be just

Iraqi cab driver was source for Iraq WMD claim, British MP says : Information Clearing House - ICH : "December 08, 2009 'Raw Story' -- A British parliamentarian claimed in an report published Tuesday that an Iraqi cab driver was the source of an infamous claim made by Prime Minister Tony Blair that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The member of Parliament, a member of the conservative British Tory Party, claims that he was told by a British intelligence official that the claim actually came from an Iraqi taxi driver, and that it was considered highly unreliable but was tacitly backed by Blair's government in public statements anyway. According to the report, the taxi driver worked near Iraq's border with Jordan. The cab driver is said to have made the comments while transporting two British intelligence officers. 'Under pressure from Downing Street to find anything to back up the WMD case, [British intelligence services] were sq...

Whistleblower Psychiatrist Warns of Soldier-on-Soldier Violence by Dahr Jamail -- Antiwar.com : "MARFA, Texas – Kernan Manion, a psychiatrist who was hired last January to treat Marines returning from war who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other acute mental health problems borne from their deployments, fears more soldier-on-soldier violence without radical changes in the current soldier health care system. Working for a personnel-recruiting company which was contracted by the Defense Department at Camp Lejeune, Manion became alarmed at the military’s inability to give sufficient treatment to returning soldiers. He was also concerned by their reports of outright abuse meted out by some commanders against lower-ranking soldiers who sought help."

Karzai Says Afghan Army Will Need Help Until 2024 - NYTimes.com : "KABUL, Afghanistan — In the latest sign of the enduring financial costs of the Afghan war for the United States and other NATO countries, President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday that Afghanistan would not be able to pay for its own security until at least 2024. Mr. Karzai’s comments underscored his government’s long-term dependence on American and NATO financing just hours after as many as a dozen people were killed during an American raid in Laghman Province east of Kabul, Afghan officials said, prompting hundreds of villagers to march in protest. The early morning operation outside the provincial capital of Mehtar Lam happened “without any coordination with the Afghan forces or Afghan officials,” said Sayed Ahmed Safi, a spokesman for the governor of Laghman. He said one woman was among the dead, which included civilians as well as insurgents, all killed by small-arms fire. He said the troops also detained four other...

Democracy Now! | Radio and TV News : "Climate Countdown: Largest Climate Summit in World History Opens in Copenhagen Democracy Now! broadcasts live from Copenhagen from inside the Bella Center, where thousands of delegates from over 190 countries are gathering for the largest climate summit in history. Over the next two weeks, 100 world leaders are expected to attend the UN conference that has been described by some scientists as the most important the world has ever seen. We play highlights from the opening ceremony with the mayor of Copenhagen, Ritt Bjerregaard; Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; and Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, speaking on Sunday. [includes rush transcript]"

BBC News - Somalis rally against al-Shabab Islamists and bombing : "Hundreds of Somalis have taken to the streets of Mogadishu to protest against al-Shabab, the group held responsible for a deadly suicide attack last week. Protesters burned the group's flag in what analysts say is an unprecedented show of anger at the militants, who control large parts of the country. Although al-Shabab has been widely blamed for the atrocity, the group has issued a statement denying involvement. Three government ministers were among some 22 people killed in the attack. A suicide bomber disguised as a woman in a veil blew himself up at a graduation ceremony in the capital last Thursday."

Macmillan: Cultural Cleansing in Iraq: Why Museums Were Looted, Libraries Burned and Academics Murdered Raymond W. Baker, Shereen T Ismael, Tareq Y. Ismael: Books : "W hy did the invasion of Iraq result in cultural destruction and killings of intellectuals? Convention sees accidents of war and poor planning in a campaign to liberate Iraqis. The authors argue instead that the invasion aimed to dismantle the Iraqi state to remake it as a client regime. Post-invasion chaos created conditions under which the cultural foundations of the state could be undermined. The authors painstakingly document the consequences of the occupiers' willful inaction and worse, which led to the ravaging of one of the world's oldest recorded cultures. Targeted assassination of over 400 academics, kidnapping and the forced flight of thousands of doctors, lawyers, artists and other intellectuals add up to cultural cleansing. This important work lays to rest claims that the invasion aimed to free a...

Firedoglake : "In some of the most surreal reasoning yet, that dynamic duo Clinton and Gates argued for the Obama Afghanistan Timeline as a way to make the Afghans step up but at the same time they are also telling the Afghans and everyone else that the July 2011 date is essentially meaningless."