Blair was re-elected with only 35 per cent of the popular vote, and barely a fifth of the overall electorate-the lowest percentage secured by any governing party in recent European history

A majority of the population opposed the war in Iraq; a majority of the population favors withdrawing British troops; 66 percent believe that the attacks on London were the result of Blair's decision to send troops to Iraq.

This is also the view of important sections of the Establishment, including MI5, the intelligence agency whose web-site makes the link of Iraq to the terror attacks. Many measures proposed were tried during the years of the Irish 'troubles'.

Special courts sanctioned imprisonment without trial, etc. But judges were more reliable in those days. That is why Blair is proposing that judges who try Muslim suspects should themselves be security-vetted. In other words files will be opened to determine the reliability of judges. The words of an authoritarian.   more »

Mid-August 2005 may be remembered as a moment in U.S. history when the president could no longer get away with the media trick of solemnly patting death on its head.

Unreality is a hallmark of media coverage for war. Yet -- most of all -- war is about death and suffering. War makers thrive on abstractions. Their media successes depend on evasion.

President Bush has tried to keep the loved ones of America's war dead at middle distance, bathed in soft fuzzy light: close enough to exploit for media purposes, distant enough to insulate the commander in chief's persona from the intrusion of wartime mourning in America.

What's going on this week, outside the perimeter of the ranch-style White House in Crawford, is some reclamation of reality in public life. Cindy Sheehan has disrupted the media-scripted shadow play of falsity.   more »

The powerful Jewish lobby that has shaped our policies in both the Middle East and Saudi Arabia (oil) provided Bush with the silly rationale that the Islamic world hates Americans (and Westerners) because they are envious of our freedom.

Rubbish! The truth is very simple: There is no natural conflict between the West and Islam. Bin Laden hates our policies that are skewed to protect and benefit Israel and the kingdom of the princes of oil.

The Palestinians simply want an independent country in order to take their place in the family of nations, and bin Laden wants a different kind of government for the Saudis.

We desperately need to re-examine our foreign policy vis-À-vis the Islamic world. We need to know who our enemy is, why he is our enemy and what his objectives are. We need to stop pretending. President Bush and Blair have not even defined the problem correctly. How can they solve it?

Our policies reek of hypocrisy, and they are the No. 1 recruiter bin Laden has. We need a big change that is not skewed in favor of the Jewish world.   more »

Bush uses helicopter to enter and leave Texas ranch, to avoid confrontation with Cindy Sheehan

As the Iraq war continues to produce growing U.S. casualties and shrinking public support, President George W. Bush was forced yesterday to confront the protest of a grieving mother of a soldier killed in the war. But he still won't meet her.

As Cindy Sheehan camped out on a road leading to Mr. Bush's ranch near Crawford, Tex., for the sixth consecutive day, insisting she wants to speak to the President personally, Mr. Bush said he sympathizes with her plight, but rejected her call to pull the troops out of Iraq.

Ms. Sheehan's 24-year-old son, Casey, was killed in an ambush in Sadr City, Baghdad's sprawling Shia neighbourhood, last year, just five days after he arrived in Iraq.   more »

It was now more socially, politically, and academically acceptable to talk about empire and imperialism. For the conservatives, of course, this talk was about the global benefits of American empire.

In reality this means the spread of one form of American-styled democracy and capitalism to the autocratic, economically stagnant Middle East and the rest of the Second and Third Worlds for the benefit of international corporate capital, as well as to facilitate the flow of oil to the metropolitan center.

In both cases empire itself becomes a good, because it is held to be consistent with and beneficial to liberty and democracy (aka “free enterprise”).

It has been the tendency of most Americans was to apply the implicitly pejorative words empire and imperialism to the empires and imperial policies of other countries but not to those of their own country.

Instead of applying the E and I words to their own history, most Americans used euphemistic phrases such as “empire of liberty,” “manifest destiny,” “frontier expansionism,” “open door policy,” “Wilsonian mission,” “international security,” “free world,” “superpower responsibility, or credibility,” “global leadership,” “anti-communist containment,” “the American Century,” “the war on terrorism,” and “great power hegemony.”   more »

It is greed, both for materialistic wealth and consumerist euphoria that has transformed American society into one demanding ever-greater patterns of production and consumption, making us addicts to goods and services, making us dependent on foreign sources of resources and labor.

It is greed that has been responsible for the astronomical increase in property prices nationwide, creating a housing bubble that in short time will explode.

It is greed that has resulted in the perpetually expanding size of cookie-cutter homes, made from the wood of underdeveloped forests and jungles, creating entire suburbs erupting with McMansions, devoid of personality and individuality, giving the appearance of wealth while living as if sequestered in a colony of ants or inside a bee hive.

It is the demand exerted by the American people that has led to the horizontal expansion of non-dense suburban dwelling, saturated with block after block of mini-mall infrastructure and blacktop parking lots, resulting in mega-cities, ever-increasing air pollution, clogged-artery congestion and commutes, increased levels of inefficiency, misallocation of resources and a greater waste of non-renewable resources.   more »

The “War on Terror” is not really a war, and it’s certainly not on terror. It’s a brand. If the government was selling it for $$ it would have a logo. Instead they’re pitching it for obedience. Do what we say, and we’ll keep on keeping you safe from those terrorists.

Only we know where a lot of terrorists are, and we know where they cash their checks. This is unofficial. Officially, we cannot commit terrorism because our State Department restricts it, by definition, to the sub-national level.

Anyway, as I write this the brand is getting a little worn so the “War on Terror” is in the shop for a nomenclature change.

Freedom. Liberty. Democracy. Service. Flag. Honor. Country. All terms such as these default back to the government, as if licensed.   more »

My friends and I were on our way home from summer school classes that hot August day forty years ago. The smoke from burning stores a few blocks away choked our eyes, and seared our lungs.

In the distance we could hear the crackle of gunfire. The streets were strewn with empty liquor and cigarette cartons that had been hastily discarded by the horde of looters that for nearly four days roamed the streets near my house.

As a resident of the Watts curfew area that fateful summer, I remember not only the fires and the gunfire, but also the blind rage and desperation that drove the rioters as they pillaged stores and shouted, "burn baby burn" (taken from a slogan made popular by a local black DJ).

Many considered this a payback for the century of racism and violence against blacks. When Dr. Martin Luther King visited Watts in an effort to stop the violence, young toughs shouted him down.

The orgy of violence and destruction marked the end of an era for the non-violent civil rights struggle. To many poor blacks, non-violent marches and demonstrations seemed a worthless antidote to the cycle of poverty, violence and neglect.   more »