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To honor Dr. King bring the troops home NOW!!

Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech" is one of history's greatest orations, as well as one of its most beautiful arias.

To truly honor him and the heartfelt genius he brought us, we must do the one thing that most hurtfully blocked his Dream: we must end the imperial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, at long last, bring our troops home from all over the world.

Because I use it in my US history classes, I have heard Dr. King's speech scores of times. I play it on a scratchy video whenever possible and never tire of it. It is more sung than delivered, and his sonorous voice and perfect cadence are the equal of any operatic oratorio ever written. Close your eyes and you are in the greatest of all concert halls.

But its message cuts the core of our entire history. It contains beautiful descriptions of much our national landscape. It references Stone Mountain, Georgia, where we suffered the formation of the Ku Klux Klan, and Lookout Mountain in Tennessee, the origin of the infamous Scottsboro Boys legal persecution.

Surpassing America

Rebranding Iraq: Playing with numbers and human lives

The soldiers of the US 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division hollered as they made their way into Kuwait. "We won," they claimed. "It's over."

But what exactly did they win?

And is the war really over?

It seems we are once again walking into the same trap, the same nonsensical assumptions of wars won, missions accomplished, troops withdrawn, and jolly soldiers carrying cardboard signs of heart-warming messages like "Lindsay & Austin ... Dad's coming home."

While much of the media is focused on the logistics of the misleading withdrawal of the "last combat brigade" from Iraq on August 19 - some accentuating the fact that the withdrawal is happening two weeks ahead of the August 31 deadline - most of us are guilty of forgetting Iraq and its people. When the economy began to take center stage, we completely dropped the war off our list of grievances.

But this is not about memory, or a way of honoring the dead and feeling compassion for the living. Forgetting wars leads to a complete polarization of discourses, thus allowing the crafters of war to sell the public whatever suits their interests and stratagems.

Viktor Bout avoids an immediate boot to America

BANGKOK, Thailand -- American officials hoping to extradite Viktor Bout on Wednesday (August 25) were unable to fly the suspected Russian weapons smuggler to New York, because the U.S. added fresh allegations against him which must be heard or dismissed in a Thai court.

A sleek, white, twin-engine jet from the U.S. reportedly waited in vain on the tarmac at Bangkok's Don Muang air force base on Wednesday (August 25), only to be told that he would not be handed over without going through some additional legal hoops.

"We are not sending Viktor Bout back today. There are still several legal steps to go through," Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Wednesday (August 25).

"Before Bout's extradition can take place, the second case needs to be dropped by the court," Foreign Ministry spokesman Thani Thongpakdi said on Wednesday (August 25).

The unpredictable problem could be quickly sorted out by U.S. officials and a Bangkok judge, allowing Mr. Bout to then immediately be flown to New York, or could meander through Thailand's murky court system resulting in a delay or cancellation of his extradition,

Blackwater vs. Pinkwater: The wife of Erik Prince picks a fight with CODEPINK

It felt surreal to be inside the home of Erik Prince, the founder, owner and chairman of Blackwater (or Xe, as it is now called). Prince, a former Navy Seal, provides security for the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department. His company trains 40,000 people a year in skills that include personal protection. Yet his home in McLean, Virginia, has no security. None. Not even a fence or a guard dog or a No Trespassing sign. And his mother-in-law, who helps care for his young children, invited a total stranger--me--into his home without hesitation.

Five years and still drowning: The New Orleans CNN would never show you

It's been five years already. In New Orleans, more than half the original residents have not, cannot, return.

"They don't want no poor niggers back in - that's the bottom line."

And that's Malik Rahim, Director of Common Ground, who led the survivors who rebuilt their homes in the teeth of official resistance in "The City That Care Forgot."

You'll meet Malik and the people that everyone forgot in Big Easy to Big Empty: the Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans, chosen this week as Moviefone's top pick of Katrina documentaries.

We are offering our readers a Download of Big Easy FREE of charge during this week of commemoration. Or donate and get the signed DVD with added material, including Palast with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman.

Meet Patricia Thomas who was locked out of her home in the Lafitte housing project near the French Quarter. We go with her as she breaks into her blockaded apartment.

"Katrina didn't do this. Man did this."

"Lord of War" Viktor Bout's extradition to New York

BANGKOK, Thailand -- A Thai court agreed on Friday (August 20) to extradite Viktor Bout to New York, after the Russian was arrested in a Bangkok hotel during a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sting for allegedly planning to sell weapons to Colombian rebels which could be used to kill Americans.

Dubbed the "Lord of War" and "Merchant of Death," the stout, mustachioed Mr. Bout arrived at the appeals court grinning and winking with confidence, but after hearing the final guilty verdict in the "United States of America vs. Viktor Bout" case, began crying while led away in mandatory leg chains.

"Well, now we'll just go to a U.S. court and win there instead," Mr. Bout told Russia's RIA Novosti news agency in Russian after the court issued its ruling.

He faces possible life imprisonment if convicted in New York for weapons smuggling, wiring money through New York banks, and other crimes.

Having exhausted his Bangkok court appeals, Mr. Bout's lawyer, Lak Nittiwattanawichan, said they would ask Thailand's Foreign Ministry and monarchy to set him free -- which observers said would probably not be successful.

Last of the combat troops leaving Iraq? – Only in your dreams

Watching MSNBC’s coverage of ‘the last combat troops leaving Iraq’ for 3 hours reminded of a few brutal realities that still plague this country and this planet. The first being just how far this country remains from any semblance of reality. It’s the kind of delusional denial that truly can only be believed when witnessed from within. As Keith Olbermann was describing the cinematic quality of the “Strykers driving into your living room,” I could really think of only one thing – The aftermath of a 7.5 year all out United States operation to decimate a people and their society.

There’s no way to comprehend the scope and facets of this operation, because you would need a Pentagon for that. From the first day after initial conquest when the money disappeared from the banks and their record of civilization was decimated by the looting of their museums, it was like any other colonial conquest in history, except every excruciating moment of this one was on television. The following 7.5 years of the assimilation of a country went as diagrammed.

Help Save Kevin Keith's Life in Ohio

This is it. We have only days to save an innocent man's life. Yesterday, the Ohio Parole Board made a nonbinding, advisory recommendation to Governor Strickland that Kevin Keith should be executed, but the Parole Board's own findings do not erase the doubt about Mr. Keith's guilt. We need you and your friends - especially people living in Ohio - to urge Governor Strickland to spare his life, when so many questions about his case remain unanswered.

Thanks to you, more than 20,000 petition signatures have been delivered to Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, asking him to save Kevin Keith. But that is not enough. Now, with Mr. Keith's scheduled execution less than one month away, it's time to turn up the volume and make our voices heard.

Please send a letter to Governor Strickland today asking him to grant clemency to Mr. Keith, who is scheduled to be executed on September 15, despite new evidence of his innocence.

Always relevant Afghanistan cartoon

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