Newshog 10-01-2005

Without further ado, here is yesterday's missing Newshog news brief. Post your comments.

• The way in which the Bush administration has wrung all meaning from the word "torture", ably led by Gonzales, is the perfect fusion of Orwell and Kafka.
  
  
• The city of Baghdad just beat several Third World slums to be named the "Moost Undesirable City" in the world to live in. TomDispatch reports in terrible detail on the devastation and broken promises of the Iraqi occupation.
  
  
• Heroism in the Holy Land: Israelis beat American volunteers walking Palestinian children to school.
  
  
• Tracing the development of the Super-Rich Class, a review of 'The Politics of Rich and Poor' by Kevin Phillips. These people are so rich, they are able to miss being counted by the US Census.
  
  
• In Fallujah, the trickle of returning Iraquis find everything they knew has been destroyed and feel their city has become a POW camp.
  
  
• News from through the looking glass: Jihad Unspun alleges that US troops used small children as human shields to prevent attacks on a convoy.
  
  
• You break it, you owe it. Naomi Klein sticks to her 'troops out' message, but adds that the Coalition should pay reparations for the mess they have made of Iraq during the occupation.
  
  
• The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq in what is being called the 'Salvador Option'. The truth is that there have been reports of such squads as much as a year ago, so it may be that the Pentagon is simply considering formally acknowledging these operations before they become another cover-up scandal.
  
  
• A Scottish hospital is being used by the US military as a base to treat drug and alcohol addicted troops who have fought in Iraq,
  
  
• Let’s all vote for a UN president. The response to the Asian tsunami disaster shows that people around the globe recognise their interdependence. Now all we need is a democratically elected UN leadership to reflect this unity. There are moments in history when there is no alternative but to think big. If not now, when?
  
  
• In Britain, the split between Tony Blair and his number two, Gordon Brown, seems to widen almost hourly and the party faithful are not happy.
  
  
• - With no fanfare, the U.S. House has passed a Republican-sponsored doomsday provision that would allow a handful of lawmakers to run Congress if a terrorist attack or major disaster killed or incapacitated large numbers of congressmen.
  
  
• Departing members of President Bush's Cabinet will not have to scour the classifieds to find plum jobs. "Seven figures wouldn't be a problem," said Tom Donohue, president and chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
  
  
• US foreign aid - "stingy" or strategic? Here is an opinion from the International Relations Center.
  
  
• Thanks go out to Shadows, Shirrin and Kat today for sending me some excellent links. Newshog would be poorer without their contributions.
  

Quote of the Day:

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
Abraham Lincoln