By Dave Lindorff

Last week, a US federal district judge, Henry Kennedy, ruled in
favor of a case brought by the survivors of the crew of the USS Pueblo,
a spy ship captured by the North Korean Navy in 1968, who were held
prisoner by North Korea for 11 months, and who were reportedly tortured
in captivity. The judge awarded the men $65 million in damages from the
state of North Korea.

Now I’m happy for the plaintiffs. Torture is flatly banned under
international law, and nobody should be tortured under any conditions
(whatever Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia may think). But let’s
not ignore the irony of this ruling. In general, the federal courts
have been incredibly reluctant about making such rulings against the US
government for doing the same thing that North Korea did, or even worse.

US / Iranian rhetoric is at fever pitch. Both sides are claiming to have “evidence” of military foul play. Both sides are holding military exercises in each others faces and the Gulf is so full of warships it must be highly dangerous to navigate. Both sides are threatening a massive military response to any use of force. Both presidents have backed themselves into political corners and neither shows the slightest sign of backing down.

A second US carrier strike group has just arrived in the Gulf bringing the total number of US (and allied) warships there to about 50 and a third group, headed by USS Reagan has just been ordered to rendezvous in the Western Pacific with destroyers from Pearl Harbour before sailing to the Gulf.

First I invite you to watch this excellent 10 minute speech by George Galloway to the British Parliament on January 27, 2007 in which he delivers a stark warning that Britain is sleepwalking into a catastrophic war with Iran along with the US and Israel. George Galloway was the man who you may remember lambasting the US Senate over false accusations of oil bribes with Saddam.

George Galloway's speech to the British Parliament, January 2007

In scenes reminiscent of the 6th Armies assault on Stalingrad, president Bush’s “surge” appears to be a last ditch, all or nothing attempt to bring a military victory in Baghdad that it cannot realistically achieve.

Battle for Baghdad: City braces itself for US surge
Urban fighting amid the ruins
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Published: 28 January 2007

Lina Massufi, a 32-year-old Iraqi laboratory assistant with two children, is a widow - her husband was killed by US troops when he accidentally drove down a closed road in 2003. In the past three months she has seen her house raided and her furniture smashed 12 times.

Robert Parry writes:

In the latest conventional wisdom about winds of freedom sweeping the Middle East, both mainstream and conservative commentators bought into the notion that Arabs were rallying to Bush’s orations about liberty and finally appreciating his conquest of Iraq. But the reality is that Bush remains one of the region’s most despised figures.

So when Bush rushed to center stage ostensibly to urge on thousands of Lebanese demonstrators demanding Syrian military withdrawal – and implicitly to take credit for the developments – the U.S. news media missed the other story: that Bush’s grandstanding was putting those protesters and their cause in danger.

One of the results was a backlash that saw pro-Syrian Hezbollah stage a counter rally of a half million people in Beirut on March 8, denouncing U.S. intervention in Lebanese politics and accusing Washington of regional “terrorism.” This massive outpouring emboldened Lebanon’s parliament to re-elect pro-Syrian Prime Minister Omar Karami, who had resigned just nine days earlier in face of the anti-Syrian protests.