A Neoliberal Regime Falls in Kyrgyzstan

by Scott Creighton

I’m still working on piecing this all together. It’s hard to get a firm grip on what the situation is in Kyrgyzstan at this point. But so far, this is what I know.  The 5-year-old pro-western regime of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, a man who came to power promising to end the corruption and cronyism of the previous regime, has been overthrown and he has fled the country and resigned.  Bakiyev is said to have continued the corruption and cronyism he was supposed to have replaced, even making his own son the head of the economy.

From what I can gather, massive protests were held by the Social Democrat opposition party. They were protesting continued IMF austerity measures and massive utility bill increases, as high as 200% increases, for the poor and the working poor who are in effect building the major cities.

“We Will Target and Kill U.S. Citizens Based on Lies and You Will Like It” – Says the New York Times

by Scott Creighton

As the American military’s credibility has been cast into the gutter by several recent stories which exposed one lie after the other after the other, the Obama administration is taking the unprecedented step to confirm they feel they have the right to kill any US citizen abroad whom they determine poses a threat to their imperial agenda… based solely on their say-so.

Just Another Atrocity

by Justin Raimondo, from AntiWar

The video released by Wikileaks showing US fighter planes picking off civilians as our airmen chortle with glee is shocking everyone. Everyone but me, that is.

Perhaps I’m suffering from some sort of moral exhaustion: I’ve just about gone numb after living through and constantly writing about the past decade of American war crimes. Abu Ghraib, Haditha, this, or any of a number of other atrocities – this one seems little different from the others. The bloodthirstiness of our “boys,” chillingly eager to start shooting; the requisite cover-up, the denials, the expressions of “well that’s what war is” from defenders of US foreign policy. In the end it all boils down to a prosaic routine: another day, another atrocity. The only difference here being that it isn’t being done in the dark, but in the media spotlight for the world to see. As Glenn Greenwald points out, this kind of behavior by our glorious troops is not unusual: it’s the norm. It’s what war and occupation are all about: “collateral damage,” dead children, error, malice, and tragedy all rolled into one messy package and marketed as our righteous (and endless) “war on terrorism.”

Iraq Slaughter Not An Aberration

by Glen Greenwald, Information Clearinghouse

I was just on Democracy Now along with WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange discussing the Iraq video they released yesterday, and there’s one vital point I want to emphasize.  Shining light on what our government and military do is so critical precisely because it forces people to see what is really being done and prevents myth and propaganda from distorting those realities.  That’s why the administration fights so hard to keep torture photos suppressed, why the military fought so hard here to keep this video concealed (and why they did the same with regard to the Afghan massacre), and why whistle-blowers, real journalists, and sites like WikiLeaks are the declared enemy of the government.  The discussions many people are having today — about the brutal reality of what the U.S. does when it engages in war, invasions and occupation — is exactly the discussion which they most want to avoid.