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Sunday, Mar 24, 2002

stinging nettles

"In the gray, matter-of-fact bureaucratese so typical of a government document, the leaked "Israeli Art Student Papers" confirm what we have been saying in this space all along: that an underground apparatus of Israeli covert agents, centered in the southwestern US but extending nationwide, carried out extensive operations in the months prior to 9/11. Their targets were US government offices, including not only the Drug Enforcement Administration (as previously reported), but the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Federal Protective Service, the Bureau of Alchohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and a host of other state and federal courthouses and other buildings, as well as military bases. There is no long any doubt about whether the spy ring existed. Now we are left with the nagging question: what was its purpose?"

pieces of hate

"Not Peace, But Piece. At issue is not peace, but piece, as in land and water. The Palestinian people are living on land taken by Israel in the 1967 war. Israel's claim to the land is promoted by a radical group of settlers and ultra-nationalists who insist on keeping the ever-expanding settlements. Since the Oslo Accords, Israel, under both Likud and Labor Prime Ministers, has cut and sliced the Territories into tiny pieces by building roads, fences, settlements, irrigation and water systems, and restricted areas in ways that undermine the political and economic viability of a future Palestinian state. The resulting bits and pieces of land amount to less than the state of Rhode Island. Broken up as it is, and with its water resources diverted for use by the Israeli settlements, it is not realistic to expect this territory to support over 3 million Palestinian people. The duplicity of negotiating "peace" while taking away more land has infuriated Palestinians for many years, and fomented radicalism."

empire state

"MOSCOW � As the Roman Empire spread two millenniums ago, maps had to be redrawn to reflect new realities. In similar fashion, the expansion of the British Empire kept cartographers at their drawing boards, reshaping territories from Southern Africa to India to Hong Kong.

Now, as the United States wages its war on terrorism in Afghan-istan � and deploys troops for the first time in the energy-rich regions of Central Asia and the Caucasus � the borders of a new American empire appear to be forming."

bench warrant

"March 22 � Having defeated President Bush�s appeals court nominee Charles Pickering, Senate Democrats are moving to block Bush from appointing other conservatives to the federal bench. But some are going further, saying that because Bush lacks a popular mandate, the Senate should take no action on any Bush nominee to a Supreme Court vacancy until after the 2004 presidential election."

winging it

"What would make an avid Clinton-hating attack journalist have a "road to Damascus" experience and cause him to completely change his point of view? Why would he denounce the A-list conservatives who made him, and instead ally himself to people close to Bill Clinton? All these questions and more are answered in David Brock's memoir Blinded By the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative."

beat the press

kennedy on klein on clinton

carter centered

"WASHINGTON, March 22 (AFP) - Jimmy Carter is planning a landmark first trip by a former US president to communist-ruled Cuba, and Friday slammed the 41-year-old US economic embargo on Havana as out of date."

on the seen

"WASHINGTON (March 22, 2002) - The Institute for Policy Studies today released an exhaustive study of public financing toward Enron's overseas expansion. IPS' new report, Enron's Pawns: How Public Institutions Bankrolled Enron's Globalization Game, explores how the now-fallen giant's rise to global prominence absolutely depended upon close financial relationships with U.S. agencies, the World Bank, and other government institutions. "It should be a national disgrace that the U.S. government was subsidizing Enron's far-flung and often harmful global operations," said John Cavanagh, Director of IPS."

free winnie

"Disney gets nabbed destroying documents amid a multimillion-dollar lawsuit over royalties from the world's most lovable -- and lucrative -- bear."

Friday, Mar 22, 2002

back to the future 2

"That leaves "1984's" most potent political tool: perpetual warfare. Just as Oceania was always at war with Eurasia or Eastasia -- who could keep track? -- the "war on terror," we are told, will continue indefinitely. Indefinitely is just another word for forever."

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