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George W Bush's $250 Million Can of Whitewash

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

creators.com - By Jim Hightower - May. 02 (Opinion) - What a piece of work it is: a $250 million, 226,000-square-foot edifice on 23 acres in Dallas. His brick-and-limestone structure is certainly imposing, but once inside, you quickly see that it's a $250 million can of whitewash.

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How the CIA's Bags of Cash Undermined the Afghanistan War

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Wired - By Spencer Ackerman - Apr. 29 (Opinion) - It’s the most understandable, intuitive and tempting mistake in geopolitics: secretly pay a powerful foreigner to do what you want. The CIA, like many spy agencies, has done it throughout its history, and now we know it helped undermine the America’s longest war.

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Justice Sandra Day O’Connor: Maybe Bush v. Gore Wasn't the Best Decision

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Ian Millhiser - Apr. 29 (News) - Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the conservative retired justice who provided the fifth vote to install George W. Bush as president, is now having second thoughts about that decision: Looking back, O’Connor said, she isn’t sure the high court should have taken [Bush v. Gore].

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The Persecution of Lynne Stewart

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Chris Hedges - Apr. 22 (Special Report) - Lynne Stewart, in the vindictive and hysterical world of the war on terror, is one of its martyrs. A 73-year-old lawyer who spent her life defending the poor, the marginalized and the despised, including blind cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, she fell afoul of the state apparatus because she dared to demand justice rather than acquiesce to state sponsored witch hunts. And now, with stage 4 cancer that has metastasized, spreading to her lymph nodes, shoulder, bones and lungs, creating a grave threat to her life, she sits in a prison cell at the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, where she is serving a 10-year sentence.

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What America's Leaving Behind in Afghanistan: Trained Militias Accused of Rape and Murder

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Jennifer Norris - Apr. 21 (News Report) - Despite some success in achieving security gains, the ALP program has been plagued by such problems as Taliban infiltration and insider attacks. But most controversially, ALP units have been accused of committing serious human rights abuses against local populations with apparent impunity.

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Authoritarian Allies & the Myth of U.S. 'Leverage'

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

FAIR - By Peter Hart - Apr. 20 (Opinion) - The most notable part of the article is the fact that Whitlock has a U.S. official essentially agreeing with a damning critique of U.S. foreign policy: "The countries that cooperate with us get at least a free pass," acknowledged a senior U.S. official who specializes in Africa but spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution. "Whereas other countries that don't cooperate, we ream them as best we can."

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Hamid Karzai Seeks to Curb CIA Operations in Afghanistan

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Emma Graham-Harrison - Apr. 20 (News Report) - "Some of them are said to be working with the NDS, but they are not armed by the NDS, not paid by the NDS, and not sent to operations by the NDS. Sometimes they only inform the NDS minutes before the operation," Faizi said. "They are conducting operations without informing local authorities and when something goes wrong it is called a joint operation."

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After Obama Shuns Probe, Bipartisan Panel Finds ‘Indisputable’ Evidence US Tortured Under Bush

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

nationofchange.org - By Amy Goodman - Apr. 17 (Special Report) - The report concludes that never before in U.S. history had there been “the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after 9/11 directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody.”

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Iraq War Actors Have No Shame

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Adil E. Shamoo - Apr. 04 (Opinion) - As wretched as the Iraq War was, the absence of any meaningful accountability for the U.S. policymakers and pundits who made the catastrophe happen is nearly as stomach-turning. Every day the same faces show up on the TV talk shows and Op-Ed pages spouting more of their “wisdom,”

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David Stockman, Ex-Reagan Budget Director: George W. Bush's Policies Bankrupt The Country

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Mar. 31 (News Report) - A former adviser of Ronald Reagan has some choice words for George W. Bush. David Stockman, Reagan’s budget director from 1981 to 1985, slammed Bush and his former boss in an op-ed in The New York Times Sunday. Stockman argued in the piece that Reagan’s

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Study: Iraq, Afghan war costs to top $4 trillion

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ernesto Londoño - Mar. 29 (Special Report) - The U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will cost taxpayers between $4 trillion to $6 trillion, taking into account the medical care of wounded veterans and expensive repairs to a force depleted by more than a decade fighting, according to a new study by a Harvard researcher. Read full article >>

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The fun-filled ocean resort at Guantánamo Bay |

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Glenn Greenwald - Mar. 28 (Advocacy) - A growing hunger strike among detainees is mocked by gullible journalists spouting familiar Potemkin Village propaganda If you're looking for a fun activity-filled resort to take your family for a summer vacation, you simply cannot do better than Club GTMO, according to a new glossy travel guide just published by Robert Johnson, the Defense Editor of Business Insider, under the guise of a news article. Scrumptious meals. Video games galore for the kids. Outdoor sports. Newspapers from your hometown delivered by smiling bellhops to the front door of your villa. Picturesque Caribbean vistas. All that and more can be yours - provided that you're "compliant". What more could vacationers - or prisoners kept in a cage for more than a decade with no charges thousands of miles away from their family - possibly want? They are, proclaims Johnson, treated "absurdly well". Not just well: absurdly well. They are, he actually writes, lavished with "resort treatment". The context for Johnson's glowing ...

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BBC-Guardian Exposé Uses WikiLeaks to Link Iraq Torture Centers to U.S. Col. Steele & Gen. Petraeus

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Maggie O'Kane - Mar. 22 (Investigative Report) - A shocking new report by The Guardian and BBC Arabic details how the United States armed and trained Iraqi death squads that ran torture centers. It is a story that stretches from the U.S.-backed death squads in Central America during the 1980s to the imprisoned Army whistleblower Bradley Manning.

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Dying Iraq War Veteran Tomas Young Explains Decision to End His Life

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez, Tomas Young - Mar. 21 (Interview) - In the week marking the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we spend the hour looking at the remarkable life and imminent death of Iraq War veteran Tomas Young. Citing his overwhelming physical pain from wounds that left him paralyzed in Iraq, Young recently announced he has decided to end his life by discontinuing his medicine and nourishment, which comes in the form of liquid through a feeding tube

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Ten Years Later, U.S. Has Left Iraq with Mass Displacement & Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Dahr Jamail - Mar. 20 (Special Report) - Al Jazeera reporter Dahr Jamail discusses how the U.S. invasion of Iraq has left behind a legacy of cancer and birth defects suspected of being caused by the U.S. military’s extensive use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus. Noting the birth defects in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, Jamail says: "They’re extremely hard to bear witness to. But it’s something that we all need to pay attention to ... What this has generated is, from 2004 up to this day, we are seeing a rate of congenital malformations in the city of Fallujah that has surpassed even that in the wake of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that nuclear bombs were dropped on at the end of World War II."

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Dahr Jamail Returns to Iraq to Find Rampant Torture and a Failed State Living in "Utter Devastation"

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Nermeen Shaikh, Amy Goodman, Ghali Al-Atwani, Dahr Jamail - Mar. 20 (Special Report) - Investigative journalist Dahr Jamail reported for Democracy Now! throughout the early stages of the U.S. invasion of Iraq 10 years ago. Now with Al Jazeera, Jamail has just returned from Iraq once again, finding what he calls a "failed state" living in "utter devastation." In part one of our interview, Jamail discusses the harrowing security situation for Iraqis living in fear of bombings, executions and kidnappings, the widespread torture in Iraq's prisons, and the breakdown of security in what he calls a "lawless state." Jamail is the author of "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq" and "The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan." [includes rush transcript]

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Democracy Now! Iraq War Timeline Recaps a Decade of Independent Reporting on Occupation and Protest

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Renee Feltz - Mar. 20 (Special Report) - watch video highlights from a decade of Democracy Now! coverage of the Iraq War and the peace movement. It was 10 years ago, on March 19, 2003, that the United States invaded Iraq on the false pretext that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. Six weeks later, President George W. Bush stood under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished" and declared an end to major military combat operations. But Operation Iraqi Freedom would lead to an almost nine-year U.S. military occupation. Democracy Now! producer Renée Feltz explains how the timeline works and highlights some of the featured videos

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Why invading Iraq was a terrible mistake

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Hans Blix - Mar. 19 (Opinion) - I headed the U.N. inspections in Iraq at the time of the war 10 years ago. Today, I look again at the reasons why this terrible mistake -- and violation of the U.N. charter -- took place and explore if any lessons be drawn. Here are my thoughts.

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Iraq War Cost $800 Billion, And What Do We Have To Show For It?

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Joshua Hersh, Chris Spurlock - Mar. 18 (Investigative Report) - When President George W. Bush announced the invasion into Iraq in March 2003, the goal was to remove a dangerous dictator and his supposed stocks of weapons of mass destruction. It was also to create a functioning democracy and thereby inspire what Bush called a "global democracy revolution." The effort was supposed to be cheap -- to require few troops and even less time. Instead, it cost the United States $800 billion at least, thousands of lives and nearly nine grueling years (see the graphic below for a further breakdown of various costs). The toll on the people of Iraq were even greater. A decade of war left chaos and impoverishment, hundreds of thousands of citizens dead and millions more displaced, and a vicious sectarianism that still threatens to rip the country apart at the seams.

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As Gitmo Prisoners Revolt, Obama Admin Challenged on Indefinite Detention at OAS Hearing

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Mar. 13 (News Report) - As more than 100 Guantánamo Bay prisoners enter the fifth week of their hunger strike, the Obama administration has defended their detention at a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. A number of prisoners have been held without charge for more than 11 years, and more than half have been cleared for release. Attorneys for the prisoners told the hearing that the lack of hope for release among those who do not face charges has created a climate of despair.

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Have You Heard of the TPP Yet? An Important Trade Agreement You Need to Know About

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

aflcio.org - By Celeste Drake - Mar. 11 (Special Report) - Most people simply have not heard of the TPP, nor do they know that it might be the last trade agreement the United States ever negotiates (unlike past agreements, this one will be open to new countries, whenever they want to join). So it is all the more important to get this one right. Why isn’t the press talking about this trade agreement? It’s certainly not because trade is boring or irrelevant, and it is definitely not because the debate is over.

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'Hubris': Rachel Maddow Presents Must-Watch Documentary on the Selling of the Iraq War

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Brad Friedman - Feb. 21 (Special Report) - the documentary should be mandatory viewing for those who have lost sight of just how each and every single one of the key reasons used to sell the U.S. on war with Iraq was built on known lies.

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Supreme Court Takes Campaign Finance Case, Will Rule On Contribution Limits

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Paul Blumenthal - Feb. 19 (News Report) - The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will hear a case challenging the per-biennial cycle limit on campaign contributions from individuals.

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Brennan Exposed: The Truth About Obama's Drone Assassination Program

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Robert Greenwald - Feb. 13 (Special Report) - I went to Pakistan this fall and spoke with Pakistani officials, legal experts, public health officials, and journalists to hear, document, and learn more on the drone policy that has now garnered national attention. Prior to the CIA Director Nomination Hearing where John Brennan discussed the use and analysis of drone use and the white paper memo surfacing, there was little coverage in the media on the Obama's administration use of drones.

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The Grilling that Brennan Deserves

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Consortium News - By Ray McGovern - Jan. 10 (News Analysis) - CIA Director-designee John Brennan has more to explain about his work over the past decade on the terror war’s “dark side,”

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