Those who think the current global conflict is fundamentally about anything other than a strategic struggle for control of oil can be disabused of their illusions by reading (surprise!) the New York Times (May 6). This includes those who buy the Consensus Reality line that it is all about chasing after Islamist terror networks, and that the Great Power rivalries of the Cold War are a thing of the past. Ironically, it also includes those who buy the Conspiracy Theory line that it is all about protecting Israel, and that the wiley Jews have seized control of Washington. For those who are paying attention, the fundamental reasons for the current paroxysm of hyper-interventionism couldn't be clearer. This story about Kazakhstan and Russia actually has much to say about Afghanistan and Iraq. Emphasis added...

When will it be recognized that cars are deadly weapons? We can hear the Automobile Association of America now: "Cars don't kill, people do!" From Newsday, May 6:

Cabbie charged with hate crime

A taxi driver was arrested and charged with a hate crime after backing his cab into a man while spouting racial slurs, Southampton Village police said Friday.

From EFE, April 29 via ServIndi (our translation):

QUITO - The government will investigate an alleged massacre of indigenous people in the Amazon, at the hands of presumed armed madereros [pirate loggers], in a dispute over a forest zone, the local press reported today.

From El Universal, May 4 via the Chiapas95 archive:

A state judge on Wednesday exonerated a Michoacan police officer accused of shooting and killing a striking steel mill worker last month, despite video footage showing the officer firing his rifle toward the workers.

From the online Radio Sabotaje, late on May 5:

Marcos has just arrived in Atenco with 4,000 individuals representing students, workers, farmers, teachers and and community organizations. Mexican mainstream media is reporting agression on the part of the marchers - the truth appears otherwise. The Other Campaign will stay in Mexico City indefinitely. A peaceful meeting is scheduled in Atenco tomorrow at 12 noon.

The April 30 march in Washington, organized by the Save Darfur Coalition, brought out some heroes of the left, like George Clooney, but also some that the hard left loves to hate, like Elie Wiesel and Samantha Power. While policy-makers equivocate, trying to sound tough against the genocide while actually doing not a thing to stop it, the radical left remains largely silent on Darfur: the atrocities there are not being carried out by US imperialism or its proxies, and the solutions most often proposed involve some degree of US military intervention. There is indeed a strong case that another Western military adventure would be a very problematic "solution" at best—but the anti-war left, afraid of losing popularity, doesn't even bother to make that case. As usual, it is being just as dishonest as the government it claims such moral superiority to.

With Darfur in the headlines, if not the minds of our policymakers, it is generally forgotten that armed attacks, forced deportations and even slavery continue against Black African peoples throughout the Sahel. On Tuesday, May 9, at 7:30 PM, the Libertarian Book Club's Anarchist Forum will present a discussion in New York's Greenwhich Village on "Ethnic Cleansing and Slavery in Contemporary Africa," with an emphasis on Mauritania, Sudan and Darfur. The featured speaker will be Abdarahmane Wone of the African Liberation Forces of Mauritania (FLAM), which has been attempting to resist and expose the system of slavery in that country for a generation.

The US is under review by the UN Committee Against Torture in Geneva, and spin control is the name of the game. State Department legal counsel John Bellinger testified out of both sides of this mouth today, saying the US upholds the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane and Degrading Treatment—but that it doesn't apply in Afghanistan, Iraq or Guantanamo. He also denied that Justice Department memos had dumbed down the definition of torture—as if this cat wasn't already long out of the bag. From South Africa's News24, May 5: