PRAGOTI

It is about time we re-examined the events of 1971 rather than erase them from our collective national memory.

Ammar Ali Jan of Labour Party Pakistan writes on the 'fall of Dhaka' in December 1971. This article was first carried in The News.

As the euphoria of the Obama cult builds toward a climax and the pundits declaim the advent of Something Big, it's the small changes that concern me, particularly those that touch directly on my job, which is to sniff out the War Party wherever it is presently burrowed. The election of Barack Obama has been the signal for many of them to migrate like fleas from the carcasses of the campaigns they attached themselves to and hop on the warm body of the new administration, which presents a rather large target. It's a new day, and in the age of Obama, the War Party's battalions are massed on the ostensible Left. Now that's the kind of change I can believe in. Justin Raimondo writes.

Tens of thousands of residents, refugees and government troops have fled the town of Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, despite rebel forces declaring a ceasefire to prevent panic.

What is rarely mentioned is the great global heist of Congo's resources

The deadliest war since Adolf Hitler marched across Europe is starting again – and you are almost certainly carrying a blood-soaked chunk of the slaughter in your pocket. When we glance at the holocaust in Congo, with 5.4 million dead, the clichés of Africa reporting tumble out: this is a "tribal conflict" in "the Heart of Darkness". It isn't. The United Nations investigation found it was a war led by "armies of business" to seize the metals that make our 21st-century society zing and bling. The war in Congo is a war about you.

''Contrary to the accepted "wisdom" of the electoral experts, Americans are not so divided as we might seem. More than 80 percent of us oppose the war in Iraq, with the majority wanting immediate withdrawal (not "redeployment"). Larger majorities want an end to government wiretapping (and vociferously opposed the wiretapping immunity bill), a scaled-back military budget, and universal health care that excludes the insurance industry. Further, almost no one outside the beltway or the NY financial district bought into the "crisis" that mandated a $850 billion bailout for Wall Street.''

P Jerome writes on AmericanFreePress.net

A new dossier on the (im)precision of U.S. bombing and the (under)valuation of Afghan lives. The long article published in Frontline has been uploaded in pdf form and attached. Article courtesy: Frontline magazine.

Sami al-Haj, an Al Jazeera cameraman, was beaten, abused and humiliated in the name of the war on terror. He tells Robert Fisk about his struggle to rebuild a shattered life.

This article is excerpted from the conclusion to Mahmood Mamdani's book Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror, forthcoming from Pantheon in January. This article appeared in the September 29, 2008 edition of The Nation.

As Andrew Bacevich tells us in the latest issue of the Atlantic, there's now a vigorous debate going on in the military about the nature of the "next" American wars and how to prepare for them. However, while military officers argue, that "next war" may already be creeping up on us. Two posts (Courtesy: Tomdispatch) by Tom Engelhardt and Tariq Ali on the American war in Pakistan.

The new Nazi army: How the U.S. military is allowing the far-right to join its ranks.