Two weeks

'back. Sorry for the break, as usual. There's a condensation of two weeks below.

* Even though "no proof" of a nuclear weapons program was found, the IAEA's report to the UN Security Council on April 28 found Iran to be "in defiance" of the UN's order to halt its enrichment program entirely. As with Iraq's WMD, the main conclusion of the IAEA was that "the existing gaps in knowledge [regarding Iran's nuclear program] continue to be a matter of concern." Again, it seems, the US is trying to coax the world into seeing this "absence of evidence" not as the "evidence of absence" of a nefarious program. So, now what?

* In addition to Ahmadinejad's widely-noted letter to Bush, Gareth Porter reports that "Iranian leaders have been signaling to Washington since late last year that Iran wanted direct negotiations with the United States on Tehran's nuclear program and other outstanding issues between the two countries." The problem is, the Bush administration wants nothing to do with talks, since "regime change" is their rather explicit policy goal. It is also worth mentioning that the tendency to refuse to talk is not unusual for this administration.

* "The only real solution to the standoff over Iran's nuclear program is a diplomatic one," concludes Stephen Zunes in an essay titled, "The United States, Israel, and the Possible Attack on Iran." Unfortunately, he adds, "The Bush administration and Congressional leaders of both parties have rejected such a proposal, however, insisting that the United States has the right to unilaterally decide which countries get to have nuclear weapons and which ones do not, effectively imposing a kind of nuclear apartheid" and "It remains to be seen...whether the American public will once again allow the Bush administration and the leadership of both parties Congress to successfully employ exaggerated stories of potential 'weapons of mass destruction' controlled by an oil-rich country on the far side of the world to justify a disastrous war."

* An attack on Iran in June? Maybe Scott Ritter was only off by a year...

* Why shouldn't Iran have nuclear weapons? asks James C. Moore. When you add up all the variables, there's little convincing reason.

* Allegedly, Iran's much-discussed oil bourse is set to open within two months.

* Did Bush Force British Minister Out? The Independent and Guardian have reported that Jack Straw, Britain's Foreign Secretary, was pushed out of office because Bush was upset that he was cutting an attack on Iran off at the knees with his public remarks. If true, this is amazing.

* According to the LA Times, "More Iraqi civilians were killed in Baghdad during the first three months of this year than at any time since the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime — at least 3,800, many of them found hogtied and shot execution-style." See also: "Death in Iraq. It is relentless and incessant."

* On the other side of the equation, the April death toll for US troops in Iraq, 69, was the highest for five months.

* 65k 100k Iraqis have fled their homes in the face of violence and sectarian reprisals since the February 22 Askariya mosque bombing in Samarra.

* Americans may not be able to keep the electricity on or provide clean water to millions in Iraq, but they sure know how to throw up a massive colonial outpost, lickety split.

* Ridiculous sums of money earmarked for Iraq are still going down the drain. Related story from the NY Times, here.

* "Out of Iraq, Into Darfur"? Err, no, says Gary Leupp. "What can we do to help the oppressed of Darfur?" he asks in a subsequent essay. "We can liberate America and make it a credible ally of the oppressed everywhere." That, rather than letting fly with liberal imperialism dressed up in humanitarian garb, is probably the best option for the people suffering in Darfur, at least where US involvement is concerned.

* Is the isolation of Hamas justified? wonders Remi Kanazi. Likewise, Ramzy Baroud argues that EU & American hostility towards Hamas "will likely push the Palestinian government, willingly or not, toward a more detrimental and extremist political line, because mere survival – neither pragmatism nor a shadowy peace -- is now its ultimate objective."

* At long last, the crises in Gaza and the West Bank are starting to get some attention -- with even the NY Times on the scene. Plus: Stephen Lendman on "Life in Occupied Palestine."

* To his credit, Jimmy Carter is willing to say the obvious when so many look the other way: "Innocent Palestinian people are being treated like animals, with the presumption that they are guilty of some crime. Because they voted for candidates who are members of Hamas, the government has become the driving force behind an apparently effective scheme of depriving the general public of income, access to the outside world and the necessities of life."

* Tony Judt: It's time for Israel to grow up.

* According to the NY Times, the Taliban is growing in force in the southern regions of Afghanistan. See also: "The New Opium War" and "The night fairies."

* In an important move for continued integration in the Western hemisphere that explicitly rejects the "Washington Consensus," Bolivia, Cuba, and Venezuela have signed a trade deal that will primarily use revenue from the energy trade to fund social projects and invest in infrastructure.

* Following the announced ALBA pact, Bolivian President Evo Morales moved quickly to nationalize his country's energy resources (mostly gas reserves), an act that "worries" the usual suspects. Plus: "Move over the 'axis of evil.' The time is ripe for the 'axis of gas.'"

* The Guardian's John Vidal looks at Chernobyl, 20 years on.

* "Our monarch, above the law." Last week the outrage was the breadth of Bush's use of signing statements and his utter contempt for laws that restrict his power. This week it's additional NSA phone snooping and data mining. I wonder what next week will bring...

* Related reports suggest that local police units and the Pentagon are heavily involved in domestic spying. At the same time, Thomas Nelson, an Oregon attorney who featured prominently in a previous US News & World Report story about warrantless physical searches, seems to be uncovering more evidence of government wiretaps with each passing day.

* Hookergate? Actually, Goff's resignation from the CIA is probably best viewed through the lens of the Pentagon's ongoing battle with the CIA, although I wouldn't discount nefarious goings on at the Watergate as playing some kind of role in his abrubt ouster.

* According to the SF Chronicle, a new study by researchers at the Guttmacher Institute has found that poor folk are giving birth to many more unplanned children and having more abortions than those above them on the socioeconomic ladder. Of course, I'm sure this has nothing to do with the efforts of the anti-contraception/anti-sex Right, which was profiled in horrific detail in a recent NY Times Magazine cover story.

* The shining beacon that is American healthcare shone through again with a new report that cites alarmingly high infant mortality rates within the US. Of course, this is nothing less than criminal when you consider the wealth at this country's disposal.

* The US does not shrink from employing torture, whether it be at home or abroad, claims a new AI report.

* The State Department finally released its updated figures on global terrorism, which I alluded to here. Jim Lobe has the rest of the details following the official release of the report.

* Law or war? Well, for the Bushies, the choice was obvious.

* Investigators into last year's bombings in London on July 7 have concluded that the bombers were motivated largely by the Iraq war.

* The World Conservation Union has issued a new report that claims 16,000 species of animals and plants face extinction, mainly due to "habitat destruction" from human activity and global warming.

* As a Reuters story suggests, it seems that if the urgency of global climate change is going to break into public consciousness, it's going to come on the back of more powerful and destructive hurricanes. Meanwhile, negative news regarding the rate of climate change continues rolling in, this time in separate reports from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

* "There is something absurd and inherently false about one country trying to impose its system of government or its economic institutions on another," observes Chalmers Johnson. "Such an enterprise amounts to a dictionary definition of imperialism. When what's at issue is 'democracy,' you have the fallacy of using the end to justify the mean? (making war on those to be democratized), and in the process the leaders of the missionary country are invariably infected with the sins of hubris, racism, and arrogance." No kidding.

* Chris Floyd strikes a chord in his Moscow Times column about the normality of depravity. As he puts it, a "state of unwitting confession to monstrous crime has been the default mode of the U.S. establishment for many years now. Government officials routinely detail policies that in a healthy atmosphere would shake the nation to its core, stand out like a gaping wound, a rank betrayal of every hope, ideal and sacrifice of generations past. Yet in the degraded sensibility of these times, such confessions go unnoticed, their evil unrecognized -- or even lauded as savvy ploys or noble endeavors. Inured to moral horror by half a century of outrages committed by the 'National Security' complex, the establishment, along with the media and vast swathes of the population, can no longer discern the poison in the air they breathe. It just seems normal."

* Walt and Mearsheimer have finally responded to their "Israel lobby" critics in a brief riposte in the LRB. Norman Solomon, Norman Finkelstein, William Pfaff, and Alex Cockburn have weighed in with notable remarks, as well.

* Philip Weiss' recent article in The Nation is probably the best background piece on the Mearsheimer and Walt brouhaha to appear thus far.

* Looking for an excellent reason why you shouldn't sign up for the US military? Here's a compelling one.

* Press lapdogs? Yes, obviously, especially when it came to Iraq.

* James Carroll gets some kudos for bringing up an important, but often neglected, trope: how the United States emerged from the Vietnam war with the perception of being the victim in that entire affair, which just so happened to destroy Vietnam (nevermind good parts of Cambodia and Laos) and killed, at best estimate, some 2-3 million people. In particular, Carroll points out how the POW-MIA movement was cynically used to foster such sentiments, a point H. Bruce Franklin dealt with handily in his book, MIA: Mythmaking in America.

* This is an excellent mini-review of Chomsky's new book, Failed States, which I recommend highly. (Much of the first half of the book could have been ripped entirely from this blog.)

* If you've got some time, ICH has put up a number of good vids recently: "The Corporation," "Paradise Now," and "Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media."

* Stephen Colbert's roast of Bush, the press, and, frankly, the entire Washington Establishment was indeed delicious. Video is here; a transcript is here.