Page 771 – Toward Freedom

Apocalypse Now? Miami Model Applied to Republican National Convention in Minnesota

Cyril Mychalejko August 19, 2008 Cyril Mychalejko

Police Force in Miami, 2003

Five years ago this November, the Miami police department, with the assistance of Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal government agencies, unleashed a violent paramilitary occupation of Miami in order to curtail protests against the now defunct proposal to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas. This same anti-protest model will be applied at the September 1-4 Republication National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Georgia On My Mind: From West Point to the Caucasus

Conn Hallinan August 18, 2008 Conn Hallinan

Georgians Flee Russia

One of the major causes of the recent war in Georgia has nothing to do with the historic tensions that make the Caucasus such a flashpoint between east and west. Certainly the long-stranding ethnic enmity between Ossetians and Georgians played a role, as did the almost visceral dislike between Moscow and Tbilisi. But the origins of the short, brutal war go back six years to a June afternoon at West Point.

Russian-Georgian Conflict: Lies, Truth and the New Cold War

Victor Figueroa Clark August 18, 2008 Victor Figueroa Clark

Georgian Tanks

The Russian-Georgian conflict is the result of a series of interlinked factors, some old and some much newer, with none of the parties entirely innocent, but for which the lion's share of the blame must rest with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and his backers in the United States and NATO.

Internet Access Fuels Development in War-Torn Uganda

Siena Anstis August 14, 2008 Siena Anstis

Teacher Charles Okumu in Lacor

Not far from the closely packed mud huts of Pabo camp for internally displaced persons in Northern Uganda, the Catholic parish office lights up like a beacon in the inky night of this war-torn area; the region has never had electricity. Last year, the Pabo diocese used a wireless internet connection provided by an NGO to apply for a $40,000 grant for solar panels. Now the health center has an internet phone they can use to call free anywhere in the world, and students at Pabo secondary school are sharing stories of abduction and war on personal blogs.

Motives Behind the Russian-Georgian Conflict

Real News Network August 13, 2008 Real News Network

Pepe Escobar: Georgia is a strategic client state of the US with close ties to the Bush administration

F William Engdahl: There are far bigger stakes being played out in Georgia than a territorial dispute

The Afghan Trap & Déjà vu in Georgia

Greg Guma August 13, 2008 Greg Guma

Presidents Saakashvili & Bush

The US government has persistently claimed that its decision to bankroll the overthrow of Afghanistan's government in the final days of the 1970s was a response to the invasion of Soviet troops. But Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was President Carter's National Security Advisor at the time and now advises Barack Obama, finally admitted the truth in 1998: covert US intervention began months before the USSR sent in troops. "That secret operation was an excellent idea," he crowed. "The effect was to draw the Russians into the Afghan trap."