guardian. "There are big nations. There are huge populations. There is unbelievable economic development in some parts of the world. So what we have to do is, instead of unilateral actions, act all together, make common decisions and have consultations with the world. A new world order, if I can say it, should emerge."
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