News Roundup — Nuclear Politics and Global Conflict, May 2009

Tell Me Why, Does It Have To Be Like This

On 27 May, 2009, in Current events, by joe

Israel’s Nuclear Hysteria Contrasts with Korean Calm

By Gwynne Dyer

Why are Koreans so much braver than Israelis when faced with the threat of nuclear weapons?
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22707.htm

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Nukes ‘Politically Retarded’, says Ahmadinejad

By Press TV

As the West continues to press Iran on its nuclear program, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the country considers developing nuclear weapons as “politically retarded”.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22706.htm

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Armageddon Now?

By Nadia Hijab

Of all the analysis generated by the Obama-Netanyahu meeting Robert Satloff’s is the most significant. Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which serves as AIPAC’s think tank. His piece, circulated Thursday, provides insights into what the lobby — and Israel — might do next. And it should ring alarm bells.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22713.htm

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Torturing the Rule of Law

By Rep. Dr. Ron Paul

“Enhanced interrogation” as some prefer to call it, has been used throughout history, usually by despotic governments, to cruelly punish or to extract politically useful statements from prisoners. Governments that do these things invariably bring shame on themselves.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22705.htm

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Another Outrage

By Cindy Sheehan

I have spoken to men who were still in their teens who were sodomized with broom handles in Guantanamo. I have seen the horrific photos of the US’s inhumanity to man and cannot forgive my country for the terror it has unleashed on the world. I can’t stand the fact that our government operates with such craven cowardice and has harmed so many people while Americans revel in blissful ignorance.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22711.htm

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The Bases of Empire:

The Global Struggle Against U.S. Military Posts

By Chalmers Johnson

There has been no public discussion by the Obama administration over starting to liquidate our overseas bases or beginning to scale back our imperialist presence in the rest of the world.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22712.htm

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Tell Me Why, Does It Have To Be Like This

3 Minute Video and Text

Click to continue
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22710.htm

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Pakistan risks ‘human catastrophe’:

Human Rights Watch says the military must lift its curfew of the area, which has been in place for a full week, and airdrop essential food, water and medicine to the 200,000 residents trapped there.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/05/200952682026492224.html

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Refusing to go to Afghanistan:

Agosto enlisted in August 2005 after two years of study at Miami Dade College. “I joined for the usual reasons,” explained Agosto in an interview. “All the things they tell you about America when you’re growing up. But mostly, I was tired of sitting in classrooms. I wanted to do something. I wanted to see the world.”
http://www.military-world.net/Afghanistan/1454.html

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‘The Israelis have returned us to the 5th century’:

To Gaza residents, it sometimes seems as if the situation in the Strip could not get any worse. But then, another week or month passes, and Hussam and his fellows realize that indeed, it could.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088195.html

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Demonizing Venezuela, Bolivia :

Secret document: Venezuela, Bolivia supplying Iran with uranium:

Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program, according to a secret Israeli government report.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088087.html

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Bolivia denies supplying Iran with uranium:

Mining Minister Luis Alberto Echazu dismissed allegations in a secret Israeli government report, saying “there isn’t even a geological study (of uranium deposits), much less export” of uranium to another country.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090526/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_latam_israel_iran

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So Philip Gourevitch Can See the Torture Photos, But We Can’t?:

“I saw many more pictures than were ever published in the press, including, I believe, many-if not most-of the photos that president would now prefer that you don’t see,” he writes. He can see them, but we can’t.
http://www.progressive.org/wx052409.html