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 . '/' . substr('9781555976286',-6,3) . '/' . '9781555976286' . '.jpg'; ?>)
By Aatish Taseer
$16.00
$16.00
$22
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israellobbybook.com
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The editor of the provocative new bestseller by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt asks the authors (pictured above) whether their book is good for the Jews and good for America.
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foreignpolicy.com
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The Washington Post has it on good authority that Pakistan is losing its war against Taliban and al-Qaida forces operating within its borders, due in no small part to Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s tenuous hold on power.
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facebook.com
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By Chris Hedges — If you are a young Muslim American and head off to the Middle East for a spell in a fundamentalist “madrassa,” or religious school, Homeland Security will probably greet you at the airport when you return. But if you are an American Jew and you join hundreds of teenagers from Europe and Mexico for an eight-week training course run by the Israel Defense Forces, you can post your picture wearing an Israeli army uniform and holding an automatic weapon on MySpace.
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AP photo / Gerald Herbert
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By Scott Ritter — If you think the Iraq war is a disaster, just wait until we start bombing Iran. The countdown to another war is both real and terrifying, Ritter argues, and, distasteful though it may seem, it won’t be stopped so long as Iraq holds on to the spotlight.
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By Chris Hedges — In his book “Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia,” John Gray warns that as the era of liberal intervention in international affairs wanes, it is being replaced with “primitive versions of religion” that will be used to fuel apocalyptic violence.
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By Tom Engelhardt — There’s a lot of talk about religious fundamentalism these days, but how much do we really know about the brand of Christian fundamentalism that has developed in America since, and in response to, the Enlightenment? Author James Carroll holds forth on the subject in this interview with TomDispatch editor Tom Engelhardt.
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By Will Durst — Political comedian Will Durst provides the answers to some frequently asked (and vexing) questions about Gen. David Petraeus’ testimony.
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The recent glut of video communiques from Osama bin Laden reminded us of this classic “Family Guy” spoof.
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By Ellen Goodman — After 9/11, my husband started each morning reaching for the remote and saying, “Let’s see if they caught Osama.” This greeting began as an expectation, evolved into a lingering hope, and finally deteriorated into irony.
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video.on.nytimes.com
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Mourners, visitors and public figures converged in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania to observe the anniversary of Sept. 11 at or near the sites where the terrorist attacks took place six years ago.
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fred08.com
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Fred Thompson has just barely entered the race, but he’s already stepped in it. First the candidate painted Osama bin Laden as an irrelevant figure, but later said he had to be “caught and killed.” Then, after more reflection, he said bin Laden should get due process, which an aide later defined as Gitmo-style interrogation.
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The newest video message from Osama bin Laden makes no threats, but calls for Americans to reject war and convert to Islam. This excerpt shows the al-Qaida chief bragging about his impact on Bush’s rhetoric and foreign policy.
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cbsnews.com
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The word on the street, also known as the news media, is that Osama bin Laden plans to mark the anniversary of 9/11 with one of his famous YouTube-caliber videos. Expect anti-American vitriol, terror alerts and long lines at the airport—as long as our government is still paying attention to these things, that is. Update: video released.
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smh.com.au
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A newly released internal CIA report lays the “ultimate blame” for a lack of strategy to combat al-Qaida before 9/11 on former Director George Tenet, who calls the charge “flat wrong.” Congress ordered the declassification of the scathing document, which was completed in 2005.
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KSLA News of Shreveport, La., is standing by its report on “Clergy Response Teams,” trained by the federal government to pacify an angry citizenry in the event of martial law. The idea being, as far as we can tell, that religious leaders are ideally suited to the task of explaining to people why they should give up their freedom for the “better good.”
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thewe.cc
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After suffering three years of isolation, alleged torture and constitutionally suspect detainment, Jose Padilla has been convicted of terrorism conspiracy charges. The government’s key piece of evidence was an al-Qaida application, which Padilla was accused of filling out in Arabic, using an alias.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Some lawmakers were furious over the administration’s actions regarding a surveillance bill, but in the end members of the majority party in Congress caved in under political pressure.
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abc.net.au
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Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has criticized the tough talk coming out of Washington and the presidential campaign as counterproductive. President Bush and Barack Obama, among others, have recently raised the possibility of attacking targets in Pakistan without necessarily consulting that nation’s government.
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By Eugene Robinson — It wasn’t so long ago that thinking the government was reading your mail, listening to your phone calls, tracking your movements and snapping photos along the way meant you were just paranoid. Ah, the good old days.
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In case you missed it, this week’s original podcast features Robert Higgs, author of “Neither Liberty nor Safety.” He speaks with Truthdig’s James Harris and Joshua Scheer about how political opportunists and fear mongerers are gobbling up our individual liberties.
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Were the CIA to potentially, maybe, have a detention and interrogation program it would now have to adhere to President Bush’s new executive order prohibiting cruel and inhuman treatment of detainees. It’s still unclear whether water-boarding remains on the menu.
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AP Photo / Ron Edmonds
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A new report about terrorism issued by U.S. intelligence agencies brought the sobering news that, while groups like al-Qaida may be somewhat constrained in terms of their ability to attack American targets at home, the threat they pose will continue to be significant in coming years.
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Department of Homeland Security
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Robert Higgs author of “Neither Liberty Nor Safety” speaks with Truthdig’s James Harris and Joshua Scheer about how political opportunists and fear mongerers are gobbling up our individual liberties.
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By Marie Cocco — Iraq has, for years since our supposed victory, been in a spiral of death and political despair that the American military cannot stop. Despite the daily reports of carnage, Republican senators pushed to stay the course. Now with re-election campaigns underway, suddenly even Republicans are seeing the light ... kind of.
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By Eugene Robinson — Why is it that since 9/11 the U.S. hasn’t seen terrorist bombing attempts such as the ones that fizzled last week in Britain? The reason may rest in America’s genius for manufacturing possibility.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Two men have been detained for allegedly attempting to drive a flaming Jeep Cherokee into the main terminal at Glasgow Airport. Only a day before, two cars were found in London packed with explosives and nails. Britain’s national terrorism threat level remains “critical,” the highest possible.
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What is Ann Coulter’s beef with John Edwards? The human scandal factory who once referred to the candidate as a “faggot” has re-emerged from hate radio silence to suggest that she should have said she hoped Edwards would be killed by terrorists. We already know nothing she says should be taken seriously, so why is “Good Morning America” giving her a soapbox?
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A two-year study of the World Trade Center Towers’ collapse by Purdue University has reaffirmed the findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which suggested that the buildings crashed under their own weight after crucial support columns and fireproofing were damaged or destroyed. The research team released an animation of the first plane’s collision to show how heat and flame eventually brought the towers down.
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By Marie Cocco — Now we’ve bungled our own kangaroo courts. Two military judges, acting separately in the cases of two alleged terrorists, have dismissed war crimes charges against both. The legal reasoning is technical. But this breakdown is no technicality—it is farce.
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Four men, including a former cabinet minister from Guyana, have been arrested for plotting to bomb the jet fuel pipeline at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport. They never got beyond the planning and research stage, but the FBI was able to gather fairly incriminating evidence. Once again, investigation and police work have managed to thwart terrorism where stealth bombers and tanks have failed.
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Jeff Pflueger
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By Dahr Jamail — Israel’s 2006 military campaign in Lebanon was meant to injure and embarrass Hezbollah, but in the months since, the militant organization has only grown in popularity and prestige among many Lebanese.
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Rudy Giuliani was widely praised for his demagogic smackdown of Ron Paul during the second Republican debate, feigning shock and outrage at Paul’s explanation of “blowback.” But Giuliani’s performance, while a crowd-pleaser, exposed the superficiality of his terror-fighting credentials. As CNN’s Roland Martin writes: “Giuliani must be an idiot to not have heard Paul’s rationale before.”
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While speaking with Fox News about his debate confrontation with Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani trotted out that tired old slogan that utterly fails to explain anything. Also, Giuliani tells Sean Hannity, “If you can’t face reality, you can’t lead.” We couldn’t agree more.
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Despite fighting them “over there,” terrorism has grown more frequent and bloody. According to the State Department’s latest assessment of terrorist activity, Iraq contained nearly half of all attacks in 2006. The number of attacks worldwide went up 28.5 percent from the previous year, claiming 40.2 percent more lives.
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Imagine enduring five years of imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay, finally winning your release and then learning you had no place to go. Eighty-two detainees have been cleared for release by the U.S., but remain at the facility, either because their home countries refuse to take them or they would face torture if repatriated. What’s worse, the U.S., Europe and other allies have all but washed their hands of the situation.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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A car bomb explosion in the holy city of Karbala has killed 68 people. After the attack, an angry crowd gathered and began attacking Iraqi police, accusing them of failing to protect the population. Elsewhere in Iraq, nine U.S. soldiers have been killed in the last two days.
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Saudi Arabian authorities say they have captured 172 militants who were planning a series of attacks around the country. The royal family began a more aggressive approach toward extremists, which it calls a “deviant group,” four years ago after attacks targeted the nation’s oil industry.
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AP Photo / Mark Wilson, Pool
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Jumana Musa, advocacy director for domestic human rights and international justice at Amnesty International, speaks with Truthdig about the war on human rights, why conditions at Guantanamo have only gotten worse and why she has hope for the future.
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By Amy Goodman — A terrorist lives in Miami. He is not in hiding, or part of some sleeper cell. He’s an escaped convict, wanted internationally for blowing up a jetliner. His name is Luis Posada Carriles. As the nation was focused on the Virginia Tech shooting, the Bush administration quietly allowed Posada’s release from a federal immigration detention center.
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Months before 9/11, French intelligence warned the CIA that al-Qaida was planning an attack involving airplanes, according to classified documents and former French intelligence officials. The information was vague and possibly misleading, but it speaks to the intelligence community’s inability to coalesce fragmentary warnings into something concrete and comprehensive.
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The British government has officially quit using the term “war on terror,” arguing that Bush’s slogan has backfired and, instead of weakening the world’s polyglot bands of terrorists, has in fact strengthened them.
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Truthdigger of the Week: Medea Benjamin
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