How Israel and the United States Helped to Bolster Hamas

As Hamas wins an upset victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, we take a look at the little-known rise of the militant group with investigative journalist Robert Dreyfuss, author of the new book "Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam." In it, Dreyfuss reveals how the U.S. looked the other way when Israel's secret service supported the creation of Hamas.

According to Middle East analyst Dilip Hero, the success of Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary elections comes as other Islamist groups gaining political strength in the Middle East. Last year Islamist candidates won most of the seats in the municipal elections in Saudi Arabia. In Lebannon, Hizbollah has emerged as the preeminent representative of Lebanese Shiites. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood won 60% of the seats it contested last year. And in Iraq, religious Shiite and Sunni parties performed best in December parliamentary elections.

To talk about the emergence of Hamas as a political force in the Occupied Territories, we speak with investigative journalist Robert Dreyfuss. He writes about the rise of Hamas in his new book Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam.

Robert Dreyfuss, investigative reporter and author of the book "Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam." He is a contributing editor at Mother Jones, the Nation and American Prospect...click to listen

EXCLUSIVE: National Security Agency Whistleblower Warns Domestic Spying Program Is Sign the U.S. is Decaying Into a “Police State”

Former NSA intelligence agent Russell Tice condemns reports that the Agency has been engaged in eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without court warrants. Tice has volunteered to testify before Congress about illegal black ops programs at the NSA. Tice said, “The freedom of the American people cannot be protected when our constitutional liberties are ignored and our nation has decayed into a police state."

We turn now to the growing controversy over President Bush’s decision to order the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens inside the country without the legally required court warrants. Bush’s decision was first revealed in the New York Times in mid-December. The Times published the expose after holding the story for more than a year under pressure from the White House. The paper reportedly first uncovered the illegal order prior to the 2004 election. When the editors at the Times decided last month to go ahead with the article, President Bush personally summoned the paper’s publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, and executive editor, Bill Keller, to the Oval Office in an attempt to talk them out of running the story. Since the story broke, calls for Congressional hearings and the possible impeachment of the president have intensified. Conservative legal experts have even admitted Bush may have committed an impeachable offense by ordering the NSA to break the law...click to listen

Martin Luther King, Jr.

MLK Celebrated by HardKnock Radio of KPFA.

Milky Way's Warp Explained

Milky Way's Warp Explained
By Ker Than
Staff Writer
posted: 09 January 2006
10:20 am ET
SPACE.com Science and Technology

Washington, DC—A slow-motion collision between mysterious dark matter and two of the Milky Way’s galactic neighbors may be causing our galaxy to warp like a vinyl record left out in the hot Sun, scientists announced today.

Astronomers have puzzled over the Milky Way’s warped shape for nearly half a century but have been unable to provide a convincing explanation for what might be causing it.

The warp is most clearly visible in a thin disk of hydrogen gas that extends across the entire 200,000-light-year diameter of the Milky Way.

Viewed sideways, one half of the hydrogen disk appears to stick up above our galaxy’s plane of stars and gas, while the other half dips below the plane for a bit and then rises upward again farther away from the galaxy’s center.

Old theory, new twist

One early explanation was that the gravity from two neighboring dwarf galaxies known as the Magellanic Clouds was causing the Milky Way to warp as the pair moved in their 1.5-billion-year orbit around our galaxy.

This hypothesis was later dismissed after it was shown that the combined mass of the two dwarf galaxies is only about 2 percent of the Milky Way’s enormous hydrogen disk—not nearly enough to cause the warp.

Now researchers from the University of California, Berkeley have revived this old theory but with a new twist.

Using computer models, the team showed that the Magellanic Clouds could warp the shape of the Milky Way, but only if they were moving through a thick halo of hypothetical dark matter.

Dark matter can’t be directly observed because it neither emits nor reflects visible light or other electromagnetic radiation. However, its presence has been inferred from the gravitational effect it has on visible matter such as stars and galaxies. Astronomers believe that dark matter may make up as much as 90 percent of the mass in the universe.

The computer model suggests that if the dwarf galaxies were moving through dark matter, then their gravitational influence would be enhanced to the point where they could cause warping similar to what has been observed.

And a surprise

The model also revealed another surprise.

“We often think of the warp as being static, but this simulation shows that it is very dynamic,” said Leo Blitz, an astronomer from UC Berkeley who was involved in the study.

The model indicates that as the Magellanic Clouds interact with dark matter, they create vibrations that cause the Milky Way’s hydrogen disk to oscillate. The overall effect is reminiscent of the edges of a tablecloth flapping in the wind, the researchers said.

Since many other galaxies are also warped, the researchers believe similar processes might explain their shapes as well.

The study was detailed here in a press conference at the 207th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society and will be published in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal.