An article by two prominent American professors arguing that the pro-Israel lobby exerts a dominant and damaging influence on US foreign policy has triggered a furious row, pitting allegations of anti-semitism against claims of intellectual intimidation.

Stephen Walt, the academic dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and John Mearsheimer, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, published two versions of the essay, the Israel Lobby, in the London Review of Books and on a Harvard website.

The pro-Israel lobby and its sway over American policy has always been a controversial issue, but the professors’ bluntly worded polemic created a firestorm, drawing condemnation from left and right of the political spectrum.

Professor Walt’s fellow Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz – criticised in the article as an “apologist” for Israel – denounced the authors as “liars” and “bigots” in the university newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, and compared their arguments to neo-Nazi literature.

“Accusations of powerful Jews behind the scenes are part of the most dangerous traditions of modern anti-semitism,” wrote two fellow academics, Jeffrey Herf and Andrei Markovits, in a letter to the London Review of Books. Critics also pointed out that the article had been praised by David Duke, a notorious American white supremacist.

Prof Mearsheimer said the storm of protest proved one of its arguments – that the strength of the pro-Israel lobby stifled debate on US foreign policy.
guardian.co.uk

Asked recently about his position on Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions, President Bush said, “I made it clear, and I’ll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally Israel.”

This statement brought precisely zero reaction from the public and the media. Do the American people fully appreciate that this president is committed to sending their sons and daughters to kill and die — yet again — in a foreign country? Leaving aside the reigning political mythology, by what moral principle does he pledge other people’s lives without their consent? It is bad enough to die for “one’s own” country, which, let’s face it, in practice always means for the exploiting elite who head the government. Being sent to die for another country’s elite is obscene. Would some of those at risk like to speak up before it’s too late?
fff.org

A lawyer for Rep. Cynthia McKinney, the Georgia congresswoman who had an altercation with a Capitol Police officer, says she was “just a victim of being in Congress while black.”

McKinney awaited word Friday on whether she would be charged for apparently striking the officer after she entered a House office building this week unrecognized and did not stop when asked.

Two law enforcement officials said it was unlikely a warrant would be issued this week. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Her lawyer, James W. Myart Jr., said, “Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, like thousands of average Americans across this country, is, too, a victim of the excessive use of force by law enforcement officials because of how she looks and the color of her skin.”
breitbart.com

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said she is not troubled by noisy protests against her current UK visit.
“I find them an exercise in democracy, I find them not in any way off-putting or disconcerting,” she said, on a visit to the north-west town of Blackburn.

Angry demonstrators could be heard as Ms Rice held a joint press conference with her UK counterpart Jack Straw.

The secretary of state spoke after having held what she said were positive talks with local Muslim leaders.

About 200 noisy demonstrators – some of whom carried a coffin draped with a US flag – were gathered outside the town hall where Ms Rice and Mr Straw spoke to reporters.

Asked if she had been embarrassed by the protests which have followed her around on her two-day visit, Ms Rice said she respected the demonstrators’ right to protest.

“Democracy is the only system that allows people to be heard and be heard peacefully,” she said.

“When there are more places where people’s voices can be heard peacefully, especially in the Middle East, we are all going to be better off.”
bbc.co.uk

translation: Scream your heads off all you want. We are the masters of the universe.

It has flirted with disaster but the firm that changed the way we work is 30 today.

It is not quite the birthday present that Apple Computer would have wished for. A courtroom battle between the maker of the iPod and the Beatles’ Apple Corps record label is threatening to take the shine off the US technology firm’s 30th anniversary celebrations today.

The high court heard yesterday that Apple Computer denied any breach of an agreement made 15 years ago that the Californian computer company would not use its apple trademark “in connection with musical content”.

Anthony Grabiner, defending Apple Computer, said the iTunes Music Store did not breach the 1991 agreement as it was merely sending digital files. “Data transmission is within our field of use,” he said, adding that it was not allowed to sell Beatles tracks through iTunes.

It is unlikely that a legal battle with the world’s most famous musicians was on the minds of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak when they started Apple on April Fool’s Day 1976. With their friend Ronald Wayne, they set up the firm from a Californian garage as wide-eyed, technology-obsessed twenty-somethings. And while Apple’s fortunes have endured a rollercoaster ride over the years, their vision of affordable, user-friendly home computers has revolutionised how we live and work.
guardian.co.uk

On Christmas Eve Day 1992, as many Americans were wrapping holiday gifts or rushing off to visit relatives, the nation’s history took a turn that blacked out key chapters of the recent past and foreshadowed troubling developments in the future.

At the center of that historic moment was former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who died on March 28 at the age of 88. In 1992, he was one of six defendants in the Iran-Contra scandal who received Christmas Eve pardons from President George H.W. Bush less than a month before Bush left office.

If Bush had not granted those pardons, Weinberger would have gone on trial in early 1993 facing perjury and obstruction charges, a courtroom drama that could have changed how Americans perceived key figures from the Reagan administration, including Colin Powell and President Bush himself.

At stake was not only Weinberger’s guilt or innocence but more importantly the legacy of the Reagan-Bush era. Quite likely, too, President Bush would have been caught up in this final unraveling of the Iran-Contra cover-up – and the prospects for his family’s resumption of political power might have been dealt a fatal blow.

The Weinberger trial might have foreclosed the possibility that George W. Bush would ride his father’s reputation to the White House eight years later.

The trial also represented the last best chance to explain to the American people the constitutional conflict that was festering beneath the surface of the Iran-Contra Affair, essentially the President’s assertion of unfettered power to conduct foreign policy even in defiance of laws passed by Congress.

In the early-to-mid 1980s, Ronald Reagan had sought to avoid a head-on clash with Congress by taking his foreign policy underground, using cutouts like Israel to ship missiles to Iran and White House aide Oliver North to funnel supplies to the contra rebels fighting in Nicaragua.

After those operations were exposed in 1986, Congress also tried to avert a constitutional showdown by papering over the illegal presidential actions and accepting the cover story that top officials, such as Reagan and Bush, were mostly out of the loop.

But those unresolved constitutional questions exploded back to the surface after Sept. 11, 2001, when George W. Bush asserted virtually unlimited presidential authority to override or ignore federal law as Commander in Chief. In effect, the younger George Bush was staking out power openly that Reagan and the elder George Bush had exercised only in secret.
consortiumnews.com

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia — President Evo Morales is in danger of losing control of Bolivia’s wealthy eastern lowlands, where opposition to his socialist agenda is growing and local authorities are demanding autonomy from the central government based at La Paz in the impoverished western highlands.

Ninety percent of Bolivia’s hydrocarbon reserves are located between Santa Cruz and Tarija, where Mario Cossio, the newly elected governor, has been seeking support from neighboring Paraguay and Argentina to declare a separate state.

“The east will inevitably move toward independence within a year,” said Arturo Mendivil, a lawyer and popular radio host in Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s largest urban center, with a population of 1.5 million.

The Quechua and Aymara Indian communities that dominate the western Andes and form the bedrock of Mr. Morales’ support still harbor an egalitarian culture and welcome the socialist economic policies of Bolivia’s first Indian president, the lawyer said.

White immigrants have mixed more easily with native Indian Guaranis in the eastern plains and forests, by contrast, “creating a European-style entrepreneurial society that has turned Santa Cruz into a corporate center and economic powerhouse,” said local historian Miguel Angel Sandoval.

Racial and ethnic divisions are another source of friction. Santa Cruz beauty queen Gabriela Oviedo caused an uproar when, as Miss Bolivia 2004, she told journalists in Miami that “not all Bolivians are dark, short and poor. In Santa Cruz, we are tall, fair-skinned and educated.”
wpherald.com

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s oil minister said today that Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s second-largest integrated oil company, was no longer welcome in this oil-producing nation.

Exxon Mobil has resisted tax increases and contract changes that are part of a policy by President Hugo Chavez’s government to “re-nationalize” the oil industry.

Rather than submit to new terms that will turn 32 privately run oil fields over to state control, the company sold its stake in the 150,000 barrel-a-day Quiamare-La Ceiba field to its partner, Spanish-Argentine major Repsol YPF, to avoid accepting the unfavorable terms in December.

“There are some companies that prefer to leave” than accept the policy changes, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said in an interview with the state-run TV broadcaster. “Exxon Mobil … preferred to sell to Repsol, its partner in the agreement, rather than adjust.”

“We said we don’t want them to be here then,” Ramirez said. “We have many partners, many capabilities and many countries that are willing to manage our resources with us.”
chron.com

NORFOLK — The Navy will send an aircraft carrier strike group, with four ships, a 60-plane air wing and 6,500 sailors, to Caribbean and South American waters for a major training exercise, it was announced Monday.

Some defense analysts suggested that the unusual two-month-long deployment, set to begin in early April, could be interpreted as a show of force by anti-American governments in Venezuela and Cuba.

The mission was sought by the U.S. Southern Command, which has its headquarters in Miami and is responsible for all military activities in Latin America south of Mexico.
The Navy was last in the region in force in January 2003, when it used the bombing ranges at the Puerto Rican island of Vieques for the final time.

Led by the aircraft carrier George Washington, the deployment also will include the guided missile cruiser Monterey, guided missile destroyer Stout – all from Norfolk – and the guided missile frigate Underwood, based in Mayport, Fla.

“The presence of a U.S. carrier task force in the Caribbean will definitely be interpreted as some sort of signal by the governments of Cuba and Venezuela,” said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a pro-defense think tank in Washington.

“If I was sitting in the Venezuela capital looking at this American task force, the message I would be getting is America still is not so distracted by Iraq that it is unable to enforce its interests in the Caribbean,” Thompson said.
hamptonroads.com

Jamaica has sworn in its first female Prime Minister, Portia Simpson Miller.
Leaders from around the world attended Thursday’s inauguration in the Jamaican capital, Kingston.

Ms Simpson Miller, 60, takes over from the incumbent Prime Minister, PJ Patterson, who has been in power for the past 14 years.

She has said Jamaica should stop worrying about her gender and concentrate on the island’s problems, particularly the high crime rate.

Ms Simpson Miller was elected president of the governing People’s National Party in an internal vote.

The former local government minister narrowly beat the national security minister and two other candidates to the job.

‘Firebrand’

Ms Simpson Miller has been a popular figure in Jamaican politics since the 1970s.

“She is seen as someone who has really risen through the ranks of the party, coming from a very, very poor section of Jamaica… to the top post,” Radio Jamaica’s Kathy Barrett told the BBC.

“She’s a woman who’s very determined, a firebrand type of politician who has really hit home when it comes to the majority of people – especially women, the poor and the unemployed.”
bbc.co.uk

oh oh another firebrand