In an article titled It’s the Occupation, Stupid, Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, who has been studying terrorism in many countries for a long time, says that the argument that we hear that terrorists hate us for who we are and what we represent, as formulated bt then president George W. Bush that “They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other” is simply not true.

New research provides strong evidence that suicide terrorism such as that of 9/11 is particularly sensitive to foreign military occupation, and not Islamic fundamentalism or any ideology independent of this crucial circumstance. Although this pattern began to emerge in the 1980s and 1990s, a wealth of new data presents a powerful picture.

More than 95 percent of all suicide attacks are in response to foreign occupation, according to extensive research that we conducted at the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and Terrorism, where we examined every one of the over 2,200 suicide attacks across the world from 1980 to the present day.
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Intelligent decisions require putting all the facts before us and considering new approaches. The first step is recognizing that occupations in the Muslim world don’t make Americans any safer — in fact, they are at the heart of the problem.

Cartoonist Ted Rall explains the baffling phenomenon of poor people being so protective of the interests of the very rich, at a time the rich don’t seem to give a damn about the poor.

The US government is bracing for a fresh release of WikiLeaks documents that is likely to occur soon. When it happens, we will once again be deluged with claims that WikiLeaks has both damaged the war effort on the ground and put innocent people at risk.

Glenn Greenwald reminds us of that past propaganda and how it has proved to be false.

In this conversation with Jon Stewart of the Daily Show, writer Philip Dray reminds us of how much we owe trade unions for improving the working conditions of everyone.

<td style='padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;' colspan='2'Philip Dray

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Glenn Greenwald points to a study that further documents the steady collapse of the US from within. One indicator is life expectancy but Greenwald points to many others.

In 1950, the United States was fifth among the leading industrialized nations with respect to female life expectancy at birth, surpassed only by Sweden, Norway, Australia, and the Netherlands. The last available measure of female life expectancy had the United States ranked at forty-sixth in the world. As of September 23, 2010, the United States ranked forty-ninth for both male and female life expectancy combined.

The slide is quite rapid. In 1999, the US was 24th.

But not to worry. When it comes to incarcerating prisoners, selling arms, and starting cruel and unnecessary wars, we’re still #1! And we have risen to #5 in executions, just behind China, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Who would not want to be in such distinguished company?

Yes, believe it or not, a judge ordered a constitutional lawyer to jail because he refused to vocalize the Pledge of Allegiance, although he stood while others did so.

Judges do abuse the power they have in their courtrooms on occasion, treating it like their own private fiefdoms, but this is going too far. The Supreme Court ruled in 1943 that children could not be forced to recite the pledge but the judge thinks that adults can?

Glenn Greenwald provides further evidence of the country’s descent into one in which the rule of law and the constitution are treated as inconvenient irritants, to be ignored in the glorious and never-ending ‘war on terror’..

The expert panel appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to look into the deaths resulting from the Israeli attack on the flotilla of vessels bringing relief supplies to Gaza has issued its report on September 27. You can see my series of posts (scroll down) on this tragedy from June 1 through June 10. Scott Horton at Harper’s has read the report and says, “The persons who prepared this report are eminent figures with no obvious prejudices one way or the other on the Gaza controversy. Their report is a model of clarity and masters an impressive body of evidence.”

Horton flags this excerpt:

The circumstances of the killing of at least six of the passengers were in a manner consistent with an extra-legal, arbitrary and summary execution. Furkan Dogan and Ibrahim Bilgen were shot at near range while the victims were lying injured on the top deck. Cevdet Kiliçlar, Cengiz Akyüz, Cengiz Songür and Çetin Topçuoglu were shot on the bridge deck while not participating in activities that represented a threat to any Israeli soldier. In these instances and possibly other killings on the Mavi Marmara, Israeli forces carried out extra- legal, arbitrary and summary executions prohibited by international human rights law, specifically article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
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two of the passengers killed on the top deck received wounds compatible with being shot at close range while lying on the ground: Furkan Dogan received a bullet in the face and Ibrahim Bilgen received a fatal wound from a soft baton round (beanbag) fired at such close proximity to his head that parts such as wadding penetrated his skull and entered his brain.

Considering that one of the dead (Furkan Dogan) was a US citizen, the lack of outrage from the Obama administration and the Congress and the silence of the media about the report is noteworthy.

Compare this with the fuss raised about the three Americans held by Iran for crossing into that country illegally, even though there is no indication that they were treated particularly badly and one was released on bail and allowed to leave the country for health reasons. Just imagine if Iran had done to them what Israel did to the people on the Mavi Marmara. We would be at war already.

The difference testifies to the fact that Israel can do what it likes to the US and its citizens or even its armed forces (as in the case of the USS Liberty) without fear of repercussions.

… would willfully and knowingly infect people with gonorrhea and syphilis without their knowledge or consent?

The Tuskegee revelations were bad enough. One shrinks with horror at what other abominable past and present secret government programs will be revealed in future.

The denial of equal rights for gays is inexcusable. There is absolutely no justification for it. Homophobia seems to be entirely based on religion or sexual insecurity or both.

The ugly face of homophobia is visible in the vicious and disgusting campaign by the assistant attorney general of the state of Michigan against the president of the University of Michigan student council, as seen in this CNN interview (via Pharyngula.)

One can see within seconds that this guy is a really nasty piece of work. What drives people like this to obsess about other people’s sexuality? This guy is positively creepy.

Certain segments of the population seem to be much more homophobic than others. The Christian Science Monitor has an article that says that the allegations that Eddie Long, the anti-gay head of a megachurch in Atlanta, used his influence to entice four young men to perform sex acts on him, has brought the silent issue of rampant homophobia in the black community to the surface.

The number of prominent, religious, obsessively anti-gay people who turn out to be themselves closeted gays is quite impressive.