Truthout 8/8

Between the Bomb and the Burqa
Yana Kunichoff and Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "An internal Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) document released by WikiLeaks in March reveals a secret plan to use the plight of Afghan women and refugees in developing media strategies to 'leverage French (and other European) guilt' during an especially bloody summer of military escalation. The confidential document was prepared by the Red Cell, a secretive group that consults the US intelligence community."
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Dodd: It's Not Worth a Fight to Get Elizabeth Warren Confirmed as CFPB Director
Pat Garofolo, ThinkProgress: "When it first looked like Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren might stand a serious chance of getting appointed at the first director of the newly-created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - a regulatory agency which she was the first to suggest - Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) poo-pooed the notion, saying there's a 'serious question' about whether Warren is 'confirmable.' The New Republic's Noam Scheiber wrote that 'after surveying a dozen insiders over the last few days...I've concluded that the odds are good that Warren would be confirmed if nominated by the White House.' And Dodd now seems to have shifted his rhetoric, saying that even if Warren is confirmable, it's not worth a potential fight to get her the job."
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What State Officials Don't Want Arizona School Children to Know
Dr. Roberto Cintli Rodriguez, Truthout: "For the next few months, the world will be focusing on Arizona's SB 1070 - the state's new racial profiling law. However, in this insane asylum known as Arizona, where conservatives have concocted one reactionary scheme after another, another law in particular stands out for its embrace of Dark Ages-era censorship - the 2010 anti-ethnic studies HB 2281 - a law that seeks to codify the 'triumph' of Western Civilization with its emphasis on Greco-Roman culture."
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"Bottom Kill" Set to Seal Oil Well for Good, but Worries Abound in Louisiana
Bill Sasser, Christian Science Monitor: "As BP prepares final operations to permanently seal the once-out-of-control oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana residents are both relieved and wary. Many see government scientists as overly optimistic in their assessments of the current state of the spill, and they are worried about BP standing by its commitment to fully clean it up."
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Khadr Trial Will Be a Window Into America's War on Terror
Carol Rosenberg, McClatchy Newspapers: "Across his eight years in US custody, Americans have seen Canadian Omar Khadr grow from a child found near dead in a war zone in Afghanistan to a brooding, weeping teenager and more recently a defiant young man spurning a guilty plea deal at Guantanamo. Prosecutors say Khadr, now 23, was an 'unprivileged enemy belligerent' when he joined elders on a night mission in Afghanistan, planting mines. They call it a war crime. Defense lawyers see a 'child soldier' whose father introduced him to al Qaida at age 11 and deserved the protections of an innocent offered up to war. While his coming trial must tackle those competing tales, the first full war crimes prosecution of the Obama administration may reveal much more."
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An Honest Look at Obama's First Year
David Swanson, Truthout: "Most commentary on President Barack Obama either beats him up unfairly because he's not a Republican or cuts him extra slack because he's not a Republican. If, in the privacy of your own home, you want to pause and review the main events of the first year or more of this presidency, as recorded by someone who obviously doesn't care about partisan boosting, I recommend Paul Street's new book "The Empire's New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power."
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Beyond Violence and Nonviolence: Resistance as a Culture
Ramzy Baroud, Truthout: "Resistance is not a band of armed men hell-bent on wreaking havoc. It is not a cell of terrorists scheming to detonate buildings. True resistance is a culture. It is a collective retort to oppression. Understanding the real nature of resistance, however, is not easy. No news bite could be thorough enough to explain why people, as a people, resist. Even if such an arduous task was possible, the news might not want to convey it, as it would directly clash with mainstream interpretations of violence and nonviolent resistance."
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Savings Are a Lousy Excuse for America's Trade Deficit
Ian Fletcher, Truthout: "Everyone who's been paying attention knows by now that Americans consume too much and save too little. This is statistically true, but it has unfortunately become the basis of a mischievous lie about the cause of America's monstrous trade deficits. That is, many orthodox economists have been claiming that our trade deficit is really a savings problem in disguise."
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Wyclef Jean Seeks the Haitian Presidency: A Breath of Fresh Air - or a Dabbler Who Will Break Haiti's Heart?
Alice Barrett, Council on Hemispheric Affairs: "Considering the cynical performance of most of Haiti's previous leaders, the country's history of political instability and corruption, and its current state of devastation, [hip-hop star and record producer Wyclef] Jean's candidacy, however experimental, is in many ways the most refreshing alternative to the country's seventy competing political parties...Wyclef's candidacy brought a good deal of buzz to the campaign, but there are those who fear that he may not be as untarnished as he appears and that he would only continue the pattern of weak executive rule, which could open up the island to increased money laundering as well as drug and human trafficking."
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