The effort to demonize Syria and, in effect, Saddamize its ruler, Bashar al-Assad, has run up against a brick wall: the recantation of the prime witness, who says he was bribed, intimidated, and tortured into going along with the narrative being sold by UN prosecutor Mehlis – that Syrian intelligence pulled off the Feb. 14 assassination of Lebanese entrepreneur and politician Rafik Hariri in Beirut. The New York Times reports:

“Hussam Taher Hussam, said he had been held in Lebanon by supporters of Saad Hariri, the son of the former prime minister, and subjected to torture and drug injections to force him to testify. Saad Hariri, he said, offered him $1.3 million if he would lie about senior Syrian officials. …

“He said Mr. Hariri and his associates had asked him to tell investigators that he had seen a truck used in the assassination at a Syrian military camp, and to present false evidence implicating Maher Assad, the younger brother of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, and Asef Shawkat, the president’s brother-in-law, in the killing in February.”
antiwar.com

NEW YORK — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton last night called Israel a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, supported its need for a security barrier and called on the Palestinian Authority to crack down on the terrorism that threatens both Israel and the Palestinians’ hope for a brighter future.

Clinton’s strong pro-Israel speech came before a particularly receptive audience, more than 700 attendees at Yeshiva University’s 81st annual Hanukkah Dinner and Convocation at the Waldorf-Astoria, where she was the keynote speaker after receiving an honorary degree. She said the futures of both the United States and Israel are intertwined, with “bonds forged in a common struggle for human rights, democracy and freedom.”

“That bond is rooted in fundamental beliefs and values about the dignity of men and women and the right to live without fear or repression,” Clinton said. “Israel is not only our ally; it is a beacon of what a democracy can and should be.”
thejournalnews.com

EU shelves East Jerusalem report over fear of alienating Israel

A controversial report that accuses Israel of rushing to annexe Arab areas of East Jerusalem was shelved by European foreign ministers in Brussels yesterday out of sensitivity to Israel.

Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief, persuaded ministers to drop the report when he warned that Europe’s influence over Israel would be severely undermined if it were to be published.

The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, whose diplomats in East Jerusalem drafted the report as part of Britain’s EU presidency, announced the climbdown at a meeting of EU foreign ministers. “The political landscape has altered within Israel – there is a general election in a few months time,” he said of Ariel Sharon’s decision to form a new political party ahead of elections on March 28. “So we thought it was appropriate not to endorse or to publish the document, but instead to continue to make representations about our concerns in the normal way.”

One of the many rarely spoken reasons why conservatives in Washington won’t let us leave Iraq is the old notion of civilizing a primitive nation.

Last week, on the precious real estate of the right’s flagship, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Iraq war-hawk Sen. Joe Lieberman (D?-CT) let slip another unspoken reason why we remain in Iraq more than two and a half years after achieving our stated goal of “disarming” Saddam Hussein.

Lieberman wrote that the Iraqis are on the brink of transitioning “from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood.” That is, “unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.”

It’s noteworthy that Lieberman portrayed the old government as “primitive,” despite the fact that we were talked into attacking Iraq because it had what President Bush called the “deadliest” weapons “known to mankind.” They were, presumably, quite modern.
alternet.org

…Filibuster. Refugee. Tsunami. Each was among the dictionary publisher’s 10 most frequently looked-up words among some 7 million users of its online site.

But topping the list is a word that some say gives insight into the country’s collective concern about its values: Integrity.

The noun, formally defined as a “firm adherence to a code” and “incorruptibility,” has always been a popular one on the Springfield-based company’s Web site, said Merriam-Webster president John Morse. But this year, the true meaning of integrity seemed to be of extraordinary concern. About 200,000 people sought its definition online.
guardian.co.uk

…The Harvard economist Dani Rodrik is one trade sceptic. Take Mexico and Vietnam, he says. One has a long border with the richest country in the world and has had a free-trade agreement with its neighbour across the Rio Grande. It receives oodles of inward investment and sends its workers across the border in droves. It is fully plugged in to the global economy. The other was the subject of a US trade embargo until 1994 and suffered from trade restrictions for years after that. Unlike Mexico, Vietnam is not even a member of the WTO.

So which of the two has the better recent economic record? The question should be a no-brainer if all the free-trade theories are right – Mexico should be streets ahead of Vietnam. In fact, the opposite is true. Since Mexico signed the Nafta (North American Free Trade Agreement) deal with the US and Canada in 1992, its annual per capita growth rate has barely been above 1%. Vietnam has grown by around 5% a year for the past two decades. Poverty in Vietnam has come down dramatically: real wages in Mexico have fallen.

Rodrik doesn’t buy the argument that the key to rapid development for poor countries is their willingness to liberalise trade. Nor, for that matter, does he think boosting aid makes much difference either. Looking around the world, he looks in vain for the success stories of three decades of neo-liberal orthodoxy: nations that have really made it after taking the advice – willingly or not – of the IMF and the World Bank.
guardian.co.uk

…”Occupation breeds resentment,” he said. “When you have a boot on someone’s neck, they don’t appreciate it.”…

Within the first days of the invasion in 2003, the U.S. military dropped leaflets in Iraq: “Surrender and be part of the new Iraq.”

“It was a brilliant success,” said Nathaniel Fick, a former Marine commander who participated in that first campaign.

Then, as the operation began to heat up, the military dropped “humanitarian rations,” which did not include pork or chemical heater packs, which some in Afghanistan had ingested to their great peril. The rations came in bright yellow boxes so they could be seen easily.

This won the hearts of many, Fick said.

Then the military began dropping cluster bombs, some of which failed to explode upon impact. They came in bright yellow packages, too.
charleston.net

12/10/05 “Salon.com” — — A group of seven House Democrats wrote President Bush this week, accusing the Pentagon of underreporting casualties in Iraq.

It’s a shocking charge. The letter writers argue that Pentagon casualty reports show only a sliver of the injuries, mostly physical ones from bombs or bullets. But war doesn’t work like that, the Democrats declare, adding that the reports skip a horrible panoply of accidents, illness, disease and mental trauma.

“We are concerned that that the figures that were released to the public by your administration do not accurately represent the true toll that this war has taken on the American people,” the group wrote Bush on Dec. 7. The Dems are right.

Pentagon casualty reports show 2,390 service members dead from Iraq and Afghanistan and over 16,000 wounded. By far the vast majority of the wounded and dead are from Iraq.

But by Dec. 8, 2005, the military had evacuated another 25,289 service members from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries or illnesses not caused directly by enemy bullets or bombs, according to the U.S. Transportation Command. That statistic includes everything from serious injuries in Humvee wrecks or other accidents to more routine illnesses that could be unrelated to field battles.
informationclearinghouse.info

…Some 5,000 white youths, wrapped in Australian flags and chanting racist slurs, fought with police, attacked people of Arab appearance and assaulted a pair of paramedics at Cronulla beach in southern Sydney, police said. Police fought back with batons and pepper spray.

Prime Minister John Howard condemned the violence, but said he did not believe racism was widespread in Australia.
breitbart.com

The Duke Cunningham scandal goes much deeper than just the $2.4 million in bribes being reported by the media. There is a lot the media is not telling you.

Ever wonder why the Republicans have SO much money in every national election?

And what did the Dukester do to get his Rolls-Royce, anyway? Whose Lear Jet was he flying around in?

If you were a totally crooked neo-con former CIA financier Republican who hangs with the corrupt Delay-Abramoff crowd, what would be the most unethical, diabolical way to funnel SO much money to the Republican Party and neo-con schemes that you could take back the government from the Democrats?

Easy!

With your corrupt Republican buddies, form a slew of your own brand-new Defense Companies, submit bids on things the Pentagon never even asked for to the Delay/Cunningham network and Bingo!–those contributions to the GOP and K Street will flow in like never before. You can then even give to Presidential candidates like George W. Neo-Con.

Then you and your criminal gang take over the United States of America with your ill-gotten gains. Once in power, you can use your connections to weasel your way iuto intelligence agency contracts so you can help said Neo-Cons cook up a case for the Iraq War by a phony analysis of some aluminum tubes. The War on Terra is on!
dailykos.com

Below is a running total of the U.S. taxpayer cost of the Iraq War. The number is based on Congressional appropriations.
nationalpriorities.org