Tony Blair remained defiant last night in the face of a torrent of protests over Britain’s human rights record, accusing his critics of having “the world the wrong way round”.

The Prime Minister was under pressure over his support for US ” rendition flights”, his failure to call openly for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba, and over draconian anti-terror laws, after damning reports by the Labour-led Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and by Amnesty International. His comments on the state of Iraq came on another day of bloodshed in the country.

He even appeared out of step with his own Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, who warned his cabinet colleagues that terrorist suspects were entitled to the same legal protections as “law-abiding citizens”.

Speaking at the London School of Economics, Lord Goldsmith said: ” Determining if a particular person is, or is not, a terrorist requires more than mere assertion on the part of an authority, however genuine and well-intentioned that authority may be.”

In a combative performance, Mr Blair used his monthly press conference at Downing Street to reject criticism of the Government’s attempts to return terror suspects to countries such as Algeria and Egypt which have a record of torturing prisoners. “We hear an immense amount about their human rights and their civil liberties. But there are also human rights of the rest of us to live in safety,” he said.
independent.co.uk

WASHINGTON – Francis Fukuyama, best known for his post-Cold War essay proclaiming the historic inevitability of liberal democracy, “The End of History”, argued in the Times article that neo-conservatives so badly miscalculated the myriad costs of the Iraq war that they may have empowered their two foreign policy nemeses — realists, who disdain democracy promotion; and isolationists, who oppose foreign entanglements of almost any kind.

Even more provocatively, Fukuyama called the Standard’s editor, William Kristol, his ideological sidekick, Robert Kagan, and their neo-conservative comrades who led the drive to war in Iraq “Leninist” in their conviction that liberal democracy can be achieved through “coercive regime change” or imposed by military means.

“(T)he neoconservative position articulated by people like Kristol and Kagan was …Leninist; they believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will,” according to Fukuyama. “Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United States.”
commondreams.org

What Fukuyama advocates as an alternative is merely ‘a kinder, gentler machine gun hand.’ These people are stuck in a groove: if it can’t be naked aggression then it MUST be ‘hearts and minds’ sham ‘multilateralism’ with the threat of aggression to back it up.

When it comes to dealing with stress, a number of Americans turn to unhealthy behaviors such as overeating and smoking for relief and don’t exercise, according to a survey released today by the American Psychological Association (APA).

But those choices, researchers say, lead to increased health problems that ultimately make stress worse.

“What’s surprising and alarming is the fact that too many people weren’t taking active steps to do anything about the stress they’re feeling,” says Russ Newman of the APA. “People don’t really appreciate how detrimental stress is, and the ways they’re trying to manage stress can be as detrimental, if not more so.”
news.yahoo.com

There is never any discussion about the nature of this epidemic of anxiety and stress, never any reflection about what it might be in the way people live here that is so obviously detrimental to the human nervous system.

It’s a question that has dogged the nuclear industry since the 1970s: What can it do with spent fuel rods?

The radioactive waste, eventually slated for permanent storage at a still-unfinished site in Nevada, has been piling up, mostly at the nation’s 65 commercial nuclear power plants. Late Tuesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) gave its blessing to a solution: a storage site on a barren patch of a reservation in Utah that’s home to some 25 native Americans, next to a proving ground for chemical and biological weapons, and near an Air Force bombing range.

The NRC licensed what would be the nation’s largest, and only private, nuclear-waste storage facility. A consortium of utility companies would store for up to 40 years some 40,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel for an industry rapidly running out of space.

But the plan has powerful opponents, including Utah’s entire congressional delegation and its governor, who have developed a multipronged attack plan to try to beat back this latest effort.

“Our position is this represents public policy at its absolute worst,” says Mike Lee, general counsel to Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. “What these people want to do is take spent nuclear fuel and put it above ground in casks in a valley that’s located 40 miles immediately upwind from Utah’s only population center. To make matters much worse, this aboveground, open-air facility lies immediately under the low-altitude flight path of 7,000 F-16s a year en route to a bombing range.”
cbsnews.com

Ahmadinejad says ‘defeated Zionists and occupiers’ destroyed golden dome

TEHRAN, Iran – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed the United States and Israel on Thursday for the destruction of a Shiite shrine’s golden dome in Iraq, saying it was the work of “defeated Zionists and occupiers.”

Speaking to a crowd of thousands on a tour of southwestern Iran, the president referred to the destruction of the Askariya mosque dome in Samarra on Wednesday, which the Iraqi government has blamed on insurgents.

“They invade the shrine and bomb there because they oppose God and justice,” Ahmadinejad said, referring to the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq.

“These passive activities are the acts of a group of defeated Zionists and occupiers who intended to hit our emotions,” he said in a speech that was broadcast on state television. Addressing the United States, he added: “You have to know that such an act will not save you from the anger of Muslim nations.”

The bombing set off a string of sectarian attacks in Iraq. Angry crowds thronged the streets, militiamen attacked Sunni mosques and at least 19 people were killed.
msnbc.msn.com

Sectarian Violence Rips Through Iraq
130 killed as Sunnis, Shiites trade accusations after mosque bombing
BAGHDAD, Iraq – More than 130 people, including dozens who joined a demonstration against sectarian violence, were killed in bloodshed across Iraq despite calls for calm on Thursday from leaders, including President Bush, fearful of civil war.

A day after a suspected al-Qaida bomb destroyed a major Shiite shrine, Iraq cancelled all leave for the police and army and minority Sunni political leaders pulled out of U.S.-backed talks on forming a national unity government, accusing the ruling Shiites of fomenting dozens of attacks on Sunni mosques.

Washington, which wants stability in Iraq to help it extract around 130,000 U.S. troops, has also called for restraint, reflecting international fears that the oil-exporting country of 27 million may be slipping closer to all-out sectarian war.

But the main Sunni religious authority made an extraordinary public criticism of the Shiites’ most revered clerical leader, accusing him of fuelling the violence by calling for protests.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, pressed ahead despite the Sunni boycott with a meeting that he had called to avert a descent towards a civil war. After discussions with Shiites, Kurds and leaders of a smaller Sunni group, he told a televised news conference that if all-out war came “no one will be safe.”

Police and military sources tallied more than 130 deaths, mostly of Sunnis, around the two biggest cities Baghdad and Basra in the 24 hours since the bloodless but highly symbolic bombing of the Shiite Golden Mosque in Samarra. Dozens of Sunni mosques have been attacked and several burnt to the ground.

In the bloodiest single incident, officials said 47 people who had taken part in a joint Sunni and Shiite demonstration against the Samarra bombing were hauled from vehicles after they left and shot dead on the outskirts of the capital. The identities of the gunmen and the victims was not clear.

They were all dumped in a ditch beside the road, said Dhary Thoaban, deputy chairman of the Diyala regional council. Earlier, there had been conflicting accounts of the incident but police and military officials all confirmed Thaoban’s version.

The Interior Ministry said all police and army leave was cancelled, curfews were extended as the country locks down for three days of national mourning. Universities postponed Saturday’s start of the spring semester by nearly three weeks.

Four American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division were killed when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Thursday. The soldiers were assigned to the division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team and were killed while on patrol Wednesday near Hawijah, 150 miles north of Baghdad, the command said in a statement.

A bomb blasted an Iraqi army foot patrol in a market in the religiously divided city of Baquoba, killing 16 people.

Three journalists working for Al Arabiya television were found shot dead after being attacked while filming in Samarra.

Iraqi police and army officials said at least 40 bodies were found in one spot just south of Baghdad. It was not clear if the number included 53 people already reported by police to have died in Baghdad since Wednesday’s bombing.

At least 25 people were killed in Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, police said. A bomb targeting an Iraqi army foot patrol killed 12 people and wounded 21 in the city of Baqouba, 40 miles northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, an army source said.

The golden dome of a celebrated Iraqi Shiite shrine was destroyed in a bomb attack, prompting warnings of sectarian conflict as thousands of enraged Shiites took to the streets.

There were no reported injuries, but tension was running high throughout the country after the two bombs went off in Samarra’s 1,000-year-old Imam Ali al-Hadi mausoleum, whose golden dome collapsed.

Waving the green flags of Islam and the national Iraqi colours, thousands of Shiites took to the streets of Samarra vowing to punish those responsible for the attack.

Aside from mass protests in Samarra, tens of thousands also rallied in Baghdad, 125 kilometres (80 miles) south of Samarra, and in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, in southern Iraq.

“A group of armed men attacked the mausoleum of Imam Ali al-Hadi at 7:00 am (0400 GMT), neutralized the policemen guarding the building before placing two explosives charges and blowing them up,” police said on Wednesday.

Shops closed and muezzins recited prayers from the loudspeakers of nearby mosques and blamed the United States for the turmoil, saying “God is Great, death to America which brought us terrorism.”

Demonstrators carried the turban, sword and shield said to have belonged to Ali al-Hadi, the 10th Shiite imam, shouting “Iman, we are your soldiers”.

Iraq’s top Shiite religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, told AFP the religious leader wanted seven days of national mourning but Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari announced on television a three day period.

“I proclaim three days of national mourning in the country following this hurtful attack,” Jaafari said.

He also called on Iraqis to denounce such attacks and “close the road to those who want to undermine national unity”.

The bombing aimed to provoke fighting between the majority Shiite and minority Sunni communities at a time when political factions bicker over the formation of a national unity government.

The attack on the shrine came a day after a car bomb killed at least 21 in a mainly Shiite market of Baghdad and two days after another bomb wounded dozens of Shiite daily labourers waiting to work in the capital.
turkishpress.com

Dozens of Sunni mosques attacked throughout Iraq
Shiite protesters attacked dozens of Sunni mosques throughout Iraq on Wednesday in retaliation for the bombing of one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines, police, witnesses and political groups said.

The Iraqi Islamic Party, the country’s largest Sunni political group, said at least 60 mosques were attacked, burned or taken over by Shiites.
They included more than 50 in Baghdad alone, three of which were completely destroyed with explosives, the party said. The rest were in predominantly Shiite areas on the capital’s southern outskirts and in Iraq’s southern provinces.

Armed Shiites attacked the mosques with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, holding Sunnis after taking over some of them, the party said.

Followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia took a major part in Wednesday’s attacks, said four of their supporters were killed and dozens wounded in a series of clashes with mosque guards.

Askariya Shrine Bombing: Black Op?
In Iraq, things are going swimmingly for the Straussian neocons. “A large explosion heavily damaged the golden dome of one of Iraq’s most famous Shiite shrines Wednesday, spawning mass protests and triggering reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques,” reports the Associated Press. “It was the third major attack against Shiite targets this week and threatened to stoke sectarian tensions. Shiite leaders called for calm, but militants attacked Sunni mosques and a gunfight broke out between Shiite militiamen and guards at the offices of a Sunni political party in Basra. About 500 soldiers were sent to Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad to prevent clashes between Shiites and Sunnis, Army Capt. Jassim al-Wahash said.”

It makes absolutely no sense for Sunnis to bomb Shia mosques; this would be akin to Baptists bombing Catholic churches. Sectarian violence, dividing Iraqi society, does not serve Iraqis, either Sunni or Shia. It does, however, serve the occupation forces and also begins to realize the plan sketched out in Oded Yinon’s “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties” (the balkanization of Arab and Muslim society and culture), an objective shared by Jabotinsky Likudites and Straussian neocons.

QUITO, Ecuador (Reuters) – Ecuadorean troops fired tear gas on Wednesday at protesters accused of holding 24 petroleum workers hostage to demand a share of the country’s oil wealth in demonstrations that shut one of country’s main oil pipelines.

Soldiers briefly shot tear gas canisters into a crowd who on Tuesday stormed the Sardina oil pumping station, 55 miles

east of Quito, according to an Ecuadorean military official and protesters.

Government negotiators were trying to revive talks with Napo province protesters in the latest challenge to hit embattled President Alfredo Palacio and strike at the 530,000 barrel-per-day output of Latin America’s No. 5 oil producer.
reuters.com

CHICAGO (AP) — Olympic gold medal speedskater Shani Davis is one of four plaintiffs suing the city of Chicago and former police superintendent Terry Hillard, claiming they were stopped and searched for illegal weapons because of their skin color.

Davis, Quincy Joyner and Damien Joyner filed a lawsuit on March 24, 2003. A fourth plaintiff, Damane Grier, was added to the lawsuit a few months later. All four are from Chicago and are black.

Harvey Grossman, the director of American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, said an inordinate number of blacks and Latinos are stopped on the street and searched for illegal weapons, and the organization wants police to document stops.

“We’ve been receiving complaints about this for years and years,” he said. “Why did you stop this person? State the reasonable suspicion you had. … And we also want that data to be stored, so you can see what an officer is doing over time.”
sports.yahoo.com

NEW ORLEANS, February 22, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Just after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans rumors circulated that at least one hospital had euthanized patients during the mayhem. LifeSiteNews.com reported in September 2005, that an unnamed doctor admitted to a UK newspaper that such activities had taken place at Memorial Medical Center. In October another doctor at the hospital confirmed in a CNN interview that he suspected such activities and admitted he left the hospital saying he would rather abandon patients than actively kill them. Later in October hospital workers were subpoenaed for an investigation.

National Public Radio now reports on its access to court documents in the case. In a February 16 report, NPR says it has reviewed secret court documents related to the investigation and not yet released to the public. The documents, says NPR “reveal chilling details about events at Memorial hospital in the chaotic days following the storm, including hospital administrators who saw a doctor filling syringes with painkillers and heard plans to give patients lethal doses. The witnesses also heard staff discussing the agonizing decision to end patients’ lives.”

The allegations revolve around a group of patients left on the seventh floor at Memorial Medical Center. This floor was leased to a different entity, LifeCare Hospitals. According to NPR, the patients on the seventh floor were all DNR patients — they had “do not resuscitate” orders.
lifesite.net

The jailing of Holocaust denier David Irving in Austria is a reminder of how easy it is to imitate evil even as one excoriates it. The law that convicted Irving is of the sort the Nazis would have invoked, albeit for far different purposes, and was a routine offense in Orwell’s 1984.

Many fail to see this irony because they are engaged in the greatest Holocaust denial of all: a refusal to look seriously at why there was a Holocaust in the first place. To blame it all on anti-Semitism is as dangerously ahistorical as to deny its existence. Yes, Jews were the victims, but why did an ancient and widespread prejudice produce such an extreme result in this case?

We avoid this question because it takes us places we don’t want to go. Like the role of modern bureaucracy and technology in the magnification of evil. Like the commingling of corporate and state interests in a way the world had never seen before. Like the failure of Germany’s liberal elite to stand effectively against wrong eerily echoed today in the failure of America’s liberal elite to do likewise.

Some of the most important lessons of the Holocaust are simply missed. Among these, as Richard Rubenstein has pointed out, is that it could only have been carried out by “an advanced political community with a highly trained, tightly disciplined police and civil service bureaucracy.
counterpunch.org