What made that kamikaze mission eventful was less the deranged act itself than the curious reaction of politicians on the right who gave it a pass — or, worse, flirted with condoning it. Stack was a lone madman, and it would be both glib and inaccurate to call him a card-carrying Tea Partier or a “Tea Party terrorist.” But he did leave behind a manifesto whose frothing anti-government, anti-tax rage overlaps with some of those marching under the Tea Party banner.
That rant inspired like-minded Americans to create instant Facebook shrines to his martyrdom. Soon enough, some cowed politicians, including the newly minted Tea Party hero Scott Brown, were publicly empathizing with Stack’s credo — rather than risk crossing the most unforgiving brigade in their base.
Prior to 9/11 the American neoconservatives were explicit that the wars of aggression that they intended to launch in the Middle East required "a new Pearl Harbor."
Last month, the Defense Department reported that there were 160 reported active-duty Army suicides in 2009, up from 140 in 2008. Of these, 114 have been confirmed, while the cause of death in the remaining 46 has yet to be determined.
European countries' reluctance to investigate may have something to do with the widely held belief that the killing of al-Mabhouh was carried out by a friendly country's intelligence agency - Israel's Mossad. The Jewish state has previously identified him as the point man for smuggling weapons to the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers.
The credibility of the Security Services was severely damaged yesterday after it emerged that a senior judge had suggested MI5 officers could not be trusted to tell the truth. In a ruling that raises questions about the conduct and regulation of MI5, the Court of Appeal said officers had suppressed evidence of their alleged involvement in the torture of Binyam Mohamed while he was imprisoned by America.
The germ is one of a category of bacteria that by some estimates are already killing tens of thousands of hospital patients each year. While the organisms do not receive as much attention as the one known as MRSA — for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — some infectious-disease specialists say they could emerge as a bigger threat.
Under the the Oslo Peace Accords signed in 1994, Israel has full control of about 60% of the occupied West Bank. Palestinians have full control and building rights in only a small proportion of the territory, about 17% of the total. The Oslo accords were only meant to be temporary, but their provisions have lasted 16 years. And therein lies a big problem with the Rawabi proposals.
Seriously, the Bible has caused more horror and trauma on this planet than any other text in history. The Koran, obviously, comes in a close second - although it's right up there neck and neck as concerns body count, some 250 million allegedly murdered in the name of Christianity, while some 270 million are claimed to have been killed in the name of Islam. As concerns looking at the Bible as some sort of "moral guide" from the very finger of God, it's time to toss the whole shebang into the circular file, the trash heap, the dustbin of history.
