The DISH

Unbossed and unbought news and information you can use

Vol. 12 Issue 42…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…October 18, 2009

There are Bombs and There are Bombs

John Burl Smith

Ronald Reagan's now immortal words, "Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall," for some, foreshadowed the end of the Cold War. However, most researchers believe the tipping point came earlier in the 1980s for the Soviet Union, when the weight of the debt it incurred maintaining a massive military, the Warsaw Pack, a non-productive space program, a growing arms race, war in Afghanistan and a stagnant economy converged to make the Cold War unsustainable. With the USSR's demise, the United States assumed world hegemony, as the lone superpower. Russia, the former Soviet Union, was relegated to international insignificance.

Driven nearly to the brink of disintegration, following a series of leadership changes, Russian confidence returned once Vladimier Putin assumed leadership and consolidated power in 2000. Russia's resurgence became evident with "BRIC," an alliance between Brazil, Russia, India and China. Then, late in 2007, Russia exploded the world's largest non-nuclear bomb and fears of a new Cold War.

Nicknamed 'the father of all bombs' (FOAB), the huge fuel-air device's massive fireball incinerated four-story buildings, leaving only heaps of rubble. The blast announced Russia was back and the US, with an economy teetering on the brink of collapse, could not push it aside.

Feeling Russia had fully taken the US' measure, Gen Alexander Rukshin, Russia's deputy armed forces chief of staff said, "The new bomb's efficiency and power of devastation is commensurate with a small nuclear weapon. Ground zero was 300 meters or nearly 1,000 ft. It contained just 7.8 tons of high explosives augmented by nanotechnology, which made its effects four times more devastating than the US' MOAB (Mother of all bombs)."

Responding to Russia's test, the US National Security Council spokesman said, "It was a matter of concern that Moscow would develop such a huge weapon at a time when there was no obvious need." He added, "There is 'no chance' that America would become involved in a new arms race with the Russians and that the US "had no use" for bombs larger than the ones already in its arsenal."

The spokesman was referring to MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Burst) or the "mother of all bombs" tested by the US before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Apparently feeling the heat from Russia's FOAB, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell announced an about-face. "The Pentagon is speeding up delivery of a new colossal bomb designed to destroy hidden weapons bunkers buried underground and shielded by 10,000 pounds of reinforced concrete."

Hoping to give the impression the weapon was already in production, he referred to it as, "Plan B for dealing with Iran," which recently revealed the existence of a nuclear site deep inside a mountain near the holy city of Qom. Pentagon officials are going to great lengths to specify that the new bomb is intended to blow up fortified sites like those housing Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs. The Joint Chiefs sounded as if they are gearing up for a war with Iran, rather than engaging in a new arms race with Russia.

The US'15-ton behemoth -- called the "massive ordnance penetrator," or MOP -- will be the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal and will carry 5,300 pounds of explosives, compared to the Russian's 7.8 ton nanotechnology bomb. MOP is about 10 times more powerful than MOAB. The speed up will cost the Pentagon $52 million. However, no one is talking about the actual cost of the bomb, whose delivery is expected next summer.

There are bombs and there are bombs. Nanotechnology and $52 million bombs to aid fighting al Qaeda, the world's public enemy number one, are a waste. Using such huge bombs in the current wars against al Qaeda and the Taliban would be like an Israeli attack on Hamas, which would wipe out farming communities and urban areas along with a few "terrorists."

Compared to the US, al Qaeda's latest innovation in bomb technology came to light in Saudi Arabia a few weeks ago. According to Al Arabiya TV network, an al Qaeda operative, Abdullah Asieri, detonated a bomb using a cell phone during the attempted assassination of Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, the head of counter-terrorism for the kingdom. It seems that the al Qaeda assassin not only outwitted the Saudi royal family's security forces but bomb-detection machines in the palace as well by stuffing the explosives up his rectum. Fortunately for the Prince, when the crap hit the fan, the bomb only caused what was described as a minor stink. Since neither al Qaeda nor the Taliban possesses the kind of fortifications such huge bombs are designed to destroy, maybe with the Saudi episode what al Qaeda is telling the US with its new "BUTT BOMB" is "Blow it out your rear or Up Yours!"

There are bombs and there are bombs. Russia and the US already possess enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world ten times over. Some analysts believe that with Russia's huge increase in oil revenue, the test blast was a way of flexing its new muscles. Also, with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan spilling over into Pakistan while saber rattling about a third with Iran, the US is in the same position as the USSR in the 1980s with its over-stretched military and collapsing economy. The game for Russia is to force the US into the kind of one-ups-manship that fueled the arms race of the 1950s and 60s, which ushered in Russia's collapse. (Sources: www.msnbc.com, http://liberalforum.org, www.alarabiya.net, www.thisislondon.co.uk, http://blog.taragana.com and www.dailymail.co.uk)

News You Use

Rethink Afghanistan

The US has been in Afghanistan since October 2001. Eight years later, that unfortunate conflict is no nearer to being dubbed mission accomplished than the day the US launched its attack. In fact, escalation is on the table as the new commander-in-chief, President Barack Obama, has adopted the previous one's war on terror rhetoric.

Film-maker Robert Greenwald, who has made more than 50 movies, including The Burning Bed, a film about spouse abuse starring Farrah Fawcett and 21 Hours in Munich, a documentary about the 1972 Olympics, launched Brave New Films in 2006 with the idea of making documentaries, such as Rethink Afghanistan, a full-length feature film that Greenwald claims is "the first real-time documentary." According to Greenwald, "This is an ambitious undertaking; our documentary will be released in a novel way, online and segmented and will be able to incorporate events as they are happening along with expert testimony and opinions. At a time when the country is in serious economic crisis, it will be very difficult for the president to advance his domestic agenda while dealing with a quagmire on his hands."

Brave New Foundation sent the trailer of the film to its email list of 1.3 million people with a link to the full 12 minute long chapter entitled "Troops." Future chapters of Rethink Afghanistan will address the financial cost of the war, the role of Pakistan in the conflict, civilian casualties, the plight of Afghan women, and terrorism.

You can watch the trailer and the first installment at: www.rethinkafghanistan.com. The documentary series includes expert witness and testimony, as well as grisly images of mutilated bodies and orphan children scattered across the war-torn country. For more information on the campaign, to host an interview or speaking opportunity with Greenwald participants please contact: Axel Woolfolk at awoolfolk@bravenewfoundation.org or telephone him at 310.204.0448 x. 232.

Bit of History

Smedley Darlington Butler (1881-1940)

Born July 30, 1881 in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Smedley Darlington Butler was the eldest of three sons born to Thomas Stalker Butler and Maud (Darlington) Butler. Both of his parents hailed from prominent families in the local Quaker community. His father, an attorney, judge and congressman for 31 years, chaired the House Naval Affairs Committee during Harding and Coolidge's administrations.

Smedley Butler received his early formal education at the West Chester Friends Graded High School and later at The Haverford School, a secondary private institution for the sons of upper-class families in the Philadelphia area. An athlete, Butler was captain of the baseball team and quarterback of the football team at Haverford. He received a diploma on June 6, 1898, after dropping out to join the Marines when the US declared war on Spain.

Because he was only sixteen and his father disapproved, Butler lied about his age in order to receive a commission in the Marines as a second lieutenant. After basic training, he was shipped to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he saw no action.

Butler saw plenty of military action. He served and was wounded twice during the Boxer Rebellion, once in the Battle of Tientsin on July 13, 1900 and again in San Tan Pating. For his heroism at Tientsin, Butler was promoted to captain, a promotion he received while recovering from his wounds, two weeks before his nineteenth birthday.

In 1903, Butler saw action in Honduras, where he was dispatched to protect the US Consulate from the Bonillistas, the local rebels trying to secure control of their government.

Butler married Ethel Conway Peters of Philadelphia in Bay Head, New Jersey in 1905. The couple had three children. Posted in the Philippines, Butler launched a resupply mission across the stormy waters of Subic Bay after his isolated outpost ran out of rations. Eventually diagnosed with a "nervous breakdown" in 1908, Butler was given 9 months sick leave. He spent the time working in the West Virginia coal mining business. While he was offered permanent employment from the owners, Butler returned to the Marine Corps.

Butler saw action from 1909 to 1912 in Nicaragua and Panama enforcing US policy. He won his first of two Medals of Honor for his heroism at Veracruz, Mexico in 1914. Between the Spanish-American War and the US entry into the WWI in 1917, Butler achieved the distinction, shared with only one other Marine (Dan Daly), of being twice awarded the Medal of Honor for outstanding gallantry in action. During World War I, Butler, then a major, attempted to return his Medal of Honor, explaining that he had done nothing to deserve it. It was returned to him with orders to keep and wear.

Butler received his second Medal of Honor for his heroism in capturing Fort Riviere in Haiti. At the outset of the United States occupation of Haiti (1915-1934), the Marines defended the dictator Vilbrun Guillaume Sam against the Cacos rebels. Butler and his troops "hunted the Cacos like pigs." In November 1915, he received his second Medal of Honor, as well as the Haitian Medal of Honor. As the initial organizer and commanding officer of the Haitian Gendarmerie, police force, Butler established a record as a capable administrator. Under his supervision social order, under the dictatorship, was largely restored and vital public works projects were successfully completed.

Butler did not receive a combat assignment to the Western Front during World War I, even though he made several attempts to get stationed in France. In October 1918, Butler was promoted to the rank of brigadier general at the age of 37 and placed in command of Camp Pontanezen at Brest, France, a debarkation depot that funneled troops of the American Expeditionary Force to the battlefields. For his exemplary service in bringing order and establishing sanitary conditions to the camp, Butler was awarded the Distinguished Service Medals of the U.S. Army and Navy and the French Order of the Black Star.

After the war, Butler became Commanding General of the Marine Barracks at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, where he served until January 1924, when he was granted leave of absence to accept the post of Director of Public Safety of the City of Philadelphia. He served in the post from January 1924 until December 1925. After nearly two years of fighting to clean up Philadelphia's crime and corruption, Butler resigned under pressure.

From 1927 to 1929, Butler was commander of the Marine Expeditionary Force in China. When he returned to the US in 1929, he was promoted, becoming the Marine Corps' youngest major general. Butler also won national attention by conducting large-scale Civil War re-enactments.

Butler retired from active duty on October 1, 1931. He began a lucrative career on the lecture circuit, becoming known for his outspoken lectures on war profiteering and fascism in the US. In 1932, he unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in a Pennsylvania primary.

In 1934, Butler testified before a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists and "Jewish financiers" allied with fascist groups had plotted a military coup known as the Business Plot to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Nothing ever came of the committee's investigation.

In November 1935, Butler wrote an article for the socialist magazine Common Sense in which he described himself as "a gangster for capitalism." He also published a book entitled War is a Racket (1935). Butler continued to campaign against the Military Industrial Complex until his death on June 21, 1940. He was buried at Oaklands Cemetery in West Chester, Pennsylvania. (Sources: www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk, www.eclectica.org, http://en.wikipedia.org and www.ratical.org)

Intuit's Vibe

On Warfare and Profits

By Smedley Darlington Butler

Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.

Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns, no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few -- the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill. And what is this bill? This bill renders a horrible accounting: newly placed gravestones, mangled bodies, shattered minds, broken hearts and homes, economic instability, depression and all its attendant miseries, back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.

Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends. But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children? What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits? Yes, and what does it profit the nation?

Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became "internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances." We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.

It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people -- who do not profit. (Sources: www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk and www.eclectica.org)

Venue for an Artist

The Supreme Irony

By Junious Ricardo Stanton

"Irony- A figure of speech in which the literal meaning is the opposite of the intended meaning; used in ridicule, contempt or humor. Literature: A technique often used in writing satire; a method of expression in which the author veils his real meaning behind plot or character development which portrays the opposite. An outcome opposed to that which one has been led to expect." - The New Webster's Comprehensive Dictionary of the English Language

The gym where I work out has several television screens tuned to a variety of stations. I went to the gym early Friday because I had a full day of activities: a memorial service later that morning, I had to get back home to finish packing and head to Cheyney University for Homecoming Weekend. I was amused when I saw on the television monitor tuned to CNN that Barack Obama had been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize! I have always wondered what the criteria were for one to be awarded the Noble Peace Prize. A Martin Luther King Jr. or a Desmond Tutu I could see because they challenged extremely vicious systems of European oppression and genocide using non-violent tactics; so of course white folks would give them a prize. But over the years there have been some truly questionable picks for the Noble Peace Prize; like Henry Kissinger whose actions resulted in massive loss of life all around the world on behalf of Western imperialist geo-political and economic interests.

In literature there is a style of writing called irony whereby the writer's words disguise: the true goings on, the motives of the characters, the outcome of their plotting or the resulting circumstances. In the real world, the Noble Prize is itself a form of irony. Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm Sweden in 1833. He was the son of an engineer. He too became an engineer, an inventor and entrepreneur. When I think of Alfred Noble, I think of destruction and devastation because he invented dynamite. Nobel's father was an engineer who had developed naval mines, and explosives. Alfred Noble was sent to school to study chemical engineering. Upon graduation he worked for his father's company which had contracts for both civil and military work. His father went bankrupt for a second time and Alfred Nobel went to work on a process to create a way to stabilize nitroglycerin which was an extremely volatile liquid. Noble eventually developed a way to turn it into a paste and make it practical by using a blasting or detonating cap. He kept at it and developed a totally new compound he called dynamite. Noble also invented smokeless gun powder.

Dynamite was first used as an excavating tool to blast heavy rock but it didn't take long for a people who love war to use it as the most potent weapon of mass destruction of its day and well into the future. Noble traveled throughout Europe and America obtaining patents and setting up companies. He and his investment partners set up sixteen dynamite companies in fourteen countries. Noble flourished and became extremely wealthy. Mining, excavating and war were and are very lucrative businesses.

Due to the extensive travel required to maintain his business empire during that time, Noble's health began to deteriorate. He developed a heart condition and was forced to use nitroglycerine as a treatment (another irony). Noble, according to most accounts, never married and had no heirs. He died on December 10, 1896 in Sanremo Italy. In his will he ordered a committee be established to award monetary prizes for developments and accomplishments in the fields of: physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and world peace.

The supreme irony is that Alfred Noble the man who helped make it easier for Europeans to terrorize and subjugate the world (keep in mind his father developed naval mines), became rich beyond measure and in his will decreed an award be given for those who work for "world peace". There is no definitive evidence that I could find proving Alfred Noble was ever a pacifist. Certainly if Alfred Nobel a white man had been one during the late nineteenth century, he would have been an anomaly. Is it possible the establishment of the Noble prize was a PR ploy to clean up the legacy of the man who invented true weapons of mass destruction and human devastation? Keep in mind the Chinese invented gun powder and used it to make flame, as an esoteric elixir for immortality and for public celebrations hundreds of years before the Mongols and subsequently the Arabs developed and used it for weaponry. Europeans saw it and took it to a whole new level in terms of warfare and destruction.

This brings me back to Barack Obama. Here is a man who campaigned and won the US presidency in 2008 on the slogan of "change", who as President continues his predecessor's global imperialist wars. It's diabolically ironic Obama was awarded the Noble Peace Prize despite: using drones to bomb and kill innocent people in Afghanistan and expand the war into Pakistan, is maintaining Iraq as a colony, is continuing a proxy war in Somalia, is threatening to use force against Iran for their pursuit of peaceful nuclear energy; meanwhile he never says anything about Israel's nuclear arsenal or its mischief throughout the world?! Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize (an item of irony itself) is the epitome of Orwellian doublespeak; where war is peace, oppression is freedom and death is life.

About Me: A retired probation officer, volunteer, writer and producer, Stanton hosts several Internet radio talk programs, including The Digital Underground and the Cyberspace Sanctuary. His programs air on www.harambeeradio.com and www.Blakeradio.com.

Politics Y2K9

Health, War-Peace, Hypocrisy & Taxes

By Roberto Rodriguez

Over the past several months, conservatives seemingly made headway convincing a good portion of the U.S. public that Congress may not be able to produce a national health care plan that will not bust the budget - something that president Barack Obama has promised not to sign, and, then came Afghanistan. Conservatives almost had the nation convinced that despite the laudable goal of improving the overall health of the nation, insuring everyone is simply too costly.

There's no money to save lives, to prolong life or to heal those who would otherwise die or live in deteriorating health, but out of the blue, there will be money for Afghanistan just as every year our brave and courageous political leaders of both parties manage to find hundreds of billions for the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

So here's the equation: Money to save lives? NO! Money to kill? YES! As is well-known, in this recession and in this economy, the biggest losers are the young because the similar equation is at work: No money for education, but plenty of money for war and more war. Plenty of money for bombs but not books!

How did the values of this nation get this skewered? The truth is, more than oil, the nation's leaders are spiritually addicted to war. Always have been, i.e. Providence, Manifest Destiny and Divine Mission. However, war in this country has always also had its secular counterpart - the idea of U.S. exceptionalism and its need to spread "democracy." It has also always been aided by linguistic jujitsu: war is actually peace. This is not a page from former president George W. Bush warped lexicon. Truthfully, all of history's despots have made the same claim; the more war, the more peace. Thus the nation inherits not simply an insatiable thirst for war, but a spiritual imprimatur to go with it.

At the core of this ideology is dehumanization. As long as U.S. lives are kept to a minimum, the nation's leaders do not have to account for the killing of hundreds of thousands of the "enemy." The loss of life is irrelevant - especially with the use of drone technology - as long as leaders employ the use of phrases such as peace, democracy and national security.

But dehumanization is old news. Back to the economic argument about the nation being too broke to afford health care or it being a crime to saddle the next generation with permanent debt because of Obama's intent to impose a government-run socialized and rationed health care system.

As tempting as it is to call it Bush-logic or Bush-Math or the world according to Bush-Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice, the truth is, we are now long-past that era. Yet, under president Obama - and despite his Nobel Peace Prize - we continue to live under the same nonsensical policies that have brought us to the brink of bankruptcy. Worse, this administration continues to support virtually all of the Bush-Cheney war policies. This includes defending the unchecked right of the executive to trample upon the Constitution - all under the guise of national security and "keeping the nation safe." This also includes shirking from his Constitutional responsibilities in terms of holding the former administration legally accountable for foisting upon the world a clearly illegal war.

It defies logic how the nation's political class manages to discuss the war(s) and health care reform as though they were unrelated. The actual price tag (more than a trillion dollars) on both wars has already far exceeded the projected cost of the president's health care reform. That does not take into account all the added costs from the tens of thousands of veterans who are returning with permanent physical and psychological injuries that in many cases will require lifetime medical care.

Beyond the moral and political arguments, it makes perfect economic sense to stop both wars. It would be nice if the same politicians who invoke economic arguments regarding the un-affordability of health care reform used the same logic for fighting wars. Perhaps a fiscally conservative Congressional bill is in order: the United States shall not engage in war unless it is fully paid for; the United States shall not engage in war if it contributes to the nation's deficit.

Regardless of what the insurance and pharmaceutical industries have to say in regards to health care reform, the majority of the U.S. public still wants the Democrats to find their backbones. The majority will now also hope [push] that President Obama uses the moral power of his Nobel to actually end both wars.

About Me: This commentary appeared online at www.sanfernandosun.com. Rodriguez can be reached at Xcolumn@gmail.com.

Disgruntled feels: Shocked! The US' number one shock jock captured headlines again this week. Surprisingly, it was not some racist comment to warm the cockles of his dedicated listeners' hearts that warranted the prime time coverage. Rush Limbaugh was tossed from a group of investors attempting to purchase a piece of the ownership of the St. Louis Rams football team. Like most of the National Football League (NFL) teams, the Rams players are majority black, even though the owners are mostly white. The news that Rush wanted a piece of the action was greeted with an avalanche of opposition. Players, owners and others vicariously attached to the sports told the shock jock to beat it; his brand of racism is unwanted among NFL owners! Imagine that! Now, if the rest of the country rejected such shockingly overt racism, the US may actually be on the road to becoming a color-blind society like the one envisioned by Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Disgruntled wants to know: This week, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana justice of the peace Keith Bardwell refused to issue a marriage license to Beth Humphrey, 30, and 32-year-old Terence McKay. The interracial couple from Hammond, Louisiana has indicated in press reports that they will consult the U.S. Justice Department about filing a discrimination complaint. Bardwell claims his decision in the Humphrey-McKay denial of a marriage license is not unique; he refuses to issue one for any interracial couple. Bardwell claims he is not a racist; his reason for taking this position is based on an overriding concern for the children born out of these unions. He fears mixed-race children will not be accepted in either black or white society. Bardwell contends he is not a racist because he has a ton of black friends that he treats like everyone else, even welcoming them to his home, where they are allowed to use the bathroom. In this enlightened age, can anyone say without a doubt that Bardwell is not a racist?

Disgruntled says: After meeting with President Barack Obama and Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sought to defer UN debate on the Goldstone Report until next March. Commissioned by the United Nations, the Goldstone Report accuses both the Palestinians and Israelis of "war crimes" and possible crimes against humanity during Israel's incursion into Gaza. The US and Israel have expressed serious concerns about the report labeling it unbalanced, since its harshest criticism and most serious war crimes and human rights violations were leveled against Israel. In response to reports of Abbas' request, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip mounted huge demonstrations. Needless to say, Abbas has rescinded his request, but it has weakened his hold on power. Many see his action in this matter as those of a traitor. His failure to press for an open debate and rapid resolution of the Goldstone findings is a betrayal of his long-suffering people.

Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls

Email www.baltimoresun.com ...By Ron Smith...Perpetual war is here -- and Americans are getting used to it...In a recent television interview, former career diplomat and one-time Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger said he sees another Vietnam debacle shaping up in Afghanistan but that there is no way to walk away from it, since to do so would be to suffer a loss of America's credibility. He bemoans another quagmire, yet says we must go ahead and be mired. Good heavens. No wonder ordinary Americans are reading the tea leaves the way they are. Another poll, this one by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, shows these same Americans to be hawkish when it comes to Iran and its nuclear ambitions. The poll showed that 61 percent of the 1,500 respondents agreed with the idea that it is "more important to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it mean taking military action" than to "avoid military conflict." Why are we so heavily invested in Central Asia? We're told it's to prevent al-Qaeda from reinfesting Afghanistan and using it for training and staging attacks against us, but the real reason, the Great Game if you will, is the competition for the world's energy resources. The stakes are immense, and as long as we have our enormous military power - budgeted at $626 billion for the coming fiscal year - it will largely be directed at controlling the sources of the world's energy. Perpetual war is here, and we're apparently getting used to it.

Email www.rawstory.com "What is the greatest threat facing us now?" Powell asked. "People will say it's terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. ... The only thing that can really destroy us is us. We shouldn't do it to ourselves, and we shouldn't use fear for political purposes--scaring people to death so they will vote for you, or scaring people to death so that we create a terror-industrial complex." - Colin Powell, 2007 interview

Email www.rawstory.com ...While the president contemplates the generals' requests for more troops in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, an additional 13,000 in support forces have already been approved. Support forces, including engineers, medical personnel, intelligence experts and military police, generally do not garner much news coverage. According to a blip in The Post, these additional support forces will bring the Obama approved Afghanistan buildup to 34,000. By the end of the year, the number of US troops in Afghanistan is estimated to be around 65,000. To fund the troop buildup, Congress passed a $626 billion Defense bill that includes $128 billion for overseas military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. To date, according to an analysis by congressional researchers, the tally for Afghanistan is about $300 billion and more than $700 billion for Iraq since Sept. 11, 2001, a total of more than $1 trillion.