World-News: 24 June 2010

The revelation comes only a day after members of a federal commission investigating war-zone contractors blasted the State Department for granting Xe a new $120 million contract to guard U.S. consulates under construction in Afghanistan.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/23/AR2010062305255_pf.html

'Private Security Firms Threaten Afghan Security'

In the report, the US Congress says that the US forces in Afghanistan can pay millions of dollars for security of their logistic convoys in a week, but the money flows to the Taliban's pocket as bribe.

http://quqnoos.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4499&Itemid=48

Britain will not defeat Taliban and should open talks, says head of Army

General Sir David Richards said he believed the time had come for negotiations with Nato's enemies to pave the way for the eventual withdrawal of troops.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25830.htm

From Information Clearing House

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Feds Won't Charge Blackwater in Sudan Sanctions Case

Warren P. Strobel, Jonathan S. Landay and Joseph Neff, McClatchy Newspapers: "The security contractor Blackwater Worldwide tried for two years to secure lucrative defense business in Southern Sudan while the country was under U.S. economic sanctions, according to current and former U.S. officials and hundreds of pages of documents reviewed by McClatchy.... The Obama administration, however, has decided for now not to bring criminal charges against Blackwater, according to a U.S. official close to the case."

http://www.truth-out.org/feds-wont-charge-blackwater-sudan-sanctions-case60832

http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Central+Intelligence+Agency
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Blackwater
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=contractor
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=private+security+firm
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Taliban
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Warren+P.+Strobel
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Jonathan+S.+Landay

rudkla - 24. Jun, 23:04

The Truth Will Out Except, Perhaps, In The US

By Rupert Skilbeck

Human rights laws and greater transparency have improved administration of justice internationally - but not yet under the Obama administration.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25797.htm

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'Americans Don’t Flinch' – They Duck!
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/06/24-5

http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Rupert+Skilbeck
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Kathy+Kelly
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Dan+Pearson

rudkla - 24. Jun, 22:53

Petraeus And The Politics Of Afghanistan

By Tom Hayden

President Obama may have saved his reputation as commander-in-chief by firing Stanley McChrystal today, but he deepened his Afghan quagmire by choosing David Petraeus as the replacement.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25803.htm

Offically FUBAR

By Cindy Sheehan

"If Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular," a senior adviser to head of NATO ops in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal (via Rolling Stone).

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25810.htm

Requiem for the Antiwar Movement

By Cindy Sheehan

This article and these observations are going to piss some people off-but oh well. You will be angry with me, even though I am not the one who is ordering more war, paying for more war, torturing people and imprisoning them without due process, destroying the economy and the environment, blah, blah, blah.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25970.htm

June deadliest month for NATO troops since Afghan war and occupation began

At least 79 NATO troops have died in Afghanistan so far this month, surpassing the previous record reached last August, when 76 troops were killed, according to a tally by icasualties.org.

http://tinyurl.com/2778s2u

From Information Clearing House

--------

Afghanistan Strategy Undermined by McChrystal
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2010/06/24-0

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McChrystal Past, Present and Future?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski251.html

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Germans question involvement in Afghanistan

Los Angeles Times

06/25/10

Omid Nouripour’s effort to keep German troops in Afghanistan is an uphill battle, and he knows it. Not only must the Berlin lawmaker fight his country’s aversion to an increasingly bloody war once billed as a peacekeeping effort, but he must buck his own Green Party’s antiwar platform...

http://tinyurl.com/2brabql

Let McChrystal bring the troops home

Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G. Hornberger

06/24/10

We really shouldn’t let the furor over President Obama’s firing of Gen. Stanley McChrystal cause us to lose focus on three important points regarding Afghanistan: The U.S. government should never have invaded and occupied the country in the first place, it should have exited the country years ago, and continuing the occupation for any period of time whatsoever is the height of immorality and folly...

http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2010-06-24.asp

Now what?

Slate
by Fred Kaplan

06/24/10

McChrystal is out, Petraeus is in. Civilian authority is reasserted, with no real compromise to the military mission. Good news, masterfully played. Now what? Or, to put it more crudely, so what?

http://www.slate.com/id/2258098/

The mythology surrounding Petraeus’s surge in Iraq will keep us trapped in Afghanistan

AlterNet
by Joshua Holland

06/30/10

The United States is stalled in a hopeless conflict in Afghanistan in large part because its foreign policy establishment, aided by an often-vacuous media, has come to believe its own spin about General David Petraeus’ ’success’ turning around the occupation in Iraq. The fact that Iraq remains a shattered country with an active insurgency seven years after the United States invaded — and that any improvement in security was due to developments on the ground that were unique to the country — hasn’t shaken their faith. That the Iraq surge was a success is almost a universally held belief, despite ample evidence to the contrary. That belief lends unearned weight to Petraeus’ counter-insurgency doctrine, known as COIN...

http://tinyurl.com/2c47qz7

Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=McChrystal
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Petraeus
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=foreign+policy
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=insurgency
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=troop+surge
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=torture
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Omid+Nouripour
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Tom+Hayden
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Sheehan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/kwiatkowski
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Jacob+G.+Hornberger
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Fred+Kaplan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Joshua+Holland

rudkla - 24. Jun, 22:36

Tell Yellowstone: No Vaccinating Wild Buffalo

http://groups.google.de/group/freepage-news/t/966258ca7b599ffe?hl=en

http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=buffalo

rudkla - 24. Jun, 22:24

Not just a problem for the Gulf

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/875.html

"We mean nothing to BP or the government"
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/877.html

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Gulf Oil Spill: Pensacola Beach Covered in Tar Balls

Patrick Jonsson, The Christian Science Monitor: "Along at least eight miles of this part of the Florida coast, tar balls from the Gulf oil spill washed ashore Tuesday night. 'My friends went swimming last night and came out covered in oil,' says Heidi Grace, a visitor from New Orleans. 'I cried. It's heartbreaking.'"

http://www.truth-out.org/gulf-oil-spill-pensacola-beach-covered-tar-balls60724

BP and Sado-Messochism

John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus: "Have the messes we've been making finally reached a point where they can't be cleaned up? Aside from the occasional asteroid and volcanic outburst, human beings are responsible for the greatest messes on the planet. We've polluted the air and water, punched holes in the ozone, and pumped enough carbon into the atmosphere to overwhelm the global thermostat."

http://www.truth-out.org/bp-and-sado-messochism60735

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Once a Government Pet, BP Now a Capitalist Tool
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/tcarney5.1.1.html

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Burned Alive: Help Stop BP from Torching Endangered Sea Turtles
http://action.biologicaldiversity.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4186

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Sea Turtle Restoration Project: Sea Turtle Hatchling Releases Into BP - Gulf Oil Slick Must Be Stopped

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/07/07-9

http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=oil+spill
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=British+Petroleum
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Patrick+Jonsson
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=John+Feffer
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=/tcarney

rudkla - 24. Jun, 14:35

The FORBIDDEN Truth About WHO's 2009 'Pandemic'

http://groups.google.com/group/omeganews/t/86efbc9e46a58eb8?hl=de

http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=swine+flu
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=H1N1
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=vaccin
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Big+Pharma
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=World+Health+Organisation
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?=pandemic

rudkla - 24. Jun, 13:40

War makes us poor

The American Conservative
by David R. Henderson

06/23/10

Many people who aren’t comfortable with the U.S. invading other countries reassure themselves with the belief that at least war creates jobs for Americans. But is military conflict really good for the economy of the country that engages in it? Basic economics answers a resounding ‘no’...

http://www.amconmag.com/blog/war-makes-us-poor/

Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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America Detached From War

Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch: "Admittedly, before George W. Bush had his fever dream, the U.S. had already put its first unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drone surveillance planes in the skies over Kosovo in the late 1990s. By November 2001, it had armed them with missiles and was flying them over Afghanistan."

http://www.truth-out.org/america-detached-war60741

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Drone Attacks to Stimulate Economy?
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/06/24-1

Voodoo Economics Back From the Dead
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2010/07/20-0

http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=drone
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=David+R.+Henderson
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Tom+Engelhardt
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Laura+Flanders

rudkla - 24. Jun, 09:21