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An enraged Japanese guard, the flaps of his hat flying into the air, charges with his bayonet toward an exhausted American soldier on the ground. In other works by Ben Steele, a Japanese soldier strikes a captured American across the face with the butt of his rifle, several guards stand over a withered American digging his own grave, and GIs drink from a mud hole. Copies of these works are currently on display at the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art. "I just kind of want to give people an idea of what went on over there," said the 92-year-old Steele...

The Arab daily Al-Hayat on Tuesday quoted a senior Hamas official as saying that United States President-elect Barack Obama's advisors met with members of the Palestinian militant group before the U.S. presidential election. Ahmed Yusuf, a political advisor to Hamas' Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh, reportedly told the London-based paper that, "The connection was made via email and after that we met with them in Gaza." Al-Hayat reported that Yusuf also said the relations were maintained after Obama's electoral victory last Tuesday. He said the president-elect's advisors requested that the relations be kept secret so as not to aid his rival,...

On Tuesday, September 23, Lary King, far from his usual challenging demeanor, offered Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ample opportunity to present his case. The final touch was to give him a human face. “Do you have children?” King asked the brutal dictator. “How old are they?” he followed, giving Ahmadinejad an opportunity to present his “human” side.

Biden quoted as saying that Israel will have to reconcile itself to a nuclear Iran Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden was quoted Monday as telling senior Israeli officials behind closed doors that the Jewish state will have to reconcile itself to a nuclear Iran. In the unsourced report, Army Radio also quoted Biden as saying that he opposed "opening a additional military and diplomatic front."

THE OBAMA-BIDEN TICKET IS THE FIRST TICKET OF EITHER MAJOR PARTY IN SIXTY-EIGHT YEARS IN WHICH NEITHER THE CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT EVER SERVED IN THE MILITARY! At a time of war, the Democrats give us something the nation hasn't seen in more than two generations: a ticket where neither of the the running mates ever wore a uniform of any kind. Shouldn't Republicans make a big deal of this? Consider the history-- 2004 -- GOP -- Bush served in National Guard/ DEMS- Kerry served in the Navy 2000---GOP -- Bush served in National Guard/ Al Gore served in the Army...

Rightwing fodder-- Barack Obama Invesco Field convention tickets picture upside down US flags- an international symbol of distress. The DNC tickets printed for Barack Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field show an upside down US flag on both sides. This is the international symbol of extreme distress. FOX 9 reported: Some viewers contacted 9NEWS Saturday, questioning the design of the credentials to see Sen. Barack Obama accept the Democratic Party's presidential nomination at INVESCO Field at Mile High. The viewers say with the stars and blue field in the lower left corner, it looks like an upside down American flag....

The Kremlin's decision today to call a halt to its five-day assault on Georgia leaves Russia calling the shots in the energy-rich Black Sea littoral and Caspian basin. (Snip...) Nato and the EU The Russians see the Caucasus test as a zero-sum game and have won. That means lose-lose for the west. A key objective for Putin was to destabilise Georgia to invalidate its aim of joining Nato. He may have succeeded. The Americans suffered a rare defeat in April at a Nato summit when George Bush argued strongly for starting Georgia towards alliance membership and was defeated by Angela...

MANILA, July 17 (Reuters) - The Philippines will hold a plebiscite early next year in more than 700 southern villages to set up an ancestral homeland for Muslims, part of a deal with the country's biggest rebel group, officials said on Thursday. Hermogenes Esperon, the president's peace adviser, told reporters the proposed Muslim homeland would also be empowered to collect about 75 percent of taxes from oil, mines and fisheries in the area. He was speaking in Manila a day after government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) negotiators hammered out a deal in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital. "The...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sen. John Kerry today made the follow statement in response to the Supreme Court’s recent decision that foreign detainees held at Guantanamo Bay may challenge their detention in U.S. courts: “Today, the Supreme Court affirmed what almost everyone but the Administration and their defenders in Congress always knew. The Constitution and the rule of law bind all of us even in extraordinary times of war. No one is above the Constitution. The historic writ of habeas corpus endures. This is a major rebuke of the Administration’s post-9/11 policies that have divided us at home, alienated and isolated...

-By Warner Todd Huston Congressional Democrats announced early in May that they wanted to make "military propaganda" illegal. To achieve this goal they passed new legislation that strengthened previous legislation that is supposed to ban the Pentagon from indulging in "propaganda" for the military. This bill is supposed to stop the military from sending "any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes or behavior of the people of the United States in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly." In other words, the military is not allowed to talk to...

In an interview yesterday with the San Francisco Chronicle, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claimed the U.S. troop surge failed to accomplish its goal. She then partially credited the success of the troop surge to “the goodwill of the Iranians,” claiming that they were responsible for ending violence in the southern city of Basra. Asked if she saw any evidence of the surge’s positive impact on her May 17 trip to Iraq she responded: Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That...

So, round one of the 2008 foreign policy debate goes to ... Barack Obama? Improbable as it seems, in the first direct rhetorical showdown of the general election campaign - over a question, foreign policy "toughness", that's been a perceived Democratic weakness since Vietnam - it was the guy with the thin foreign policy résumé, suspected by some of his compatriots of being a Muslim, who out-punched the war hero with the extensive résumé. And shall I add that the one with the thin résumé and the strange name has a dodgy position on the question at hand, and yet...

WATERTOWN, S.D. (AP) - Barack Obama has called President Bush's comments on appeasement "exactly the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and alienates us from the rest of the world." Obama criticized Republican rival John McCain and President Bush for "dishonest and divisive" attacks in hinting that the Democratic presidential candidate would appease terrorists. Obama strongly responded Friday to the comments Bush made in Israel on Thursday and McCain's subsequent words. Obama told a town hall meeting, "That's the kind of hypocrisy that we've been seeing in our foreign policy, the kind of fear-peddling, fear mongering that has...

Bush's comments about appeasement reverberated across the U.S. campaign trail, offering a new platform for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to sharpen their lines of attack. In the speech, Bush warned that the United States must not negotiate with Iran or radical groups such as Hamas. "Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush told the Israeli lawmakers. "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared:...

WAHSINGTON, DC – Senator John Kerry made the following statement today, in response to President Bush’s partisan attacks from Israel’s Knesset. “President Bush is still playing the disgusting and dangerous political game Karl Rove perfected which is insulting to every American and disrespectful to our ally Israel. “George Bush should be making Israel secure, not slandering Barack Obama from the Knesset. If George Bush believes engagement with Iran is appeasement, the first thing he should do when he comes home is demand the resignation of his own Cabinet. Secretary Gates and Secretary Rice have both favored negotiations with Iran. “The...

More than 300 people marched from downtown Point Richmond to the Chevron refinery today to protest the company they say is processing crude oil imported from Iraq. Vowing to blockade the facility, about 50 people formed human chains at the entrance to the refinery on Richmond Avenue as others held banners, sang and danced.The protesters were marching against the war in Iraq as well as a proposal to upgrade the refinery's processing capability. They accused Chevron of profiteering from the oil obtained by the Iraqi invasion that has cost many thousands of lives and billions of dollars.Kayla Starr, 66, from...

WASHINGTON -- Democrats, facing rejection today of a proposal co-sponsored by Wisconsin's Sen. Russ Feingold to cut off money for the Iraq war, are planning to shift their emphasis to the war's toll on the American economy to rebuild anti-war momentum.In recent months, violence in Iraq has declined, and the Baghdad government has made small steps toward political reconciliation, including plans to hold provincial elections on Oct. 1. While Democratic voters remain largely against the war, the security improvement has helped to cool anxiety among Republicans and stave off legislation demanding that troops start coming home. The Senate was expected...

Calling God "Allah" by Brigitte Gabriel All the Christians in the Middle East call God "Allah". This is how the Muslims control any population they dominate. This bishop is out of his mind. As the Muslims spread out of Arabia into the Middle East and conquered the local populations they forced them to not only to change their customs to adopt Islamic customs but also to change their language. I prayed to Allah as a Christian all my life until three years go (yes this is Brigitte Gabriel writing) when I started really looking into Islam and examining its dominance...

The Peace Racket Bruce Bawer An anti-Western movement touts dictators, advocates appeasement—and gains momentum. If you want peace, prepare for war.” Thus counseled Roman general Flavius Vegetius Renatus over 1,600 years ago. Nine centuries before that, Sun Tzu offered essentially the same advice, and it’s to him that Vegetius’s line is attributed at the beginning of a film that I saw recently at Oslo’s Nobel Peace Center. Yet the film cites this ancient wisdom only to reject it. After serving up a perverse potted history of the cold war, the thrust of which is that the peace movement brought down...