Updated: 2.15.09 added another story
compiled by Cem Ertür
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
14 February, 2009
http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/news/news.php?article=15749
UK: Three Muslims held under draconian anti terror law
Muslim News, 14 February 2009
Nine Muslims were arrested under the draconian anti terror law on the M65 motorway, near Preston, Lancashire, Friday at 9pm, according to the police. Continue reading
by Bill Van Auken
http://www.wsws.org
14 February 2009
In testimony before the Senate Committee on Intelligence Thursday, Washington’s new director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, warned that the deepening world capitalist crisis posed the paramount threat to US national security and warned that its continuation could trigger a return to the “violent extremism” of the 1920s and 1930s.
This frank assessment, contained in the unclassified version of the “annual threat assessment” presented by Blair on behalf of 16 separate US intelligence agencies, represented a striking departure from earlier years, in which a supposedly ubiquitous threat from Al Qaeda terrorism and the two wars launched under the Bush administration topped the list of concerns.
Clearly underlying his remarks are fears within the massive US intelligence apparatus as well as among more conscious layers of the American ruling elite that a protracted economic crisis accompanied by rising unemployment and reduced social spending will trigger a global eruption of the class struggle and the threat of social revolution.
[…]
In other words, a sharp intensification of the unfolding capitalist crisis accompanied by an eruption of class struggle and the threat of social revolution in the US itself could force the Pentagon to call back its expeditionary armies from Iraq and Afghanistan for use against American workers.
The document continues: “Under the most extreme circumstances, this might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States. Further, DoD [the Department of Defense] would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multi-state or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance.” The phrase—”an essential enabling hub for continuity of authority”—is a euphemism for military dictatorship.
[…]
via US intelligence chief: World capitalist crisis poses greatest threat.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
see
Revolt is in the air by Eric Ruder
When Will We March Against Obama? by Margaret Kimberley
Obama, the military and the threat of dictatorship by Bill Van Auken
Martial Law, the Financial Bailout, and War by Prof. Peter Dale Scott
Militarization of the American Homeland: Suppression of “Civil Disturbances” by Tom Burghardt
Police State on Dandelion Salad
Updated: 2.15.09 added video report
By Missy Comley Beattie
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Feb 9, 2009, 00:22 Continue reading
By Greg Miller
Los Angeles Times
February 13, 2009
The Predator planes that launch missile strikes against militants are based in Pakistan, the senator says. That suggests a much deeper relationship with the U.S. than Islamabad would like to admit.
Reporting from Washington — A senior U.S. lawmaker said Thursday that unmanned CIA Predator aircraft operating in Pakistan are flown from an air base in that country, a revelation likely to embarrass the Pakistani government and complicate its counter-terrorism collaboration with the United States.
The disclosure by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, marked the first time a U.S. official had publicly commented on where the Predator aircraft patrolling Pakistan take off and land.
via Feinstein comment on U.S. drones likely to embarrass Pakistan – Los Angeles Times.
h/t: CLG
***
U.S. Predator Air Strikes In Pakistan Launched From Base In Pakistan!
February 12, 2009 C-SPAN
Vodpod videos no longer available.
***
The death toll of a suspected U.S. drone attack in Pakistan on Saturday has reached 26
Peoples Daily Online
People’s Weekly World Newspaper, 02/14/09 10:57
The death toll of a suspected U.S. drone attack in Pakistan’s tribal area on Saturday has reached 26, the private TV channel DAWN NEWS reported.
A suspected U.S. drone fired two missiles at a house in Jangry area of Lada tehsil of South Waziristan tribal area, said the report.
[…]
h/t: ICH
***
Don’t Forget! They HATE Us For Our “Freedom”
Sent to DS by the author; thanks Rick.
by Rick Rozoff
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/37302
February 14, 2009
At a meeting of the European Union’s General Affairs and External Relations Council in Brussels on May 26 of last year, Poland, seconded by Sweden, first proposed what has come to be known as the Eastern Partnership, a program to ‘integrate’ all the European and South Caucasus former Soviet nations – except for Russia – not already in the EU and NATO; that is, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
The above are half of the former Soviet republics in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) established as a sop to Russia immediately after the breakup of the Soviet Union in that year and in theory to be a post-Soviet equivalent of the then European Community, now European Union. (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania never joined and both were absorbed into the European Union and NATO in 2004.)
The Eastern Partnership has since last May been presented as an innocuous enough sounding proposal containing a mission statement to promote “a substantial upgrading of the level of political engagement, including the prospect of a new generation of Association Agreements, far-reaching integration into the EU economy, easier travel to the EU for citizens providing that security requirements are met, enhanced energy security arrangements benefitting all concerned, and increased financial assistance.” (European Union press release, December 3, 2008)
The key phrases, though, are “upgrading of the level of political engagement” and “enhanced energy security arrangements.”
By Jeremy R. Hammond
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Foreign Policy Journal
February 14, 2009
From an ADL letter: Continue reading
As Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, makes his first visit to Afghanistan, Sir David Frost talks to Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan. Karzai admits for the first time that there is a crisis in relations between his government and the new US administration.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
see
Afghanistan: Attacks in Kabul expose US occupation’s deepening crisis + videos
Investment guru Jim Rogers talks to Sir David about the current economic crisis and Barack Obama’s rescue package.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
see
Jim Rogers: Geithner caused the crisis
The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression is throwing countries across Europe into turmoil–and spurring struggles unseen in years. Eric Ruder looks at what the future may hold.
February 13, 2009 | Issue 690
THE FINANCIAL turmoil that began in the summer of 2007 in the U.S. is spreading around the globe with frightening speed and devastating consequences for working people.
The bursting of the bubble in the U.S. housing market in the summer of 2007 was the catalyst for full-blown economic crisis in country after country in Europe.
Now, the economic disaster is sparking mass protest and revolt on a scale not seen in two decades. Britain’s Guardian newspaper described the new political reality in a January 31 article titled “Governments across Europe tremble as angry people take to the streets.” It begins:
France paralyzed by a wave of strike action, the boulevards of Paris resembling a debris-strewn battlefield. The Hungarian currency sinks to its lowest level ever against the euro, as the unemployment figure rises. Greek farmers block the road into Bulgaria in protest at low prices for their produce. New figures from the biggest bank in the Baltic show that the three post-Soviet states there face the biggest recessions in Europe.
It’s a snapshot of a single day [January 30] in a Europe sinking into the bleakest of times. But while the outlook may be dark in the big wealthy democracies of Western Europe, it is in the young, poor, vulnerable states of Central and Eastern Europe that the trauma of crash, slump and meltdown looks graver.
Exactly 20 years ago, in serial revolutionary rejoicing, they ditched communism to put their faith in a capitalism now in crisis and by which they feel betrayed. The result has been the biggest protests across the former communist bloc since the days of people power.
Europe’s time of troubles is gathering depth and scale. Governments are trembling. Revolt is in the air.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
By Greg Miller
ICH
February 13, 2009 “LA Times” Continue reading
By Gary Corseri
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
February 14, 2009
My wife, my lover, my mate, my friend,
Till death do us part (or the heart
Finds an escape clause)-inseparable as
My own self’s clone (where I extrude, though,
You invert), think you nothing without me (and me
Even more nothing without you).
Think we are one living pulse, one beat
Of the Eternal Beatnik. In all the hoary annals
And canals-we sing singularly.
We are je ne sais quoi and sine qua non.
We are what we are-only more so.
Let me not volley your praises to the sun.
Let me not whisper the shadow of your namecard.
I have your number at number.com.
I lie upon my chocolate escutcheon
Sighing the impossible, unwavering love-note
That manages somehow never to screech,
Beseaching in nooks and crannies and fields,
Finding you somehow year after year
Familiarly reassuringly
Dappled and dewy in the great melange.
Gary Corseri has posted/published his work at hundreds of venues, including Dandelion Salad. His books include the literary anthology, Manifestations (edited) and the novel, Holy Grail, Holy Grail. Associate Editor of Cyrano’s Journal Online, he can be contacted at gary_corseri@comcast.net.
see
Dandelion Salad 