He sums up the problem with U.S. foreign policy nicely: "We don't mind our own business!"

Fun fact: U.S. military veterans have given more money to Ron Paul's campaign than all the other campaigns put together.

Faced with an ultimatum, the Taliban again refused to surrender Bin Laden, who initially denied involvement, and an American-led aerial bombing campaign followed.

In fact the Taliban publicly offered in October of 2001 to hand Osama bin Laden over to a third country, provided the U.S. halted the illegal bombing of Afgh­anistan and produced the necessary evidence about involvement of Bin Laden or any of his associates in the 11 September attacks. Would they have gone through with the offer? We'll never know because Bush rejected it, put­ting an end to any possibility of a potentially peaceful, legal resolution to the events of 11 September 2001, and opened up the way for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, along with the millions who have lost their lives or had them destroyed as a result.

Update: Jason Burke says he'll correct obituary.

And so to the latest example of American hypocrisy. While the U.S. preaches to the world about justice and freedom it is renowned for the opposite:

It's quite notable that the mere threat of ending up in American custody is considered (at least by Assange's lawyers) to be a viable basis for contesting extradition on human rights grounds. Indeed, this argument is not unusual.

Indeed, almost every person I've spoken who has or had anything to do with WikiLeaks expresses one fear above all others: the possibility that they will end up in American custody and subjected to its lawless War on Terror "justice system." Americans still like to think of themselves as "leaders of the free world," but in the eyes of many, it's exactly the "free world" to which American policies are so antithetical and threatening.

Understandably, Israel is very concerned when the president of a country, a large country near them, states that they should be wiped off the face of the earth.

Which is simply a lie. Is it any wonder Americans are so brainwashed?

The paradox for NATO and the Americans is that in September, 2010, they will have deployed the largest number of troops they ever had in Afghanistan, and yet that is when they are the most vulnerable, as the supply needs for this huge force are potentially crippling.

The Tea Party - thousands of hard-working middle-class FOX viewers fighting to make sure the rich pay less in taxes.

Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study. Dr Busby says that while he cannot identify the type of armaments used by the Marines, the extent of genetic damage suffered by inhabitants suggests the use of uranium in some form. He said: "My guess is that they used a new weapon against buildings to break through walls and kill those inside."

"There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force"

—Lieutenant-Colonel Scott Bleichwehl,

spokesman for U.S. forces in Baghdad. (New York Times)

The reality is a bunch of coward rednecks flying around in helicopters committing murder from high above.

When the Nuremberg Tribunal described a war of aggression as the supreme war crime, because it "contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole," this is the kind of thing they were talking about. These trigger happy rednecks flying around in helicopters just shouldn't be in Iraq in the first place.

And this redneck nation wonders why people want to fly planes into their buildings.

Now they're at it again, with over 70% telling pollsters that they think Iran has nuclear weapons.

Should this country really be allowed to deal in international politics?

David Korten alludes to the reason:

The private-benefit corporation is an institution granted a legally protected right—some would claim obligation—to pursue a narrow private interest without regard to broader social and environmental consequences. If it were a real person, it would fit the clinical profile of a sociopath.

The basic design of the private-benefit corporation was created in 1600 when the British crown chartered the British East India Company as what is best described as a legalized criminal syndicate to colonize the resources and economies of distant lands to benefit wealthy investors far removed from the social and environmental consequences. That design has ever since proven highly effective in advancing the private interests of the world’s wealthiest people at enormous cost to the rest.

The private-benefit corporation uses its economic power to privatize (internalize) gains and socialize (externalize) cost.

The power afforded to corporations in the U.S. has, until now, been slightly curtailed by limits imposed on corporate spending in political campaigns. In a sweeping decision a right-wing majority U.S. Supreme Court has ruled to lift these limits.

Corporations, and the rich behind them, finally own America. Democracy for the rich.

The 20th century has been characterised by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy. —Alex Carey, Taking the Risk out of Democracy

It seems to me that without having any structure on the ground in terms of distribution, that an airdrop is simply going to lead to riots as people try and go after that stuff … It seems to me that's a formula for contributing to chaos rather than preventing it.

Haiti is routinely described as the "poorest country in the western hemisphere". This poverty is the direct legacy of perhaps the most brutal system of colonial exploitation in world history, compounded by decades of systematic postcolonial oppression. Decades of neoliberal "adjustment" and neo-imperial intervention have robbed its government of any significant capacity to invest in its people or to regulate its economy. It is this poverty and powerlessness that account for the full scale of the horror in Port-au-Prince today. Since the late 1970s, relentless neoliberal assault on Haiti's agrarian economy has forced tens of thousands of small farmers into overcrowded urban slums.

Now is exactly the time to inject some realism into the discourse. I've been reading/listening to reports from the Western media, and they are full of revisions and distortions concerning our historical role there. 'Haiti is a failed state,' 'Aristide 'fled,' was 'forced out by a rebellion,' etc., ignoring the deliberate campaign of destabilisation and coup d'etat against the democratically elected government in 2004.

Religion-free ways to donate to the relief effort:

… perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of a nation in the midst of two wars. One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek …

In October of 2001 the Taliban publicly offered to hand Osama bin Laden over to a third country, provided the U.S. halted the illegal bombing of Afghanistan and produced the necessary evidence about involvement of bin Laden or any of his associates in the 11 September attacks. Bush rejected this, putting an end to any possibility of a potentially peaceful, legal resolution to the events of 11 September 2001, and opened up the way for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, Iraq and the threat of invasion of Iran, along with the millions who have lost their lives or had them destroyed as a result.

US militarism has to be considered under three headings: First, the US military is the largest single consumer of fossil fuel in the world. Second, the US economy, the largest national consumer of fossil fuel in the world, has shown that its primary mode of maintaining a supply of fossil fuel for itself is through military action (assault, intervention, occupation of other oil producing nations). Third, the US military operates in the interest of a corporate economy of which it (the military) is the foremost sector in the US.