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Healthy Dose: Medical Breakthrough Could Change Global Politics

This is my latest piece for Truthout.org. Below are some extensive excerpts; the whole piece is available here.

I. The Biochemistry of Hope
More war in Iraq. A new front in Somalia. Ships, troops and planes lurking on the borders of Iran. Every day seems to deepen the shadow over the dark valley of our times. Driven by a reckless regime in Washington and the increasingly strident reaction it provokes, and by growing financial and social inequities stranding billions of people in

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Annals of Liberation: Bush-Backed Somali Warlords Muzzle Media

Somalia Shuts Down Four Broadcasters (Toronto Star, via the ever-vigilant Angry Arab) [Update below]

Well, that didn’t take long, did it? Excerpts:

Somalia’s Ethiopian-backed transitional government shut down four broadcasters yesterday, including a major network founded by three Somali-born Canadians, who were trying to help rebuild their violence-ravaged homeland.

“At about 1 p.m. we got a letter instructing us to close the station,” said Ali Iman Sharmarke, a managing
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Air America: Civilian Death Toll Grows in Somalia

Oxfam, the highly regarded UK charity, says that 70 innocent civilians – nomadic tribesmen – have been killed in air attacks by the U.S. and its Ethiopian “allies” now fighting to install their pet warlords in power in Somalia. From Reuters:

Air attacks against fugitive Islamists in south Somalia in recent days have mistakenly targeted nomadic herdsmen gathering round fires, killing 70, British-based aid agency Oxfam said on Friday.

“Under international law, there is a duty to distinguish between military
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Marching to Persia: First Blows Struck in Bush’s War on Iran

*Below is the post that I somehow lost yesterday.*

Hard on the heels of Bush’s bellicose language against Iran in his “New Way Forward” speech comes news that American forces stormed an Iranian consulate in Iraq in a heavily armed raid – including five helicopters – with threats to kill the Iranian diplomats inside if they did not surrender.

As Glenn Greenwald notes: “Isn’t it a definitive act of war for one country to storm the consulate of another, threaten to kill them

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Mondo Apocalypto: Somalis Sacrificed for Bush’s Speech

As the U.S. bombing of Somalia enters its third day (see earlier post here), Tom Raum of AP offers a telling insight as to why at least 27 Somali citizens have been killed: to give some extra oomph to Bush’s “New Way Forward” snake oil pitch tonight. Bush and his allies will use the “attack on al-Qaeda targets in Somalia” as a way to morph the unprovoked war against Iraq — which had no ties to al Qaeda or any terrorist group that threatened the United States —

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Blood Meridian: Bush’s High Crimes of Torture and War

If you want to see the depravity and filth that festers in the core of the Bush Administration made plain, read the story below. The regimen of torture and suffering being inflicted on captives in Bush’s War of Terror is not some sort of aberrant overreaction to concerns about national security and public safety: these specifically designed, deliberately induced tortures are the expression

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US Attacks Somalia, Taking Sides With Former Enemy Warlords

UPDATED VERSION
The United States has committed an act of war against Somalia (as Buzzflash noted), launching a gunship attack in pursuit of “suspected al Qaeda operatives.” Several people were killed when US p
lanes “strafed the village of Hayo near the Kenyan border” and possibly the village of Ras Kamboni, the Guardian reports. It is highly unlikely that whole villages can be strafed without killing some innocent civilians. But then again, George W.

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Claiming the Prize: Bush Surge Aimed at Securing Iraqi Oil

This is my latest piece for Truthout.org, with some updating.

I. The Twin Engines of Bush’s War
The reason that George W. Bush insists that “victory” is achievable in Iraq is not because he is delu
ded or isolated or ignorant or detached from reality or ill-advised. No, it’s that his definition of “victory” is different from those bruited about in his

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We Are Devo: Bush Picks New Flunky to Fan War and Tyranny

The excellent Larisa Alexandrova at Raw Story has the raw story behind the exit of John “Death Squad” Negroponte from the intelligence throne and his replacement by corporate/covert apparatchik Michael McConnell. It seems that ol’ “Death Squad” is not bloodthirsty or devious enough for Dick Cheney, who is orchestrating an Iraq-style “mendacity shop” to manipulate and manufacture intelligence in support of a military strike on Iran.

(Oh by the way, there’s going

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