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Alfred McCoy: Back to the Future in Torture Policy
Tom Engelhardt & Alfred W. McCoy
When the Abu Ghraib photos were released in 2004, it seemed that most Americans were shocked by such novel and horrific images, but at least one was not. I'm talking about Alfred McCoy, who had been following the Central Intelligence Agency since the early 1970s, when it unsuccessfully tried to stop the publication of his book, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade.
As soon as McCoy saw the now grimly iconic images of hooded figures, naked men on leashes, and the like, his reaction -- even grimmer than that of the rest of us -- was recognition. He had long been studying the CIA's pioneering research into methods of psychological torture. (The Agency had embarked on this project in the early 1950s, initially studying old Soviet and Chinese methods of interrogating and breaking prisoners.) As a result, he knew that what was unique at Abu Ghraib was not the methods of abuse, but those images. Thanks to cell phones and computers, these could be taken in quantity and passed around by anyone in the vicinity. Those photos, he also knew, were no record of aberrations: they represented policy and were recognizably out of the CIA's several-decade-old torture playbook.
PETRAS: "START LEGAL PROCEEDINGS AGAINST ALAN GARCÍA, THE BUTCHER OF THE AMAZON »
The American Sociologist, Prof. James Petras Interviewed over the phone on Radio Centenario CX36 (Uruguay) by José Luis Vázquez
« The working class, the jobless, underpaid women, ignored by the center left governments, don’t vote at all –neither for the Left nor the Right. They have been marginalized by the democratic process and are most significant reason why the governing Center Left now is being defeated. »
Petras: Good Morning Pepe, how are you?
J.L. Vázquez: I’m fine thanks and happy to be talking with you. -We went over today's issues and first of all, the European elections and the ones in Lebanon.
Petras: Yeah, these are pretty hot right now. -But they are very complex and also contradictory in some ways.
THE PLEA OF MOTHER EARTH - UNITE OR PERISH !
Allen L Roland
As our seas become laden with plastic trash and 75% of our fishing grounds are depleted ~ we must face the fact that we are rapidly depleting what Nature provides us and that our eco-system does not have borders. Our actions effect everything and we must unite and cooperate with each other and nature ~ or we will perish:
BIG BREAKTHROUGHS FOR SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE
By Kevin Zeese
Less than a month after 13 single payer advocates were arrested protesting the exclusion of single payer, it is at the table in both Houses, making progress while the multi-payer pro-insurance reform is faltering.
When we started our campaign one month ago to put single payer national health insurance on the table, we were ignored.
When we stood up and demanded that single payer be part of the debate, we were arrested.
Today, single payer is breaking through, while the multi-payer pro-health insurance reform is faltering.
International Community Activists Arrive at the Rafah Border
From David Mattacchioni
At 8 a.m. Egypt time, seven of the International Movement to Open the Rafah Border walked to the Rafah, Egypt/Gaza border. The group consists of David Mattacchioni, Italy; Christian Chantegrel, Micheline Garreau, Jacque Denko, France; Paki Wieland, Ellen Graves, and Don Bryant, USA. They came by a circuitous route, avoiding all checkpoints between El-Arish and Rafah. These international activists attempted to enter Gaza the morning of June 9, but were denied. They were told the border would open at 1 p.m.
Global Consensus Emerging Regarding Need to End Industrial Primary Forest Logging as Keystone Climate Change Response
Earth's Newsdesk
After being a lone voice in the wilderness for decades, Dr. Glen Barry and Ecological Internet's biocentric forest protection position has been adopted by most major forest protection organizations. It remains to be determined how those committing to keeping such logging out of UN carbon finance can reconcile with their support for Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification of first time old forest logging. Regardless, time to unite the forest and climate movements going into Copenhagen with strong message of protecting and restoring standing old forests for local development and biodiversity benefits, and regional and global climate and ecosystem sustainability.
Obama’s Song and Dance in Cairo
By Dr. Elias Akleh
Young athletic Obama reflects active energy whether running up the ladder stairs into his Air Force One plane, or giving speeches, such as the song-and-dance so-called historic speech to the Islamic World in Cairo University last Thursday June 4th.
This was a very well written speech meant to touch the hearts of Muslims by playing some of their religious tunes citing Qur’anic verses in order to re-gain their trust and their cooperation the US lost during the Bush administration.
Lebanon’s election results and the Age of Resistance
Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah Election HQ
Dahiyeh
Hundreds of Muazzen called believers to Lebanon’s Mosques at 3:35 a.m. this morning for the Al Fajr (the Dawn) prayer. The haunting and beautiful strains of “ Allahu Akbar, (God is great) and Ash-‘hadu ana la elaha ella Allah (I bear witness that there is no God by Allah) wafted from Minarets and flowed softly, pushed by the morning sea breezes, along Beirut’s sandy, but trash strewn beaches at Ramlet al Baida. Drifting along the Corniche Mazzra and Raouche, below the American University of Beirut, they swirled around the silent and narrow streets and alleys of Lebanon’s Capitol and drifted east and up along her mountains. Caressing the mountain tops they embraced the majestic Basilica at Harrissa, high above Jounieh, topped by its 15-ton bronze statue of "Saydet Libnan" or Notre Dame du Liban.
Obama's Outreach to Muslims: Empty Rhetoric, Same Old Policies
by Stephen Lendman
As well as anyone, Edward Said understood the West's long-standing antipathy to Islam - reflected in Samuel Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations" article in the summer 1993 issue of Foreign Affairs and later a 1996 book.
He wrote that future conflicts won't be "primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural....the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future" - demagogically suggesting a benevolent, superior West confronting a belligerent, hostile, inferior Muslim world. In other words, good v. evil.
Jewish town in Galilee demands “loyalty oath”
Jonathan Cook
New bylaw designed to bar Arab couple
Jonathan Cook reports on the depths of racism to which Israel has sunk, where local and regional councils are excluding Arab citizens of Israel from living in the community by demanding that they pledge support for “the values of the Zionist movement, Jewish heritage, settlement of the Land of Israel ... and observance of Jewish holidays”.
A community in northern Israel has changed its bylaws to demand that new residents pledge support for “Zionism, Jewish heritage and settlement of the land”, in a thinly veiled attempt to block Arab applicants from gaining admission.
Critics are calling the bylaw, adopted by Manof, home to 170 Jewish families in Galilee, a local “loyalty oath” similar to a national scheme recently proposed by the far-right party of the government minister Avigdor Lieberman. Other Jewish communities in the central Galilee – falling under the umbrella of a regional council known as Misgav – are preparing similar bylaws in response to a court petition filed by an Arab couple hoping to build a home in Misgav.
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