Worthy links

Obviously, I've been on an unannounced hiatus of late. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to go back on one for about another week or so. In the meantime, I leave you some worthwhile links.

* The Washington Post recently reported as revelatory what should have been known by any serious news consumer: the US is running a system of "black sites" around the world, undisclosed prisons where detainees from the "war on terror" are being held and, presumably, tortured. Related: Brian Foley on "Why Most Americans Don't Care About Gitmo (and Why They Should)" and Jane Mayer asks, "Can the CIA legally kill a prisoner?"

* The Independent reports on RAI television's documentary about the Americans' use of white phosphorous against the civilian population of Fallujah during the November 2004 assault. Again, this has been reported on several occasions previously, just not in the American press. And, today, we get confirmation from an unlikely source: US military literature.

* Was the Iraqi Constitution Vote Fixed? asks Kevin Zeese. Nearly a month after the election, charges of irregularities and fraud abound from Nineveh province, where results essentially determined the fate of the referendum.

* October's count of 90 US soldiers killed in Iraq was the highest monthly toll since January.

* A smoking gun? We now know, via the NY Times, that the Bushies mounted one of their primary pieces of evidence regarding an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection on an informer whose testimony was widely seen as fraudulent.

* George Monbiot does an admirable job tackling the media's evasion and disingenuous criticisms of last fall's Lancet study on Iraqi mortality, as well as its preference for low-balled figures that fail to approximate the true scale of the war. "We can expect the US and UK governments to seek to minimise the extent of their war crimes," he observes. "But it's time the media stopped collaborating."

* Due to the confluence of events and some crafty maneuvering on the part of Democrats, the LA Times reports that "Bush War Policy Is Now in Play."

* Michael Schwartz brings you some of the submerged news from "forgotten Iraq," where the "inexorable drumbeat of occupation and resistance" marches on with dwindling attention from Western audiences.

* A historian thumbing through NSA documents has come across evidence suggesting that the Gulf of Tonkin incident back in 1968, used by the Johnson administration to ratchet up military activity against Vietnam, was fabricated. As Eric Alterman notes, "The parallels between the Tonkin episode and the war in Iraq are far too powerful for political comfort."

* Welcome back, Mr. Chalabi!

* Joshua Holland argues that the final report of the Volcker Committee, which has been investigating the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, suggests that what the "Scandal Pimps" have been trying "to portray as a massive UN scandal has always been a relatively modest corporate scandal, interesting more for the players involved than because of its scale."

* This SF Chronicle report sums up some of the recent developments, largely in Italy, regarding the forged Niger uranium documents.

* Here's the Libby indictment. Karl's not off the hook yet, but there's a lot of (baseless?) speculation flying around that he's going to weasel his way out of punitive action from Fitzgerald. Meanwhile, as the larger mystery still remains unsolved and the neocons come under some overdue scrutiny, John Dean has taken it upon himself to read between the lines of the indictment. Plus: Scott Ritter on "Indicting America."

* Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, has notably come out with condemnations of the Cheney-led "cabal." He has also, to less fanfare, outed Cheney as the primary administrative force behind American gulag policies and tipped his hat to the centrality of oil in pre-war Iraq deliberations.

* Jim Lobe observes that, around Washington, Dick Cheney's becoming a political liability for Bush.

* Damn defectors. See also Bush's "Wall of Cronyism."

* Mark Engler argues that Bush is bad for American business.

* Dave Lindorff notes that impeachment of Dubya has "gone mainstream," with polls showing more than 50% of Americans approve of Congressional action "if it can be shown that he lied to get the US into a war with Iraq."

* Why is France burning? Check in with Ehsan Ahrari and Doug Ireland for some solid insight.

* On to Syria? William Arkin details some of the US military preparations for an attack and Ramzy Baroud argues that "to act as if the international uproar lead by the Bush Administration, more specifically the pro-Israeli elements within the administration, is a sincere endeavor to unmask the truth and bring Hariri's murderers to justice is to succumb yet to another mockery as sizeable as that of Iraq's alleged WMDs."

* Jeff Halper connects the disturbing dots between the politics of Israel and the ambitions of American empire, while Hasan Abu Nimah relays this concise and cogent quote from The Independent: "President Ahmadinejad calls for Israel to be wiped off the map, but Israel effectively wiped Palestine off the map 57 years ago, and where's the indignation over that?"

* The FBI's snooping around a lot more than it has in recent times. According to the Washington Post, the Bureau "now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters -- one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people -- are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans."

* IPS' Barbara Litzlbeck summarizes some of the findings of a recent report on the potential economic costs of global climate change.

* David Peterson breaks down some of the findings of the latest Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey.

* David Shipler: "There is no more telling indictment of reporters and editors than the surprise felt by most Americans in seeing the raw poverty among New Orleans residents after Hurricane Katrina. In an open society, nobody who had been watching television or reading newspapers should have been surprised by what Katrina 'revealed,' to use the word so widely uttered in the aftermath. The fissures of race and class should be 'revealed' every day by America’s free press. Why aren’t they?" Plus: Tim Wise examines the Big Lie about the poor in New Orleans.

* A Brandeis University analysis of a recent USDA report shows that hunger in the US has risen by 43% since 1999.

* Lew Rockwell in/famously lamented the rise of "Red State Fascism" last year. More recently, Chris Hedges revamped several of Rockwell's claims to ring the alarm about Christian-led Fascism in the US.

* In the Nation, Stephen Holmes reviews two new books from prominent CMLs Paul Berman and David Rieff. Interestingly, the section on Berman reads much like George Scialabba's delicious Nation review of Terror and Liberalism from 2003.

* Mark Crispin Miller, whose August article in Harper's and forthcoming book argue that the 2004 presidential election was probably stolen, alleges that John Kerry recently admitted that he, too, "now thinks the election was stolen." Kerry has, in his typical manner, gone back on this statement. See also, in related news: "Powerful Government Accountability Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings."

* Paul Rogat Loeb tells us about the "real Rosa Parks," a woman who, far from being a singular courageous voice in the wilderness, was deeply immersed in a broad movement for social change.

* Alex Cockburn dissects the latest Chomsky smear from the Guardian.