Middle East Conflict

Hear the Scott Ritter and Jeff Cohen address Sacramento on 1/16/08.

An audience of 250 heard this event, sponsored by Teach Peace.

Scott was one of UNSCOM's most senior weapons inspectors in Iraq between 1991 and 1998. Prior to working with UNSCOM, he served for eight years in the Army and Marine Corps. In the Marine Corps he served as an intelligence officer, conducted arms inspections in the former Soviet Union, and provided analysis of Iraq's missile capacity to General Schwarzkopf in the 1991 Gulf War. Seymour Hersh has observed: "The important thing to know about Scott Ritter is that he was right."

Jeff worked for MSNBC as an on-air commentator and senior producer of "Donahue" until the show was terminated on the eve of the Iraq war. He founded Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), co-hosted CNN's "Crossfire," was a weekly panelist on Fox News Channel's "Newswatch," and appeared frequently on many national TV and radio programs, including "The Today Show," "Larry King Live," "The O'Reilly Factor," C-SPAN, and NPR.

The End of the Road for George W. Bush



By Chris Hedges



The Gilbert and Sullivan charade of statesmanship played out by George W. Bush and his enabler, Condoleezza Rice, as they wander the Middle East is a fitting end to seven years of misrule. Despots stripped of power are transformed from monsters into buffoons. And this is the metamorphosis that is eating away at the Bush presidency.



Bush stood in Jerusalem, uncomfortable and palpably bored. He mouthed platitudes about a peace settlement that mocked the humanitarian crisis he aided and abetted in Gaza, the rapacious land grab by Israel in the West Bank and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The diminished George Bush, increasingly irrelevant at home and abroad, is fading into insignificance. A year from now one half expects to see him stand up at the next president’s inauguration and screech “I’m melting! I’m melting!” as he sinks into a puddle of slime. He will return, I expect, to his ranch, where he will be able to spend the rest of his life doing the only task for which he has shown any aptitude—cutting down brush with a chain saw.



He may yet rise again to torment us with an attack on Iran, condemning more innocents to slaughter. He and his cigar-smoking soul mate Ehud Olmert would like to go out with one more flash of mayhem and violence. But even this will not ultimately save him. Bush will soon be reduced to the cipher he once was, left to spend the rest of his life trying to salvage a legacy of shame and deceit. In a just world he would be put on trial, if not by the International Criminal Court of Justice then by the U.S. Congress. He would be forced to face up to his lies and wars of aggression. But the moral rot that infects the nation has seeped into the bowels of the legislative as well as the executive branch.

Listen to a vanishing species, a moderate Republican, Gerald Ford.


Then hear Vali Nasr, author of "The Shia Revival," and UC San Diego sociologist Gershon Shafir explore the tensions between the Shiites and Sunnis and how the longstanding rivalries have affected the Middle East in this discussion led by historian Michael Bernstein, the dean of UCSD's Division of Arts and Humanities.


Later Fmr. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich criticizes the current political system and outlines "American Solutions for Winning the Future," an election reform project.



From Great Speeches and Interviews aired 11/15/07 on Access Sacramento

Hear Huey Pierce Long, Jr., Greg Palast, Charles Goyette interviewing Chris Hedges, Samantha Power! Source: Access Sacramento.



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Song by Tupac Shakur

Painting (according to the link?) by banksy

Bethlehem 2007 A.D.

By Michael Finkel

Photographs by Christopher Anderson

The birthplace of Jesus is today one of the most contentious places on Earth. Israelis fear Bethlehem's radicalized residents, who seethe at the concrete wall that surrounds them.

This is not how Mary and Joseph came into Bethlehem, but this is how you enter now. You wait
at the wall. It's a daunting concrete barricade, three stories high, thorned with razor wire. Standing beside it, you feel as if you're at the base of a dam. Israeli soldiers armed with assault rifles examine your papers. They search your vehicle. No Israeli civilian, by military order, is allowed in. And few Bethlehem residents are permitted out — the reason the wall exists here, according to the Israeli government, is to keep terrorists away from Jerusalem.

Bethlehem and Jerusalem are only six miles apart (ten kilometers), though in the compressed and fractious geography of the region, this places them in different realms. It can take a month for a postcard to go from one city to the other. Bethlehem is in the West Bank, on land taken by Israel during the Six Day War of 1967. It's a Palestinian city; the majority of its 35,000 residents are Muslim. In 1900, more than 90 percent of the city was Christian. Today Bethlehem is only about one-third Christian, and this proportion is steadily shrinking as Christians leave for Europe or the Americas. At least a dozen suicide bombers have come from the city and surrounding district. The truth is that Bethlehem, the "little town" venerated during Christmas, is one of the most contentious places on Earth.

New Prime Minister will sign the Kyoto Protocol and pull Australian troops out of Iraq.

BBC NEWS
Rudd sets new Australian agenda

Mr Rudd said he would overturn a number of his predecessor's policies and sign the Kyoto Protocol and pull Australian troops out of Iraq.

In the beginning war looks and feels like love. But unlike love it gives nothing in return but an ever-deepening dependence, like all narcotics, on the road to self-destruction. It does not affirm but places upon us greater and greater demands. It destroys the outside world until it is hard to live outside war’s grip. It takes a higher and higher dose to achieve any thrill. Finally, one ingests war only to remain numb.

-From “War is a force that gives us meaning” by Chris Hedges, pg. 162 />

Had enough of war? U.S. government is trying to manage four wars simultaneously. Let us briefly look at Iraqi War, Afghani War, Iranian Cold War and the Global War on Terror.

Here's the recording of Colonel Ann Wright's address at Time-Tested Books on Oct. 17th.

AWright10-17-07.mp3 link here. (1:29:27)

AWright10-17-07.ra link here. (1:29:27)