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Archives: September 2013
Scientists: Certain that Human-Caused Climate Change Threatens our Planet (Queally)
Jon Queally writes at Commondreams.org "Unequivocal." If the public and policymakers want a single adjective to describe the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's new assessment report that's the word.…
Why US Clout in the Middle East is Gone (Hiro)
Dilip Hiro writes at Tomdispatch.com: What if the sole superpower on the planet makes its will known -- repeatedly -- and finds that no one is listening? Barely a decade ago, that…Why Israel’s Plan to Bomb Iran is more Dangerous to Israel than Obama-Rouhani Diplomacy
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has made no secret of his dismay that the Obama administration is entering into what look like serious negotiations with Iran over the latter's nuclear enrichment program.…
You Can have Obamacare, or You can have Cruzcare (Jamiol Cartoon)
Courtesy Jamiol's worldIs Iran out of the US War Queue? The Twilight of the Hawks
The short telephone conversation between US President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Friday may or may not lead to a successful diplomatic resolution of US-Iranian conflicts, especially over Tehran's…Where did Syria get its Chemical Weapons in the First Place? (Brühl)
Jannis Brühl writes at ProPublica In the wake of a recent Russian-U.S. deal averting American airstrikes, Syria has begun to answer questions about its chemical weapons stockpile. One thing inspectors don't have…
Stand up to Global Warming or just Observe it? Ice Cover down 40% since 1980 (Naidoo@ Moyers)
Bill Moyers interviews Kumi Naidoo of Greenpeace International on the urgency of action on climate change: The program's blurb: "On this week’s broadcast, the charismatic Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo joins…With a Solar Minimum and La Nina’s, Why isn’t it Really, Really Cold?
2013 is witnessing another year of very low sunspot activity, showing that we are in a years-long solar minimum. It may not last much longer, but something is going on more than…
Dear President Obama: Some American Exceptionalism is nothing to be Proud Of (Engelhardt)
Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com “But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run,…Why Ted Cruz Should sit down and Shut Up: Countries with Social Safety Net Happiest
In a performance that the rest of the world could not even comprehend, a wealthy, Ivy League-educated Texan talked until he was blue in the face to prevent poor children from seeing…
Taliban on the Euphrates: Syria fighters Dump Moderate SNC, Aim for Fundamentalist State
The pan-Arab daily al-Hayat [Life] reports that 14 bands of fighters in Syria have broken with the moderate Syrian National Council led by Ahmad al-Jarba and have repudiated its Free Syrian Army.…
US, UN Sanctions on Iran Hurt Most Vulnerable
In smug Washington-speak, US 'sanctions' on Iran have forced it to the negotiating table, making it possible to 'stop' the Iranian 'nuclear weapons program.' Even President Obama has started talking this way.…
Iranian President Rouhani acknowledges Holocaust as Crime against Jewish People
The speech of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to the UNGA pledged that Iran has no nuclear weapons program and said that Iran never would. The new Iranian president said he was committed…
President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil at UN delivers Stinging Rebuke to Obama on NSA Spying (Lazare)
Reuters reports on President Roussef's speech condemning US spying on her country and on her personally: Sarah Lazare writes at Commondreams: In a furious critique that opened the UN's General Assembly meeting…Is Iran Ready to do a Deal with Obama over its Nuclear Program?
The United States, France, Germany, the UK, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE form a bloc that are convinced that Iran's nuclear enrichment program is intended ultimately to produce a bomb. Iran…
Is Hamas Finished? Facing a Youth Rebellion and Egyptian, Iranian Hostility
The party-militia Hamas, a distant offshoot in Palestinian Gaza of the Muslim Brotherhood, has seldom been on the sunny side of the street. But a combination of difficult political choices has left…
Orwell’s ‘Big Brother’ Was less Intrusive than our own Feds & We OK’d That (Calabrese and Harwood)
Christopher Calabrese and Matthew Harwood write at Tomdispatch.com For at least the last six years, government agents have been exploiting an AT&T database filled with the records of billions of American phone…
Alshabab attack on Nairobi a Sign of Political Defeat
The horrible attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi by members of the Alshabab terrorist group from neighboring Somalia is the act of a declining political movement that has lost enormous ground…
Top Five Wind Energy Successes Today
Wind energy at the moment is by the apparent numbers less expensive than solar, and huge wind farms are being opened throughout the world. There is good news on this front from…Americans Drawing the Line on Day of Action against Keystone XL (Lazare)
Sarah Lazare writes at Commondreams.org: In towns and cities across the U.S., demonstrators are 'drawing the line' Saturday demanding that President Obama protect people and the environment by rejecting the Keystone XL…
Israeli Troops attack European Diplomats on Aid Mission
First the Israelis again erased a Palestinian population, ruling that the 120 Bedouin inhabitants of Khirbet Makhul in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank did not have proper "building permits" for the huts…I lived to See the Day when the Pope and the President of Iran are more doctrinally Flexible than the GOP
The United States has all along been a society dominated by the wealthy, and more especially by the business classes. But businesspeople are not all cut from the same cloth. You had…
Top 5 Ways to Get a more Equal America (Reich @ Moyers)
Bill Moyers interviews former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich on the ways Americans could effect a more equal society: Reich wants to cap the size of the too-big-to-fail banks, reestablish the wall…Iran’s President Rouhani and the New Hopes for Diplomacy (Sternfeld)
Something about hope Since coming to office in August, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has done everything to spell out the profound difference between his administration and the previous one. No, Iran is…
Can we have a Military-Green Energy Complex Instead, Please? (Kramer & Pemberton)
Mattea Kramer and Miriam Pemberton write at Tomdispatch.com A trillion dollars. It's a lot of money. In a year it could send 127 million college students to school, provide health insurance for…Iran’s Rouhani: Not Seeking the Bomb, Willing to show Flexibility
Ann Curry of NBC News gets a scoop, with an interview with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, in which he restates Iran's position that it is not seeking, and will never seek, a…
Top Ten Solar Power good news Stories Today
Climate change produced by human burning of fossil fuels is a dire challenge to life as we know it on earth, and it will likely raise sea level 3-4 feet in this…Brazilian President Snubs Obama: How US Cyber Espionage will Destroy the Internet
The USG Open Source Center reports on Brazilian press reaction to President Dilma Roussef's decision to cancel her state visit to Washington DC this fall, after revelations by Edward Snowden that the…
Solar Car of the Future: Sunswift Solar Two-Seater looks like an ordinary Coupe
Giles Parkinson writes that this year Sunswift is making a revolutionary and exciting entry in the annual University of New South Wales solar car competition: This year, they are entering a new…
How the National Security State creates its own Whistleblowers, with a Letter to the Next One (Engelhardt)
Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com Dear Whistleblower, I don’t know who you are or what you do or how old you may be. I just know that you exist somewhere in our…UN Report Conclusive Sarin used on wide Scale, Points to Syrian Regime
When reports of a chemical weapons attack in Rif Dimashq near Damascus on August 21 first surfaced, some observers questioned whether these were really chemical weapons. Others questioned whether the force that…
44 yearly Murders by Firearms in Britain [220 equiv.] vs. 8,583 in US; US Navy now Menaced
Aaron Alexis carried out the mass murder of 13 people at the Navy Yard with an AR-15 assault rifle and a shotgun. AR-15 Bushmasters are semi-automatic weapons that can fire many rounds…Thousand-Year Flood in Colorado: Climate Change & Extreme Weather
Commondreams.org writes The number of people missing or "unaccounted for" amid what experts are calling a thousand-year flood event in Colorado, is now more than 1200, according to state newspapers and officials.The…
The Hubris of the Syria Interventionists
The hawks who are deeply disappointed that diplomacy has likely forestalled a US military intervention in Syria in the foreseeable future often attempt to tug at our heart strings by pointing to…Summers withdraws from Fed consideration; Won’t be Rewarded for Beggaring Us All
Economist Larry Summers withdrew his name from consideration for chairman of the Federal Reserve last night, even though he had been increasingly considered the favorite for the job in the White House…
The World after the Kerry-Lavrov accord on Syria
The agreement reached by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry at Geneva on Saturday regarding the sequester of Syria's chemical weapons is a little unlikely to…
7 Million Displaced Syrians, Bayda Massacre, & other Reports you Didn’t see on American TV
American network & cable television has been focused his week on US-Russian diplomacy with relatively little coverage (aside from Ben Wedemann on CNN and a handful of others) of what is happening…Neil Young: Alberta Tar Sands fields ‘Look like Hiroshima’ (Chamberlain)
Jacob Chamberlain writes at Commondreams.org Fresh off a trip to Canada's tar sands oil fields in Alberta, famed singer Neil Young spoke out at a conference in Washington, DC on Monday against…Arguing with President Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin published an opinion piece in the New York Times on Wednesday. Here is my attempt at refutation of some of the things he said. Putin begins by emphasizing…Syrian opposition may attack Israel with chemical weapons, Asad tells Russian TV
The USG Open Source Center translates an article from Russia's Rossiya 24 TV containing quotes from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad alleging that Syrian rebels might surreptitiously use poison gas against Israel and…
If Obama goes Back to Congress on Syria, they must save America by voting No (van Buren)
Peter Van Buren writes at Tomdispatch.com Once again, we find ourselves at the day after 9/11, and this time America stands alone. Alone not only in our abandonment even by our closest ally, Great…
Top Ten things Americans need to Know about Syria if they’re going to Threaten to Bomb It
Ambrose Bierce is said to be the author of the saying "War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." Despite the vigorous national debate about intervening in Syria, there is some reason…US NSA Gives Israel Raw Intelligence on US Citizens (Chamberlain)
Jacob Chamberlain writes at Commondreams.org The National Security Agency openly shares unfiltered intelligence files with the Israeli government, according to a classified document leaked to the Guardian newspaper by NSA whistleblower Edward…President Obama’s Doubtful Grounds for Military Action against Syria
In his speech to the nation on Tuesday evening, President Obama laid out his case for military action against Syria, even as he hit the 'pause' button to allow for further diplomacy…Al-Qaeda as Fringe Cult: 12 Years Later, Heretical Text of 9/11 Hijackers Still Withheld by FBI (Kurzman)
Charles Kurzman writes at IslamiCommentary click to enlarge What sort of Muslims carried out the largest mass murder in American history, 12 years today? The FBI refuses to release a document that…How Putin Saved Obama, Congress and the European Union from Further Embarrassing themselves on Syria
Secretary of State John Kerry was asked at a press conference in London Monday morning if there was anything that could forestall a US missile attack on Damascus, and he replied off…Johns Hopkins University Orders Cryptography Professor’s Blog Posting Removed for Classified NSA Links (Larson & Elliott)
Jeff Larson and Justin Elliott write at ProPublica Citing concerns about linking to classified material, Johns Hopkins University asked a professor this morning to remove a blog post discussing last week's revelations about…How US Grand Strategy in Syria led to the idea of Missile Strikes
Are there any grand strategy considerations behind the Obama administration's desire to bomb Syria? Yes, though they rest on doubtful premises. The increasing importance of al-Qaeda-linked radical Sunni fundamentalist groups to the…
Congress Could now Alter our Militarized approach to the Middle East– But likely Won’t (Bacevich)
Andrew J. Bacevich writes at Tomdispatch Sometimes history happens at the moment when no one is looking. On weekends in late August, the president of the United States ought to be playing…Can you Pass the Qatar Quiz? (Rudolph)
CAN YOU PASS THE QATAR QUIZ? By Jeffrey Rudolph Qatar, once one of the poorest Persian Gulf states, has become one of the region’s wealthiest countries and also one of the most…When Syria was a US Ally (or at Least Helpful)
One of George Orwell's keenest insights in 1984 is the kaleidoscopic character of modern state-to-state relations, wherein countries go from being allies to enemies and back again, and government spokesmen and the…
NSA Spying: Indian Gov’t Bans Employee Google Use as Euro Parliament Weighs Law Fining Cooperative Firms
The rest of the world is much more appalled at the spying of the National Security Agency on telephone, email, web browsers and other personal information than is the US public. As…American Jews Divided on Syria Strike, Many Oppose AIPAC
That the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is pushing Congress toward attacking Syria is no secret. As usual, however, AIPAC is out of touch with Jewish Americans. There is a good…
On Obama’s attack on Syria: Donohue/ Bacevich
At Bill Moyers' site, Phil Donohue interviews military historian Andrew Bacevich about President Obama's plans to attack Syria: From the transcript: "PHIL DONAHUE: Welcome. I’m Phil Donahue. Bill Moyers is away this…
A New Red-Green Alliance: Why Workers should Join the Climate Fight (Klein)
The following remarks were delivered by Naomi Klein on September 1, 2013 at the founding convention of UNIFOR, a new mega union created by the Canadian Autoworkers and the Canadian Energy and…
Obama Isolated at G20 on Syria, No ‘Coalition of the Willing’
President Obama found himself isolated on the Syria issue at the G20 conference in St. Petersburg on Thursday. Among the world's largest 20 economies, only France agreed with his plan for a…In Shadow of Syria Strike: August US Drone Strikes in Yemen highest in 16 Months (Searle)
Jack Searle writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism One strike in Pakistan ends 34-day stretch without an attack. Yemen sees more strikes in a month than any time since March 2012.…Syrian and Middle Eastern Christians Condemn US Strike Plans
Syria and Lebanon are multicultural societies, but the American discourse about Syria tends to focus on the Muslim majority and to ignore the substantial Christian minorities. It is interesting that these Eastern…
Obama’s Syria Strike Part of ‘Broader Strategy’ (Germanos)
Andrea Germanos writes at Commondreams As the Obama administration continues its "flood the zone" campaign to win congressional support for military force against Syria, a statement by the president Tuesday indicates its…A US attack on Syria will Prolong the War
The struggle in Syria began peacefully in spring of 2011, but after about half a year it turned violent when the regime deployed tanks and other heavy munitions against the protesters. Some…Syria: The US is no Lone Ranger (Cole @ Truthdig)
My essay, "The US is no Lone Ranger," on Syria, is out at Truthdig Excerpt: "The odd discourse in Washington around President Barack Obama’s determination to bomb Syria over the country’s use…
The US still Wants to be the Sole Superpower; but it Can’t (Engelhardt)
Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com In an increasingly phantasmagorical world, here’s my present fantasy of choice: someone from General Keith Alexander’s outfit, the National Security Agency, tracks down H.G. Wells’s time machine…