By Kenneth J. Theisen 

The Obama Administration has once again taken a stand in favor of covering up the crimes of the Bush regime.

On May 27, 2011 in an amicus brief, Obama’s Acting U.S. Solicitor General, Neal Katyal, advised the Supreme Court not to hear a 2004 lawsuit that claims employees of U.S. corporate military contractors CACI and Titan (now L-3 Services) participated in torture and other heinous and illegal acts committed against Iraqi detainees while they were employed to provide interrogation and interpretation services, respectively, at Abu Ghraib and other detention facilities in Iraq. The case is Haidar Muhsin Saleh, et al. v. Titan Corporation, et al.

By Glen Ford 

By Chris Floyd  

Professor As'ad AbuKhalil points us to this telling comment in The Economist, on the Israeli massacre of unarmed citizens on its borders this week. An excerpt:

FOR many years now, we've heard American commentators bemoan the violence of the Palestinian national movement. If only Palestinians had learned the lessons of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, we hear, they'd have had their state long ago. Surely no Israeli government would have violently suppressed a non-violent Palestinian movement of national liberation seeking only the universally recognised right of self-determination. ...

In any case, if you're among those who have made the argument that Israelis would give Palestinians a state if only the Palestinians would learn to employ Ghandhian tactics of non-violent protest, it appears your moment of truth has arrived. As my colleague writes, what happened on Nakba Day was Israel's "nightmare scenario: masses of Palestinians marching, unarmed, towards the borders of the Jewish state, demanding the redress of their decades-old national grievance." ...

By Chris Floyd

The Chilean poet Gonzalo Rojas died late last month at the age of 93, having survived persecution and exile at the hands of American client-tyrant Augusto Pinochet. His obituary in the Guardian quoted these apt Rojas lines:

I tear out the visions
I tear out my eyes every day
I will not and cannot
see men die each day
I prefer to be of stone
to be in darkness
than to tolerate the disgust
of going soft inside
of smiling right and left
and getting on with business

Unfortunately, America's bipartisan imperium is still "getting on with business" in Latin America in much the same manner as in Pinochet's day. And yes, this includes the progressive Nobel Peace Laureate (and rootin' tootin' hit man) in the White House.

Via Revolution Newspaper

Ask yourself: Which country in the world, from its beginning to the present time, has the bloodiest history of genocide... slavery... invasions... coups, installing and backing brutal regimes... bombings... massacres and mass destruction—including the use of nuclear weapons?

Yes... when it comes to terror within its borders and around the world...

By Debra Sweet 

This article was written in 2007 for Revolution newspaper, but its themes and lessons remain highly relevant to all those working and seeking to build powerful resistance and opposition to the wars being waged by the U.S.

By Sunsara Taylor

As the U.S.'s crimes against humanity in the Middle East mount, it is of tremendous importance for people in the U.S. to honestly confront and rise to the profound challenges and responsibilities before us in bringing this to a halt. In this spirit, I welcomed the argument made by Hadas Thier and Aaron Hess in the Socialist Worker on April 20, 2007 entitled “Standing up to Islamophobia,” even while I find their central arguments to not only be wrong, but harmful.

I do not doubt that Thier and Hess want to oppose U.S. wars of aggression and their accompanying assault on Muslims, Arabs and South Asians living in the U. S. But they end up arguing for an approach that will neither meet the actual challenges of opposing the U.S. “crusade,” nor bring forward new, truly liberating possibilities here and around the world. They end up in this unfortunate place through the use of bad logic, flawed methodology, and a duck-from-unpleasant-realities epistemology (method for arriving at what is true).

Let's look at how this is so.

By Chris Floyd

Dear Good Concerned Engaged Enlightened Rule-of-Law Liberal Progressives: Is it clear enough for you now? Does he have to spell it out for you, slowly, using short and simple words, and maybe some cartoons to make it clear? Your noble Nobel Peace Laureate – bringer of hope and change, restorer of the rule of law, world-historical paradigm-shifter, etc., etc. – has just publicly (not to mention arbitrarily) committed the nation to “the supreme international crime”: aggressive war.

He has pledged the blood and treasure of the United States to "regime change" in Libya: that is to say, an act of military aggression designed to overthrow the government of a sovereign nation which has not attacked your own country nor posed the slightest threat to it. This is, of course, precisely the same blatantly illegal posture taken by that great monstrous bogey-man of all good concerned engaged enlightened rule-of-law liberal progressives everywhere, George W. Bush, in his invasion of Iraq.

By Dennis Loo

I’m sure you’ve heard people say it: “Let’s make the system work”: The system is not working properly and efforts for change should be directed at getting the system to produce different outcomes; any other paths are unrealistic. Today I received, for instance, this from Truthout.org. For those not familiar with it, it is a liberal news and analysis site. Here are the first three paragraphs:

“Dear Readers,



“Yesterday President Obama laid out a broad plan and committed to fighting for some of the most essential social contracts on which our country relies. The next step is accountability - something that has been lost in the shuffle over the past 27 months since his inauguration. 



“Truthout has been experimenting with new programs like ‘Solutions: Making Government Work,’ in which experts have been digging into the tax-dollar black hole we call the Pentagon and proposing real changes. And we recently launched ‘Walking the Walk,’ a series that showcases creative budget ideas playing out in real communities - such as the story of how Oregon balanced its budget through a unifying tax education campaign.


“Our work to bring new ideas into the conversation and to maintain an independent, noncommercial platform for free thought is key to keeping politicians honest. We’ll never be shills for any political party - instead we’ll continue to represent our readers’ needs for real information and a thoughtful expression of the progressive morality.”

Let’s begin with the first paragraph of their appeal. They say that Obama has “committed to fighting for some of the most essential contracts,” but we need to hold him accountable for this because he has not been true to his promises on his other commitments which have “been lost in the shuffle.” I am wondering after reading this: what has Obama done to merit Truthout thinking that this time Obama’s commitment is real?

The war in Libya growing more illegal by the day

The illegal war in Libya

Corporate Media’s Capital Crimes Against Libya – and Humanity

McKinney Fact-Finders Show Libyan Deaths, Injuries Not “Propaganda”

Apartheid, Sand Nigger Style: The Tunisian Model for a New Colonialism in Libya?

Veterans for Peace: Statement on Military Intervention in Libya

History shows us that this type of intervention rarely goes without blowback and unintended consequences, perhaps with a $1.4 trillion deficit and a domestic budget in crisis our best outcome would be to support peaceful alternatives and not add to the violence of a Libyan civil war at all.

Phyllis Bennis: U.K. Sends Troops into Libya as International Coalition Expands Mission to Include Regime Change (Democracy Now! Interview April 19, 2011)

Debra Sweet:  This is no "Humanitarian Intervention" in Libya

Flier: Are the U.S. Wars on the Middle East wrong because they cost so much?

Margaret Kimberley: Obama, Libya, and Our Challenge: the True Anti-War Movement Must Reawaken

Revolution Newspaper: True Stories of U.S. "Humanitarian" Intervention

William Blum: Barack "I'd kill for a peace prize" Obama

Jill McLaughlin: Don’t be Confused: U.S. “Intervention” in Libya is Immoral and Illegitimate Too

Sunsara Taylor (video): No Good Can Come from U.S. Led Intervention in Libya!

Kathleen Barry: Libyan Liberation – Is There Another Way?

Middle East Research and Information Project: Of Principle and Peril

Watch: Left Forum Panel on Resisting War with Pardiss Kebriaei, Matthis Chiroux, Eric Stoner and Debra Sweet

Hamid Dabashi: Moral bankruptcy in Libya war

More