REINING IN THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY
Lessons and Recommendations Relating to
the Presidency of George W. Bush

http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/printers/110th/IPres090113.pdf

In a 487-page report out today recapping Bush’s “imperial presidency,” House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) recommends that “the incoming Administration finally begin an independent criminal review of activities of the outgoing Administration.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090113/ts_nm/us_usa_guantanamo

Pentagon: 61 ex-Guantanamo inmates return to terrorism

"Until enough information is provided to allow the press and the public to verify these claims, they need to be viewed with a healthy degree of skepticism," said Jennifer Daskal, a Washington-based lawyer for Human Rights Watch."

By David Morgan David Morgan – 1/13/09

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon said on Tuesday that 61 former detainees from its military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appear to have returned to terrorism since their release from custody.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said 18 former detainees are confirmed as "returning to the fight" and 43 are suspected of having done in a report issued late in December by the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Morrell declined to provide details such as the identity of the former detainees, why and where they were released or what actions they have taken since leaving U.S. custody.

"This is acts of terrorism. It could be Iraq, Afghanistan, it could be acts of terrorism around the world," he told reporters.

The Target is Iran: Israel's Latest Gamble May Backfire
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11747

by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach

Global Research, January 12, 2009

The aerial war against Gaza launched by Israel just after Christmas, and the ground offensive, with which it rang in the New Year, were shocking in their brutality, but should constitute no surprise, if viewed from the standpoint of long-term Israeli strategic aims. The Israelis have argued that the offensive was launched in response to eight years' of relentless attacks by Hamas rockets into Israel. But then, one asks: why now? Why should they wait eight years?

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Thank-You-For-The-Sept-11-by-PeterJ-090109-907.html

January 11, 2009 at 08:34:29

Thank You For The Sept 11 Attacks

by PeterJ

www.opednews.com

Well, shame on you. You don't believe it? Well then, double shame on you. Do you truly believe that an administration would deliberately run itself into the ground, take on the heat and sheer hatred of the entire world by mistake? Of course not, they had ulterior motives and they sure weren't to run this nation in a fruitful and productive way to the benefit of its' people. Who do you suppose that they were running it for then?

Thank You For 9-11! Thank you?
What an odd thing to say.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/London_riots_over_Israels_Gaza_campaign_0110.html

UK, Europe hit with riots over Israel's Gaza campaign

Published: Saturday January 10, 2009

Protesters in London smash a Starbucks, throw shoes at Israeli embassy

A London protest against the Israeli military campaign in Gaza turned violent Saturday night as police charged demonstrators outside the gates of Israel's embassy.

It was one of the largest of many, many demonstrations across Europe on Saturday. Protests in Paris, France also turned violent.

One police officer was knocked unconscious and two were injured in the fray, according to The London Paper. An estimated 300 police in riot gear charged protesters as the crowd chanted "free, free Palestine," hurling hundreds of shoes over a police barrier in front of the embassy.

Tensions continued to rise as the crowd found more objects to hurl -- signs, eggs, red paint, barriers, rocks, etc. -- until police began efforts to disperse the demonstrators.

Protesters smashed and destroyed a Starbucks, and the Daily Mail reported that others tried to set police vehicles on fire.

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Bill Moyers on Mideast Violence | PBS

PBS
January 09, 2009

http://www.pbs.org/billmoyers Bill Moyers reflects on the recent violence in the Middle East. PLEASE NOTE: This essay containins video and images of the Israeli and Palestinian casualties including children - in Gaza as well as the Pulitzer prize-winning photo of the nude Vietnamese girl running from napalm bombing. Some viewers may find the images disturbing, but they are in context and germane to the subject matter. Bill Moyers Journal airs Fridays at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). For more: http://www.pbs.org/billmoyers

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Cheney_in_last_days_in_office_still_01092009.html

Cheney, in last days in office, still hopes to catch bin Laden
AFP
Published: Friday January 9, 2009

Outgoing US Vice President Dick Cheney Friday did not give up hope of capturing or killing Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, with only 11 days left before Barack Obama moves into the White House.

"We've got a few days left yet," Cheney told CNN when asked why bin Laden or Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri continue to elude US capture.

Cheney was quick to say he was unaware of any impending strike on bin Laden, but suggested the Islamist leader was not effectively in control of his organization.

"We would like very much to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, but my guess is at this point, he's operating in an area that's very difficult, very hard to get to, that he's not an effective leader at this stage," he said.

It was hard to target Al-Qaeda without bin Laden "coming out of whatever hole he's hiding in," Cheney said.

The US military operation in the "war on terror" had other big priorities, he added.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2009/01/obama%E2%80%99s-neocon/

Obama’s Neocon

by Gary Leupp / January 9th, 2009

It’s been reported that Dennis Ross has accepted an invitation to become Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton’s “top advisor on a wide range of Middle East issues, from the Arab-Israeli peace process to Iran” and to serve as Special Envoy to Iran.

As one blogger wrote: “Appointing extremely anti-Iran Dennis Ross as ‘Special Envoy to Iran’ is like appointing a pedophile as kindergarten teacher.”

Ross is co-founder of AIPAC; neoconservative ideologue; big-time supporter of the Iraq War; foreign affairs commentator for Fox News; fellow with Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), sister organization of AIPAC described by one distinguished scholar (Columbia’s Rashid Khalidi) as “the most important Zionist propaganda tool in the United States;” a man who has stated (in defiance of the U.S. intelligence consensus) that Iran will “be a nuclear power, if not a nuclear weapon state” by April 2009 if not forcibly deterred.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/01/mkultra-lawsuit.html

Vets Sue CIA Over Mind Control Tests
By Noah Shachtman Email January 07, 2009 | 6:05:29 PMCategories: Bizarro

Vol1_1 For two decades or more during the Cold War, the CIA and the military allegedly plied the unwitting with acid, weed, and dozens of psychoactive drugs, in a series of zany (and sometimes dangerous) mind-control experiments. Now, the Vietnam Veterans of America are suing the agency and the Pentagon for perceived abuses suffered under the so-called "MK-ULTRA" and other projects.

Six veterans are suffering from all kinds of ailments tied to this "diabolical and secret testing program," according to a statement from the vets' lawyers, passed on to SpyTalk's Jeff Stein.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/06/AR2009010603374.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Judge's Order Could Keep Public From Hearing Details of 9/11 Trials
.
Among the men about to undergo military trials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is the self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind. (By Brennan Linsley -- Associated Press)

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 7, 2009; Page A02

The military judge overseeing proceedings against five of the men accused of planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks signed an order designed to protect classified information that is so broad it could prevent public scrutiny of the most important trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to lawyers and human rights groups.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4120/we_arm_the_world/

inthesetimes.com

News » January 2, 2009
We Arm the World
The United States once again leads the world in exporting weapons
By Frida Berrigan

A $7 billion missile-defense system for the United Arab Emirates. An estimated $15 billion potential sale of Lockheed Martin’s brand-new fighter plane to Israel. Billions of dollars in weaponry for Taiwan and Turkey. These and other recent deals helped make the United States the world’s leading arms-exporting nation.

In 2007, U.S. foreign military sales agreements totaled more than $32 billion — nearly triple the amount during President Bush’s first full year in office.

The Pentagon routinely justifies weapons sales as “promoting regional stability,” but many of these arms end up in the world’s war zones. In 2006 and 2007, the five biggest recipients of U.S. weapons were Pakistan ($3.5 billion), Iraq ($2.2 billion), Israel ($2.2 billion), Afghanistan ($1.9 billion) and Colombia ($580 million) — all countries where conflict rages.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-12-24/columns/obama-s-black-widow/

Nat Hentoff
Obama's Black Widow
Thanks to Bush and Obama, the National Security Agency now knows more about you
By Nat Hentoff
Tuesday, December 23rd 2008 at 12:35pm
Most Popular

Barack Obama will be in charge of the biggest domestic and international spying operation in history. Its prime engine is the National Security Agency (NSA)—located and guarded at Fort Meade, Maryland, about 10 miles northeast of Washington, D.C. A brief glimpse of its ever-expanding capacity was provided on October 26 by The Baltimore Sun's national security correspondent, David Wood: "The NSA's colossal Cray supercomputer, code-named the 'Black Widow,' scans millions of domestic and international phone calls and e-mails every hour. . . . The Black Widow, performing hundreds of trillions of calculations per second, searches through and reassembles key words and patterns, across many languages."

In July, George W. Bush signed into law the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which gives the NSA even more power to look for patterns that suggest terrorism links in Americans' telephone and Internet communications.

MARCH OF THE DEAD TO GREET CONGRESS ON TUESDAY

WHAT: A long column of figures dressed all in black with white death masks and bearing the names of those killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. The march will be followed by a dramatic nonviolent action intended to awaken Congress to the need to end the wars.

WHEN: March from noon to 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009. Additional dramatic action 2:15 p.m.

WHERE: The march will approach the U.S. Capitol on Pennsylvania Ave. SE and turn north on 1st Street to pass between the Capitol and the Supreme Court, turn west on Constitution Ave. to pass the Senate office buildings, turn south to pass the west front of the Capitol, and turn east on Independence Ave. to pass the House office buildings. Members of the media wanting to cover the additional nonviolent action should meet representatives of the March of the Dead in front of the Supreme Court at 2 p.m.

The Invasion of Gaza: "Operation Cast Lead", Part of a Broader Israeli Military-Intelligence Agenda

By Michel Chossudovsky

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11606

Global Research, January 4, 2009

The aerial bombings and the ongoing ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli ground forces must be analysed in a historical context. Operation "Cast Lead" is a carefully planned undertaking, which is part of a broader military-intelligence agenda first formulated by the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001:

"Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas."(Barak Ravid, Operation "Cast Lead": Israeli Air Force strike followed months of planning, Haaretz, December 27, 2008)

It was Israel which broke the truce on the day of the US presidential elections, November 4:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11584

Open Letter to Barack Hussein Obama, President-elect of the United States of America

by Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and Former Prime Minister of Malaysia

Global Research, January 2, 2009

January 1, 2009

Dear Mr. President,

I did not vote for you in the Presidential Election because I am Malaysian.

But I consider myself one of your constituents because what you do or say will affect me and my country as well.

I welcome your promise for change. Certainly your country, the United States of America needs a lot of changes.

That is because America and Americans have become the most hated people in the world. Even Europeans dislike your arrogance. Yet you were once admired and liked because you freed a lot of countries from conquest and subjugation.

It is the custom on New Year's day for people to make resolutions. You must have listed your good resolutions already. But may I politely suggest that you also resolve to do the following in pursuit of Change.