US Dumping Toxic Brew in Iraq

The United States will be leaving a toxic brew of hazardous waste behind when US forces withdraw from Iraq, a new report says.

On Monday, The Times of London said that companies from the United States are selling local Iraqi scrap dealers a cocktail of toxic material and ordinary waste.

The waste is being disposed of locally instead of being returned for treatment or shipped to Iraq-based factories which specialize in disposal.'

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Baghdad to Enclose City With 15ft Wall

Baghdad is to resort to one of the oldest forms of defence by building a massive wall around the capital to keep out insurgents, The Times has learnt.

A series of recent suicide bombings has driven the governor of the Iraqi capital to propose the concrete barrier, which will be 15ft (4.5m) high and 70 miles (112km) long. Every man, beast and vehicle entering will be searched at one of only eight gates along the main highways.

Baghdad, roughly the same size as London and with approximately five million inhabitants, will face severe disruption as a result. Freedom of movement will be limited and workers and visitors alike will probably have to wait for at least an hour to enter. Once inside, though, it is hoped they will be much safer. Shatha al-Obeidi, an aide to Salah Abdul Razzaq, the governor, said: "We want to stop the terrorist from sneaking in. With the wall it will be much easier".'

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New Colonialism: Pentagon Carves Africa Into Military Zones

Last year the commander of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), General William Ward, said the Pentagon had military partnerships with 35 of the continent's 53 nations, "representing U.S. relationships that span the continent." That number has increased in the interim.

As the first overseas regional military command set up by Washington in this century, the first since the end of the Cold War, and the first in 25 years, the activation of AFRICOM, initially under the wing of U.S. European Command on October 1, 2007, then as an independent entity a year later, emphasizes the geostrategic importance of Africa in U.S. international military, political and economic planning.'

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Iran: Haven’t We Seen This Movie Before?

In the joint interview* with Hillary Clinton and Robert M. Gates on Sunday, the buzz words were all there: international terrorism, Al Qaeda, Iran’s nuclear program, the need for UN Resolutions and the fact that such Resolutions will not stop the USA from taking further action, an international coalition being built, Teheran not wanting to follow the diplomatic path…and Iran was mentioned no less than eighteen times.

The build-up, ladies and gentlemen, is on. We have seen it before and we are seeing it again. Look at a map of Iran and the mechanisms are in place. And now the rhetoric is taking the same path as the run-up to the war in Iraq. Take for example the recent interview (source quoted below) between the NBC’s David Gregory and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US Defense Secretary William Gates on Sunday April 11, 2010.

During the interview, Iran was mentioned, directly or indirectly, no less than 18 times, ten ominously by Defense Secretary Gates (5 directly and five indirectly – “they”, “them”), 6 times by the interviewer and twice by Hillary Clinton.

While there were references to “putting pressure” on Iran and a mix of policies including economic sanctions, the images created by this interview are as telling as they are shocking and frightening: we have all the ingredients present in the verbal and body language of the United States of America visible immediately before the Iraq war.'

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U.S. Pushes for Somalia Offensive, But Settles for Starving Somali Civilians

The American-backed offensive in Somalia was supposed to be underway by now, based on months of Pentagon-planted stories in the corporate press. But there is, as yet, no offensive, because the puppet regime doesn’t even have enough soldiers to hang on to its little corner of Somalia’s capital city, Mogadishu. This is a big problem for the Obama administration, which is anxious to expand its imperial offensive from Yemen across the Red Sea to the Horn of Africa. Unfortunately for Washington, its Somali puppets have far too few troops to launch an offensive against anyone.

Unable to make headway against the Shabab Islamic militants that control 95 percent of south and central Somalia, the Americans step up their war against the civilian population, withholding food from the millions that depend on foreign aid to keep from starving.

The subjugation of Somalia is a Euro-American affair. The European Union is paying for the training of 2,000 Somali recruits in Uganda, Washington’s always-eager mercenary best friend in Black Africa. Uganda also provides thousands of its own troops to guard the Mogadishu airport, without which the puppet Somali regime would be cut off from the outside world.

Another 2,500 new Somali recruits are in neighboring Kenya, but there’s a problem getting them into action, as well. Many of the ethnic Somali recruits are Kenyan citizens. The traditional Somali homeland includes huge chunks of Kenya and Ethiopia, as well as the French and American outpost in Djibouti. The Kenyans are afraid they will lose control of these Somali soldiers if they are turned over to the regime in Mogadishu. Kenya wants their Somalis to guard the Kenyan border against other Somalis, and has refused to turn them loose for service to the U.S. -backed puppet government.

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Washington Asserts Colonial-Style Control of Haiti at UN Donors’ Conference

On the dais for the event, UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon and Haitian President René Préval were flanked by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, who is the UN special envoy to Haiti. Préval announced the formation of an Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission, co-chaired by Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and Bill Clinton, which is to oversee the distribution of the reconstruction funds.

The board for the commission will have representatives from the US, Canada, Brazil, France, Venezuela and the European Union, along with the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank and the United Nations. This structure, to remain in place for at least 18 months, is transparently designed to place the fate of Haiti in the hands of the imperialist powers, with the US playing the uncontested dominant role.

Only the flimsiest pretense is being made that the Haitian government will exercise any sovereign control. As the New York Times noted in a March 31 article: “There has been a certain amount of grumbling around the United Nations about tight control by the State Department over the donor conference, with a senior European diplomat dubbing it ‘The Bill and Hillary Show.'".'

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