It is now an incontrovertible fact, known all over the world, that George W. Bush and his regime lied through their teeth in order to launch wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq, and that the Bush regime is doing the same thing again in hopes of launching an attack on Iran.

As a consequence of Bush’s lies, there are a million dead Iraqis, mostly women and children, and four million displaced Iraqis, 4,100 dead American soldiers and tens of thousands of seriously wounded. No one knows how many dead in Afghanistan. And there is the ongoing Israeli slaughter of Palestinians and Lebanese that has fallen under the rubric of the “war on terror.” The only ones pleased with these wars are the American neoconservatives, the Israeli right-wing, the U.S. corporate military-security complex, and Osama bin Laden...

Reelecting Republicans means the end of the United States as a land of liberty. [More]

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. . . read more

The “spectacle” of “Wright-gate” speaks volumes about a divided nation still unwilling to objectively confront the fundamental divides on race and class that plague every segment and institution of our society. Tragically, it illuminates the unrealistic character traits and the unfair double standards that mainstream Whiteness not only expects but demands from its “darker” citizens, especially those running for President. Finally, it reveals to all, for better or worse, that Obama is not the magical Bagger Vance; he is not the “Second Coming”; he does not walk on water, nor is he the infallible hero.

He is not Superman. He is a politician. And The Dark Knight rises. [More] . . read more

Mr. O and Ms. C, please eliminate Homeland Security. It’s Bush’s only policy – except for cutting taxes for the least needy. Yes, we have enemies, fanatics, who blow themselves and others to smithereens. But Bush hasn’t pursued the terror organizers, some of whom live in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; not guys in caves, but those bankers and intellectuals who control them. Instead of going after the brains and money, Bush created chaos, more enemies, more bureaucracy (Homeland Security) and, his “War on Terror” helped Al-Qaeda expand their numbers...

When you become Presidents please undo the damage Bush has caused. Engage other nations on catching terrorists through police cooperation, infiltration of their cells and by networking with judicial systems. They shouldn’t go to Guantanamo or other dark holes, but tried by courts anywhere in the world. Terrorism is a crime under international law. All courts have jurisdiction. Would you try to involve the UN in this effort and help restore its status? The U.S. and other military forces have proven counterproductive. Count the massive number of declared anti-American terrorists today compared to before Bush hit Afghanistan and Iraq! [More] . . read more

We are told the “surge is working”, whereas it is the U.S. military’s abandonment of its brutal home invasions that has led to the lull. Insurgents still control their own terrain. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of Iraqis face the prospect of malnutrition and outright starvation, which is not newsworthy. Bush psychopathy stretches from the Middle East to the White House, where it is widely suspected that prior to its illegal erasure, the CIA torture tape was screened for the pleasure of the President.

Looking back over the terror war years, we can now contemplate accusations of high crimes & misdemeanours that once seemed impossible. The recent announcement that eight U.S. State Department veterans challenge the official account of 9/11 is likely to flush out more witnesses. Mainstream media are too embedded with the power elite to conduct an impartial yet vigorous evaluation of the evidence relating to dirty deeds on 9/11. In the end, the bloggers will have the last laugh. . . read more

Afghanistan was supposed to be "the Good War". Originally, 95% of the American people supported the invasion as the proper response to the attacks of September 11. Liberals and conservatives alike joined the rush to war. The world needed to see America's iron-fisted wrath. It was "payback time". Tariq Ali called it, "A crude war of revenge". He was right. No one talks about caves anymore - or smoke. The pre-war zeal is gone. Vanished. The "hearts and minds" campaign is lost, too.

"The American war on terror is a mockery and so is the U.S. support of the present government in Afghanistan which is dominated by Northern Alliance terrorists," says Malalai Joya. "Far more civilians have been killed by the U.S. military in Afghanistan than were killed in the U.S. in the tragedy of September 11. More Afghan civilians have been killed by the U.S. than were ever killed by theTaliban... The U.S. should withdraw as soon as possible. We need liberation not occupation."

The Bush administration has reneged on every commitment it made to the Afghan people. There was never any attempt to provide security beyond the capital. Never. The U.S. handed over the countryside to the warlords who run their fiefdoms like Mafia Dons. There's no freedom. There's no safety. There's no rule of law. It's all a fabrication - another made-for-TV invasion that's 99% fiction. [More] . . read more

Did those who were briefed condone these practices? Judge for yourself. From ABC News. "Among those being briefed, there was a pretty full understanding of what the CIA was doing," the report quotes former director of the CIA Porter Goss as saying. "And the reaction in the room was not just approval, but encouragement.”

Shame on those members of Congress who were briefed and kept silent. Shame on those in the Administration who were complicit and acted moral and indignant when questioned about torture. Shame on a complicit media for not boring in and exposing this madness. Shame on those in America who will applaud this brutal and deadly practice.

[HomePage Daily’s question to the Australian media: Why do you still refer to CIA torture as “enhanced interrogation”?]  . . read more

If there is a reason why the potential nominee has been keeping what he himself now admits to be very bad company — and if the rest of his character seems to make this improbable — then either he is hiding something and/or it is legitimate to ask him about his partner. I direct your attention to Mrs. Obama's 1985 thesis at Princeton University. Its title (rather limited in scope, given the author and the campus) is Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community. To describe it as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be "read" at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn't written in any known language. Anyway, at quite an early stage in the text, Michelle Obama announces that she's much influenced by the definition of black "separationism" offered by Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton in their 1967 screed Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America...

I last saw [Stokeley Carmichael] as the warm-up speaker for Louis Farrakhan in Madison Square Garden in 1985, on the evening when Farrakhan made himself famous by warning Jews, "You can't say 'Never Again' to God, because when he puts you in the ovens, you're there forever." I have the distinct feeling that the Obama campaign can't go on much longer without an answer to the question: "Are we getting two for one?" And don't be giving me any grief about asking this. Black Americans used to think that the Clinton twosome was their best friend, too. This time we should find out before it's too late to ask. [More] . . read more

Mr Griffiths had been in continuous residence in Australia since arriving here as a child. He was extradited to the U.S. on a judgment by the Australian courts that the offending activities should be deemd to have taken place in the U.S. The legal provision on which the Australian courts acted comes from the bilateral Australian Free Trade Agreement with the USA.

The issue at hand is why are threats to the profits of sofware multinationals more important that the sovereign rights of citizens?

You can line up as many Australian loonies and crims as you like (Hicks, Mokbal, Griffiths etc) and point to their anti-social behaviour. But if you throw their rights away, then out goes the baby with the bath water.  . . read more

The trade deficit with China is about $250 billion. China has engineered this competitive triumph by keeping its yuan even cheaper than the dollar, euro and gold. Annually, it sells at deep discount about $460 billion worth yuan for dollars, euros and other currencies in foreign exchange markets. That provides a 33% subsidy on Chinese exports and keeps Chinese goods cheap on the shelves at Wal-Mart...

The huge trade deficit must be financed either by attracting foreign investment in new productive assets in the United States or by printing IOUs. Investment has only provided about 10% of necessary cash, so each year the United States sells currency, bank deposits, Treasury securities, bonds, and the like to foreigners. Those claims on the U.S. economy now total about $6.5 trillion. That floods world financial markets with U.S. dollars and paper assets that function much like U.S. dollars-what economists call liquidity. And, it evokes an iron law of the universe. If you print too much money, it won't have any value. [More] . . read more