Every day, it’s becoming clearer that the Bush administration, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are reaching a new consensus, which can be summed up as “let’s not and say we did.”

Let’s not end the occupation. Let’s not withdraw all the troops. Let’s not resolve the fundamental problems created by the U.S. invasion and occupation. But let’s all pretend we did (or will soon enough, though certainly never “precipitously,” so leave us alone).  read more »

McCain’s position is more hawkish. He recently announced a recommendation to build 45 new nuclear reactors in the U.S. Where would the money come from? A recent attempt to steal $500 billion in taxpayer subsidies for the nuclear industry contained in a so-called climate change bill was led by McCain’s friend — the less kind might say “poodle” — Sen. Joe Lieberman. McCain was vocal in his support of the bill as long as the nuclear industry retained the lion’s share of the handouts.  read more »

“President George W. Bush has told the Israeli government that he may be prepared to approve a future military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations with Tehran break down, according to a senior Pentagon official.

“Despite the opposition of his own generals and widespread skepticism that America is ready to risk the military, political, and economic consequences of an airborne strike on Iran, the president has given an ‘amber light’ to an Israeli plan to attack Iran’s main nuclear sites with long-range bombing sorties, the official told The Sunday Times.  read more »

Now, less than four months before Election Day, with growing disquiet among significant portions of Obama’s progressive base, the current negative reactions can’t be dismissed as potshots from the political margins. Even The New York Times, in a July 4 editorial headlined “New and Not Improved,” has expressed alarm: “We are not shocked when a candidate moves to the center for the general election. But Mr. Obama’s shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games.”  read more »

Participation forms available

Map of Portland Peace Fest Location:
http://tinyurl.com/6qmlfo

By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, DC, May 13 (IPS) - Pressed by the demands of the “global war on terrorism”, the United States is violating an international protocol that forbids the recruitment of children under the age of 18 for military service, according to a new report released Tuesday by a major civil rights group that charged that recruitment practices target children as young as 11 years old.  read more »

Bath Iron Works - one of Maine’s largest private companies, with more than 5,000 employees - recently christened the USS Stockdale, the 30th Aegis guided missile destroyer the shipyard has produced. Comments from protestors and politicians illustrate what’s so “complex” about the “military industrial complex.

Using a series of congressional slight-of-hand maneuvers, Pelosi’s plan consists of scrapping the contents of a bill that has already passed, and in its place, voting on three separate new amendments: one on funding the war, a second on a set of provisions including a non-binding “goal” of redeploying combat troops from Iraq within 18 months, and a third for funding a set of domestic economic priorities.  read more »

By Aaron Glantz
Foreign Policy in Focus
Friday 09 May 2008

Eighteen American war veterans kill themselves every day. One thousand former soldiers receiving care from the Department of Veterans Affairs attempt suicide every month. More veterans are committing suicide than are dying in combat overseas.

These are statistics that most Americans don’t know, because the Bush administration has refused to tell them. Since the start of the Iraq War, the government has tried to present it as a war without casualties.  read more »

The Economist, which calls the current crisis the silent tsunami, reports that last year wheat prices rose 77% and rice 16%, but since January rice prices have risen 141%. The reasons include rising fuel costs, weather problems, increased demand in China and India, as well as the push to create biofuels from cereal crops.  read more »