To put to the blame for Neda's death squarely on the shoulder of the government, when it may well have been the work of one of Iran's multiple armed dissident groups or even agents of foreign government intent on exploiting Neda's death for their own objectives, is an act of media prejudice and certainly below the bar of integrity, says Kaveh Afrasiabi.

The reality is that all types of immigrants, including the undocumented, boost the American economy as taxpayers, workers, consumers and business owners. Through their work and consumption, immigrants generate economic activity that creates new jobs, jobs that wouldn't exist if immigrants were not part of our economy, says Amy Traub.

The Saudi attack on northern Yemen is the epitome of military adventurism and opportunism. It allows them to use – for the first time – advanced weapons purchased from the United States against an ill-equipped band of rebels in the midst of a destitute, malnourished, and displaced population, notes Rannie Amiri.

Judge Yuval Shadmi referred only to discrimination (against Arabs) in sentencing in Israeli criminal courts. But Palestinians from the occupied territories are tried in Israeli military courts under different legal rules and procedures that have been severely criticised by human rights groups, notes Jonathan Cook.

The Gospel of Wealth, in which riches determined God‘s favor, along with Christian Missionaries who wanted to evangelize the world, created a party obsessed with superiority and triumphalism, notes Dallas Darling.

The Zionists and their 'gangs', a euphemism for well equipped and well trained military forces, launched a full scale terrorist rebellion against the British by robbing banks, indiscriminate killing of British police, and the assassination of British minister-resident Lord Moyne in 1944, notes William A. Cook.

The hyped case for war with Iraq was a marvelous example of how the neocons could use lies and deceptions to get young men and women from small towns and big cities across America to go kill – and be killed by – troublesome Arabs in the Middle East, the neocons’ favorite enemies, notes Robert Parry.

We are hearing about the need to avoid evidence obtained through torture. But at the same time we are hearing absolutely nothing about the need to prosecute the torturers and the creators of the torture program, notes David Swanson.

What audiences watch, read and listen to in most countries outside the Western hemisphere is not truly Western culture in the strict definition of the term. It’s a selective brand of a culture, a reductionst presentation of art, entertainment, news, and so on, as platforms to promote ideas that would ultimately sell products, notes Ramzy Baroud.

The lazy Washington analysis has remained that the 'surge' worked in Iraq, so why not do one in Afghanistan? Though Democratic officials are notoriously disinterested in history, Obama may find that his acceptance of a false history for Iraq has real-life consequences in Afghanistan, notes Ray McGovern.

Israel realises that it cannot bomb Hezbollah out of existence. The Lebanese party, despite all attempts, is still firmly united and has not been infiltrated by Israeli spies. Politically, they remain as powerful as ever. War is probably not in the immediate horizon between Lebanon and Israel, notes Sami Moubayed.

We don't know how many US troops will be involved or whether they will be weighted toward trainers and advisors or combat forces, but it seems clear that some will be sent. It's not for nothing that the Pentagon is ramping up new Afghan bases and reinforcing old ones, notes Tom Engelhardt.

Palin continues to claim that she effectively protected Alaska's environment, but a national academies peer review panel has blasted her oil and gas risk assessment plan, calling her environmental credentials into question. Little attention has been paid to her record as governor of Alaska, notes Dahr Jamail.

Since 2001, the Taliban have distanced themselves from al Qaeda, due to a growing confidence in their ability to carry out all facets of military operations on their own and the belief that their association with al Qaeda prevented the Taliban from winning total control of Afghanistan in 1996, says Bruce P. Cameron.

The new Palestinian initiative would be in the same boat as President Obama’s current attempt to re-start the peace process – going nowhere. The US would be more fully exposed as a client state of Israel on matters to do with ending the conflict, notes Alan Hart.

Turkey's close ties with Iran can undoubtedly be strategically important to the region. Turkey has also thus far done admirably well in undertaking key social and political reforms in completing its required EU chapters, says Alon Ben-Meir.

The rabbis, who base their ideas on Bible quotations, said that non-Jews could also be killed if they 'violate' biblical commandments such as the prohibition against stealing, murdering or idol-worshipping, notes Vita Bekker.

In recent weeks possible candidates to inherit power from current presidents found a good opportunity to advertise their faces. Said Bouteflika, the Algerian President’s brother and his special consultant will oversee the Algerian delegation in Sudan. More remarkably the face of a triumphal Gamal Mubarak, the Egyptian President’s son and a powerful contender to replace his father in 2011, was clearly singled out by the cameras of the Egyptian TVs especially after the Egyptian team scored a second goal allowing it the chance to play a third decisive game, writes Tarek Kahlaoui.

To copy the practices of backward tribal groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan does not make sense in modern Indonesia nor does it make good Muslims, stresses Terry Lacey.

The recent presidential election was a spectacle of fraud; the Afghan Army, despite years of training, may hardly exist; the ill-paid, ill-trained Afghan police are known to operate on the principle of corruption; and a surprisingly small percentage of foreign reconstruction funds actually makes it out of the pockets of big private contractors and western specialists, as well as security firms, and into Afghan hands, notes Tom Engelhardt

Of 180 countries that Transparency International gauges on a 'corruption index,' only Somalia is worse than number 179: Afghanistan. Pratap Chatterjee describes how it works.

Arabs and others turn away from the Palestine issue, and give it only perfunctory rhetorical support -- Israeli national criminality and Palestinian political incompetence are a deadly combination, says Rami G. Khouri.

Interesting though, last night Channel 4's ‘Dispatches’ programme left out too much. It didn’t name and shame enough individuals. But it was a brave effort which went halfway and will no doubt draw considerable flak from Israel’s hirelings and admirers, notes Stuart Littlewood.

Do the math: the total number of Americans shot dead each year is three times that of all US troops killed in Iraq in six years of fighting. There is rage in our hearts; there is war in our streets, notes Sherwood Ross.

British politicians and media are caught in bed with too many Zionist wolfs. In order to reclaim sovereignty and dignity, Britain must de-Zionise itself immediately. It is indeed tragic to admit that the Jewish lobby is far more worrying than a criminal gang. It is there to serve a murderous state with a devastating record of crimes against humanity, says Gilad Atzmon.

For reasons that are painfully obvious, the FCM have done their best to ignore or bury the role that Israel’s repression of the Palestinians has played in motivating the 9/11 attacks and other anti-Western terrorism, notes Ray McGovern.

Sitting comfortably in Cairo, it was Abbas who blamed Hamas for Israel’s savage December 2008 assault on Gaza, adopting the Israeli strategy of blaming the victim. In Abbas, Israel found a valuable partner; one who was willing to compel fellow Palestinians to accept conditions to which Israel itself has never agreed, notes Rannie Amiri.

A number of popular accounts of the invasion of Afghanistan suggest that the Central Intelligence Agency directly gave Northern Alliance warlords millions of dollars in cold, hard cash to help fight the Taliban in the run-up to the US invasion, notes Pratap Chatterjee.

History shows that the presence or influence of foreigners only feeds the flames of any insurgency, which can then be portrayed as a defense of the nation against outside aggression, says Ivan Eland.

The significance of the Congressional debate may have been ignored given what appeared to be the lopsided vote in favor of the anti-Goldstone resolution, says James Zogby.

Little understood by those outside this culture was her religious worldview: Sarah Palin would topple America's secular tyrants, leading her people, the true Christians, into the kingdom, notes Max Blumenthal.

Now 66 years old, Robert Gates presumably has gained experience and, hopefully, some wisdom. In his 40s, he was willing to distort intelligence evidence, dissemble before congressional committees and undercut senior administration officials, notes Melvin A. Goodman.

Mahmoud Abbas should cut short his silly little melodrama, resign as he said he would, and pave the way for a needed revival of effective Palestinian national leadership, says Rami G. Khouri.

While the Nativ operators are interested in maximizing the number of immigrants to Israel, Yishai and his people deny these very same immigrants the right to marry Jews or to be buried in Jewish graveyards. They serve in the army, but if they fall in action they cannot be buried next to their comrades, notes Uri Avnery.

Was Dr. Nidal Hasan a terrorist? Or was he a troubled pawn in an ongoing psy-ops campaign meant to revive a narrative that—like the fixed intelligence—was losing credibility? Both the false intelligence and the anti-Muslim narrative feature a theme of fomenting hate and intolerance, notes Jeff Gates.

The terms of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas included, not only the halting of rocket fire from Gaza, but also the Israeli agreement to lift its brutal economic blockade of Gaza, which had been in place before Hamas was even voted into power. The siege, nevertheless, continued unabated, notes Nima Shirazi.

The Nazis called the French Resistance terrorists; we called them heroes. Pinning labels like 'terrorist' and 'militant' on people who are defending their homes and families is ridiculous. Always the little guy with the little gun is the terrorist, never the big guy with big guns, bunker-busting bombs and nukes. This warped mentality is the greatest obstacle to peace, notes Stuart Littlewood.

It’s true that Emanuel did say that 'Israel must halt settlement construction on the West Bank'; but in the context of his whole speech, that was mere lip-service to a presidential call that had been rejected by Netanyahu and served only to confirm that it’s Zionism’s stooges in Congress who call the policy shots on Israel/Palestine, not the White House, notes Alan Hart.

'We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population', and ' Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages,' said David Ben Gurion, first Prime Minister of Israel.

Shapiro's views on how Palestinians and non-Jews in general ought to be treated according to Jewish religious law (halacha) are widely looked at as representing the mainstream not the exception in Israel, Shapiro claims his edict 'is fully justified by the Torah and the Talmud', notes Khalid Amayreh.

While the problem of unemployment in the Arab world seems insurmountable, there are a number of initiatives being implemented and proffered in the region to begin to put a dent in the problem, says Yvonne R. Davis.

However detached from the wars being fought in their name most Americans may seem, war itself never stays far from home for long. It's already returning in the form of new security technologies that could one day make a digital surveillance state a reality, changing fundamentally the character of American democracy, notes Alfred W. McCoy.

Any organization to the left of AIPAC that could in turn marginalize the latter is a good thing and a good start. But being merely more progressive than AIPAC is not enough. Modern Zionism is an addiction for American Jewry, and withdrawal goes in stages. J Street was step one. Let's take it for what it is, and keep working, notes Max Ajl.

The call to stop Israeli construction in the West Bank is there to leave us with the false impression that the robbery of Palestine started in 1967. But the vast majority of Palestinians were expelled from their towns, villages, fields and orchards in 1948, notes Gilad Atzmon.

Fatah had not yet fully recovered from the aftershocks of the Goldstone Report when Hamas surprised them by extending a hand of friendship to the US president. By deciding not to run for office, Abbas has effectively saved himself the trouble of putting up with Obama's restraints, Sami Moubayed.

Now we see US soldiers, prior to deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan, highly charged bumped with 'Christian faith and Muslim hate' by Evangelical chaplains promoting their own form of Evangelical Christianity with its hidden roots in Zionism, notes Sami Jamil Jadallah.

Iran has not gone to war against its neighbors in modern times (Iraq invaded it in 1980). But Israel and the US between them have gone to war and invaded other states on a variety of pretexts more than the rest of the world combined, since the end of the Second World War, notes Alan Sabrosky.

No major faith, including the five major world religions, threatens the safety and security of the US or its citizens. Religious extremists of any faith are a threat but they should be treated as any other extremists, religious or non-religious, notes John L. Esposito.

Whatever the short-term gains from introducing drone warfare in these last years, we are now locked into the 24/7 assassination trade -- with our own set of non-suicide bombers on the job into eternity. This may pass for sanity in Washington, but it's surely helping to pave the road to hell, notes Tom Engelhardt.

As the Obama administration debates whether to send tens of thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan, an already overstretched military is increasingly struggling to meet its deployment numbers and seems to be targeting military personnel who go absent without leave (AWOL) and then are caught or turn themselves in, say Dahr Jamail and Sarah Lazare.

Two losing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; policies of unilateralism and preemption, and a global war on terrorism that included torture and abuse, secret prisons and extraordinary renditions left US foreign and national security policy in a shambles, says Melvin A. Goodman.

The public has an intuitive grasp of the source of this oft-recurring behavior. An October 2003 poll of 7,500 respondents in member nations of the European Union found that Israel was considered the greatest threat to world peace, notes Jeff Gates.

Most Arabs feel strong and confident about their culture, religion and identity, but powerless and vulnerable as citizens of their state. They are unable to influence the policies of their governments, notes Rami G. Khouri.

Could such stress lead other individuals to embrace fundamentalisms, be they Muslim, Jewish or Christian? Might it be a good idea to strengthen the wall of separation between church and state in what is supposed to be a secular fighting force? Let's talk about Muslims in the military. But let's hear General Casey when he says they are a source of strength rather than a threat, says John Nichols.

Considering that Israel is under no serious pressure, but occasional lip service to the peace process, from Washington, and London, the rightwing government of Benjamin Netanyahu has no reason to stop, or even slow down its illegal settlements project and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, notes Ramzy Baroud.

Christian organizations did not issue any condemnations (for crimes committed by Christians or in the name of Christianity) - even though no one group in the history of the world has committed more crimes than Christians, notes Yousef Abudayyeh.

With our civilian leadership compromised by the Israel lobby, to whom do US military leaders owe their allegiance-to this latest in a series of corrupted presidencies or to the people whose freedom they took an oath to protect from all enemies, both foreign and domestic? It is not America that is at war in the Middle East but Americans loyal to this nation who were sent to war by a foreign government imbedded inside what remains of 'our' government, notes Jeff Gates.

When a person who happens to be a member of an established religion, say a Christian or a Jew, commits a crime, the media refers to him as a criminal and questions his act. When, however, the one who commits the crime happens to be a Muslim, the media refers to him as a Muslim and question his faith, notes Louay Safi.

No mechanism exists to truly hold the Egyptian regime accountable to the people. The regime is rather concerned with the powers that sustain its long-standing rule: the military; the businessmen who support the government and are, in many cases, members of it and of the NDP; and foreign allies, namely the US and Israel, notes Sara Khorshid.

The American Muslim community have been the victims of widespread and carefully contrived anti-Muslim sentiment before and after the events of 9/11, whatever their origin. What Hasan did was murder, pure and simple. What the neo-cons and their allies have done and are doing is treason, pure and simple. Both are crimes, and both should be punished, notes Alan Sabrosky.

Christopher King argues that the reason why British politicians and military leaders are struggling to explain why British troops are fighting in Afghanistan is because they cannot bring themselves to be honest with the public, i.e. that they are in Afghanistan to fight a US war of aggression that has nothing to do with Britain.

One of my staff members wrote in an email 'hold my breath and pray that it’s not an Arab involved' — because we know that if it is some may hold us all responsible, notes Dr. James Zogby.

Paul J. Balles argues that the American Halloween practice of 'tricking-or-treating' has become embedded in US politics, and that 'trick or treat' has in some instances become 'do our bidding or we'll blow you up' while in others it translates into 'do what we want or we'll cut off support'.

Dear belly dancing activists... have mercy on our souls. In our part of the world dancing is performed on happy occasions, and happy events in Palestine do not involve the belly -- or kidneys for that matter, since we don't trust taking our kidneys with us anywhere any more, notes Iqbal Tamimi.

That has never happened before: an American client, totally dependent on Washington, suddenly rebels and poses conditions. That is exactly what Abbas has done now. Netanyahu, too, was utterly surprised. He wants phony negotiations, devoid of substance. Without a recognized Palestinian leader, with whom can he 'negotiate'? Asks Uri Avnery.

It is easy for the Osama bin Ladens and George Bushes of this world to declare wars and prosecute them for they are the sons of wealth and privilege who will never suffer the consequences of the conflicts they seek, notes Eddie Zawaski.

With the various factors in play -- economic and environmental changes, natural gas, oil, and pipeline developments -- who would dare predict where prices will be a decade or two from now? Asks Patrick Seale.

Age-old mutual mistrust hovers over the currently stalled nuclear deal between the United States and Iran, says R.K. Ramazani.

While the Obama administration decides how many thousands of troops to send to Afghanistan, service men and women are already facing repeated deployments, oftentimes while having already been diagnosed with medical conditions that should render them unfit for deployment, note Dahr Jamail and Sarah Lazare.

Larry David is probably the most courageous Jewish comedian of all time. He is there to provide us with the ultimate possible devastating portrait of Jewish emancipation. He is the self centric, egotistic, sickening character and yet, he is totally beloved and adorable, notes Gilad Atzmon.

The ever rising poverty in Gaza as a consequence of the Israeli siege and the last military aggression is forcing the children to work 12 hours a day inside extremely dangerous tunnels. Save the children of Gaza, bring them out to the light before they grow up full of anger and resentment, and we all then have to face the consequences of their oppression, notes Iqbal Tamimi.

When asked about the Quran, surprisingly, most Americans were like the young store clerk who replied: ‘North or South Korea?’, writes Dallas Darling.

Why this common tendency and double standard towards Islam and Muslims post-9/11? We judge the religion and majority of mainstream Muslims by the acts of an individual or an aberrant minority of extremists. Yet, when Jewish fundamentalists kill a prime minister or innocent Palestinians or Christian extremists blow up abortion clinics or assassinate their physicians, somehow the media is capable of sticking to all the facts and distinguishing between the use and abuse of a religion, notes John L. Esposito.

Obama began a test of strength with Israel over that country's policy of illegal settlements, an expansion of its occupation of the West Bank driven by extremist, right-wing settlers who are fanatical, Bible-believing cultists who think that Israel has some God-given right to that territory, notes Robert Dreyfuss.

No one knew on Thursday whether stress, fear, anger over mistreatment, mental illness or a warped understanding of his religion might have motivated Major Hasan. But there is a rush to judgment regarding not just this one Muslim but all Muslims, notes notes John Nichols.

Some American analysts have argued that Iran is quite right to be suspicious of US intensions and have identified a pattern of recent events that undermine the credibility of the Obama administration since the Presidents June 'open hand-clinched fist' speech in Cairo, notes Franklin Lamb.

In Egypt, the 28-year rule of US-backed president Hosni Mubarak has been most notable for political intimidation of opponents, suppression of dissent, and silencing any and all who dare challenge his authority, notes Rannie Amiri.

For opportunistic reasons, the Greens are now accusing Ahmadinejad of selling out Iran's nuclear rights. That very fact explains why it's wrong for the United States to try to game Iranian internal politics, notes Robert Dreyfuss.

A little publicized US-taxpayer-funded infrastructure boom has been underway in Afghanistan -- the construction boom is military in nature. The US military is digging in for an even longer haul, notes Nick Turse.

From the start, the Jewish nationalist movement’s objective was to open Palestine to unlimited immigration, colonize it and rob it of its independence. Labour did not review the old doctrine of territorial conquest when it was in power in 1967-77 or in the 1990s, notes Zeev Sternhell.

There is little relief in prospect for Obama from his Afpak nightmare. Hamid Karzai is back in power and it seems highly unrealistic to expect him to root out nepotism and corruption. Meanwhile, the United States' policies grow more unpopular in Pakistan, says Patrick Seale.

By withholding its support for the House (anti-Goldstone) resolution, J Street is sending a clear message that it intends to offer alternatives to initiatives that it perceives as bad for the United States and bad for Israel, notes M.J. Rosenberg.

In many ways, Obama's election was a referendum on an extremist conservatism that has guided (and deformed) American politics and society since the 1980s. But Obama failed to end the excesses and abuses associated with the Bush/Cheney national security apparatus, notes Katrina vanden Heuvel.

Isn’t it about time for the UK government to stand for its moral obligations towards the Palestinians and start to act in support of justice? Churchill said that creating a Jewish state on the Palestinian land 'is of the interests of the British Empire’. But ones interests do not justify injustice, notes Iqbal Tamimi.

For the past sixty years the invaders have systematically undertaken the ethnic cleansing of Palestine to make way for new Israelis. For this purpose the invaders have constructed a narrative the central theme of which is 'God gave this land to us', notes Terrell E. Arnold.

There is a need, to uphold justice, a need for the people including the leaders who launch the wars to be made accountable for the death and destruction resulting from their decision, their instruction and their command. It does not matter whether the aggressors win or not, says Mahathir Bin Mohamad

Kipling may have been Poet to the Empire and its best apologist (or worst?), but he knew the redlines that were not to be crossed. And Afghanistan and most of today’s Pakistan constituted the forbidden territory the English poet epeatedly warned his fellow Westerners against. Kipling who famously justified the Western colonization and European imperialism in the now infamous poem, The White Man’s Burden, was nothing if not a pragmatist. He knew the limits of the imperialism project, notes Aijaz Zaka Syed.

Veteran analyst William P. Polk writes that the US war in Afghanistan, and the Karzai government it has set up there, accurately replicate the situation in Vietnam in the early 1960s. The Obama administration can only lose more casualties, more treasure and, in the end, the conflict.

Washington needs a different lens to see Lebanon and Hezbollah or its strategy to weaken Hezbollah will cripple Lebanon and add fuel to a burning Middle East, stresses Rima Merhi.

It is worth reminding ourselves from time to time what started the trouble all those years ago. Arabs know the details only too well, but you would be surprised how the British people are kept in ignorance, notes Stuart Littlewood.

Why don't church leaders forbid Catholics from joining the military with the same fervor they tell Catholics to stay away from abortion clinics? Asks William Blum.

The West Bank and the Gaza Strip are internationally recognized as one integral territory. I’m not a lawyer, but it would be nice to hear a legal expert explain what authority Israel has for its bloody-minded and cruel conduct towards hard-working students, notes Stuart Littlewood.

The campaign to fight female genital mutilation is meeting new resistance not only in traditional societies but among Western anthropologists, says Barbara Crossette.

The United States no longer believes that its technological supremacy can dominate Afghanistan. And that’s right. Now it stresses cultural clichés about tribal traditions and Islamic honor -- or bizarre aspects of Taliban jihad -- as impervious to modern thought. And that's all wrong, notes Patrick Porter.

Rather than being subject to an idolatry of an untouchable past, we better start to be concerned with the here and now, with the genocides that are committed in our names and under our nose by Israel and its supporters around the world, notes Gilad Atzmon.

The Karzai crisis is the key to unlock the Afghan exit door. Politically, it gives Obama the excuse he needs to pack up and leave, says Robert Dreyfuss.

Some Arab governments spend twice, if not three times more on their military budget than invest in education. Arab governments must rethink and reconsider their current priorities and course of action. They must think and act individually, but collectively as well, before the crisis turns into a catastrophe, says Ramzy Baroud.

Are we ready to abandon faith-based medicine of both the individual and US public health variety? Faith in private enterprise and the market has now left us open to a swine flu epidemic; faith alone does not kill viruses or cancer cells. On the public health front, we need to socialize vaccine manufacture and its distribution, says Barbara Ehrenreich.

These three moves by the United States are more about domestic politics than Middle East diplomacy, but they augur badly for peace-making prospects if they point the way to future American positions. The ninth month of the Obama administration has been a bad month for Arab-Israeli peace-making, says Rami G. Khouri.

Whatever credibility the P.A. may once have had has been largely exhausted, partly because, during the Bush era, the parties spent years at the negotiating table while Israel continued to colonize Palestinian land. And now the Obama team has eroded much of its credibility by spending nine months just trying to get back to where the Bush administration left off, says Nadia Hijab.

The Afghan War is unwinnable due to the erroneous assumption that social development can be combined with military operations in a country where it is impossible to distinguish between insurgents and civilians. It is rarely possible to secure happiness by bombing the people, notes Serge Halimi.

I wouldn't mind knowing whether on the unreleased visitors' lists for these last months lurked Andrew Witty, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, or Novartis CEO Daniel Vasella (or their lobbyists), not to speak of other Big Pharma types. Did they make it to the White House, and if so, how many times? I'm curious because their companies are identified as the ones screwing up the production of the swine flu vaccine, says Tom Engelhardt.

The Geneva Conventions apply to Israel because Israel is a state and a signatory while post-WWII Nuremberg Law provides the appropriate legal framework for resistance movements like Hamas, notes Karin Friedemann.

It may be right to argue that there is just one living person on this planet with more blood on his hands than Tony Blair. His name is George Bush. With more than one million fatalities in Iraq, he is not far behind Hitler and Stalin, notes Gilad Atzmon.

Despite the iron-fist policies of unpopular Arab leaders—buttressed by imperial Western nations—the popular outbursts witnessed in the aftermath of the sacrilegious storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque once again symbolized a very much living spirit, says Ali Jawad.

One way and another, a resurgent Turkey is rewriting the rules of the power game in the Middle East, in a positive and non-confrontational manner. This is one of the few bright spots in a turbulent and highly-inflammable Middle East, says Patrick Seale.

At Madison Square Garden, NBA officials set an example for how American politicians should behave vis-à-vis Israel: They applied the rules consistently and required Israel to comply, comments Adam Shapiro.

‘A culture of impunity in the region has existed for too long. The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point…’ -- Richard Goldstone.

Have you noticed that the worse Afghanistan gets, the more the pundits find themselves stumbling helplessly into Vietnam? Analogies to that old counterinsurgency catastrophe are now a dime a dozen. Why is it that, facing such wars, Washington's response is the bailout? As things go from bad to worse and the odds grow grimmer, our leaders, like the worst of gamblers, wager ever more, notes Tom Engelhardt.

America, on account of its unconditional support for the Zionist state and its contempt for international law, has made enemies of many if not most of the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims, says Alan Hart.

The war in Afghanistan is a war in which whatever the United States does now, or that President Obama does now, both the United States and Obama will lose. The country and its president are in a situation of perfect lockjaw, notes Immanuel Wallerstein.

The rise of political Islam is part of Muslim modernization and the West has no alternative but to reach a compromise with it, starting with Hamas in Palestine and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The longer this is delayed the stronger the conservative side of the movement will become, notes Terry Lacey.

Rabin's memorial rally will be held next week at the very place where we witnessed his murder, 14 years ago. The main speakers will be the gravediggers of the Oslo agreement, who belonged to the forces that created the climate for the murder. Rabin, I assume, will turn in his grave, says Uri Avnery.

While some are trying to sabotage efforts at removing US troops from Iraq, President Obama appears to be committed to the initial withdrawal plan, notes Dallas Darling.

We need Nick Griffin to save us from looking in the mirror. It is us the collective that is complicit in genocidal crimes and institutional intolerance. We are implicated in the death of millions of brown-skinned foreigners in remote lands - as we endorse killing in the name of democracy, universalism, and ‘women’s rights’ (even as we drop bombs on women), notes Sarah Gillespie

Yesterday, on his web site, Mousavi issued a militant criticism of Ahmadinejad's diplomacy. Mousavi bitterly denounced the plan, supported by Ahmadinejad, to ship the bulk of Iran's enriched uranium to Russia and France for use in fabricating fuel for a medical-use reactor, says Robert Dreyfuss.

The military involvement in the war on terrorism has started to take a heavy toll on the Pakistani population and threatens to destabilize the country if insurgents continue to bring the fight to Pakistan’s major cities, notes Louay Safi.

The foundation is being laid for the emergence of a Russia-Iran-China diplomatic triad in the not-too-distant future, while Washington remains stuck in an old groove of imposing "punishing" sanctions against Tehran for its nuclear program, says Dilip Hiro.

Israeli military law treats Palestinians as adults as soon as they reach 16, a flagrant violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Palestinians are dealt with by Israeli military courts, even when it's a civil matter. These courts ignore international laws and conventions, notes Stuart Littlewood.

The Latest surmise - a gut feeling or assumption based on emotion instead of facts, and which often leads to erroneous and fatal conclusions - concerns Iran’s peaceful quest to develop nuclear power, says Dallas Darling.

The real story here is that where the US goes, the drug trade soon follows, and the leading role in developing and nurturing that trade appears to be played by the Central Intelligence Agency, notes Dave Lindorff.

The influence the Israel Lobby wields in Washington has ensured that the United States has long been complicit in Israel’s barbarism. And if the Lobby gets it way in Brussels, so too will the European Union, notes Maidhc Ó Cathail.

Al-Qaeda got the better of George Bush and the neocons by bogging the US down in Iraq. It seems that Official Washington can’t face up to its disastrous misjudgments over the past eight years, says Robert Parry.

By dispelling stereotypes and misconceptions, 'Seen and Not Heard' study demonstrates that young Muslims in the UK have a lot of potential but their potential needs to be recognised and respected, notes Hena Ashraf.

Palestinian citizens do not enjoy full equality. In comparison to their Jewish counterparts, Arab schools receive half the per capita budget. It has become more urgent than ever to consider alternative educational models, says Catherine Rottenberg and Neve Gordon.

Everyone, it seems, has a party line about who the good Muslims and bad Muslims are. Sadly, many of the dichotomies distort as much as they reveal, and use simple labels based on superficial preconceptions and over-simplifications, says Meena Sharify-Funk.

The world is a jungle of squabbling and competing states, each one of them intent above all on protecting its national interests, with little regard for the common good. How the world is to be governed remains one of the greatest puzzles of our time, says Patrick Seale.

The resignation of Matthew Hoh -- decorated Marine and a senior officer for the State Department in Afghanistan -- has highlighted the troubles the United States is having in Afghanistan, notes John Nichols.

The message that the leaders and activists from Arab American and American Jewish community organizations who gathered hoped to send, via this summit, was that despite their different starting points, both agree on the goal of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and are supportive of President Obama’s peace making efforts, to date, says James Zogby.

The maligning of the Prophet Muhammad is nothing new. Ever since the beginning of his ministry, his enemies had attacked and smeared the Prophet. Yet, never did he react violently or ask his followers to do so. The Prophet constantly forgave those who wronged him and encouraged us to do the same, notes Hesham A. Hassaballa.

Some politicians and their pettiness, belonging to both of the two main political camps, represent nothing more than intransigence; habitually shifting from one ineffective, transient set of conveniences, opportunities, or alliances, to another, says Rannie Amiri.

One year ago, in a report entitled Global Trends 2025, the CIA’s National Intelligence Council predicted that America's global preeminence would gradually disappear over the next 15 years -- with the rise of new global powerhouses, especially China and India. For all practical purposes, it's already 2025, argues Michael T. Klare.

The basic fact remains that, as US forces draw down, Iraq is perched on the brink of renewed civil war, says Robert Dreyfuss.

Drone surveillance is fast becoming the excuse for an extended American presence over Iraq and Afghanistan, if not on the ground, making the spoken objective of state-building a canard, notes Priya Satia.

Boys and girls who come in close contacts with each other is something that runs against the grain of Saudi culture. The conservative Kingdom is not yet ready for the King's fast forward march towards modernization, notes Syed Neaz Ahmad.

Hamas still attracts nationalists in the West Bank alongside Islamic support and is not as extremist as projected by Israel and the West, notes Terry Lacey.

The tenacity of the Taliban insurgency is rooted in opposition to a foreign occupation that is particularly distasteful to the Pashtuns, notes Selig S. Harrison.

As Afghans go to the polls, Western democracies would do well to question the state of their own secular democratic institutions, notes Dallas Darling.

Peering into its analytic crystal ball in a report entitled Global Trends 2025, it predicted that America's global preeminence would gradually disappear over the next 15 years -- in conjunction with the rise of new global powerhouses, especially China and India, notes Michael T. Klare.

Israeli extremism continues unabated even as Tel Aviv insists that its neighbors accept it as a 'Jewish state'. As Israel’s protector and apologist, the US bears the brunt of the anger as Israeli extremism continues to enrage Muslims and radicalize the Islamic body politic, notes Jeff Gates.

Israeli governments have avoided dealing with Hamas not because they fear that engaging the organization might not produce a peace agreement, but because they know they could not manipulate Hamas the way they have been able to manipulate Mahmoud Abbas, notes Henry Siegman.

Christopher King argues that the US-led invasion of Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks was a means of taking over NATO and consolidating the US beachhead in Europe, and that the only way forward in Afghanistan is through negotiations and development.

I am totally against Holocaust denial. I clearly resent those who deny the genocides that are taking place in the name of the Holocaust. Palestine is one example, Iraq is another and the one that is set for Iran, is probably too scary to contemplate, notes Gilad Atzmon.

The more trapped the Zionist project becomes in its own logic, the greater the destruction it becomes willing to wreak. It chooses destruction in order to delay coming to terms with, and making amends for, the tragedy it has spawned, notes M. Shahid Alam.

Perhaps Israel receives more attention from HRW than its neighbors because it does indeed have the worst human rights record in the region. For over forty years it has been a belligerent occupier, constantly threatening its neighbors and attacking them at will, notes Max Kantar.

Dealing with Iran in the short and longer terms is going to require mutual respect and understanding. As with China, improved relations with the Middle East’s powerhouse can also offer real benefits for the average American and Westerner, Reza Esfandiari.

Is Pakistan really in danger of falling into the hands of the Taliban? Asks Manan Ahmed.

It appears that the Obama administration has deserted Afghan women to a harsh inhumane fate, says Ann Jones.

It has been exactly nine months since Obama took office with a pledge to personally work for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace, and the scorecard of results on that pledge looks rather thin, says Rami G. Khouri.

The cruel siege of Gaza continues. The Arab states are unable to pull their weight; Israel is relentless; the EU is preoccupied with its own problems, and Obama’s aroused expectations are evaporating, says Patrick Seale.

The first step for Washington must be to abandon the idea of a decades-long counterinsurgency, fire its advocates -- including Gen. Stanley McChrystal and Gen. David Petraeus, notes Robert Dreyfuss.

No one in the Israeli establishment – no one at all! – has raised the real question: Perhaps Goldstone is right? Except for the usual suspects, no one in the media, the Knesset or the government has asked: Perhaps war crimes have indeed been committed? Notes Uri Avnery.

Therein lies the perils of an entangled alliance that induced the US to invade Iraq and now seeks war with Iran; By allowing foreign agents to operate as a domestic lobby, the US was induced to confuse Zionist interests with its own, notes Jeff Gates.

Much of Turkey's animosity towards Israel is likely out of frustration, after Israel's failure to deliver an initial agreement with Syria from negotiations Turkey so painstakingly mediated throughout 2008, stresses Alon Ben-Meir.

The political system remains somewhat unpredictable, as political alliances change with the seasons. The elections scheduled for January 2010 hold many uncertainties, from the type of electoral law to whether Prime Minister Maliki will be reelected, say Ellen Laipson and Mokhtar Lamani.

On the central issue, racism, for which Griffin and the BNP have been so roughly chastised, nothing has changed. Mainstream Israel-huggers continue to preach the sins of racism while nourishing support for it in the Holy Land. The hypocrites continue to rule the Westminster roost, notes Stuart Littlewood.

Tunisia's success in development does not just focus on what has been achieved, but also on the way forward, says Haitham El-Zobaidi.

From Korea, Vietnam, and Cambodia to Iraq and Afghanistan, enemy fighters and unfortunate civilians, military base camps and people's homes have been laid waste by US forces in decade after decade of conflict, notes Nick Turse.

Jewish leaders of the 'Judenrate' had collaborated with the Nazis on the Holocaust; they had organised mass deportation of European Jews from the ghettos to the camps. Today's Israeli leadership wants Palestinian leaders to make similar decisions, argues Gilad Atzmon.

US strategy remains the real problem, and not just part of it. This strategy has pursued self-defeating goals, namely to empower a pro-US regime that has proved powerless in fending off the overwhelming rejection of the US occupation, notes Nicola Nasser.

The United States should rally its friends and allies -- and even its opponents -- in a bold attempt at a political settlement. This, of course, must rule out sending in any more troops, says Patrick Seale.

While peace has been slowing taking hold in Darfur, in the Ogaden, Ethiopian death squads, funded by western 'aid' have spent the better part of the past decade spreading murder and mayhem across the countryside, notes Tom Mountain.

While people might not otherwise find a simple exposure of Iran's innumerable historical, architectural, and archeological sites in the national media, Press TV commendably acquaints its global audience with the priceless heritage of Iranian civilization, says Kourosh Ziabari.

Out of 4.5 million, only 459 children are in government care. About 800 orphans at the time of this report were being held in Iraqi prisons, 100 of these in American prisons, charged as terrorists, notes Dennis Loo.

Civil society will have to take the lead in delegitimizing Zionism and pointing the way toward a better future for all concerned - and, like it or not, everyone on this planet is concerned, says John Whitbeck.

There are reports of a dramatic increase in the incidence of deformed babies being born in the city of Fallujah, where DU weapons were in wide use during the November 2004 assault on that city by US Marines, notes Dave Lindorff.

The Yemenis in Saada – and I say Yemenis, because regardless of whether they are called Zaidis, Houthis, or Shias, they are still Yemenis – are trapped between the forces of their own government to the south, and a country denying them refuge to the north, says Rannie Amiri.

There are millions of 'Westerners' who are peace-loving, some of whom are ardent advocates of human rights, anti-war campaigners, including the thousands who have repeatedly broken the siege on Gaza, and previous to that Iraq, notes Ramzy Baroud.

The US-led nation-building occupation in Afghanistan is fueling the Taliban resurgence. If you follow the timelines, increases in Western forces have brought about the Taliban renaissance, notes Ivan Eland.

Palestinian babies were being shot in the head. People burned to the bone by Israeli white phosphorus, nail bombs causing brutal injuries and micro-pellets that leave no entry wound but cause fatal internal injuries. In self-defence? Asks Paul J. Balles.

Israel, the United States, and others who voted against the report’s adoption by the UNHRC last week missed the opportunity to bring the rule of law and impartial juridical accountability to bear upon the apparently criminal actions, notes Rami G. Khouri.

How embarrassing must it be to praise an election thief for grudgingly accepting that he didn't get away with it? Well, one can now ask that of Barack Obama, regarding Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai, notes John Nichols.

Who would have accepted Nazi Germany's assertion that its brutal reprisal against the Czechs was an exercise in self-defense? No one and no one should accept Israel's claim, either, says Alan Sabrosky.

The real problem for Israel’s leaders is that Iran’s possession of a nuclear bomb or two or several would greatly restrict their freedom to impose Zionism’s will on the region by brute force of all kinds, Alan Hart.

The preface and last chapter of Lawrence Freedman's book expresses this same double standard of how the US explains itself in association with whatever action it takes on a given issue. But the rest of the book, surprisingly, works, notes Jim Miles.

How can a journalist become a traitor to his country should he defends the human rights of a nation under occupation somewhere thousands of miles away? This is another example of how Zionists are seeking to ignite hatred, notes Iqbal Tamimi.

$915.1 billion in total Iraq and Afghanistan war spending to date has been a no-brainer, even if it could, theoretically, have been traded in for the annual salaries of 15 million teachers or 20 million police officers or for 171 million Pell Grants, notes Jo Comerford.

Only this truth will protect the lives of Lebanese soldiers, the victims of Nahr al Bared, and the security of Lebanon, stresses Rima Merhi.

It is the fact that those making the most noise about the Report have, I fear, either not read it or are deliberately distorting its contents for political advantage, says James Zogby.

One doesn’t need to agree to the entire programme of Hamas, but one is obligated to recognise that they are entirely different from the image that they have been straightjacketed into, notes Mary Rizzo.

Thirty Republican US senators voted to safeguard corporations from lawsuits in rape cases. It is a sign of our moral confusion that Americans are forced to have a conversation about whether a woman who has been gang-raped can go to court against her assailants, notes Glenn W. Smith.

Tel Aviv’s mafia are busy creating a rash of loud-mouthed propaganda cells, in many cases just a one-man lying machine belching religious-flavoured poison from a computer in their fly-blown kitchen, notes Stuart Littlewood.

As the IDF drops White Phosphorous on Palestinians or starves others, Israeli artists travel the world stating a 1960’s message of ‘Sex, Love and Peace’. Needless to say, the people around me didn’t really buy it, says Gilad Atzmon.

The United States, NATO, and (hopefully) a new Afghan government can seek a deal with the top- and mid-ranking Taliban leaders, in part by getting Pakistan's army and the ISI on board, says Robert Dreyfuss.

The fact that the majority of Muslims speak against violence and terrorism, regardless of its origins or the identity of its perpetrators, cuts no ice with these confirmed Islamophobes and political opportunists, notes Yasir Suleiman.

The siege against Gaza, which began years ago, tightened to an almost total lockdown in June 2007 and continues to this day. And though the United States, Egypt, the EU and the UN move slowly - if at all - international groups and activists are working to end it, says Nadia Hijab.

As we call a contentious era in European history the Hundred Years' War, so our war in 'the Greater Middle East' has already gone on for 30 years, give or take a few, notes Tom Engelhardt.

While the December-January assault on Gaza is widely judged to have been a criminal enterprise, Israel’s cruel siege of Gaza is an equal scandal, notes Patrick Seale.

The sequential destruction of Muslim nations - Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, (and Iran is on the list) - may or may not be a conspiracy hatched in Washington D.C., but it is becoming an international reality, says Ali Khan.

Today Hamas does not offer any real alternative in practice, since they, too, are observing a cease-fire with Israel. Yet the hope that Abbas could bring peace is fading, notes Uri Avnery.

Erdogan's courageous stance has a good chance of not only bringing the Goldstone Report dramatically into view, but also opening the political sewer that is Israel's oppression of the Palestinians for the American public to see, says Alan Sabrosky.

Perhaps US presidents simply cannot be expected to give back powers gained by the executive branch, but shouldn't we expect Congress to work to take them back on our behalf? Asks David Swanson.

After 9/11, Taliban authorities, including tribal leaders, had offered to work with the US in bringing Osama bin Laden and suspected al-Qaeda terrorists to justice, notes Dallas Darling.

Hundreds of Palestinian children are imprisoned in Israeli jails every year. Palestinian child prisoners remain nameless and their rights repeatedly disregarded. Their stories reveal the depths of horror in the subjugation to the Israeli occupation, notes Andrea D'Cruz.

If President Obama wanted to authentically honor the Nobel Peace Prize-reducing standing armies, he would give it to conscientious objectors and sign an executive order granting amnesty to all deserters, says Dallas Darling.

I wonder whether one should remind hardliner Lieberman, who happens to be an enthusiastic ethnic cleanser and a proud Judeo supremacist racist, that the reality on the ground last January was ‘connected enough’ to establish a genocidal war crime inquiry and a crime against humanity, says Gilad Atzmon.

The admiration which Israel's early state-building once aroused in many parts of the world has turned into angry impatience, outrage, even contempt, says Patrick Seale.

The Goldstone report is the most comprehensive, and transparent investigation as of yet into what happened in Gaza during the 23-day war. A new war might be awaiting besieged Gaza. Time is running out, notes Ramzy Baroud.

Obama takes the insulting Israeli rebuffs in public silence, reaffirms his support of Israel, fends off its critics, and continues to send it aid, just as if nothing had happened, notes Alan Sabrosky.

Why does al-Qaeda, halfway across the world, focus their attacks on the United States? Osama bin Laden has repeatedly given us his reasons — US occupation of Muslim lands and support for corrupt Middle Eastern dictators, notes Ivan Eland.

Maybe the real Barbarians are already within the gate. Perhaps the real Barbarians are civilian leaders who expand their wealth and power by turning Republics into Empires, notes Dallas Darling.

The Zionist state came into being mainly as a consequence of pre-planned ethnic cleansing. In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved, notes Alan Hart.

In the 1980s, Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch expanded his news empire into the US. And Right-wing money went into attack groups targeting mainstream journalists who refused to toe the Reagan propaganda lines, notes Robert Parry.

Once the DOJ’s hate crime unit us up and running, 'self-hating Jews', such as leaders of the Israeli peace movement, can expect to be indicted for anti-semitic hate crimes in US courts, notes Paul Craig Roberts.

The Palestinians lived peacefully and in total harmony with people of different faiths and political affiliations before the state of Israel was created. Freedom of choice and democracy is a good platform to build a society on, says Iqbal Tamimi.

What if, from an Afghan point of view, the United States military forces really are the Martians of H.G.Wells' The War of the Worlds? The only thing the Martians could effectively do is destroy -- or leave, says Tom Engelhardt.

The prize does not honor Obama’s achievements, because he has few to date. It honors America’s starting to come to its senses, to reconcile its values with its domestic and foreign policy, and to make peace with itself, above all, notes Rami G. Khouri.

The ongoing US talks with Iran, if they make progress, could create space for Iran and the United States to work together on stabilizing Iraq in 2010, when at least 70,000 US troops are scheduled to leave Iraq, says Robert Dreyfuss.

If - by some miracle - Obama is able to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, granting a state to the Palestinians and restoring the Golan Heights to Syria, while creating a stable and working democracy in Iraq - then he should deserve another Nobel, says Sami Moubayed.

If the women's movement was such a big downer, you'd expect the saddest women to be those who had some direct exposure to the noxious effects of second wave feminism. But what this study shows is that neither marriage nor children make women happy, notes Barbara Ehrenreich.

The manipulation of consensus beliefs discredited the US when it went to war on fixed intelligence. Anyone paying attention knows that pro-Israelis manipulated the intelligence that induced the US to invade Iraq. That same source is now hoping to expand this war to Iran, notes Jeff Gates.

The talks in Geneva have the potential to break new and important ground. As history has shown, military action and confrontation in the Middle East is self-defeating and creates more problems than it solves, note Reza Esfandiari and Yousef Bozorgmehr.

While Americans enjoy the freedom of unfettered Internet access and ample educational opportunities, the majority choose to remain deliberately ignorant of the law and an all but forgotten value system. It is time International Humanitarian Law be made an educational requirement in our public schools, says Tammy Obeidallah.

Think of this year's Nobel Peace Prize as a strategic Nobel strengthening Obama's resolve to work for a nuclear weapons free world, his engagement with Iran and North Korea, and his momentum to end the Afghanistan war, says Katrina vanden Heuvel.

As during the Kennedy era, Tel Aviv remains focused on a single goal: ensuring that its ally and patron (the US) continues a six-decade policy ensuring that Israel is not held accountable—for anything, notes Jeff Gates.

The hard-line Israeli government is refusing to commit to peace. A joint sponsorship of the peace process between Turkey and the US is what the region needs today — the wisdom, brains, passion, and credibility of two forceful men like Barack Obama and Recep Tayyip Erdogan combined, notes Sami Moubayed.

The American occupation of Iraq might have gone quite differently, but the neocons were unwilling to budge on their ideological certainties. The results included an estimated price tag of $1 trillion-plus, and more than 4,300 American soldiers dead along with uncounted thousands and thousands of dead Iraqis, notes Bruce P. Cameron.

The Bush administration’s misuse of the intelligence community to make a phony case for war was matched by the politicization of virtually every agency in the national security arena. In addition to politicizing intelligence to make the case for war, the Central Intelligence Agency was brought into a world of secret prisons, torture and abuse, and extraordinary renditions, notes Melvin A. Goodman.

Palestinians are undergoing ever increasing levels of persecution and mistreatment from a rightwing Israeli regime that is being enabled and emboldened by the Obama administration’s abject failure to exert any real pressure, note Bill Christison and Kathleen Christison.

As a country whose national institutions have been utterly destroyed and almost all threads that once wove its society together have been unraveled, Islam is the only thread that remains intact. But can lawless Somalia be governed by Shariah? Short answer: It depends on which type, notes Abukar Arman.

Newspapers spent much of the past decade amplifying the distortions of the Bush administration - and the decade before that parroting attacks on Bill Clinton - and the decade before that praising the genius of... well, you get the picture, says Eric Alterman.

There is one great reason for giving Barack Obama the 2009 prize. Obama threw out Bush Republicans, the biggest band of warmongers in recent American history, from power in Washington. This must surely count as a signal contribution to world peace, says M.J. Akbar.

Doesn't anyone ever ask why we keep indulging those with a perverse hunger to destroy? When is the American public going to see through these nasty Islamophobic attempts to arouse hostility? Asks Paul J. Balles.

Does anyone seriously believe that a President John McCain or a President Hillary Clinton would have promoted peace as much as Barack Obama has? But the lesser-evil argument should not spare Obama from criticism when he falls short on his promises, notes Robert Parry.

Israeli archeologists who care for the integrity of their profession (there still are some) protested this week that the Jerusalem digging is proceeding in a thoroughly unprofessional way. For Arabs, who see with their own eyes the daily effort to 'Judaize' the Eastern city and to push them out, their fear is genuine, notes Uri Avnery.

It would be a mistake to jump to conclusions and assume that the Obama Middle East policy is quickly reverting to the traditional American default position of being in Israel’s pocket. We should not make the mistake of passing judgment on a policy that is still in the making, stresses Rami G. Khouri.

If Sarkozy remains deaf to President Gül’s message, it is certainly being heard in the Arab world, where Turkish influence is very much on the rise, together with a certain nostalgia for the Ottoman Empire, says Patrick Seale.

By winning the Nobel Peace Prize, US President Barack Obama got a nice vote of confidence from the Norwegians for his promises. But now, he has to actually earn the Nobel with his deeds, notes Richard Kim.

Palestinians are the victims of the worst sort of oppression and war. They have the right to mobilise themselves, to speak their minds against not only the Israelis, but also against the 'House Arabs' who sell them out, notes Mary Rizzo.

Divided or not, Americans elected Barack Obama as their president, and by so doing, and this charismatic leader’s cry for change, in both domestic and foreign policy, a signal was sent to the rest of the world: a message of hope, a call for renewed efforts for peace, says Ben Tanosborn.

The failure of Obama to merge the ‘Brand’ and the ‘President’ into a continuous ethical reality is indeed a colossal tragedy. If I read it correctly, the Nobel Peace Prize is there to help ‘Obama the Brand’ withstand the pressure posed on ‘Obama the President’ by his Ziocon ring, notes Gilad Atzmon.

Don't we know that General McChrystal's strategic review was penned by a 'war-loving foreign policy community' in which the usual suspects were rounded up to argue for more troops and more war? Asks William J. Astore.

It has been understood for decades that Israel has a nuclear arsenal of an estimated couple hundred nuclear weapons, deliverable by plane, missile, and sub, notes Jim Miles.

The Obama Administration while acting as the proxy for Israel on Goldstone report has devastated whatever remained of Abbas’ credibility. Wide spread Arab and Palestinian anti–Americanism is US–made and not Arab–made; it is the product of US foreign policies in the region, notes Nicola Nasser.

Let's face it: everything about American thinking still stinks of the Vietnamese debacle, including the inability of our leaders to listen to a genuinely wide range of options, notes Tom Engelhardt.

The US President has neither achieved peace nor has he undertaken efforts to establish the foundations for world peace. On the contrary, he is a warmonger and a crusader who is spearheading America’s war against Islam and the Muslim world, says Abid Mustafa.

I encourage my friends and readers to calm down a little about having to prove Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, says Melissa Harris-Lacewell.

Americans are not stupid. We are, however, perilously misinformed. Yet that too traces to pro-Israelis in mainstream media. Iran is not about nuclear weapons. Iran is about the need for serial well-timed crises to advance Israel’s expansionist agenda, notes Jeff Gates.

By refusing to correct a long litany of errors – and to purge the incompetent journalists responsible – prestige news outlets are again herding Americans toward the slaughterhouse of unnecessary war and status-quo economics, notes Robert Parry.

Imagine that, after the next Katrina, Pakistani military helicopters based on a Pakistani aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Mexico are preparing to deliver supplies to New Orleans. What if, from an Afghan point of view, we really are Wells's Martians? Asks Tom Engelhardt.

In order to understand how these murderous Israeli practices emerged all we have to do is trace back and re-read the early Zionist ideologists. The history of Palestine, the Palestinians and the Nakba, was totally hidden from us, notes Gilad Atzmon.

Discipline, education, hard work, unity, pride in their ancient civilization, an enthusiastic embrace of modern technology, good governance, and above all nationalism, these are also virtues and values which the Arabs would do well to adopt, notes Patrick Seale.

Nothing could be more upsetting to Abbas than the Goldstone Report, which shows how indifferent he was to the winter war raging on Palestinian territory, and raises the popularity ratings of Hamas by exposing Israeli war crimes, notes Sami Moubayed.

Between Barack Obama’s anti-coup stance, and his own Department of State’s anti-Zelaya rhetoric (and Republican giddiness over the prospects of their country’s ‘return’ to Latin America), the US position lacks clarity, a dangerous notion, notes Ramzy Baroud.

The Jewish people need to become witnesses that the shoah shall not happen again to any other people on this world. It is a crime that the Jewish people need to lead the world away from, and not continually thrust it into everyone else's face as the sole owners of racist victimhood, notes Jim Miles.

A lack of empathy toward potential adversaries is as dangerous for a superpower as it is for any other country. The US should realize that even outlaws have security fears and are not just hostile to the United States because it is a relatively free country, notes Ivan Eland.

Have we learned anything in the 15-odd centuries since the fall of Rome? The oligarchs of Rome were poisoned by more than lead in their wine: selfishness and decadence, and disdain for common folk plebeians led to self-destruct, notes James J. Murtagh.

The Muslim world—a disparate grouping of nations and peoples—is united on only one issue: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Our role in the conflict, viewed as utterly one-sided, has seriously damaged America’s standing in every Muslim country in the world, notes M.J. Rosenberg.

The Israeli educational system is creating deep-seated and intentional ignorance about the history and politics of the region by imposing a severe form of censorship, notes Michal Haramati.

Separation of ethnicities is most apparent in how Israel and most of the world differ in regarding nationality. It’s not just separation. It’s a de facto apartheid, which the words ‘Jewish state’ will tend to reinforce, notes Dan Lieberman.