by Ken Sanders

Pity those with the courage to speak the truth. Take London's mayor Ken Livingstone, for instance. Following the damnable terrorist bombings in his city, Livingstone opined that "80years of Western intervention into predominantly Arab lands" motivated the four suicide bombers. For his remarks, Livingstone (nicknamed "Red Ken" by his critics) was castigated by right-wingers for his alleged membership in the club, "The men who blame Britain." Livingstone is not alone in his sentiments. Chatham House, the prestigious British think tank, released a report this week entitled "Security, Terrorism and the UK." In the report, Chatham House warned that the UK "is at particular risk" for terrorist attacks because of its allegiance to the U.S. in the war on terror, including the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In response, British foreign secretary Jack Straw accused Chatham House of making "excuses for terrorism." Does Livingstone really "blame" Britain for the attacks against it? Is Chatham House really concocting "excuses" for terrorism?

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Sanders0722-2.htm

Every two days for the past two years more civilians have died in Iraq than in the July 7 London bombings.

http://snipurl.com/gewi


From Information Clearing House

CounterPunch
by Patrick Cockburn

07/21/05

But there is a price to be paid in blood for keeping in power those responsible for past disastrous decisions in Iraq. It makes it much more difficult to seek a way out of the savage war that is now engulfing that country. This is because past policies have to be portrayed as successful when they were dismal failures. The true terrible state of Iraq is glossed over. ... The need to produce a rosy and quite false picture of Iraq makes it difficult for the US -- with Britain trotting along behind -- to produce effective policies. Washington has never admitted to itself that since the summer of 2003 Sunni and Shia Iraqis have both loathed the US occupation. The much-resented presence of US troops in Iraq has helped fuel the insurgency and tainted Iraqi governments as puppets of the US. In the short term it should be a priority to get American soldiers out of the cities and towns in order to reduce daily friction...

http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick07212005.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

07/22/05

One by one, the bogus rationales for this futile and increasingly costly war are abandoned. Weapons of mass destruction -- nada. Saddam's alleged links to al-Qaeda -- zilch. 'Freedom' and 'democracy' -- Forget it: the new constitution ensures that neither will emerge. Which raises the question we started out asking: Why are we in Iraq? Why did 1,700-plus American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis have to die, with many more than that grievously wounded, physically and psychologically? Did all this suffering and death come about due to the moral imperative of setting up an Iranian-style 'Islamic Republic of Iraq,' as the country will be known henceforth? While some Americans are not-so-subtly encouraged to join the military as a way out of a generations-long cycle of poverty, we're pouring billions down the ratholes of Iraq's emerging state bureaucracy, handing out cash by the barrel to finance the rule of Iraqi mullahs...

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6725


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

As the Bush Administration continues to spend billions of dollars on the war in Iraq, it tells Americans, "Don't worry, be happy."

http://snipurl.com/gdvn


From Information Clearing House

One of the latest New Jersey National Guard soldiers to ship out for Iraq is a 50-year-old grandmother from Passaic.

http://kyw.com/news/local_story_201143539.html


From Information Clearing House

by Tariq Ali

On 8 July I wrote that the London bombings were the result of Blair's participation in the Iraq war. The next day the entire media was united in refusing to accept there was any link. They loyally echoed the Government. Blair said there was no link and tried to prove it by arguing that "President Putin opposed the war in Iraq but his country has been subjected to terrorism." He must have thought that British citizens had never heard of Chechnya (Blair had supported Putin's offensive against the Chechens and applauded Russia). But why did these attacks happen? That is the key question which the entire media and the entire political class in this country tried to ignore. They did so because the government and the main opposition party know perfectly well why it happened. They have a guilty conscience. To accept the link meant that the pro-war politicians and newspaper editors were, at the very least, partially responsible...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Ali0720.htm



Making Sense of Terrorism

by Kim Petersen

A US diplomat mused over the surrender of the organs of the US government to the Pentagon. The official arrived at a rationalization: “I just wake up in the morning and tell myself, ‘There’s been a military coup,’ and then it all makes sense.” Sensible or not, people exposed to the lethality of US empire are dying with no near end in sight and there has been no let up in the Iraqi resistance or, as the London bombings indicate, the war on terror. Why it happened does not require anything beyond Stegosaurian cognition. As one Iraqi doctor related, “The U.S. induces aggression. If you don’t attack me, I will never attack you. The U.S. is stimulating the aggression of the Iraqi people!” UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has correctly identified an “extreme and evil ideology” lying at the root of the terror. Where the mendacious Blair erred is exclusively ascribing a “poisonous misinterpretation of the religion of Islam” as being the root cause of the terror. The root cause is rather the insidious ideology of capitalism that spawns imperialism, exploitation, and usurpation of wealth by a few people...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Petersen0720.htm

Tony Blair takes advice from his security experts when it fits with his foreign policy, and ignores it when it doesn't.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9505.htm

New Yorker
by Seymour Hersh

07/18/05

By then, the men in charge of the C.I.A. were 'dying to help out, and make sure the election went the right way,' the recently retired C.I.A. official recalled. It was known inside the intelligence community, he added, that the Iranians and others were providing under-the-table assistance to various factions. The concern, he said, was that 'the bad guys would win'...

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050725fa_fact


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp