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US Ranks Sixth Among Countries Jailing Journalists

We hold it against Cuba, yet America does it too.

--Joshua Frank

Review of Left Out!

Check out Adam Engel's review of my book, Left Out!.

--Joshua Frank

Underground Informant Used in Ecoterrorism Case

An undercover informant helped investigators tape a conversation with one of the seven alleged radical environmentalists accused in a series of arson attacks and other crimes in the Pacific Northwest between 1998 and 2001.

Read the piece here.

--Joshua Frank

Blacks Live with More Air Pollution

CHICAGO - An Associated Press analysis of a little-known government research project shows that black Americans are 79 percent more likely than whites to live in neighborhoods where industrial pollution is suspected of posing the greatest health danger.

Residents in neighborhoods with the highest pollution scores also tend to be poorer, less educated and more often unemployed than those elsewhere in the country, AP found.

"Poor communities, frequently communities of color but not exclusively, suffer disproportionately," said Carol Browner, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton administration when the scoring system was developed. "If you look at where our industrialized facilities tend to be located, they're not in the upper middle class neighborhoods."

With help from government scientists, AP mapped the risk scores for every neighborhood counted by the Census Bureau in 2000. The scores were then used to compare risks between neighborhoods and to study the racial and economic status of those who breathe America's most unhealthy air.

Read the rest here.

--Joshua Frank

Bomb Canada?

Canada Shrugs US Warning to Back Off

OTTAWA/SURREY, British Columbia (Reuters) - The United States made an unprecedented foray into Canada's election campaign on Tuesday, warning politicians not to bash Washington in their bid to win the January 23 election.

But an unapologetic Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin responded immediately by saying "c'est la vie" -- that's life -- if the United States did not like his remarks, and he would not accept anyone telling him he cannot defend his country.

In a hard-hitting speech in Ottawa, U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins lamented what he called relentless and incessant criticism of his country, which he speculated might begin to sow doubt about the strength of the binational relationship.

"Canada never has to tear the United States down to build itself up," Wilkins said.

"It may be smart election politics to thump your chest and constantly criticize your friend and your No. 1 trading partner. But it's a slippery slope and all of us should hope it doesn't have a long-term impact on our relationship."

Read the rest over here.

--Jeffrey St. Clair

Democrats SLAM Divestment from Israel

Surprise, surprise.

--Joshua Frank

Howard Dean's Warmongering

Howard Dean is just plain pathetic.

"We can and we must win the war on terror," Dean recently spouted at a Democratic Party convention in Florida. Dean was responding to Republican attack dogs who have gone after him for his "soft" position on terror. Cornered, Dean is now snapping back, proving he can warmonger with the best of 'em.

"Strategic redeployment addresses a broader battle against global terrorist networks. We need to re-engage our allies and a military realignment of our troops will make our forces stronger and save American lives," Dean said.

Of course, the DNC Chair has never really challenged this war or Bush's broader "anti-terror" agenda. Dean seems to be saying, or in fact is saying, that he wants to keep the troops in the Middle East to stand guard and protect US oil interests. He also won't back off his support for Israel which steers US foreign policy in the region.

I think the truth is in: Howard Dean, like most Democrats, is a neo-con in donkey attire.

--Joshua Frank

Rumsfeld Dines with Kissinger

I wonder if Rummy got lucky after their date.

--Joshua Frank

WTO Protestors Take the Plunge

Interesting piece here on why people are protesting the WTO in China this week.

--Joshua Frank

Talking Points Propaganda

It seems that liberals will go to any lengths in order to protect the sanctity of President Clinton's legacy, and it is getting downright aggravating. Take Joshua Micah Marshall, the Ivy-league liberal who publishes Talking Points Memo, an enormously popular online political blog with a prog-centrist tilt, à la Eric Alterman. As Marshall recently wrote:

"[T]he president's defenders have fallen back on what has always been their argument of last resort – cherry-picked quotes from Clinton administration officials arranged to give the misleading impression that the Clintonites said and thought the same thing about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as the Bushies did."

Yeah, you're not the only one – it makes my head spin, too. I'm not exactly sure how one can cherry-pick President Clinton's 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, which gave the U.S. government the green light to whack Saddam for the slightest annoyance, whether fabricated or not. In fact, it was the former Iraq dictator's alleged weapons of mass destruction that were part of the Act's foundation.

As the Act provided:

"Since March 1996, Iraq has systematically sought to deny weapons inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) access to key facilities and documents, has on several occasions endangered the safe operation of UNSCOM helicopters transporting UNSCOM personnel in Iraq, and has persisted in a pattern of deception and concealment regarding the history of its weapons of mass destruction programs."

President Clinton was attempting to justify an attack on Iraq on the grounds that Saddam had a lethal arsenal of WMD. I am not sure how that is all that different from Bush's rhetoric. But logic is meaningless when party loyalty is involved. Just ask Josh Marshall, who continues:

"But even arguing on this ground understates the full measure of administration mendacity in the lead up to the war since it ignores half the story. WMD was only half the administration equation for war. The other half was a Iraq's alleged tie to Islamist terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and including a-Qaeda. On top of that, of course, was the big enchilada, the Cheney favorite, those frequent and intentionally ambiguous suggestions that Saddam Hussein played a role in the 9/11 attacks."

Oh my, what a stretch. I'd put WMD at about 75 percent of Bush's justification for invading. And remind me again how the Democrats opposed Cheney's favorite Iraq lie? Oh yeah, they didn't. That aside, Marshall doesn't acknowledge the bigger picture, as I describe in Left Out!;

"In 1993, Clinton himself bombed Iraqi intelligence centers for what he said was retaliation for the attempted assassination of George Bush Sr. 'He said publicly that the U.S. strike on Iraqi intelligence headquarters was retaliation for Saddam's attempt to kill [ex-president] George Bush,' Laurie Mylroie, who worked as Clinton's Iraq specialist during his 1992 campaign, told WABC radio's Steve Malzberg. '[But] he also meant it for the Trade Center bombing. … Clinton believed that the attack on Iraqi intelligence headquarters would deter Saddam from all future strikes against the United States,' she claimed. 'It was hopelessly naïve."

Clinton didn't try to tie Saddam Hussein to the crime; he just went ahead and bombed on his own accord. No matter that the CIA was pointing to bin Laden and not Saddam. So much for Dick Cheney being the only one pointing fingers in Saddam's direction when it was undeserving.

How soon Marshall forgets that in 1996 the Clintonites bombed several civilian targets and military facilities – without the approval of the UN or any international alliance, for that matter. The Iraqi government and even the Pentagon reported dozens of deaths and millions of dollars worth of damages. The war on Iraq,despite popular belief, didn't start with Bush Jr.

How can we forget President Clinton's callousness toward Iraqi civilians? The United Nations estimated in 1995 that as many as 576,000 Iraqi youths died as a result of the sanctions that the U.S. had imposed and supported since 1991. But we're talking bombs here, not sanctions.

Soon after the Iraq Liberation Act was signed into law, Clinton, in what many criticized as an effort to deflect attention from his impeachment trial, tried his luck with Saddam one more time on Dec. 16,1998. Unlike previous attacks on Iraq, which paled in comparison, this attack was waged with primitive anger. As President Clinton asserted in a national televised address on the day of the first U.S. offensive"

"Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors. … Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world."

He continued:

"Six weeks ago, Saddam Hussein announced that he would no longer cooperate with the United Nations weapons inspectors, called UNSCOM. They are highly professional experts from dozens of countries. Their job is to oversee the elimination of Iraq's capability to retain, create, and use weapons of mass destruction, and to verify that Iraq does not attempt to rebuild that capability. … The international community had little doubt then, and I have no doubt today, that left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again."

I'm not mincing words, and I'm not sure how in the heck President Clinton's word-for-word rationale for bombing Saddam could be considered "cherry-picked," as Josh Marshall puts it.

I just don't think there is any question that Joshua Micah Marshall's beloved Bill Clinton laid the groundwork for George W. Bush's Iraq invasion. He most certainly did. As my granddad used to tell me,"The proof of the pudding is in the eating."

Chew on that for a while, Mr. Marshall.

--Joshua Frank