The AFP is reporting that the bombing of the Golden Domed Mosque “was the work of specialists” and that the “placing of explosives must have taken at least 12 hours.”

Construction Minister Jassem Mohammed Jaafar said, “Holes were dug into the mausoleum’s four main pillars and packed with explosives.

Then charges were connected together and linked to another charge placed just under the dome. The wires were then linked to a detonator which was triggered at a distance.”

Clearly, the bombing was not carried out by rogue elements in the disparate Iraqi resistance. This is the work of highly-trained saboteurs and bomb-experts who were executing a precision-demolition to incite sectarian violence. The blast bears all the hallmarks of a covert Intelligence-agency operation.

Who benefits from such a vicious attack on the foundations of Islamic identity and culture?   more »

The White House announced plans for George W. Bush to lay a wreath at the Mahatma Gandhi memorial in New Delhi this week.

While audacious in its shameless and extreme hypocrisy, this PR gambit is in character for the world's only superpower.

One of the main purposes of the Bush regime's media spin is to depict reality as its opposite. And Karl Rove obviously figured that mainstream U.S. media outlets, with few exceptions, wouldn't react with anywhere near the appropriate levels of derision or outrage.

Presidential rhetoric aside, Gandhi's enthusiasm for nonviolence is nearly matched by Bush's enthusiasm for violence.

The commander in chief regularly proclaims his misty-eyed pride in U.S. military actions that destroy countless human lives with massive and continual techno-violence.

But the Bushian isn't quite 180 degrees from the Gandhian. The president of the United States is not exactly committed to violence; what he wants is an end to resistance.   more »

The collapsing power of the US hegemon is everywhere evident. It is evident in the inability to successfully occupy Iraq or even Baghdad.

It is evident in the growing military cooperation between North and South Korea, and it is evident it the revolt in the Indian government against Prime Minister Singh’s nuclear agreement with the US.

Indians say this agreement subjects India to US hegemony and represents America’s attempt to block India’s pioneering research on thorium as a nuclear fuel. Opposition parties have told Singh that if he signs the agreement, they will bring down his government.

The entire world now recognizes that America has lost its economic power and is dependent on the rest of the world to finance its budget and trade deficits. The US no longer holds the cards. American real incomes are falling, except for the rich.

Jobs for university graduates are scarce, and advanced technology products must be imported from China. The US is a rapidly declining power and may soon end up as nothing but a tinpot dictatorship.   more »

In truth, Harry Whittington, like those with whom he cavorts, is a multi-millionnaire, and a major Republican player and donor. Bush appointed Harry to chair the Texas regulatory Funeral Service Commission in 1999, just in time to force the commission to settle a whistleblower lawsuit shortly before the 2000 election.

Harry managed to keep Bush out of the courts and out of jail in the burgeoning Funeralgate scandal [see note below*] that theatened to engulf not only Bush but Robert Waltrip, owner of Service Corportion International (SCI), the largest funeral corporation in Texas.

As well as Joe Albaugh, Bush crony, campaign manager and former FEMA director; Texas Attorney General (now Senator) John Cornyn; and, of course, Bush counsel (now U.S. Attorney General) Alberto Gonzales.

Dick's world is an incestuous world whose core is Texas power and money -- lots of it. As Sydney Blumenthal writes in Salon, both Dick and Karl Rove literally owe their present positions to Katharine and her family.

"Anne Armstrong, Katharine's mother, was on the board of Halliburton that made Dick Cheney its chief executive officer," Blumenthal said. "Tobin Armstrong, Katharine's father, financed Karl Rove & Co., Rove's political consulting firm."

Blumenthal says Katharine is a lobbyist for Houston law firm Baker Botts, founded in the 19th Century by the family of James A. Baker, former secretary of state, Poppy Bush's buddy and the architect of the 2000 presidential coup d`etat that gave the presidency to Bush and Dick.   more »

The British media is twittering on about what's likely the top story in cycling news.

Remember back in July at the G8 summit in Scotland when President Bush, struggling to ride a bike, wave, and speak at the same time, ended up crashing into and injuring a police officer in full riot gear?

Details of the incident were sketchy until now, as Bush and the ever-faithful Scott McClellan attempted to skirt embarrassment, but the official police report of the incident has just been released and, among other things, it describes Bush, amusingly, as a "falling object." What a lovely mental image.

As the president passed the junction at speed he raised his left arm from the handlebars to wave to the police officers present while shouting "thanks, you guys, for coming."

As he did this he lost control of the cycle, falling to the ground, causing both himself and his bicycle to strike [the officer] on the lower legs. [The officer] fell to the ground, striking his head.

The president continued along the ground for approximately five meters, causing himself a number of abrasions.

   more »

So, Guantanamo Bay is an "anomaly" is it Mr Blair? Caging, manacling, beating, isolating, threatening, terrorising, torturing 500 - fathers, brothers, husbands, sons - seems to you just an oddity, an eccentricity, a peculiarity then?

How could you not choke on your own words and splutter with shame even as you uttered them.

For four years they have hovered between life and death, some now praying for the latter, as I would too. They have to endure existence without time and reason, submit to brute power, pray in open enclosure while they are bitten and burnt, denied basic human dignity.

Only nine inmates have thus far been charged. Having won their right to Habeas Corpus and to make their pleas in the US Supreme Court, that other dishonest charmer, Senator John McCain had that right removed. You, Mr Blair, know evil and collude with it. Your faithful oligarchy and obliging journalists are no better.

Human rights lie bloody and tattered in the US, Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Pakistan, secret "extraordinary rendition" centres on the European mainland and in our own prisons. And all the while you swish the cloak of virtue.   more »

Freedom is a principle that must be applied indiscriminately. We have to defend Irving in order to defend ourselves.

Once the laws are in place to jail dissidents of Holocaust history, what's to stop such laws from being applied to dissenters of religious or political histories, or to skepticism of any sort that deviates from the accepted canon?

'More women died in the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber at Auschwitz."

Is this line more offensive to Jews than an editorial cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad with a turban bomb is to Muslims?

Apparently it is, because the editorial cartoonists are still free, whereas the man who made this statement — British author David Irving — was sentenced this week to three years in an Austrian jail for violating a law that says it is a crime if a person "denies, grossly trivializes, approves or seeks to justify the National Socialist genocide or other National Socialist crimes against humanity."   more »

27 FEBRUARY

George Clooney for President!

It's All About the Oil, Stupid!

Paul Krugman Comes Close to Criticizing Capitalism

When Pakistan Falls...bin Laden Will Be Honorary President

Robert Fisk: Bush Man Speak [With Forked Tongue]

"Good Americans" Condone Torture

Bob Herbert Attacks the Military-Industrial Complex

America's "Divide and Rule" Tactics in Iraq