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Before we begin, a challenge: I defy anyone to find a single phrase in Obama's speech on Iraq last night that couldn't have issued forth from the foetid maw of George W. Bush (with the possible exception of his mentions of George W. Bush).
Barack Obama's Iraq speech last night is an impressive entry in the annals of war propaganda. In it, he glosses over a criminal war as 'a remarkable chapter' in US history, and creates the false impression that the occupation of Iraq is over. He places the responsibility rebuilding a society out of the rubble we created on the shoulders of the Iraqi people (we are, of course, blameless), and tells us that it's time to 'turn the page' on a crime that is continuing, and for which not a single perpetrator has yet even been indicted. It is a wonder that he wasn't struck by lightning before finishing.
In his speech last night, Obama announced that "the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country." This, many people will - not unreasonably - conclude, means that the war against Iraq, the long national nightmare we have visited on millions of people, is over.
It's not.
In reality, Obama is continuing a rhetorical shell game that he started in the campaign, betting that most people will hear that he intended to end "combat operations" and assume that that meant ending the occupation (a word that Obama used not a single time in his speech) of Iraq. After all, isn't the entire occupation one big "combat operation"? Isn't every US soldier and mercenary there - engaged, as they are, in controlling Iraq by the gun and the electrode - a "combat soldier"?
"Nothing could be further from the truth", Seumas Milne writes in the Guardian newspaper:
The US isn't withdrawing from Iraq at all - it's rebranding the occupation. Just as George Bush's war on terror was retitled "overseas contingency operations" when Obama became president, US "combat operations" will be rebadged from next month as "stability operations".
But as Major General Stephen Lanza, the US military spokesman in Iraq, told the New York Times: "In practical terms, nothing will change". After this month's withdrawal, there will still be 50,000 US troops in 94 military bases, "advising" and training the Iraqi army, "providing security" and carrying out "counter-terrorism" missions. In US military speak, that covers pretty well everything they might want to do.
Granted, 50,000 is a major reduction on the numbers in Iraq a year ago. But what Obama once called "the dumb war" goes remorselessly on. In fact, violence has been increasing as the Iraqi political factions remain deadlocked for the fifth month in a row in the Green Zone. More civilians are being killed in Iraq than Afghanistan: 535 last month alone, according to the Iraqi government - the worst figure for two years.
Simply put, Obama isn't using the words "the occupation of Iraq is over" because the occupation of Iraq is not over.
The Amazon river has dropped to its lowest level in 40 years in north-eastern Peru, causing severe economic disruption in a region where it is the main transport route.
At least six large boats have been stranded near the port city of Iquitos.
The low water level is the result of a prolonged spell of dry weather, Peru's national meteorological office said.
The river is expected to fall further before the rainy season begins next month.
Cut off
Iquitos and other towns in Peru's rainforest region have no road links to the rest of the country, and depend on the Amazon and its tributaries for transport.
Food and other supplies are now being brought in by smaller boats that can navigate the shallow channels, weaving between exposed mud banks.
But these journeys take up to twice as long, and the cost is much higher.
River level in Iquitos had fallen to 106m (347.8ft) above sea level, 50cm (19.7in) lower than a previous record set in 2005, officials said.
One of the biggest and most important seed banks in the world is at risk of being replaced by a private housing development.
The facility near the Russian city of St Petersburg houses thousands of varieties of plants, not found anywhere else in the world.
Al Jazeera's Neave Barker reports from Pavlovsk in the St Petersburg region.
MORE than 20 years after it first appeared, a classic Mambo design has proved too controversial to sell on a department store T-shirt.
Big W has removed 200 shirts depicting the crucifixion of a mouse from 30 of its stores following a complaint. The design was created by the Australian artist Richard Allen in 1986.
The move comes just weeks after the discount department store added Mambo designs to its clothing range, which was seen as an attempt by the label to widen its sales base.
The "100 per cent Mambo" T-shirt bears the tagline: "Forgive them, father, they know not what to wear."
It appeared this year in a book on cult streetwear, where Mambo was named one of the most influential brands of the past two decades alongside Nike and adidas. But in recent years the label has struggled through tough times. It was sold two years ago to Equity and Capital Finance Australia for $10 million – half what Gazal Corporation paid for it in 2000.
A spokeswoman for Big W, Clare Buchanan, said the T-shirt's inclusion in the Big W collection was reviewed after a complaint from a customer at its Fairfield store.
Feral cats wiping out endangered bush species
A new report from the Nature Conservancy has found that mammal species in northern Australia are in rapid decline and many are at risk of becoming extinct within the next decade.
At least a dozen species are listed as critical or endangered and another dozen are thought to be vulnerable.
Researchers believe the problem is getting worse and feral cats and fire management are largely to blame for the decline.
The head of biodiversity for the Northern Territory Environment Department, Professor John Woinarski, says the mostly small and furry creatures are under immense pressure and in many cases are living on borrowed time.
"When I came here 25 years or so ago it was a paradise for native mammals and that's just not the case anymore," he said.
"It's perplexing. Much of the landscape still looks extraordinarily intact and natural and extensive and beautiful, but some of the species are clearly falling out of that landscape.
"It's been a difficult task for us to figure out what's causing that decline, given the apparent naturalness of landscape.
"We think that the main contributing factors are predation by feral cats and changed fire regimes."
Professor Woinarski says it is one of the region's smaller inhabitants that may be the next victim.
"There's a beautiful rodent called a brush-tailed rabbit rat which is a guinea pig-sized animal but with a beautiful long feathery tail," he said.
"We're witnessing its really rapid decline over the last two decades. It's disappeared from a lot of places where formally it was very common and it's the one I'd pick as the most likely for extinction in the next 10 or so years.
"But there's a range of others which are similarly declining in more or less the same sort of synchrony I guess."
Father lied over disabled son and helped sink Labor MP
A Queensland father who sparked pre-election outrage when he questioned a Labor MP over the treatment of his disabled son has now admitted he lied.
Labor's Jon Sullivan lost the seat of Longman, north of Brisbane, to 20-year-old Wyatt Roy after holding it by a 1.9 per cent margin.
Mr Sullivan made national headlines two days before the election when he questioned, during an ABC Radio public forum, why local constituent Robert Murphy would wait two years for his disabled son to see a specialist.
However, Mr Murphy has admitted he failed to tell the truth when questioning Mr Sullivan.
He today apologised and said he was sorry if his deception had influenced voters to ditch the Labor Party and back Mr Roy, who won the seat to become the youngest parliamentarian in Australian history.
At the time, Mr Murphy said: "It's taken two years to take my son to the doctor to get him diagnosed because we don't have the money to actually go and pay a specialist ... so that he can get the proper help that he needs at school."
Mr Sullivan's response drew immediate scorn from the audience and made front page headlines the following day.
"What parent would wait two years to get a child who they believe has a disability," he said.
But Mr Murphy today admitted his family had not waited two years for help, as he had claimed.
Mr Murphy went on ABC Radio this morning to explain why he lied.
"I thought it was [two years]," Mr Murphy said.
"I mistakenly said it happened over two years.
"I didn't plan [the question], I didn't think it through properly. I shouldn't have said what I said."
Mr Murphy said the time period was his only fib and his son, Bailey, did have a disability for which he had waited to seek help.
When asked if he accepted he may have contributed to Mr Sullivan's loss, Mr Murphy apologised.
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Technique to trace persistent CFCs
Ultrafine measurements of atmospheric gases could help track down persistent sources of CFCs thought to be slowing the recovery of the ozone layer.
The use of the refrigerants and aerosol propellants was restricted by a global treaty in 1987, but they have stayed in the air longer than many expected.
A UK-German team has now shown how it is possible to chemically "fingerprint" CFCs to potentially trace their origin.
The group's work is published in the journal Science.
The researchers from the universities of East Anglia and Frankfurt worked on samples of atmosphere retrieved from high in the stratosphere (up to 35km; 115,000ft) by French space agency balloons.
Using mass spectrometers, they were able to detail the ratios of different types (isotopes) of chlorine atoms present in fantastically small concentrations - just 500 parts per trillion - of chlorofluorocarbon-12.
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Carefully read article at top... and meditate on what we are doing to the earth...
Robert Fisk: Blair should take responsibility for Iraq. But he won't. He can't
This is not a debate, it's a bloody, blood-soaked disaster for which the former PM should take responsibility
Has this wretched man learned nothing? On and on, it went during his BBC interview: "I would absolutely...","I definitely...", "I believed absolutely clearly...", "It was very, very clear that this changed everything" – "this" being 11 September 2001 – "Let me state clearly and unequivocally", "The Intelligence picture was clear...", "legal justification was quite clear", "We said completely accurately... "Because I believed strongly, then and now...", "My definitive view in the end is..." You would have thought we won the war in Iraq, that we were winning the war in Afghanistan, that we were going to win the next war in Iran. And why not, if Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara says so.
And I hereby abandon all further reference to Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara, with its unhappy reference to Britain's humiliating military defeat in 1915 Mesopotamia. He must be re-created Lord Blair of Isfahan. Having conquered Saddam, he wants to conquer Ahmadinejad. "I am saying that it is wholly unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons capability," he told poor old Andrew Marr. It was necessary for the Iranians," quoth he, "to get that message, loud and clear." Thus did our Middle East peace envoy prepare us for war with Persia. But I rather fear the Iranians got his "message" a long time ago: if you want to avoid threats from the likes of Lord Blair, you'd better buy a bomb pdq. After all, what he didn't announce was: "I am saying it is wholly unacceptable for North Korea to have nuclear capability." And we all know why.
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blair is "enforcing" history. His "history" has not much to do with reality, only a spruiking of the illusions of it. See toon at top..
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