Truthout roundup 6/28

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship address America's policy of securing oil at any price; battle over tanker contract sharpens; Bob Herbert writes about the "painful truths" of torture; legal action part of handgun advocates' arsenal; Midwest levee breaks; and more ... Browse our continually updating front page at http://www.truthout.org

Bill Moyers and Michael Winship It Was Oil, All Along
http://www.truthout.org/article/it-was-oil-all-along For Truthout, Bill Moyers and Michael Winship write: "Oh, no, they told us, Iraq isn't a war about oil. That's cynical and simplistic, they said. It's about terror and al-Qaeda and toppling a dictator and spreading democracy and protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction. But one by one, these concocted rationales went up in smoke, fire and ashes. And now the bottom line turns out to be ... the bottom line. It is about oil."

GOP Fight Over Air Force Tanker Contract Intensifies
http://www.truthout.org/article/gop-fight-over-air-force-tanker-contract-intensifies Roxana Tiron, The Hill, reports: "The legislative battle over a controversial Air Force aerial tanker contract is intensifying between Boeing and Northrop Grumman supporters."

Bob Herbert All Too Human
http://www.truthout.org/article/all-too-human The New York Times columnist Bob Herbert says, "Thursday was the 21st anniversary of the United Nations Convention Against Torture. It was also the same day that two Bush administration lawyers appeared before a House subcommittee to answer questions about their roles in providing the legal framework for harsh interrogation techniques that inevitably rose to the level of torture and shamed the US before the rest of the world."

Gun Advocates' Other Weapon: Lawsuits
http://www.truthout.org/article/gun-advocates-other-weapon-lawsuits The Los Angeles Times's Maura Dolan writes: "Emboldened by Thursday's US Supreme Court ruling affirming the right of individuals to own handguns, advocates said they would immediately challenge a San Francisco law that prohibits guns in public housing and sue other cities nationwide to overturn gun restrictions."

Midwest Levee Breaks, Corn Price at New High
http://www.truthout.org/article/midwest-levee-breaks-corn-price-new-high Carey Gillam of Reuters reports: "The Mississippi River on Friday burst through an earthen levee that may have been weakened by burrowing muskrats, swamping a Missouri town and adding to billion-dollar losses in US Midwest flooding that has fueled fears of soaring world food prices."