You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February 2006.
by Geov Parrish
Working for Change
As the inevitable waves of violence and counter-violence wear on, America is left with virtually no friends on any side, and virtually no credibility (other than its sheer military manpower, which it has been reluctant to deploy en masse) as a mediator that can stop the bloodshed.”
It’s almost impossible to overstate the importance of Wednesday Morning’s destruction of the Askari mosque, a key Shi’a shrine, in Samarra, Iraq.
by Haroon Siddiqui
Toronto Star
Those who in recent days have been lecturing Muslims about violence seem strangely out of touch with reality, or to be riding the high horse of hypocrisy.”
However much offense they might cause, cartoons don’t kill. Yet Muslims have been on a rampage about the caricaturing of the Prophet Muhammad. Isn’t their reaction wildly disproportionate?
And, why should the West take Muslims seriously when they routinely commit great crimes, such as blowing up the Shi’ite Golden Mosque in Iraq and killing Sunnis in retaliation?
The answer is that the Muslim world is in a deep crisis.
But Muslims alone cannot fix the mess, because it is not entirely of their making.
by Dennis Roddy
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Men are constantly splattering one another with all manner of projectiles, but the rule of thumb that I recall is that, after shooting someone it is a capital idea to summon the police. It cuts down on suspicion.
“The police conduct what in legal jargon is known as ‘an investigation,’ then issue something called ‘a report.’ If one is an officeholder voted on by the general electorate, it is also reasonable to issue what in government is called ‘a press release,’ preferably telling what is in high circles sometimes fancifully known as ‘the truth.’”
The etiquette of shooting a companion has not been entirely worked out for the Information Age, but it’s a fair bet the vice president has not contributed significantly to progress.
Yves Engler
Ottawa Citizen
Friday, February 17, 2006
We broke it, so now we must fix it.
In an important foreign policy test, the new Conservative government must come to terms with the shameful legacy of Canada’s role in Haiti over the past five years.
This week’s Haitian election, with its suspiciously delayed count, its crushed ballot boxes with thousands of completed ballots found at a garbage dump, its banning of the most popular political party and jailing of its leaders, its “let’s decide in the middle of the night to reach agreement on a winner,” should be an embarrassment to every Canadian taxpayer. We paid for this mess to the tune of more than $30 million.
But, incredibly, the farcical Haitian election is only the tip of another Liberal party scandal.
Leonard Weinglass, Le Monde Diplomatique
Five Cuban men, were arrested in Miami, Florida in September, 1998 and charged with 26 counts of violating the federal laws of the United States. 24 of those charges were relatively minor and technical offenses, such as the use of false names and failure to register as foreign agents. None of the charges involved violence in the U.S., the use of weapons, or property damage.
The Five had come to the United States from Cuba following years of violence perpetrated by a network of terrorist made up of armed mercenaries drawn from the Cuban exile community in Florida. For over forty years these groups have been tolerated, and even hosted, by successive U.S. Governments.
Feb. 19, 2006
If Palestinians are going to be required to renounce violence
February 20, 2006
Vancouver, BC — The Tyee (www.thetyee.ca) formally launched its two journalism fellowships today: the Investigative Fellowship Fund and the Solutions Fellowship Fund.
Bill Berkowitz - WorkingForChange
02.16.06 - Paul Weyrich, widely considered one of the founding fathers of the modern conservative movement, is looking North these days with hopes that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s newly elected conservative government will transform the social and political landscape of Canada.
John Maxwell
Common Sense
Sunday, February 19, 2006
The Associated Press headline says it all: ‘Haiti poll marred by ballot fraud protests’. The poll was marred not by fraud, but by the people’s protests against the fraud.
It is important that we understand the difference, because for the next few years what will be important in any international discussion about Haiti is not whether Rene Preval won the majority of the votes cast, but that it took a peaceful uprising of the people to establish that Mr Preval did win more than half the votes cast.
It has taken nearly two weeks for the interim government of Haiti to declare what every Haitian and many outside Haiti suspected, that the masses of Haiti, mainly poor, had stood patiently for hours in hot, uncomfortable conditions, to tell the world that they wanted their democracy back.
[This is really, really frightening...]
What the Bush regime fears is not Iran’s nuclear ambitions but the effect of the world’s fourth-biggest oil producer and trader breaking the dollar monopoly. Will the world’s central banks then begin to shift their reserve holdings and, in effect, dump the dollar? Saddam Hussein was threatening to do the same when he was attacked.
By John Pilger
Has Tony Blair, the minuscule Caesar, finally crossed his Rubicon? Having subverted the laws of the civilised world and brought carnage to a defenceless people and bloodshed to his own, having lied and lied and used the death of a hundredth British soldier in Iraq to indulge his profane self-pity, is he about to collude in one more crime before he goes?
