Simon Jenkins is a right winger, no?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/20/nato.usforeignpolicy

In Europe, as in Asia, Nato leaves a trail of catastrophe
This outdated military alliance is playing with fire in Russia. In
Pakistan and Afghanistan it is playing with dynamite
All comments ()

o The Guardian,
o Wednesday August 20 2008

Nato is useless. It has failed to bring stability to Afghanistan, as it
failed to bring it to Serbia. It just breaks crockery. Nato has proved a
rotten fighting force, which in Kabul is on the brink of being sidelined
by exasperated Americans. Nor is it any better at diplomacy: witness its
hamfisted handling of east Europe. As the custodian of the west's postwar
resistance to the Soviet Union's nuclear threat it served a purpose. Now
it has become a diplomats' Olympics, irrelevant but with bursts of
extravagant self-importance.

I missed this when it was published 10 days ago ..

====

War on Terror boardgame branded criminal by police

By Jerome Taylor
Saturday, 9 August 2008

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/war-on-terror-boardgame-branded-criminal...
http://tinyurl.com/55dvgg

It may not be fun for all the family – well, not in the same way as
Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit or Mousetrap, say. The themes of empire building
and terrorist-style attacks on opponents would probably provoke an outbreak
of spluttering over the Christmas sherry.

It is rare, however, for a board game to be seized by the police. This week
that distinction befell War on Terror: The Boardgame; a set was confiscated
from climate protesters in Kent.

Following a series of raids on the climate change camp near Kingsnorth power
station, officers displayed an array of supposed weapons snatched from
demonstrators: knives, chisels, bolt cutters, a throwing star – and a copy
of the satirical game, which lampoons Washington's "war on terror".

Divided Nato must rethink its purpose

The Georgian crisis has shown up the anachronism of the defence
organisation, says Robert Fox

FIRST POSTED AUGUST 19, 2008

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/45156,opinion,what-future-is-there-for-nato

A lot of what is being said now by Moscow and Washington in the aftermath of
the Georgia crisis is diplomatic posturing and militaristic bluster. As
Russian columns were heading through South Ossetia to Gori, Vice-President
Dick Cheney said that "the Russians will be made to pay". To which Robert
Hunter, one of the most accomplished former US ambassadors to Nato,
countered that there was no point in the American leadership dishing out
vague threats that they had little chance of carrying out.

Who Started Cold War II?

by Patrick J. Buchanan
August 19, 2008

http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=13323

The American people should be eternally grateful to Old Europe for having
spiked the Bush-McCain plan to bring Georgia into NATO.

Had Georgia been in NATO when Mikheil Saakashvili invaded South Ossetia, we
would be eyeball to eyeball with Russia, facing war in the Caucasus, where
Moscow's superiority is as great as U.S. superiority in the Caribbean
during the Cuban missile crisis.

If the Russia-Georgia war proves nothing else, it is the insanity of giving
erratic hotheads in volatile nations the power to drag the United States
into war.

From Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates said,
U.S. presidents have sought to avoid shooting wars with Russia, even when
the Bear was at its most beastly.

At JFK Airport, Denying Basic Rights Is Just Another Day at the Office

By Emily Feder, AlterNet
Posted on August 18, 2008, Printed on August 19, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/95351/

I arrived at JFK Airport two weeks ago after a short vacation to Syria and
presented my American passport for re-entry to the United States. After 28
hours of traveling, I had settled into a hazy awareness that this was the
last, most familiar leg of a long journey. I exchanged friendly words with
the Homeland Security official who was recording my name in his computer.
He scrolled through my passport, and when his thumb rested on my Syrian
visa, he paused. Jerking toward the door of his glass-enclosed booth, he
slid my passport into a dingy green plastic folder and walked down the
hallway, motioning for me to follow with a flick of his wrist. Where was he
taking me, I asked him. "You'll find out," he said.

We got to an enclosed holding area in the arrivals section of the airport.
He shoved the folder into my hand and gestured toward four sets of Homeland
Security guards sitting at large desks. Attached to...

Please Mr. President, Don't Make Promises to Fools

by John Taylor
August 19, 2008

http://www.antiwar.com/taylor/?articleid=13321

"This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia where Russia can
threaten a neighbor, occupy a capital, overthrow a government, and get away
with it."
- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Aug. 14, 2008

Condi Rice seems to think the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Georgia are
quite comparable, except that this time the invaders are "not going to get
away with it." But much has happened in the world since 1968, and Rice, the
quintessential intellectual lightweight, has failed to recognize another
important way in which the invasions differ: The Soviet Union, not Russia,
invaded Czechoslovakia. Back in 1968 the USSR was an ideologically driven
empire convinced that its system of government and social organization,
communism, was fated to defeat capitalism and rule the planet. The Russia
that emerged from the breakup of the Soviet Union and the fall of communism
is a nation geographically, militarily, and economically much smaller and
weaker than the USSR.

The US missile defence system is the magic pudding that will never run out

Poland is just the latest fall guy for an American foreign policy dictated
by military industrial lobbyists in Washington

George Monbiot
The Guardian, Tuesday August 19 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/19/usforeignpolicy.russia

It's a novel way to take your own life. Just as Russia demonstrates what
happens to former minions that annoy it, Poland agrees to host a US missile
defence base. The Russians, as Poland expected, respond to this proposal by
offering to turn the country into a parking lot. This proves that the
missile defence system is necessary after all: it will stop the missiles
Russia will now aim at Poland, the Czech Republic and the UK in response
to, er, their involvement in the missile defence system.

The American government insists that the interceptors, which will be
stationed on the Baltic coast, have nothing to do with Russia: their
purpose is to defend Europe and the US against the intercontinental
ballistic missiles Iran and North Korea don't possess. This is why they are
being placed in Poland, which, as every geography student in Texas knows,
shares a border with both rogue states.

I remember mentioning screwing up a post because I was watching something on
Fox about a uranium gun device.

This is the clip if anyone is interested. It basically seems to be a
simplified Hiroshima bomb. I think this design was as likely to blow up
it's own side as the enemy, but at least it was simple...

www.twpng.karoo.net/u-gun.wmv

I won't keep this around long.

TWP

Ignorance is bliss...drip..drip..drip...I wonder where they get their
information from....Guardian/Independent/BBC ?
Hurray for the internet....

"British attitudes towards the United States are governed by ignorance of
the facts on key issues such as crime, health care and foreign policy,
according to a new survey."
"Asked if it was true that "from 1973 to 1990 the United States sold Saddam
Hussein more than a quarter of his weapons," 80 per cent of British
respondents said yes. However the US sold just 0.46 per cent of Saddam's
arsenal to him, compared to Russia's 57 per cent, France's 13 per cent and
China's 12 per cent."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/2575395/British-anti-Americanism...

http://americaintheworld.typepad.com/home/2008/08/british-citizen.html#more

Ruff....

Amadinnerjackets new toy....

".......According to our sources, Tehran caught Israel, the United States
and both their undercover agencies by surprise. They knew Iran was working
on a space program but not how close the Iranians were to placing a
satellite in orbit.
Our sources believe that the capsule was boosted by the Shehab-5 missile,
whose range the Iranians boast is up to 5,000 km and, according to some
military experts, reaches 7,000 km.

The Islamic Republic's reported feat comes at a bad time for Moscow
internationally. The Russians emphatically dismiss America's argument for
installing missile interceptors in Poland as a shield against Iranian
ballistic missile attack, claiming they were aimed at Russia. The Kremlin
accuses the Bush administration using this false claim as a pretext, because
Iran had not so far developed a ballistic threat. Now, that proof may have
been provided Sunday, Moscow will have to reconsider its position."

www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5514

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was present at Iran's space centre
and read out the launch countdown, state television reported. It said he had
'congratulated the Iranian nation on the great achievement'."