When Bush speaks about the security interests of the US, he is not speaking about the safety and well-being of the American people.

He is speaking of the geo-strategic interests of the American ruling elite, which considers the establishment of a hegemonic position in the oil-rich Middle East to be central to those interests.

Moreover, every would-be dictator claims that his authoritarian measures are taken to ensure national security. Everything else must be sacrificed, including democratic rights.

This is the basic line that has been utilized by the government since 9/11 to lay siege to constitutionally protected democratic rights, in the name of the “war on terror.”   more »

Sunday's video, dedicated to Muslims who have left their homes to fight Jihad, included a series of animated scenes showing green fields overlaid with Arabic names written in gold, representing Arab fighters who had died in Afghanistan.

Following one such sequence, the leader of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan appeared praising his fellow fighters.

"Your hero sons, courageous knights have left to the land of Afghanistan ... the land of Jihad and martyrdom, answering the call for the sake of God to kick out the occupier who has desecrated the pure soil of Afghanistan," said Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed.

In another clip, a man identified as Mujahid Haidarah al-Hawn was shown sitting in front of a tree with an AK-47 paying tribute to a Syrian fighter, Osama al-Hamawi, who died in an air raid in Afghanistan.   more »

The 'Rev. Billy' has spent much

of the past decade condemning consumerism:

"Mickey Mouse is the anti-Christ!"

He's campaigned against the "Disneyfication" of Times Square

and warned that Wal-Mart is part of

the "consumer axis of evil"

   more »

Keywords: consumerism, capitalism, performance

Pentagon officials say that Gen Petraeus's own staff are now devising plans for a slow withdrawal of troops after March next year - just nine months after the surge was fully operational - with 30,000 sent home by September next year.

Planners at the Pentagon are working on even more radical proposals to halve troop levels by next summer, a cut of 79,000 troops.

The original architect of the surge strategy, Gen Jack Keane, told The Sunday Telegraph that he expected American troop withdrawals to begin next spring, with more than 30,000 troops coming home by the end of the year.

He said: "There shouldn't be a fixed timetable, but I would say you could start to reduce numbers in the spring and summer of 2008 in conditions that will permit us to transition to Iraqi forces. We could get back to pre-surge levels."   more »

Back in 1929, Lawrence of Arabia [TE Lawrence]

wrote the entry for "Guerrilla"

in the 14th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica

It is a chilling read because it contains

so ghastly a message to the American armies in Iraq

Has the US General David Petraeus read it? Has Bush?

Have any of the tired American columnists

whose anti-Arab bias is wobbling close to racism,

bothered to study Lawrence's wisdom?

   more »

Keywords: fisk, blame, debacle, media, iraq