Triangulation or Strangulation? Does Obama + Clintonistas = Bush III? by Robert S. Becker

by Robert S. Becker
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
rbecker@cal.net
July 19, 2010

Gadfly Dana Milbank nailed President Obama’s trademark, if not legacy: “This week alone, President Obama has taken several steps to implement Bill Clinton’s third term.” The real scoop isn’t just garden-variety WH misdirection from a reformer in name only, but what code-breakers term “substitution:” obscuring intention or format with duplicitous decoys.

Is this what Obama comes down to, warmed over Clintonism? Wait a minute. Haven’t progressives for months been groaning Obama’s victory over McBush-McWorse hardly dispelled our worst nightmare – Bush III? On key carryovers – multiple wars, bloated defense spending, anti-terrorist excesses, Iranian saber-rattling, hugs for Israel, stimulus spending and bank handouts, Obama extends the spirit, if not the letter of botched Bush-Cheney posturing (or goes beyond, with citizen assassinations without trials).

Jews and Arabs work together to save Hevron‘s olive trees By Jerry Mazza

By Jerry Mazza
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.jerrymazza.com
July 19, 2010

Looking for a breath of fresh air from the toxicity of world affairs, from the Mid-East to the Gulf of Mexico, Iraq to Afghanistan to Pakistan; looking for a breath that could liberate my system like a cool breeze could release me from the relentless heat of New York City, I came upon that breath, that bit of comforting shade in the Israeli newspaper Arutz Sheva, though not without misgivings.

The news seemed a parable itself. Residents of the Hevron area, Jews and Arabs were wrapping up a weeks-long battle, not against each other but to save the ancient olive trees, the bearers of the olive branch, the universal symbol of peace that sits next to the city. The ancient trees, some up to 2,000 years old, were threatened by a parasitic plant called divkon hazyit. The parasite is easily seen as war, threatening to devastate the area and its shaded beauty, if not the two-state country itself.

Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

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TEDtalksDirector | July 19, 2010

http://www.ted.com The controversial website WikiLeaks collects and posts highly classified documents and video. Founder Julian Assange, who’s reportedly being sought for questioning by US authorities, talks to TED’s Chris Anderson about how the site operates, what it has accomplished — and what drives him. The interview includes graphic footage of a recent US airstrike in Baghdad.

Bill Arkin: “Top Secret America” + Tim Shorrock: Why did it take them 7 years to do this story?

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Democracy Now!
July 19, 2010

“Top Secret America” Washington Post Investigation Reveals Massive, Unmanageable, Outsourced US Intelligence System

An explosive investigative series published in the Washington Post today begins, “The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.” Among the findings: An estimated 854,000 people hold top-secret security clearances. More than 1,200 government organizations and nearly 2,000 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in 10,000 locations. We speak with one of the co-authors of the series, Bill Arkin. [includes rush transcript]

Calling All Future-Eaters by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
July 19, 2010

The human species during its brief time on Earth has exhibited a remarkable capacity to kill itself off. The Cro-Magnons dispatched the gentler Neanderthals. The conquistadors, with the help of smallpox, decimated the native populations in the Americas. Modern industrial warfare in the 20th century took at least 100 million lives, most of them civilians. And now we sit passive and dumb as corporations and the leaders of industrialized nations ensure that climate change will accelerate to levels that could mean the extinction of our species. Homo sapiens, as the biologist Tim Flannery points out, are the “future-eaters.”

Tony Blair: A Bright Shining Lie (Part 2) by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
19 July, 2010

“If justice and truth take place,
If he is rewarded according to his just desert,
His name will stink to all generations.”
(William Wesley, 1703-1791.)

It has been a good couple of weeks of medal gathering for Charles Anthony Lynton Blair, QC. To add a lucrative and glittering array (1) he has added to the (30th June) announcement of the (US) National Constitution Center’s Liberty Medal, the award of a second “Freedom Medal” (first, January 2009, from the US) on 10th July.

The man who scribbled: “I just do not understand this”, in the margin of the advice from his top Law Lord, that the the invasion of Iraq would be illegal without a second United Nations Resolution, ignored, or dodged legalities, committing his country to the destruction of a sovereign nation, has been honoured again, this time, some might say, appropriately.

Omar Deghayes Complains About “Highly Selective” Disclosure of UK Documents Relating to his Interrogations in Bagram and Guantánamo

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
19 July, 2010

Last week, when the High Court ordered the release of documents relating to alleged British complicity in the torture and ill-treatment of British nationals in US custody, as part of a civil claim for damages filed by six former Guantánamo prisoners, 16 pages of those documents related to interrogations by British agents of one of the six, Omar Deghayes, who was released from Guantánamo in December 2007.

In the Guardian, following up on the story, Omar Deghayes has explained in detail why he is appalled by the “highly selective” redactions in the reports, which hide evidence of British complicity in torture, concealing his “specific allegations of ill-treatment, starvation and beatings to MI6 and MI5 officers.” hide embarrassing lines of questioning that show the intelligence services in a poor light, particularly concerning the supposed significance of Omar’s scuba-diving lessons in the UK, and also hide the ludicrous line of questioning about his purported involvement in militancy in Chechnya, which played a major part in his detention for five and a half years.