Pacific Views

A Little Light Reading

Asia Times: Interview with Greg Palast. Review of William Pepper's book on the MLK assassination. The economic devastation of AIDS. America has a poor memory of the Korean 'police action' that left 2 million dead, but the fallout remains. The article included this interesting commentary on developments in Japan:

...This worst scenario may not be impossible for a nation with highly selective memories of what it did to its neighbors, including Korea, in the past. It is both hypocritical and dangerous if a nation carefully preserves the memories of every war-related fatality of many centuries, while consistently minimizing and whitewashing its overseas atrocities in the past. Indeed, the unique one-party democracy in Japan today does not seem very different from the Taisho democracy of the 1920s before militarism crept into the mainstream politics in the wake of the Great Depression. At the onset of the 21st century and after 13 years of economic stagnation, it is the defenders of the "Peace Constitution" in Japan who are now on the defensive, while hawks and ultra-nationalists make the loudest noise for an audience that is largely ignorant of Japan's past. ...

Guardian: Bush's decision to send peacekeepers to Liberia. Two UK Members of Parliament argue politely about whether Blair should resign. What David Kelly knew. Japan sends combat troops to Iraq over majority public opposition. Saddam's 14 year old grandson was the last to be shot dead in the raid that killed his father, Qusay. (And the troops didn't bring tear gas with them because... ?)

Information Clearinghouse: Two and a half to three year sentences for nuns arrested during anti-war protest. Al Qaida was prevented from attacking the US embassy in Ottawa thanks to Syrian intelligence. An interesting perspective on the deaths of Uday and Qusay, which no doubt will be the version of things as remembered by a great many people. Was Enron negotiating with Taliban before 9-11? The grim truth of US government responsibility for Liberia:

...Liberia enjoyed a century and a half of democracy and prosperity until 1980, when a low-ranking officer in the presidential guard, Samuel K. Doe, murdered the president, executed the nation's entire Cabinet and declared himself ruler. Within months, the newly inaugurated Ronald Reagan locked down Mr. Doe's hold on power by showering him with $500 million in taxpayer dollars, the most aid granted any African nation. ...

Guerilla News Network: Everything you wanted to know about invasion of privacy, but were afraid to ask. Letter from a Baghdad college campus.

IranMania: Iran is fighting with Canada over the beating death of a Canadian-Iranian photographer visiting Tehran. A Spanish oil group is negotiating a lucrative gas processing contract with the country. Some progress has been made as five nations meet to divide the Caspian Sea. Iran and South Africa sign a billion dollar memorandum of understanding.

Mark Morford: Bush's numbers are down but it's not time to break out the champagne quite yet. This excerpt from the Pat Robertson skewering is just too good not to put up:

There he sits, face scrunched, eyes clenched tight, fists balled up like he's clinging to the last Valium on Earth, colon in tortured knots, soul shriveled into a tiny black speck of bile and nothingness, invoking God and sodomy and incest and quivering like he's sitting on the red-hot poker of divine enlightenment itself. You go, Pat.

...This is how God operates. He divides His time between remaking the entire universe at all times in all dimensions for every living creature everywhere, and giving a crap about whiny fundamentalist Christian zealots and their toxic sex phobias. ...