be just

Erdogan: Whatever The Cost Is, It Will Be Met : "ISTANBUL - 'If we decide on a cross-border operation, we do not have patience to lose more time. Whatever the cost is, it will be met,' Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday. "

Aswat Aliraq : "“For more than a year, Rick Francona, then an Air Force lieutenant colonel, was part of a secret CIA task force working to overthrow Saddam Hussein, the Bill Clinton administration’s failed attempt at regime change in Iraq,” the radio said in a report quoting the MSNBC news. Francona said that the U.S. should try to stop the hanging of former Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed, one of the generals recruited in that effort."

Afghanistan 'is going down fast' | The Australian : "The death of Trooper David Pearce underlines the rising dangers for Australia's 1000 soldiers in Afghanistan, most of them deployed in the Taliban's southern heartland -- a region some of Canberra's NATO allies consider too dangerous to fight in. 'This place can only go up or down, and it's going down fast, which is something the international community simply will not understand,' said a security analyst who has been working in and out of Afghanistan for 30 years. Almost six years after the hardline Islamist Taliban were ousted, their insurgency is gaining strength, fuelled by resentment at NATO bombing of civilians, billions of dollars of wasted aid, a lack of jobs and record crops of opium, the raw material for heroin."

"Sources: CIA legal official quit in protest over “enhanced interrogations”" by Ken Silverstein (Harper's Magazine) : "Well over a year ago I reported on a brewing revolt within the CIA over the Bush Administration’s use of renditions, “enhanced interrogation” techniques (otherwise known as torture) and other tough tactics employed in the “war on terrorism.” One former official with whom I spoke at the time told me, “There are people who fear that indictments and subpoenas could be coming down, and they don’t want to get caught up in it.” This person went on to describe a split at the CIA, saying, “There’s an SS group within the agency that’s willing to do anything and there’s a Wehrmacht group that is saying, ‘I’m not gonna touch this stuff’.”"

Former CEO Says U.S. Punished Phone Firm : "A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal. Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week."

Jan Oberg: Gore's Peace Prize, a Grand Misjudgment : "The concept and definition of peace should indeed be broad. But neither of the recipients have made contributions that can match thousands of other individuals and NGOs who devote their lives to fighting militarism, nuclearism, wars, reducing violence, work for peacebuilding, tolerance, reconciliation and co-existence - the core issues of the Nobel Peace Prize. It is also regrettable that the Prize rewards government-related work, rather than civil society - Non-Governmentals, making the implicit point that governments rather than the people make peace. In particular, Al Gore - as vice-president under Bill Clinton between 1993 and 2001 was never heard or seen as a peace-maker. Clinton-Gore had a crash program for building up US military facilities and made military allies all around Russia - and missed history's greatest opportunity for a new world order."

ei: Passing undefeated: Remembering Haider Abdul-Shafi : "Here was someone who always managed to transcend factionalism and religiosity, tribal politics and self-serving ideologies, maintaining his principles through any external difficulties. He co-founded the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1960s and went on to start the Palestine Red Crescent Society in Gaza in the 1970s. The resilient man led the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid peace talks in 1991 and in 1993 resigned the post after learning from his hotel radio that Yasser Arafat had reached a secret agreement in Oslo without consulting the Palestinian negotiators in Spain. Abdul-Shafi told me, in the first interview I had with him, that learning of Arafat's secret deal from the media was a particularly embarrassing moment for him."

Bravo, Barack Obama! American flag pins are for idiots | Salon.com New Rule: Show me a man wearing an American flag pin in his lapel, and I'll show you an asshole. I'm sure there are exceptions, but in general people need to remember that lapels aren't for wearing pins to create the illusion that you're supporting the troops. They're for wearing ribbons to create the illusion that you're helping cure a disease.

Al Jazeera English - News - Ex-General Calls Iraq A 'Nightmare'