Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has alleged that elusive Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was a US operator who had tried to destabilise his late wife Benazir Bhutto's government back in 1989.

In fact, as premier Bhutto had "warned America about Osama bin Laden in 1989 with a call to then US president George H. Bush", Zardari said on NBC's Meet the Press programme Sunday.

The Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, proposed a cigarette tax increase last night as he called the Government's early election bluff by announcing the Coalition would block one of the biggest revenue-raising measures in the budget.

from Crikey .....

Afghan War update: civilian assassinations, warlords and napalm like substance

Overland editor Jeff Sparrow writes:

Just when you think the war in Afghanistan can't become any more obscene, it suddenly does.

The speaker of the US House of Representatives says she was misled by the CIA about the use of harsh methods during terror interrogations.

Nancy Pelosi has been under pressure to clarify what she knew since one of her aides said she had been briefed in 2003 that the CIA had waterboarded suspects.

Critics say the methods amount to torture and that officials who authorised them should be prosecuted.

Ms Pelosi has herself condemned the use of harsh interrogation techniques.

from Crikey .....

UK terrorism laws are a failure

Greg Barns writes:

In the frenzied and irrational world that was post 9/11 politicians in the US, UK, Australia and other democracies told us that draconian anti-terror laws were needed to protect the community from further attacks by extremist Islamic terror networks.

President Barack Obama will try to block the court-ordered release of hundreds of photos showing U.S. troops allegedly abusing prisoners, reversing his position after military commanders warned the graphic images could stoke anti-American sentiment and endanger soldiers.

The pictures show mistreatment of detainees at locations beyond the infamous U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

As an ideology, as public policy, laissez-faire capitalism is in crisis. Unlike in the 1930's, no alternative model is today available to replace it, which leads to the thought that what is presently playing out is perhaps more a reinvention of capitalism than its definitive disappearance. Can we imagine the return of a contemporary form of "liberal socialism"(2), or of a Walter Lippmann-style capitalism, named after that American intellectual whose theses were much-discussed during the 1930's?

As Barack Obama heads into his second hundred days in office, let's head for the big picture ourselves, the ultimate global plot line, the tumultuous rush towards a new, polycentric world order. In its first hundred days, the Obama presidency introduced us to a brand new acronym, OCO for Overseas Contingency Operations, formerly known as GWOT (as in Global War on Terror). Use either name, or anything else you want, and what you're really talking about is what's happening on the immense energy battlefield that extends from Iran to the Pacific Ocean. It's there that the Liquid War for the control of Eurasia takes place.

The blonde joke is dead

Taliban stocks rise with the massacre of the Pashtuns

Benjamin Gilmour writes:

Kohler: The 2009 budget mirage

Business Spectator's Alan Kohler writes:

Peter Costello yesterday mocked Wayne Swan's claims the Howard government was to blame for the battered budget bottom line.

"Here's Wayne Swan, he inherits a budget that is in surplus - and I don't think he will ever produce a surplus budget - he inherits a financial position which has no debt, and we're now looking at putting the commonwealth $200 billion into debt," the former Treasurer told Melbourne radio.

"So don't blame him for the deficit and debt. The people who are responsible are the people who left the budget in surplus and reduced the debt to zero."

On October 16, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Israel Lobby's bill, the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act.  This legislation requires the US Department of State to monitor anti-semitism world wide.

To monitor anti-semitism, it has to be defined.  What is the definition?  Basically, as defined by the Israel Lobby and Abe Foxman, it boils down to any criticism of Israel or Jews. 

A Pakistani offensive against militants in the Swat Valley has displaced some 200,000 people and 300,000 are on the move or about to flee, the UN says.

As jets and helicopters pounded targets in the valley, the UN said it was threatening to become one of the world's biggest displacement crises.

Troops have killed more than 140 militants in the past 24 hours, army spokesman Gen Athar Abbas said.

He said that measures had been taken to provide for fleeing civilians.