[photopress:security.jpg,full,pp_image]For the last two or three years, European airlines are forwarding information about air travelers to US authorities.  The Americans are getting names, nationalities, even seat preferences of everyone flying into the US.  And while European officials say they have no problem sharing the info with US authorities, some members of the EU parliament have become a little concerned with what is happening to that info after the flight is over.

The info is used to give travelers a “terrorist risk score,” and the Europeans want to know if that is fed into the Automated Targeting System (ATS.)

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[photopress:060722_A1_Heatw72040_a1inhofe_1.jpg,full,pp_image]For a religious man, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) sure lies a lot.Confronted this morning on TV with the reality that in a couple of days 2,500 of the worlds top climate scientist will issue a report describing a near unequivocal link between climate change and human activity, Inhofe just started making stuff up.

First, Inhofe claimed the 2,500 members of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are “politicians, not scientists.” That’s simply not true. Pick up any story on the upcoming IPCC report and you’ll likely find terms like “world’s leading scientists” and “foremost experts on climate change.” (Details on exactly how the reports are created here.)

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[photopress:iranflag.jpg,full,pp_image]With each passing day, it sounds more and more like the Bush Administration is taking the Iraq war run-up script, replacing “Iraq” with “Iran” and reading from it word-for-word.

According to the Guardian, the Administration is getting ready to unveil a secret “dossier,” showing Iran is involved in insurgent attacks on US troops in Iraq. Meanwhile exiled Iranian dissident groups are telling US government officials that they have it on good authority that the Iranians are fanning the insurgent flames. For its part, Israel is supplying the refrences to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Hitler and calling for “regime change.”

Almost any one of these developments might produce a casus belli. And when taken together, despite official protestations, they seem to point in only one direction. The Bush administration, an American commentator suggested, is “once again spoiling for a fight”.

Wonder how the Iraqis feel about the increased tension?

Barham Saleh, Iraq’s deputy prime minister, complains that the US and Iran are turning his country into a “zone of conflict and competition” and suggests they take their fight elsewhere.

[photopress:iran_attack_1.jpg,full,pp_image]The Pentagon is now suggesting that the Trojan horse attack in Karbula about ten days ago may have been organized by Iranian agents. Thatwas enough for CNN to put up a Fox-style headline reading “Did Iran attack the US?” Earlier this morning CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr actually suggest if Iranians were involved it would be considered an “act of war” against the United States.

Columnist Mike Barnicle made a good point last night on MSNBC–during Vietnam there were plenty of Russian and Chinese military advisers working alongside the North Vietnamese, but the US didn’t use that as a justification to invade those countries.

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http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0131-21.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0131-04.htm

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